The principle in the Bible is to use a proper woman as a figure of those who belong to God. The enmity between the serpent and the woman denotes the enmity between Satan and all who belong to God. According to this covenant, whenever we stand on God’s side, we will surely encounter the enmity of Satan.
The seed of the serpent is a particular expression. If the serpent spoken of here referred only to one serpent, God would not have spoken of “the seed of the serpent.” Since God spoke of “the seed of the serpent,” the serpent here refers not only to a serpent but also to Satan, symbolized by the serpent. The seed of the serpent refers also to those who belong to Satan.
Ever since God spoke this word, there have been two seeds among the descendants of Adam. One is the seed of the serpent, and the other one is the seed of the woman. Cain and his descendants were the seed of the serpent and belonged to Satan, whereas people such as Abel were the seed of the woman and belonged to God. The ultimate or the most faithful seed of the woman is our Lord Jesus. At His birth, according to the flesh, He was the seed of the woman; spiritually, He is also the seed of the woman. He was truly born of a woman, and He stands on God’s side as well. All who belong to Satan are at enmity with Him.
Beginning from Abel, all those who have been on God’s side throughout the generations are the seed of the woman, just as all who have been against God are the seed of Satan. These two seeds are at enmity with each other, and this enmity began in Genesis 4.
The seed of the woman will deal a deathblow to Satan through suffering. Serpents are most vulnerable to a blow on the head; if one receives a blow on the head, it receives a fatal injury. In bruising the head of the serpent, the seed of the woman would also be bruised on the heel by the serpent. This figurative expression refers to the Lord Jesus coming as the seed of the woman and through His death on the cross destroying the devil who has the might of death, thereby bruising the serpent on the head. When He went to the cross to bruise the devil in this way, He was also bruised by Satan on the cross. However, the bruise that Satan inflicted on Him was not a fatal wound but only a suffering. Although His suffering was very great, it could not destroy His life. This covenant symbolically tells us that God determined that the Lord Jesus would become a man for the purpose of destroying Satan through death.
To this day, the pain of childbearing has not been removed from women. However, 1 Timothy 2:15 does indicate that childbearing can be a salvation to women if they remain in holiness with sobriety, keeping their place before God and living a godly life. God’s arrangement for women to suffer in childbearing is a salvation to them. It does not benefit human beings, who have a sinful nature, to be too comfortable; this causes them to fall deeper into sin. Therefore, God uses sufferings to restrict human beings from committing many sins. Suffering is a cure and a salvation.
The trend in modern society stresses the equality of man and woman. You may think that I am merely a brother who is advocating the superiority of men and the inferiority of women so that men can rule over women. Honestly, I really wish that I were a sister. We need to see that this position is according to the order arranged by God between the male and the female after the fall of man. The New Testament also says that the man is the head and that the woman should cover her head (1 Cor. 11:3-5), which is according to the order in God’s creation because Adam was created first and Eve second. Therefore, in God’s ordained order in His creation and in His order after man’s fall, it is not possible for both man and woman to be first or even for both to be second; one must be first and the other second. Strictly speaking, there is not equality between man and woman.
I believed in the Lord before I was twenty. At one time I read an essay in a newspaper analyzing the equality of man and woman. It said that even in France, a country that very much values equality, a married woman still has to take the last name of her husband. If the man and the woman are equal, why would a woman take the last name of the man? How about a man taking the last name of a woman? It made another point by saying that while taking the last name of the man does not show equality, neither would taking the last name of the woman. There would be equality only if the two names are combined. But as it was analyzed further, it raised the question of whether the man’s last name should precede the woman’s or whether the woman’s last name should precede the man’s. There would not be equality either way. After all the analysis, it came to the conclusion that there would always be one who is first and one who is second. This is God’s ordained principle, and it cannot be overturned.
Brothers and sisters, according to the order of creation men should be first and women second, and according to the sequence of the fall, women even more should be ruled over by men because the first one to be deceived was Eve, not Adam (1 Tim. 2:14). In creation Eve was second, but in committing sin Eve was first; therefore, God said that the woman would be ruled by the man. This is God’s ordination.