The Bible is a forward-looking Holy Book for God’s holy people. The subject of it from Genesis to Revelation is Jesus Christ. The finger points to our Redeemer when our Heavenly Father created Adam and then took a rib from Adam’s body and made his wife, Eve. God blessed the first married couple abundantly and they lacked for nothing, but this changed after they sinned against Him. They believed the words of satan over the Word of God, and this was a catastrophic mistake. They choose to use their free-will in a sinful way, and had we been in their shoes, we would have done the same thing. The price they paid for bowing to the devil cost them literally everything. They lost their connection to God and lost their holiness. Heavenly Father conveys His judgment to satan for his actions through a prophecy in Genesis 3:15(NLT). He said, “And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”
God’s Words in Genesis 3:15 are the first prophecy of the coming of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It is our first indication of the continuing and long war between good and evil, but because our faithful God always finishes what He begins, we know from His Word that one day this war will be over. Genesis 3:14(NLT) tells us, “Then the LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all animals, domestic and wild. You will crawl on your belly, groveling in the dust as long as you live.” This was God’s judgment against the serpent that loaned his body to satan. Now the serpent in Genesis 3 is quite different from the crawly thing we see on the ground nowadays, so we shouldn’t confuse the two. The serpent was in on satan’s successful bid to connive and trick Eve. Genesis 3:14 informs us of the cost of his sin against his Creator.
Again, God directs His judgment against satan in Genesis 3:15. God’s pronounced in this verse that hostility would exist “between your offspring and her offspring” because of satan’s diabolical actions in the Garden of Eden. God differentiates two sets of offspring here—two products of reproduction. One being Eve’s offspring, which is every child belonging to the human race. She carried all of humankind in her womb, so to speak, including the virgin who conceived a Son that would save the world. Our Savior and Redeemer broke the power of darkness and freed us from those chains.
The other ‘offspring’ referred to in Genesis 3:15 is that of satan, who is the father of those who refuse to honor and obey God and His Word. Jesus Christ said to those who refused to acknowledge him as the Son of God in John 8:44(NLT), “For you are the children of your father the devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the beginning. He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies.” These are those that sought to kill Jesus Christ, and this same spirit of hatred for Christ exists in those who deny him today.
2Thessalonians 2:3-4(NLT) warns, “3 Don’t be fooled by what they say. For that day will not come until there is a great rebellion against God and the man of lawlessness is revealed—the one who brings destruction. 4 He will exalt himself and defy everything that people call god and every object of worship. He will even sit in the temple of God, claiming that he himself is God.” The “man of lawlessness—the one who brings destruction” referred to in the passage is also satan’s seed or offspring. The King James Version of the Bible refers to him as “the son of perdition”.
We know that satan possesses the bodies of animals and humans in the earth but is it also clear in Genesis 3:15 that satan can reproduce or procreate. Again, confirming that there are some humans that have satan’s seed. They give themselves totally to evil and sell their souls to the devil. Such a seed is that of the antichrist which God tells us in Revelation 17:8 is the beast that will rise from the bottomless pit and go to destruction during the Great Tribulation period in the last days.
“He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel” tells us God’s prophecy of the doom of satan, reflecting this real battle between satan and the “Seed of the Woman”, which is Christ. The promise of God in Romans 16:20(NLT) tells us, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. May the grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.” There is no doubt that we are participants in this war of good and evil, because the devil’s aim is to cancel us out and imprison us in his realm of darkness. The battleground of this war takes place in our minds and hearts.
The Apostle Paul explained it best in Romans 7:19-25(NLT). He said, “19 I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. 20 But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. 21 I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. 22 I love God’s law with all my heart. 23 But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. 24 Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? 25 Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.”
We can’t conquer what we refuse to confront. Knowing about the war within our own flesh helps us to confront it with the indwelling Holy Spirit’s power and strength, as we lean totally and completely on him. We are not in this alone. Because of the accomplishments of Christ, God has placed His Spirit in us. He commands us in Galatians 5:16 to walk (live) by the Spirit so that we will not satisfy the desires of the flesh. The desires of the flesh are to do whatever pleasures it. That is not the mindset or heart-set of a child of God. Romans 8:6-7(ESV) teaches us, “6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.”
We are God’s spiritual children. We are spiritual beings with a spirit and a soul, both housed in a body. The human body is temporal. God used His material of dust from the ground to make our earthly temple, and when the life leaves the temple, it returns to dust. It is a fearfully and wonderfully made earth suit, but flesh has no governing authority, only the Lord Jesus has that role. Jesus Christ told Nicodemus in John 3:6(ESV), “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Our precious Lord and Savior has won the war of good and evil. He paid the price of victory with his crucifixion on the cross. Because of him, we are born again of God’s Spirit, and He has supplied us with all that we need to live in the victory every moment of every day by our faith in Him. ■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“The War between Good and Evil",written for Springfield Fellowship © 2023. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
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