The Fall Is Reversed (v14-24)
God alone knows how to reverse the Fall. Genesis 3:14-15 says, The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. 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.”
What is a curse? A curse is a binding word that determines our reality. And whose curse is it? It is God’s curse. God’s just penalty for sin involves giving a curse. In other words, because this is God’s curse it means that if there will be salvation then we must deal with God.
You might be tempted to think that this is too harsh or that it’s not fair. God could’ve ended everything the moment sin entered and He would still be praised as holy, blameless, and righteous. Instead, He gives a curse. But that is not the end of the story.
And who does God curse first? He curses the serpent. He says in this curse that the godly line will forever be attacked by the ungodly line. That’s actually the major theme of the first five books of the Bible. And it’s how the world makes sense today. God’s people are constantly being attacked by Satan’s people. And Satan’s people will even infiltrate into the community of God’s people in order to attack.
Amidst this curse there is a promise. The Serpent will find ultimate ruin. Someone from Eve will come to finally and fully crush the Serpent. The Snake Crusher will eventually come to make all things right.
Now, imagine what Jesus would’ve thought as He read Genesis 3:15. Imagine how He would’ve thought, “That’s me. There is no other way to save sinners.”
How is He going to crush the Serpent? He is going to crush the serpent by being struck by the Serpent. He would have to give up His life to give life to many others.
Imagine Jesus living in a time where He would often see the Roman crucifixions around His land. We might imagine that as Jesus sees these crosses this is where He could see Himself ending up. Separated from His Father and separated from mankind. He, and He alone, would have to crush the Serpent.
I’ve heard Sinclair Ferguson both say that the rest of the Bible is merely an extended footnote of Genesis 3:15. Everything else in the Bible is showing how this would be fulfilled. This is the lighthouse amidst the storm that God’s people must always look to when times seem most dark.
And that’s who our Savior is. He is the one we can look to amidst a cursed world. He has come to make things right. He has come to do what Robert Moses could never do. He came to do what Adam didn’t do.
He came at the opportune time in world history and he had a showdown with Satan. He never gave into temptation. He never sinned. He never had a sinful desire! He stood up to every test and He lifted every weight. He was perfectly righteous. And when He went to the Cross to take the wrath of God for the sins of His people, Jesus never disobeyed. He never wavered. He never failed. And with His dying breath and last words of “it is finished” He crushed the Serpent. He took the curse to give us His blessing. He satisfied the wrath of God so that God is perfectly content with sinners being saved solely by Christ. Matter of fact, God is so just and righteous by saving sinners solely by His Son that it would be unjust of Him to require our own works to be added on top of the atonement of Christ. By Christ’s death and resurrection, He put death to death and He gave life to the lifeless.
Isaiah 53:5 and 10 says, “But He was pierced for our transgression, He was crushed for our iniquities…Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush Him”. And that’s what Jesus fulfilled. By His death we died to sin. By His life, we came alive to Him. When God’s plan looked defeated on the cross, it was at that exact moment when He was redeeming His people.
This has always been God’s plan. God has never had a Plan B. God’s plan has always been to show grace, love, mercy, redemption, and forgiveness to His enemies.
Some of you think you have to win God’s love by feeling sorry enough for your sins. Or, you have to feel convicted enough or you have to pray enough or you have to repent enough. You never can and never will be enough in God’s eyes! That’s not why He places His love on you. Rather, it is all of Christ and all of grace!
The only way for this curse to be reversed for you is if you run to Jesus Christ. Just take Him at His Word and believe in Him then you will be saved. And all those in Jesus will be redeemed. He will begin the work of making you more and more like Christ. You will slowly but surely grow in holiness and godliness. You will learn to forsake sin and pursue righteousness. Nevertheless, this growth never replaces or adds to the finished work of Christ. It flows from Christ!
God will make all things right. He has mortally wounded the Serpent and He will finally, in the end, cast that serpent to hell. He will transform this very earth into heaven. That’s how God will bring full transformation.
When you think there is no way for the curse to be reversed then you must look to Jesus. He absorbed the curse for us. By becoming a curse, He is able to bless us. By taking our hell, He gives us His heaven. Amazing grace! This is how God will right all your wrongs. This is how God will reverse your suffering.
And look at Genesis 3:21. God not only promises to make things right but He also clothes Adam and Eve. When you become a Christian you stop trying to be a spiritual tailor. A tailor makes clothes and we often try to make our own clothes to be “enough” in today’s world. When we become a Christian, we stop making our own clothes because we already have them. As the father of the prodigal son in Luke 15 clothed his runaway son, so our Heavenly Father clothes us runaway children with the righteousness of Christ.
And did you notice why God clothes them? In verse 7 it says that they clothed themselves but in verse 11 God calls them naked. No matter how much we try to clothe ourselves with our performance, social media profiles, children’s success, business reputation, our personal influence, we will always still be naked in God’s eyes.
But, God calls us out of hiding. He calls us out of trying to be spiritual tailors and to believe that Jesus is enough for our identity, righteousness, cleansing, and transformation. We can’t run from God but we can run to Him.
And it’s when we run to Him that we find that the Fall can be reversed.
Conclusion
There is a scene in the Lord of the Rings when Samwise Gamgee sees Gandalf after having survived imminent danger. And Sam says, “Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue?”
In Jesus, everything sad will come untrue. The curse will be reversed. Unlike Robert Moses, Jesus Christ is how we can have everything sad come untrue.
What does it mean for you? It means you must put your trust in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation. It means you must run to Jesus confessing your sins and trusting His promise of forgiveness. It means you must trust that He is enough to clothe you and transform you. Run from your sin and run to your Savior.