After man’s fall, there was a great change in man: man had the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 3:22a). Both the knowledge of good and the knowledge of evil came from the same tree, the same source, which is Satan as the source of sin and death, causing man not to depend on God but to be independent of God. Because the contents of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil are all things apart from God, its nature is death, its principle is independence, and, surely, its ultimate result is man’s separation from God and the bringing in of death. Therefore, having the knowledge of good and evil, fallen man departed from God and walked on the way of death.
Before the fall man, being innocent, was not ashamed of his nakedness (Gen. 2:25). It was not until man committed sin and became fallen that he became aware of his nakedness (Gen. 3:7); that is, he knew his sinfulness and shamefulness. The moment sin entered, the first result was that man saw his nakedness and immediately felt shameful.
After the fall man felt the shame of his nakedness and tried to make skirts of leaves to cover the shame. The fig leaf skirts represent man’s own work in covering himself as a sinful one, that is, man’s own attempt to hide, to cover by his own work, the shame of his sinfulness. However, since the skirts made of fig leaves would have withered, broken, and soon dropped off, they could not cover his nakedness in the eyes of God. Therefore, it was not possible for fallen man to cover the shame of his nakedness by his own work or his own behavior.
It was with such a man who transgressed God’s prohibition, who had sin and death, who had the knowledge of good and evil, and who knew his nakedness and made skirts of leaves to cover the shame, that God made the second covenant with man.
The first item of this covenant was that the serpent was cursed. God said to the serpent, “Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life” (Gen. 3:14). This curse included two matters. The first matter was that the serpent was to creep on its belly, which was to limit its sphere of activity and move, allowing it to creep only on the earth. The second matter was that the serpent was limited to eat only dust, and dust became the serpent’s food. Therefore, in this covenant, on the one hand, God limited the realm of Satan’s move and devouring, and on the other hand, He warned the man whom He had made from dust that if he would continue to live in an earthly manner, he would fall into the sphere of Satan’s work and would be devoured by him. However, if man would take God’s way of redemption and live in fellowship with God, he would be delivered from Satan’s authority and not be devoured by Satan.
While God was cursing the serpent, He also spoke a wonderful promise: “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed” (Gen. 3:15a). Here God promised that the seed of the woman was to come. This seed of the woman is the Lord Jesus. He was born of the virgin Mary, and He was the only One among the human race who was born of a woman only (Isa. 7:14; Matt. 1:23; Gal. 4:4). Thus, He is truly the seed of the woman, the very seed promised by God to man in Genesis 3:15, to be the Savior to fallen man and, on behalf of man, to destroy Satan, who seduced and harmed man.
In this covenant God also promised that the seed of the woman would bruise the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15b), that is, cause its death. The Lord Jesus, the seed of the woman, came in order to destroy the works of the Devil (1 John 3:8). Therefore, when He was carrying out His ministry on earth, He frequently cast out demons, who were under the authority of Satan, from the possessed people (Mark 1:34, 39; 3:15; 6:7, 13; 16:17) that they might be delivered from Satan’s bondage (Luke 13:16). When He was on the cross, through death He bruised the head of the ancient serpent, destroying the Devil who has the might of death (Heb. 2:14) and ruining him completely. Thus, He fulfilled the covenant which God made with fallen man.
In this covenant God also required the woman to suffer in childbearing and to be ruled by the husband. God said to the woman, “I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy conception; in pain thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee” (Gen. 3:16, ASV). The entire process of childbearing, including pregnancy, delivery, and child-rearing, is a suffering to a woman. This is God’s arrangement for the good of the woman, that by being restricted she might be protected and may thus be prevented from falling further. Furthermore, God arranged especially that the desire of the woman’s heart would be to her husband and that the woman would be ruled by her husband. Such an arrangement by God was for the good of the woman that she might be restricted and protected.