(Ver 2.6)  This is Part 9 in the Bible study series on Understanding Genesis 3.   If you have not read the series from the beginning you might benefit from starting at the beginning and reading “Part 1” first.  I have given some important key points in the first lesson in the series that is needed for you to understand this lesson completely.   This lesson concerns the words spoken to the serpent and you need to understand who this serpent is identified to be in order to understand how to interpret these words in this verse.   One of the keywords in my title today is the subject of “seeds”.   I have already touched on this subject in other Bible lessons that I have published, but since we are studying in Genesis 3, I feel that this needs to be discussed again so that people will understand it more thoroughly.  It is disturbing to me how people can read the Bible and not see what it really says.  In my opinion there are too many Christians that don’t have a clue what the Bible actually says.  There is a great number of Christians who rely on others to tell them what to believe.  If their preacher says it’s true then they are instantly on board with it without studying it for themselves.  That kind of attitude has caused a bunch of people in the church to be deceived.  Do not believe anything I say or anything anyone else says without you reading it in your own Bible and you seeing it for yourself; you must be able to determine if it is really true for yourself and no one else can do it for you.  Here is today’s central Bible verse found in Genesis 3, let’s look at it carefully and consider what God says to us:

Gen 3:15  And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

From the context of this scripture we know that God is speaking.  This verse occurs after the man and his wife had sinned by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  God is speaking to each participant in the ordeal in the reverse order of mention found in the chapter.  If you read all of chapter 3 you will see that Satan (the serpent) is mentioned first, then the woman and finally Adam.  But, God comes to the man first, since he is supposed to be in charge of the situation.  Did you know if you are just a member of a church that God will not come to you and tell you how to run the church?  God always communicates from the top down and not from the bottom up.   I just threw that in for good measure; there is no extra charge for any new information that helps you personally.  So if you look at this verse God is finally speaking directly to Satan who has initiated the problem.  We know that in Chapter 3 of Genesis Satan is referred to in the terms of a symbolic “serpent”.  That only means that there was not a literal talking physical snake in the garden during this chapter.  If you don’t understand that statement you need to read my lesson on the subject called “Was There A Talking Snake In The Garden“.  In that lesson I gave at least 4 sound Bible reasons why there could not be a literal talking serpent.   I will not repeat that subject in this lesson to try to prove to you what I have already taught and confirmed with the Bible.  If you do not understand there wasn’t a talking physical snake then go and read about it and then come back to study this subject about the seed of the woman.  So we can see that God is speaking directly to Satan in reference to a woman.  If you automatically try to assume that this woman is Eve, you would be totally wrong.   Even though at this point in time Eve is the only physical woman on the planet, we can clearly see that God is speaking of a prophetic woman and this woman has to be a spiritual woman, since Satan is her spiritual opponent.  A physical woman is not capable of stepping on the head of a spiritual being.  If you think so, you would be wrong again.  There are too many distinct differences between natural things and spiritual things for you to think otherwise.  Let us start an analysis of the verse by reviewing the nouns in this verse and see what God has said to us.  We can see that there are 8 primary nouns given to us in this verse.  Here they are in order of mention:

1.  I  (God)
2. Enmity
3. Thee (Satan, the serpent)
4. Woman
5. Seed of the serpent
6. Seed of the woman
7. Head
8. Heel

If you look at my list and you study the verse you might notice that I left off two nouns.   One being “it” and the other being “his”.  These I believe are mistranslated words and do not reflect correctly the true meaning of the verse so I left them off for now.  The first noun in Genesis 3:15 is “I” and this is God and God tells us and all the other participants what He was going to do as a result of their actions.  This is the first thing that you should recognize, if God says something you can believe it will happen exactly like He said it would.  We can see that this is one of the first direct statements of God’s plan of redemption that has far reaching implications.  You can also see that this is God’s Will in action.   God says “I will” and then tells you what He is going to do or make happen.   Now, here is a list of the important verbs found in the sentence:

1. Put
2. Bruise

We can see that there are far fewer verbs given than there are nouns.  Let’s start with the verse’s first verb “put”.  We can clearly see that this is something that God says He will do.  This word has a meaning “to place”.  For example, you can “put” something on a shelf.  You can “put” something in the refrigerator.  But this verse says God will put something between two other direct nouns.  The implication is given that God will change the order of something from one thing to another.  You could say a reversal of roles, for example?  You could also say this is a division or a separation of one noun from the other noun being separated with something in between.  You might see this more clearly if you read my other blogs.  What we need to do at this point is see who God is talking to and then to see what was placed between them to cause this separation.

Let’s start by looking at the second noun in Genesis 3:15 and this is “enmity” and this word clearly means “a hatred” or “hostility”.  These are words normally between enemies.  What we can clearly see at this point is that God says that He will put ”hatred” between the next two nouns.  These nouns are of course the “serpent” and the “woman”.  You can clearly see that God who has not identified who the woman is, has told Satan that there will be a hatred between him and her.  In other words these two will become great enemies who will do battle.   These are implied meanings derived from the chosen words and wording from this verse given to us by God Himself.  Please note these important items and then notice the next two nouns in the verse.  God seems to shift into talking about something new, or does He?  I believe what we have here is a new point of view being given but, God is still talking about the same original two nouns.  Notice what God says, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed.  So did God change subjects?  We are still talking about the same enmity, right?  So what makes you think that the “seed” of the serpent is separate from the serpent?  Have you ever thought about that?   You see if you logically conclude that the enmity is the same between the serpent and the woman as the enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman, then you could say that God is still talking about the same two individuals.  Let’s look at the very first verse in the Bible that talks about “seed” and see what it reveals to us by the law of first mention:

Gen 1:11  And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

What we discover is a basic principle of the nature of seeds.  A seed is something that when planted produces something else.  But it only produces, based upon the law of Genesis “after his kind“.  In other words apple seeds produce apple trees and not orange trees.  Now here is the really important part of the verse, it says that the “seed is in itself”.  In other words you cannot separate the seed from the tree or the fruit; they are considered to be one.   An apple tree will produce apples, that have seeds that when planted will cause there to be more apple trees that produce more apples, that have more seeds that go on and on.  These are the basic Bible laws surrounding seeds.  If you do not understand them you can go read my blog series on “Understanding Seeds”.   The principles of seeds are quite simple but the implications are vast and complex.  If Genesis 3:15 is talking about the seed of the serpent, you have to go back to Genesis 1 and apply the seed law principles and see that they are considered to be one in the same.  The seed of the serpent is in himself.   The serpent is representative of a spiritual tree that has fruit with seeds in it.  These seeds can be planted and will cause to multiply and grow and become greater in number.  Yet this multiplication system still demands that no matter how many that are produced from it, they all originated from the one.  If you have never studied the Bible on the subject of “seed” you should because it is a wealth of information.  Most everything that God does is based upon a seed principle.   Jesus told us a parable of a man sowing seeds and said if you don’t understand this one you will not understand any other.

So let’s go a little further with what a seed is in the relationship to a woman.  If you search the Bible you will find some very interesting statements.  I’ve heard preachers get up and declare that the “seed of the woman” is Jesus of Nazareth.  That would mean that the woman in Genesis 3:15 would have to be Mary.  Mary was the physical mother of natural Jesus, yes?  Did God ever put enmity between Mary and Satan?  I think you are smart enough to see that this does not fit the scriptures that we can read.   Then you could say that “the seed of the woman” is Jesus Christ who was raised from the dead and called the firstborn from the dead (Col 1:18).  That would mean the woman in Genesis 3:15 is the “Heavenly Jerusalem” who we are told is the spiritual mother of Jesus Christ and the church (Gal 4:26) and I hope you can see that this doesn’t work either.  God never put enmity between this woman and Satan.   So the seed of the woman cannot be Jesus just from thinking logically along these lines.  Before we go any further let me show you a verse in Genesis that I think is the first actual reference to a woman having seed.  This will at least establish that a woman can have seed.  I’ve heard many ministers say that a woman cannot have seed and that only a man or male has seed and they are thinking of sperm as being the only type of seed there is in the Bible.  What people don’t realize is there are many different types of things in the Bible all called seeds.  Here is just one of them:

Gen 4:25  And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.

Hopefully you can see from this verse of scripture a principle being established.   A child that is born of a woman is called her seed.  Eve is called the mother of all living human beings since she was the first woman.  Given modern DNA research, most have concluded that every human being has originated from this one woman they called “Eve”.  This is a basic implementation of the seed principle from Genesis 1.  But of course it is more complex than that.  Adam and Eve were one flesh, meaning they were one body in the eyes of God.  Adam’s sperm or male seed was implanted into his wife, she bore him a child and this child was also their seed.  This seed has the potential to reproduce after the original pattern and produce more seed; it is an endless perpetual self-sustaining model of life on this planet.  But we know that no matter how many seed are produced, they are still considered to be one with the original model from whom they originated from.  Whatever Adam did everyone he produced did, it is a very extensive spiritual and physical law.  The sum of the whole is always equal to one.  All of the separate and individual parts are still one in the same in the eyes of God.  You can learn this principle in the N.T. by reading 1 Corinthians 15:22, where God says “For as in Adam ALL die…”.  Did you notice that verse said you were “IN” Adam?  That is the powerful concept of the seed being in itself.  That means whatever Adam did you also did and that is why death passed upon all humanity by the acts of just one man.  This is God’s definition of the natural seed always being within itself, whatever your father did, you did principle.  Let me give you another N.T. example of this spiritual and physical seed law:

Heb 7:9  And as I may so say, Levi also, who receiveth tithes, payed tithes in Abraham.

Did you notice that Levi was in Abraham?  Whatever Abraham did was what his future descendant Levi, also did.  So when did Levi come into the earth?  You should look at the genealogies given to us in the Bible and see that Levi was generations away from Abraham, yet Abraham paid tithes and therefore Levi paid tithes.  We can confirm this by reading the next verse in Hebrews:

Heb 7:10  For he was yet in the loins of his father, when Melchisedec met him.

Hopefully you understand the principle of seeds a little bit better now.  Levi is said to have paid tithes because his great grandfather paid tithes to Melchisedec.    Levi a future descendant was in Abraham and therefore whatever Abraham did, Levi did.  That is one of the most important things that you can learn from our lesson today and it is certainly indirectly related to our primary subject of who the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent is in Genesis 3:15.

So let’s approach the subject of the seed of the woman as being Jesus Christ but, from a different perspective.  If the seed of the woman is Jesus Christ then who is the seed of the serpent?  We know the serpent is Satan, but who is the seed of the serpent?  You see you cannot say one type of seed is an individual male child without saying the other is also an individual male child.  You must be consistent in your interpretations and not try to make one noun a specific object type and then try to change the definition of the other identical noun to make it to be something else entirely new, do you get it?  So if Jesus Christ is the seed of the woman in Genesis 3:15 as many preachers have said, then who can the seed of the serpent be?  I do hope you see the logic behind that question.  What the Bible says matters, every word and every detail matters and then how you interpret the Bible also matters.  If you are not being consistent and treating every word the same, then you are being selective in what you teach and therefore getting it wrong by default.  So pay very close attention to every detail; then ask questions.  When you read across a detail that you do not understand, start to formulate questions and make notes on them.  You never know when you will be reading a verse in the Bible and suddenly realize that you just read the answer to your question you had a few days or weeks ago.  So I hope you can see logically that the seed of the woman cannot be Jesus Christ, because we have not named the “seed of the serpent”.  Here is another difficulty that I have with saying that Jesus is the seed of the woman, I have not found any verses in the Bible that says that Jesus bruised the head of the serpent.  Can you find one?   What I discovered in studying the Bible, is that it says Jesus sat down at the right hand of God waiting for His enemies to be made His footstool (Hebrews 10:13).  What we learn from this one verse is that Satan (God’s enemy) is not yet completely under the feet of Jesus.   Do you get it?  So what is God waiting for?  So let me ask you again who is the seed of the serpent?  Is this Satan’s physical child?  I don’t think so.  But you have to be consistent, if one seed is a man child you have to make the other seed the same.  This is just a basic law of correct Bible interpretation, be consistent and apply what you do equally across the board to each occurrence of the word.  If a word occurs twice in one verse interpret them equally. 

Getting back to the problem with this KJV translation of Genesis 3:15 I alluded to the fact that two nouns “it” and “his” were mistranslated because some translators thought they were speaking about Jesus Christ and this idea crept into the translation.  The word “it” in this verse is a Hebrew feminine word that is actually translated as “her” or “she” many times in the Bible.  You can see that in Genesis 3:12 when Adam says “the woman that you gave me, SHE gave me of the tree”.    This “SHE” is the same Hebrew word, so SHE is a valid translation for this word.  Search your Bible and see it for yourself.  Then the term “his heel” does not have an actual Hebrew word associated with it that tells you the actual gender of the owner of the heel.  In other words “her heel” would work for this verse equally as well and I believe it could be a much better translation.  It totally depends on whose heel we are talking about doesn’t it?   Look at your Bible and see if these are true.  Is there a Hebrew word for “his” that has a Strong’s definition?  I couldn’t find one!  So I am convinced based upon other scriptures in the Bible which I haven’t given you here that this verse in Genesis 3:15 should end like this: “she shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise her heel“.

If you need more scriptures I’ll give you a quick synopsis of more evidence from the Bible of who this woman is.  In Luke 10:19 Jesus told his church “I give you power to tread upon serpents…“.  Reading that verse you have all of the key elements and nouns repeated from Genesis 3:15.  You have a woman, who is the church, you have the mention of the serpent who is Satan, and you then have the action verb of stepping on the serpent with your feet.  This is just the exact same stuff that we read in Gen 3:15, using different words.  I hope you can see it.  Then there is another verse that is very critical to understand found in Romans 16:20, “The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly…“.  Again we have a verse of scripture written to a woman (the Church) whose feet are to be used by God to bruise the head of Satan (the serpent).”    You see, these two verses alone tell me that Jesus Christ did not accomplish this already and they confirm to me who is directly prophesied by God to complete this bruising of the serpent’s head.  The Church is a spiritual woman, in covenant with Jesus Christ.  Here is another perspective to consider, the church is called the “Body of Christ”.  Jesus Christ is said to be the Head and the church is said to be His body (Eph 5).  Where exactly are the feet located?  Are your feet located on your head or on your body?   So if God is going to use anyone to bruise the head of the serpent, would He not use His body?  It’s not rocket science you just have to read and see what it says.

I have already blogged on most of the rest of this information when I gave you information about the woman in Revelation 12.  Maybe I should rehash it again so that you can see it more clearly.   You see the Bible in Revelation 12 speaks about a woman and since we are talking about a woman in Genesis 3:15 we should approach this woman as a potential candidate for the prophecy that God has given to us.  You do not know it is not this woman do you?  What I found absolutely fascinating was all of the clues given to us in Revelation 12 that fit the pattern of the prophecy in Genesis 3:15.  First God is talking to the serpent when He prophecies in Gen 3.   God actually reveals to us the true identity of the serpent in Revelation 12:9.  Knowing this fact alone should give you some clues that God is revealing something that is much bigger in that Genesis 3 and Revelation 12 are related.   You should be able to see that Genesis 3 and Revelation 12 are closely related if you study both chapters very closely.  In Revelation 12 we have two primary nouns being repeated.  These two nouns are the woman and Satan (the ancient serpent).  The dragon we are told in Revelation 12:9 is definitely the “old serpent” so we can now see that the woman certainly could be the same woman being prophesied about in Gen 3.  Now skip down to the last verse in Revelation 12 and notice another direct mention that is certainly not a coincidence.

Rev 12:17  And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

So now we have some information that the dragon hates the woman.  The dragon is said to be at war with the woman and that makes him and her enemies.  What did God say in Genesis 3:15?  God said that he would put “enmity” between you (the serpent) and the woman.  Again we see some amazing parallels being spoken of.  Then here is the real kicker, did you notice that verse in Revelation 12 spoke of the “seed of the woman” again?  Satan was at war with the woman’s seed.  Do you understand that statement?  It certainly sounds like this is the prophesied woman in Genesis 3:15.  If you do not understand how the heel and the head of the serpent come into play you need to stop here and go and read my blog on “The True Identity of the Woman in Revelation 12“.  Once you realize that the woman in Revelation 12 is standing on the moon with her feet you will begin to understand this is the woman that God spoke of way back in the beginning.  I know this is different than anything you have ever heard before, but yet if you can read with your eyes open you will see that it is all true.  I pray that this has been a blessing to you and that you will pass it along to someone who can learn from it also.  God Bless. 

If you would like to continue to read in this series concerning the spiritual subjects hidden in Genesis 3 please go to “Part 10“.