October 26, 2025 | Lorain Fellowship
NKJV Genesis 3:7-15
God Dealing with Man’s First Fall vv. 8-24
Seeking Man vv. 8-13
7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.
8 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
9 Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?”
10 So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”
11 And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?”
12 Then the man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.”
13 And the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
Judging the Serpent
v. 14
14 So the Lord God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, You are cursed more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you shall go, And you shall eat dust All the days of your life.
The Promise regarding the Seed of the Woman V.15
15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.”
Footnotes:
Gen 3:71 And
The dreadful result of man’s first fall was manifold. First, man transgressed God’s commandment (2:17; Rom. 5:14) and thus fell under God’s condemnation (Rom. 5:16) and came under a curse (vv. 17-19). He also became estranged from God (v. 8) and alienated from the life of God (Eph. 4:18) in the tree of life (vv. 23-24). Not only so, in the fall Satan’s evil thought, feeling, and will were injected into man’s mind, emotion, and will, thus contaminating man’s soul (vv. 1, 4-6). Through man’s eating of the tree of knowledge, Satan entered man’s body and became the very sin within man (cf. Rom. 7:8, 11, 17, 20 and note 81). Thus the human body, which was created pure and sinless, was transmuted into the flesh of sin (Rom. 7:18a and note 2). As a consequence of the fall man’s spirit was deadened (cf. Eph. 2:1, 5 and note 12), becoming insulated from God and losing its function toward God. Hence, each of man’s three parts — his body, his soul, and his spirit — was damaged by the fall. Furthermore, fallen man was constituted a sinner (Rom. 5:19) and became a victim of death (Rom. 5:12b, 14a; 1 Cor. 15:22a). Consequently, man was spoiled from fulfilling God’s purpose, which is to express God in His image and represent God with His dominion (1:26). Finally, because of man’s fall all the creation is subjected to vanity and the slavery of corruption (Rom. 8:20-21).
Gen 3:91 Jehovah
Although the man created by God had been spoiled by His adversary, the unchanging and everlasting God would never change by annulling His eternal economy, which He made in eternity past for eternity future (Eph. 3:9-11). Thus, He had to rescue the man whom He had created for His unchanging purpose, even at the cost of sacrificing His only begotten Son (John 3:16). It is for this reason that even in eternity past Christ as the second of the Divine Trinity was preparing to come into time (Micah 5:2) to die for fallen man according to the divine determination made in the council of the Divine Trinity in eternity past (Acts 2:23 and note 1; 1 Pet. 1:18-20 and note 201).
Gen 3:92 Where
Immediately after the fall, Adam and Eve knew that the result of their transgression was to be death (cf. Rom. 1:32a; 6:23a). Therefore, they hid themselves from the Lord’s presence, awaiting the sentence of death (v. 8). However, God came to seek them, not to declare the sentence of death but to preach the gospel to them and to save them from their fall (cf. John 3:17; Luke 19:10). The first word of the gospel preached by God was “Where are you?” This question was not the pronouncement of a judgment; it was the opening word of the glad tidings.
Gen 3:111 Who
God questioned Adam and Eve not because He intended to condemn them but because He wanted to lead them to confess their transgressions (cf. 1 John 1:9).
Gen 3:141 cursed
God did not judge Adam and Eve, but He judged the serpent by cursing him.
Gen 3:142 stomach
This implies that God limited Satan’s activity and move to the earth. As long as we set our mind on the things that are above the earth, the serpent, the Devil, Satan, cannot touch us (Col. 3:1-3; 1 John 5:18; Rom. 16:20).
Gen 3:151 woman
The woman here signifies first Eve and then the virgin Mary, the mother of the Lord Jesus (Gal. 4:4). She also signifies all the people of God who take the position of a woman before God, trusting in Him (see note 21 in Gen. 3), as represented by the universal woman in Rev. 12:1 (see note there). Thus, the enmity between the serpent and the woman is the enmity between Satan and all God’s people (see note 42 in Rev. 12). The serpent’s hating and fighting against God’s people began when Satan instigated Cain to murder Abel (4:8; 1 John 3:12) and continues through all the generations until Satan is cast into the lake of fire for eternity (Rev. 20:7-10).
Gen 3:152 seed
The serpent’s seed are the people who follow Satan. Because Satan, the old serpent (Rev. 12:9; 20:2), has injected himself as sin into man’s flesh (see note 182 in Rom. 7), all men have become serpents in the eyes of God (Matt. 23:33). As Satan’s followers, they are his sons, his seed, not by adoption but by birth (Matt. 3:7; 13:38; John 8:44; 1 John 3:10). Thus, they have the serpentine nature and life. They are used by Satan to persecute and fight against the woman’s seed.
Gen 3:153 seed
The seed of the woman is the incarnated Jesus Christ, who as the very God was born of the virgin Mary to be a man, as prophesied in Isa. 7:14, fulfilled in Matt. 1:23, and confirmed in Gal. 4:4. Thus, the promise here indicates that God Himself would come to be a human seed to bruise the head of the damaging serpent. Ultimately, the seed of the woman is enlarged to include the overcoming believers, the stronger part of God’s people, signified by the man-child in Rev. 12:5 (see note 2 there). The man-child, the corporate seed of the woman, includes the Lord Jesus, the individual seed of the woman. Psalm 2:8-9, Rev. 2:26-27, and Rev. 12:5 indicate that the Lord Jesus as God’s Anointed, the overcomers in the churches, and the man-child will rule the nations with an iron rod, thus proving that the Lord Jesus, the overcomers, and the man-child are one. The Lord as the leading Overcomer (Rev. 3:21) is the Head, center, reality, life, and nature of the man-child, and the man-child as the following overcomers is the Lord’s Body.
Gen 3:154a bruise  -   Heb. 2:14; cf. Rom. 16:20
The bruising of the serpent’s head by the seed of the woman is the destroying of Satan, the one who has the might of death, by the Lord Jesus through His death on the cross (Heb. 2:14 and note; 1 John 3:8). While the Lord was destroying the serpent on the cross, the serpent bruised His heel, i.e., wounded Him by nailing His feet to the cross (Psa. 22:16). Through the Lord’s death on the cross, Satan, the old serpent, was judged, cast out (John 12:31; 16:11). That judgment will ultimately be carried out by the overcomers as the man-child, the corporate seed of the woman (Rev. 12:9 and note 1).
A Sketch of Genesis
A New Beginning
After the man God created fell, He gave him a new beginning  according to His will and plan. Genesis 3:8 says, “They heard  the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of  the day.” After the fall, it was not man who looked for God but God who looked for man. In the same way, we don’t go to God because of our failure, but God sees our failure and comes to  us. We don’t consider ourselves to have fallen. We don’t like to  recognize our failures, but even when we do, we don’t look for  God. Only when God comes and touches us about our failure do we wake up and say, “Lord, forgive me.”
Paul cried, “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free  from the body of this death?” (Rom. 7:24). Why would any of us feel that we are wretched? It is only because God is giving us  a new beginning. If He didn’t work on us, we would not have this kind of experience. Every spiritual experience like this is a fresh beginning from God. Therefore, do not be afraid of failure, for every failure can bring a new beginning. If we don’t think we have fallen, we won’t grow well. I don’t encourage you to fall intentionally. We should never indulge ourselves. However, I  desire that you touch God and meet Him again whenever you fall. We surely desire to live a spiritual life everyday, but when failure comes—and it will—we shouldn’t be disappointed. We are who we are. We should just allow God to have another beginning in us. He is much greater than we are. He has a way for us. We are in His hand and we should give ourselves to Him. Our spiritual growth comes from knowing of our failure. When we are away from the tree of life, we are tempted and cannot keep our place. This is the time we should worship God, since He is coming. We will soon hear the sound of the Lord God walking about in the garden in the cool of the day, and He will call, “Where are you?” (Gen. 3:9).
This is God’s way for us. We are just like Adam and Eve, for many times we eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and don’t acknowledge our responsibility for our failure. We would either say, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate” (v. 12), or “The serpent deceived me, and I ate” (v. 13). We don’t like to admit that we have fallen, but God has a way to deal with us. He comes to us, walking about in the cool of the day. His coming exposes the hidden things in us. If we feel we are fallen and weak, we should not lose heart, for we are about to experience a new beginning from God. Be encouraged to follow the Lord further. 
Dealing with Satan through Fallen Man
Genesis 3:14 says, “The Lord God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, cursed are you more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you will go, and dust you will eat all the days of your life’” Dust represents us, for we are made of dust (Gen. 2:7). God continued, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel” (3:15). The woman’s seed indicates Christ as well as us. We cannot be separated from Christ. Although man fell because of the serpent, God would bruise the serpent’s head and destroy him through man.
After we lose our temper we should proclaim, “Hallelujah! God will destroy the power of my temper through me.” It is amazing how God deals with us! Our every weakness is a tool for God to bruise and destroy Satan. Satan tempted man, who is made of dust, so God told Satan, “Dust you will eat all the days of your life” (v. 14). God’s curse may have made Satan happy because he thought he could swallow man from now on. However, God’s word didn’t stop there. He continued, telling Satan that the woman’s seed would bruise his head. God uses our weakness to deal with His enemy.
Our dealing with the enemy is not based on our buoyancy and excitement but on our experience of God’s new beginning. When we are weak and fallen, God brings us into a new beginning. When we meet Him, there is a power of life within us to overcome the power of Satan. We should joyfully proclaim to the enemy, “You are under my feet, and you have been dealt with!” No matter what weakness we indulged in before, we can proclaim, “Where, O weakness, is your power? The serpent used my weakness to swallow me, but now both the serpent and my weakness are under my feet!” Satan caused us to fail, but God has put him to shame through that very failure. Though we are still weak and fallen, Satan is being defeated through us. Hallelujah! This is the principle of the woman’s seed bruising the serpent’s head.