The serpent (vv. 14-15). God pronounced sentence first on the serpent and then on the Devil who had used the serpent. It seems that the creature Satan used was originally upright, because God humiliated it by putting it into the dust (Ps. 72:9; Isa. 49:23; Mic. 7:17). While God did curse the serpent and the ground (Gen. 3:17), He never cursed Adam and Eve.

God’s words to Satan (v. 15) are called the protevagelium, “the first gospel,” because this is the first announcement of the coming Redeemer found in the Bible. To God’s old covenant people, this verse was a beacon of hope (Gal. 4:1-4); to Satan, it was God’s declaration of war, climaxing in his condemnation (Rom. 16:20); and to Eve, it was the assurance that she was forgiven and that God would use a woman to bring the Redeemer into the world (1 Tim. 2:13-15).

The offspring (“seed”) of the serpent and of the woman represent Satan’s family and God’s family. In the parable of the tares (Matt. 13:24-30, 36-43), Jesus states clearly that Satan has “children,” people who profess to be true believers but who are actually counterfeits. The parable reveals that wherever God “plants” a true child of the kingdom, Satan comes along and plants a counterfeit. The two grow together and won’t be separated until the harvest at the end of the age.

These are people who reject Jesus Christ and confidently depend on their own religious self-righteousness to get them into heaven. The Pharisees were “children of the devil” according to John the Baptist (Matt. 3:7-10) and Jesus (12:34; 23:15, 28, 33; John 8:44). There’s no record that Jesus ever called the publicans and sinners “children of the devil”; He reserved that title for the self-righteous Pharisees who crucified Him.

So, throughout history, there has been a conflict between Satan and God, Satan’s children and God’s children. As we’ll discover in our next study, the battle continued with Cain murdering Abel, for Cain was “of that wicked one” (1 John 3:12), that is, a child of the Devil. During Jewish history, the enemies of the true prophets were the false prophets who spoke in the name of Jehovah.

Both Jesus and Paul pictured false teachers as pretenders, “wolves in sheep’s clothing” (Matt. 7:13-15; Acts 20:28-31). Satan the counterfeiter has always had his children ready to oppose the people of God. At the end of the age, it will culminate in Christ versus Antichrist, Satan’s counterfeit masterpiece (2 Thess. 2; Rev. 13). At the cross, Satan “bruised” Christ’s heel, but because of His death and resurrection, Christ crushed Satan’s head and won a complete victory over him (Eph. 1:17-23; Col. 2:14-15).

The woman (v. 16). God reinforced His word of hope to Eve by assuring her that she would bear children and therefore not immediately die. But the special privilege of woman as the childbearer (and ultimately the one who brings the Redeemer into the world) would involve multiplied pain in pregnancy as well as submission to her husband. This submission isn’t identified as part of a curse or as a mandate for husbands to have sovereign power over their wives. The New Testament makes it clear that husbands and wives who love each other and are filled with the Spirit will be mutually submissive (Eph. 5:21ff.; 1 Cor. 7:1-6).