In our study of Gen 3; where we see Satan's propaganda that leads to the deception of the woman last time we saw in Gen 3:12 that Adam blamed everyone but himself. This is the classic arrogance skill set of self-justification, denial and projection.
The fact that Adam will not take responsibility for a bad decision tells us that his leadership was faulty. You cannot properly exercise authority without leadership or in arrogance.
Arrogance is destructive to everything in its periphery. Adam lost control of the woman when he obeyed her. In spiritual death, Adam became arrogant and accused everyone else and he no longer had capacity to be the ruler of the world.
Mankind in spiritual death cannot love God. Therefore, mankind in spiritual death blames God for his decisions. Blaming God is blasphemy. This is the same blasphemy that believers commit when in the arrogance of Christian degeneracy they blame God for their own failures that are the result of their own bad decisions and their failure to properly apply Bible Doctrine.
Gen 3:13; "Then the Lord God said to the woman, `What is this you have done?' And the woman replied, `The serpent deceived me, and I ate.'"
When properly interrogated and faced with her guilt, the woman cannot blame either God or Adam, but she does blame the serpent. Neither the woman nor the man has the capacity to accept the responsibility for their decisions. Spiritual death has made them totally immature and irresponsible.
Her excuse was that "the serpent told me it would be all right." It was true that the serpent deceived her, but it was not the serpent's fault that she had believed his propaganda that eating of the tree would bring enlightenment rather than believing God who told her the truth when he said it would cause her death.
Remember propaganda is what they do to you. Brainwashing is what you do to yourself. You never have to believe it and if you make decisions based on principle rather than relativism you will not fall for the propaganda. You will be able to stand firm on principle regardless of the pressure.
Adam blames God because God had given the woman to him; the woman blames the serpent. Both are unwilling to take responsibility for their disobedience. All the Lord God wanted from them is a simple confession, an admission that they know where they are.
All that He wants from us when we sin is simply an, honest confession. 1 John 1:9; If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
God promises that if we confess that means to simply to name or acknowledge our known sins, He will forgive and cleanse us. Adam and Eve, instead of admitting their guilt, do what we too often do: they both tried to put the blame on someone else.
When the woman was deceived into eating the forbidden fruit and when Adam knowingly ate it, they both died spiritual death. Created trichotomous they suddenly were transformed into dichotomous beings minus the human spirit. They lost their perfect life and faced the inevitable consequences of physical death.
They had sowed to the wind and they were going to reap the whirlwind. Hosea 8:7; Gal 6:7;
Adam and the woman never had eternal life but their perfect life enabled them to live indefinitely in the perfect environment of the garden and have fellowship with God. Their life would never have allowed them to leave the environs of plant earth and enjoy fellowship with God in heaven.
God knew that if some of the angels who were superior creatures to mankind, used their free will to sin, then mankind would also sin.
Until he sinned, Adam was federal head of the human race and planet earth. Following his sin Adam forfeited rulership back to Satan who at that point assumed that he had won. It must have been a shock to him when he found out that God had another plan.
God's genius plan was revealed to man in the form of the promise of salvation through the volitional decision to believe in the "Seed of the woman," the coming Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The resolution of the angelic conflict becomes apparent through the sentencing of the guilty and the promise of salvation by grace through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone.
Gen 3:14; "Then the Lord God said to the serpent, `Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all domestic animals, and more than every wild animal of the jungle on your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life.'"
We see here that the order of sentencing is reversed from the order of interrogation.
God did not interrogate the serpent because, in His omniscience, God knew that Satan had instigated the temptation. The questioning of Adam and the woman was for our benefit so God stopped His interrogation with the woman because he had all of the facts.
Since the serpent was Satan's agent in the deception the woman, it must be judged. In the garden It was the most captivating of all the animal kingdom and its curse was to be reduced to continuously crawling about on the ground eating dust.
The qal passive participle from the Hebrew word "arar" translated "cursed" indicates that the crawling of the serpent is a memorial to what happens to the servants of Satan. "Constantly being cursed" brings out the constant linear action of the verb.
Up until that time, the serpent had been the proud and shining one, the most glamorous creature of the animal world. From now on, the serpent would be the reptile crawling on the ground, degraded, despised and eating dust.
The serpent that was under the authority of Adam had rebelled against Adam's authority, and exalted himself above mankind. Therefore, the serpent receives the fitting and just punishment of degradation. This punishment is noted in Lev 11:42, "Whatever crawls on its belly is detestable."
The degradation of the serpent is described as eating dust, even as the degradation of those who have rejected God's word and His people are described in Isa 49:23; NET and Micah 7:17; NET as licking the dust when God judges them for their rebellion.
Because of this curse the snake has no way of handling it's food so it's his food must lie in the dust when it eats. And when he moves, it swallows dust. Every time you see a snake you should be reminded of the fall of mankind because just as the snake is repulsive to you the sin of mankind is repulsive to God.
By crawling on the ground the snake is also vulnerable to being struck on the head. While the snake can strike man from the ground, man can kill the snake by crushing his head.
The sentence of the serpent is the first act by the Lord in His discipline of the culprits in the Garden. God's judging the serpent before the promise of salvation to mankind establishes a clear separation between the serpent's seed and the woman's seed.
We also see that there is a reference to the serpent's seed and the woman's seed but not the man's seed. This is because Adam's sin was a sin of cognizance and through him comes spiritual death and the sin nature. This makes mankind a part of Satan's or serpent's seed.
The serpent as the agent of Satan is representative of Satan's policy of sin, human good, and evil. Now all men, the entire human race as the man's seed being born spiritually dead, are classified as the seed of the serpent or Satan. Rev 12:9; uses "Serpent" is one of the titles for Satan.
The promise of salvation to mankind cannot be understood without understanding the curse that God placed on the serpent, therefore his punishment comes first so the serpent was judged before the Lord presented the plan of salvation to man.
Satan had already been judged along with all of the fallen angels but his sentence had been delayed by the appeal trial. Matt 25:41;
This means that both Satan and the serpent are judged before God's plan for the salvation of mankind is presented and the promise of salvation is not even presented to Satan or the serpent because salvation is only for the human race.
Gen 3:15; "I will put enmity between you (Satan) and the woman ( true humanity), and between your seed (unregenerate mankind) and her seed (the Messiah in the Incarnation); it (the Seed or Messiah), shall crush your head (the ultimate victory of Jesus Christ at the Second Advent), and you shall bruise His heel (His substitionary spiritual death caused by the imputation of all human sins and their subsequent judgment on the cross)."
The Hebrew verb "shuph" means to crush, strike or bruise. The first qal imperfect, meaning crushing, is a reference to the double defeat of Satan. The first defeat: at the First Advent when Jesus Christ was judged for the sins of the world. The second defeat: at the Second Advent. In both the beginning and ending of the millennium Satan is defeated.
The second use of "shuph" refers to Satan as the subject, and the second masculine singular suffix refers to Jesus Christ in His two advents. The crushing of the serpent's head is the declaration of our Lord's victory over Satan in the two advents.
The woman's "seed" is a prophecy concerning the virgin birth of Jesus Christ and the entrance of the God-Man into the Dispensation of the Hypostatic Union; hence, a prophecy about the new tree of life, the cross of Christ. Jesus
Christ came into the world as the seed of the woman through his virgin birth to accomplish this.
We see here that the judgment of the devil and the serpent occurs before salvation is promised to mankind and that salvation is before the curses are placed on the woman and the man.
This is the principle of grace before judgment. The Seed of the woman will be the source of salvation. He will enter into the world as the ultimate victor in the angelic conflict. Exactly how this Seed will emerge from the woman is shown by the curse that comes up in verse 16.
In disclosing the hostility that he would put between Satan's seed (unregenerate mankind) and the Seed of the woman (the first title of Jesus Christ emphasizing His role as the strategic victor in the angelic conflict) God is establishing the basis of the conflict that will always exist in the devil's world before Jesus' second advent.
Satan has two seeds: all fallen angels, and unregenerate mankind who perpetuate their spiritual death till the point of physical death,(John 8:44;).
The Seed of the woman will redeem the seed of man (the human race). When anyone believes in Christ, he will become the seed of Christ.
Satan struck our Lord with physical abuse prior to and on the cross. The striking of the heel is a reference to our Lord's judgment on the cross for the sins of the world.
Throughout human history the volition of man is always the key issue. Throughout history the sovereignty of God and the volition of mankind coexist.
Now that man has become a sinner like Satan, it becomes necessary to extend the human race beyond Adam and his wife and provide another volitional test for mankind. This is accomplished by procreation that is the curse on the woman and the establishment of a new test for mankind's volition regarding weather they will believe in the person of TLJC and his work on the cross or not.
Remember that these two seeds that are constantly opposed to each other, the Seed of the woman and the seed of Satan. The Seed of the woman will crush the head of Satan, an idiom for his inevitable defeat in the appeal trial.
The seed of Satan are unregenerate mankind who become his witnesses in the Invisible War join him with their testimony that God is unrighteous and ultimately join him in the lake of fire. Matt 25:41;
Man had chosen against God in spite of everything that God had given him the same as Satan and the demons had done. As a result of their sin Satan became the victor in the first battle of the conflict here on earth, and immediately took control of this world and man. 2Cor 4:4; Rev 12:9;
But God turns the curse into a blessing because before the fall man was a perfect creation but did not have the irrevocable relationship with God that was made available after the fall by faith in TLJC.
This means that in spite of all of the evil things that happen as the consequence of the fall the best thing to happen to mankind was the condemnation that occurred as a consequence of the fall; Rom 5:16; This makes it possible to be born into to God's family and share His very own life. Gal 3:26;