Eve’s offspring, the serpent, and his offspring—Part 1
Adam to Babel
by Lita Cosner
Published: 23 September 2014 (GMT+10)
Snake photo © Tim Newcombe serpent
In the third chapter of Genesis, God pronounces the judgment on the serpent after he successfully tempts Eve, and then Adam through Eve, to disobey the one law God had given them. God then decrees enmity (v. 15) between the woman’s offspring and the serpent’s offspring. This finds its ultimate fulfillment in Christ, whose sacrificial death results in the defeat of Satan and undoes the power of the Curse for those who believe in Him. The final fulfillment of the work of Christ remains in the future when Christ will defeat the “ancient serpent” as foretold in Revelation.
Throughout the narrative of Scripture, certain people or groups particularly typify ‘the offspring of the woman’, and other people or groups typify ‘the offspring of the serpent’. This theme is brought out in Scripture both to emphasize the struggle of the righteous against the sinful in this fallen world, and to affirm the progress of God’s salvific plan throughout history.
The Fall and first messianic promise
Throughout the narrative of Scripture, certain people or groups particularly typify ‘the offspring of the woman’, and other people or groups typify ‘the offspring of the serpent’.
Genesis records that God created Adam so that he could rule over creation as His steward. Eve shared in this dominion over creation, as both she and her husband were equally created in the image of God. But in the first interaction recorded, instead of putting the serpent in his place, Eve takes his advice! At the least, it is clear that part of what went wrong in the Fall was that the Dominion hierarchy (Genesis 1:26, 28) was reversed; Eve allowed the serpent to have equal footing with her and even took its word over God’s, and Adam obeyed his wife instead of God. This may be part of the reason why after the Fall, though the hierarchy remains in place, there is now a tendency for conflict and abuse.
When Adam sinned, he became enslaved to sin. The whole creation, still under the stewardship of mankind, joined Adam in a related form of bondage. Paul in Romans 8:21 says that creation is in “bondage to corruption” (other translations say “bondage to decay”). But even as God was declaring the curses that went along with Adam’s sin, He gave a glimmer of hope for Adam’s race, for when He cursed the serpent He also declared:
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel (Genesis 3:15).
But God is in control of this conflict:
It should not be forgotten that it is God who is setting up this new order. He is in control, acting in his providence and managing history unto his own ends. History is being played out according to his desire, will, and plan.1
Who was the serpent?
Genesis itself does not tell us who the serpent was, only that he was a creation of God. But Revelation 12:9 calls the dragon “that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world”. Revelation 20:2 repeats that the dragon is “that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan”. Jesus says of the devil, “He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). Jesus’ description of Satan only makes sense if he is the same as the serpent, who was the first liar (hence ‘the father of lies’).
Genesis 3 sets up multiple levels of conflict. The first conflict is between the woman and the serpent. This started with the serpent’s deception of the woman. The second conflict is between the woman’s offspring (or ‘seed’) and the serpent’s offspring (or ‘seed’). The third conflict is between a specific ‘offspring’, a male descendant, and the serpent. The serpent will wound him, but this offspring will crush the serpent’s head.2 Even in the midst of tragic judgment God promised to redeem humanity, but the serpent’s judgment included no corresponding hope for redemption.
Eve apparently believed God’s promise; in fact, her belief in this promise is probably behind all her subsequent recorded speech. When she had her firstborn son, she explained Cain’s name with the statement: “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord” (4:1). A more literal translation would be, “I have gotten a man: the Lord”. This suggests that Eve’s theology was sophisticated if misapplied! She knew her promised offspring would be both God and man. The meaning of the Hebrew word behind the name ‘Abel’ means ‘vanity’, which may suggest disappointment when she figured out that Cain wasn’t the promised offspring. But when she named Seth, she said, “God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him” (4:25). Seth’s name sounds like ‘he appointed’ in Hebrew. Perhaps this indicates Eve believed that God would have sent the deliverer through Abel’s line, but since he was killed, God gave Seth to her instead.
Cain and Abel
God started acting on His promise quickly. But Satan was also acting. Part of God’s promise involved Satan’s offspring, and we start to see his offspring early on. Cain was a wicked man; 1 John says that Cain was ‘of the evil one’ because he murdered his brother (3:12). Cain was not the physical offspring of the devil; we know that Cain was the result of Adam and Eve’s union. But spiritually he was a son of Satan. Rather than submitting to God’s will, he was given over to hatred and murder. In contrast, the New Testament portrays Abel as a righteous man (e.g. Hebrews 11).
The difference in Cain and Abel’s spiritual standing is illustrated by what happened when they offered sacrifices. Both brought some of the fruits of their labor; Abel brought the best of his lambs, but Cain brought some of the fruit of the ground. While Scripture later specifies different occasions where grain offerings are acceptable—even required—if this was a sacrifice for sin, part of the reason it would have been rejected was because it wasn’t a blood sacrifice.3 Hebrews states that Abel’s sacrifice was accepted because he offered it in faith (Hebrews 11:4), so conversely, Cain’s attitude was the main factor in God’s rejection of his sacrifice, possibly manifesting itself in what Cain offered.
Wikipedia.org, Distant Shores Media / Sweet Publishing Cain-Abel
In Scripture, God’s people often sin and fall short of perfection, but what differentiates them from wicked people is that they repent and return to God. God counseled Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it” (Genesis 4:7). Cain’s response shows that, spiritually, he was a ‘son of the serpent’, for he then kills his righteous brother.
This is further illustrated by Cain’s actions after the murder. His father deflected when confronted by God about his sin, but Cain gives an outright lie: “I do not know, am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9). When God judged Adam and Eve, He never cursed them as He cursed the serpent and the ground; this may be because He had formerly blessed them and could not contradict Himself by cursing them. But Cain is the first human being directly and explicitly cursed by God, as the serpent was. The punishment that Cain receives, however, sounds similar to his parents’; his sentence is that the ground will no longer yield produce for him; he will have to wander the earth. But even in the midst of this curse, there is mercy because God promises to avenge Cain if someone murders him, and He signifies this promise by means of a mark. We can’t know what this was, but it would have been clear to anyone who happened upon him.
The narrative suggests that Cain continued to rebel against God, however, because the very next thing that the text attributes to Cain is settling in the land of Nod (which means ‘wandering’ in Hebrew), and building a town which he named after his son, Enoch (not to be confused with Seth’s descendant of the same name). And it seems that his descendants continue to rebel against God; Adam’s seventh-generation descendant through Cain is Lamech, who was the first recorded polygamist, violating God’s will for monogamy as exemplified by Adam and Eve (i.e., God created one woman for Adam, not a harem). Lamech’s speech recorded in 4:23–24 reveals, if nothing else, his determination to defend himself, rather than relying on God to defend him. So by the seventh generation, the sinful human race has ‘progressed’ from sinning to the glorification of sin (it is likely not a coincidence that one of Lamech’s sons is (TNDL)
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