And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD, and against thee; pray unto the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.
— Numbers 21:6-7
But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
— Matthew 3:7
The LORD hath sworn in truth unto David; he will not turn from it; Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne.
— Psalm 132:11
And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.
— Romans 16:20
He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
— Isaiah 53:3-4
The War Between Two Seeds, by Thomas Manton.
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
— Genesis 3:15
These words are a part of the gospel preached in Paradise, or the first promise of grace and life made to mankind, now fallen and dead in sin. As God was cursing the serpent, He draweth out this comfort to our first parents, who were confounded with the sense of sin and their defection from God. Satan’s condemnation is our salvation. He did the first mischief, therefore the crushing of his head giveth hope of our deliverance out of that state of misery into which he hath plunged us.
Doctrine: Jesus Christ, the seed of the woman, is at enmity with Satan and hath entered conflict with him. Though bruised in the conflict, yet (Christ) finally overcometh him and subverteth his kingdom.
1. We must state the enmity between Christ and His confederates and Satan and his instruments. For it is said in the beginning of the verse, “I will put enmity…between thy seed and her seed,” which is principally to be understood of the Lord Christ and of His confederates in the second place; against Satan in the first place, and his instruments on the other side. There is a double enmity that Christ hath against Satan, and so He undertakes the war against him as contrary to His nature and office.
(1) There is a perfect enmity between the nature of Christ and the nature of the devil. The nature of Satan is sinful, murderous, and destructive; for it is said, he was “a liar” and “murderer from the beginning” (Joh 8:44; 1Jo 3:8). “He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil” (1Jo 3:8). Again, 1 John 3:12 (says), “Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.” Now the nature of Christ is quite contrary. It is the devil’s work to do all the hurt that he can to the bodies and souls of men; it is Christ’s work to do good, and only good: “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him” (Act 10:38). Christ did nothing by way of malice and revenge. He used not the power that He had to make men blind or lame or to kill any—no, not His worst enemies, when He could easily do it and justly might have done it. No, He went up and down giving sight to the blind, limbs to the lame, health to the sick, life to the dead. He rebuked His disciples when they tempted Him to destroy some for their contempt by calling for fire from heaven, telling them they knew not what manner of spirit they were of. “For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them” (Luk 9:55-56). It was unlike His spirit and design…Thus, there was a perfect contrariety19 of nature between Christ and Satan.
(2) An enmity proper to His office and design. For He came “to destroy the works of the devil” (1Jo 3:8) and was set up to dissolve that sin and misery that (the devil) had brought upon the world. The devil sought the misery and destruction of mankind, but Christ sought our salvation. Satan is the great destroyer of the creation, and Christ is the repairer of it. Now, salvation and destruction are diametrically opposite. So are the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of Satan, the function and office of Christ the Savior and the purpose and design of the devil as Abaddon the destroyer. Therefore, Christ proveth that He had not the least confederacy with Satan; for then His kingdom would be divided against itself, and how could it stand? (Mat 12:25-26). It was impossible (that) the Savior could befriend the destroyer or the destroyer the Savior. No, their ends and designs are perfectly opposite. Now, as there is such an enmity between Christ and Satan, so there is between the rest of the confederates on either side.
(3) An enmity or contrariety of nature (in their confederates). The seed of the serpent inherits his venomous qualities; for as these are an estate opposite to God, so they are to the people of God. (They) seek the destruction of (people of God) by all cruel and bloody means. All people of a false religion, whether infidels, idolaters, or heretics, are of bloody and desperate principles, their minds being (made fierce) by their false religion and the influence of their great guide and leader, who is the devil: “They have gone in the way of Cain” (Jude 1:11).
(4) There is an enmity of design (in their confederates). As Christ employeth any as soldiers to fight under His banner, so they participate of the enmity of His design and office. Every private Christian is one of Christ’s soldiers; for we give up our faculties and powers as weapons: “present yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments (or weapons) of righteousness unto God” (Rom 6:13). And the graces of the Spirit are called armor of light: “Let us…cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light” (Rom 13:12). And we are bidden, “Put on the whole armour of God…For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph 6:11-12). The ministers and those in a public station are leaders under Christ the general and are by office and employment engaged in this warfare against the kingdom of the devil. And therefore, the apostle biddeth Timothy to “endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ” (2Ti 2:3); and, “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God for the pulling down of strong holds” (2Co 10:4). They must set themselves against the devil and his kingdom.
2. The enmity being such between the seeds, Christ sets upon His business to destroy Satan’s power and works.
(1) His power. Satan hath a twofold power over fallen man—legal and usurped.20
(1) The legal power is that which the apostle calleth the power of death and the terrors that follow upon it. “That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Heb 2:14-15). The devil hath no power as a judge to condemn sinners: he is not the lord of death but the minister of death. For, being condemned of God, the poor sinner is put into his hand that he may either terrify or stupefy him, and so more and more involve him in the curse of God’s broken law and may also hasten his death and everlasting destruction.
(2) Satan hath a tyrannical usurped power. So, the devils are called “rulers of the darkness of this world” (Eph 6:12)—the blind, idolatrous, superstitious world. And Satan is called “the prince of this world” (Joh 14:30), and “the god of this world” (2Co 4:4). God made him an executioner, but we make him a prince, a ruler, and a god. Now Christ, as a priest, disannulleth (Satan’s) legal power by His death and the merit of His sacrifice; Christ, as a true king and head both of men and angels, pulls down Satan as a usurper, delivers the poor captive souls out of his power; and as a prophet, He (revealeth) Satan’s cheats and delusions.
(2) His works. There is a twofold work of Satan—the work of the devil without (outside) us, or the work of the devil within us.
(1) The work of the devil without us is false religion or those idolatries and superstitions by which Satan’s reign and empire is upheld in the world. This is destroyed by the doctrine of the gospel, accompanied with the all-powerful Spirit of God. Therefore, when the gospel was first preached by Christ’s messengers, the devil fell from that great and unlimited power that he had before in the world: “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven” (Luk 10:18). It is an allusion to his first fall; as lightning flasheth and vanisheth, and never recollecteth itself again, so “Now shall the prince of this world be cast out” (Joh 12:31). When Christ did first set upon the redemption of mankind, the apostles went abroad to beat the devil and hunt him out of his territories; and they did it with great effect. Therefore, this is made one argument by which the Spirit doth convince us of the truth of the gospel: “He will reprove…the world of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged” (Joh 16:8-11). The silencing of his oracles, the suppressing of his superstitions, the destroying of the kingdom of wickedness and darkness, was apparent evidence of the truth of the gospel. The old religion, by which the devil’s kingdom was supported everywhere, went to (destruction)—no more the same temples, the same rites, the same gods; all was made to stoop and bow before God as worshipped in Christ.
(2) There is the work of the devil within us. This concerneth the recovering of particular persons out of the snare of the devil, who were taken captive by him at his will and pleasure. Here we must distinguish between the purchase and application. The purchase was made when Christ died: “Having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it” (Col 2:15), that is, on His cross. Christ’s death was Satan’s overthrow; then was the deadly blow given to his power and kingdom. This was the price given for our ransom, and the great means of (depriving) all that power Satan had before. The application is begun in our conversion; for then we are said to be turned from Satan unto God: “To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God” (Act 26:18). Then we are rescued out of the devil’s clutches and adopted into God’s family that, being made children, we may have a child’s portion.
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