.
I.
Genesis 3:15.
In dealing with Adam and Eve concerning their disobedience and transgression, God traced their sin up to its root and source in the temptation of Satan. Conscious of their nakedness through their fall, and the consequent knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons; and, moreover, when they heard the voice of the Lord God, walking in the garden in the cool of the day, they hid themselves from His presence amongst the trees of the garden. These two effects of sin are reproduced in every sinner; he ever seeks to conceal his true condition, and he is afraid of God. But, remark, that though Adam had covered up his nakedness from his own eyes, he stands consciously bare and exposed before the eye of God: "I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself." It is then that, in reply to God's searching questions, he seeks to throw the blame upon Eve, and even upon God Himself - it was "the woman whom Thou gavest to be with me" who gave me of the tree. Thereupon the woman, in answer to her question, cast the blame upon the serpent; and it was, indeed, the serpent who beguiled Eve to distrust the goodness of her bountiful Creator. This will explain why God first passed judgment upon the tempter. But if God pronounces unsparing judgment upon His enemy and man's, He takes occasion to proclaim the counsels of His grace, which should be effectuated in the advent of the woman's seed, and His victory over Satan and Satan's power. As often pointed out, this is no promise to the first man; how, indeed, could there be a promise to Adam, who was already under judgment? No; "it is neither a promise to Adam and Eve from God, nor a hope of improvement in their children; but God pronounces judgment upon the enemy, and in the midst of it the revelation is made of the Saviour, the seed of the woman who had ensnared the man to be ruined of the devil. The woman's seed shall bruise the serpent's head; but He is bruised Himself first. What grace; yet righteousness! What humiliation; yet victory!" The Seed of the woman is thus Christ (Rome has falsified the word of God by translating - "she shall bruise thy head," and interpreting this of Mary!), and the seed of the serpent will mean all who are his servants, and who bear his moral likeness, as, for example, in John 8:44. Bruising his head is a figure of Christ's complete victory over Satan (see Colossians 2:15; Hebrews 2:14-15), through His death upon the cross - a victory so assured that the apostle could write to the saints at Rome, "And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly." Bruising the heel of Christ will refer to the cross, where He was crucified through weakness, and where, to the outward eye, He suffered defeat, for it was there that He was by wicked hands, under the leadership of Satan, crucified and slain. But risen from the dead He has the keys of hell and death, and He will finally cast Satan into the lake of fire and brimstone. (Rev. 20:10.)
II.
Romans 8:18-22.
"If children," the apostle says, "then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together." This is a wonderful presentation of our association, through grace, with Christ; co-heirs; co-sufferers, and co-glorified. Our suffering with Christ springs from the fact that we are children and heirs of God. Of the same nature, and in the same position in this world, we must suffer, in measure at least, as He suffered. But the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in (or "to") us. This statement gives occasion for the introduction of the "creature" - in fact, the creation, the state of which, through man's sin, being the cause of the sufferings of the children of God, linked, as they are, through their bodies with it. From verse 20 we learn that this creation was made subject to vanity; that is, to the bondage of corruption, not willingly, or of its own will, but in consequence of Adam's fall, who thus brought in ruin upon the whole of this creation; and hence it says, "by reason of him who hath subjected the same." But according to the purposes of God, as it has shared in the consequences of man's transgression, so will it partake in the issue of his redemption; and thus the apostle proceeds (the reader will note the change of a word, and the alteration of the punctuation), "in hope that the creature [creation] itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God." It cannot participate in grace, but it will in the glory of God's children; and, consequently, "the earnest expectation of the creature [creation] waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God." This makes it very clear that the time of which Paul speaks is that in which Christ will come to be glorified in His saints, when, in fact, He will display them in the same glory as His own, and with Himself. It is of that same time John writes when lie says, "And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever." (Rev. 5:13.) Until that time the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together; and even believers, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan within themselves, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of their body. For while saved as to their souls, it is not until the resurrection morn that our salvation will be consummated; for it is then that the bodies of our humiliation will be fashioned like unto the glorified body of Christ, according to the working whereby He is able to subdue all things unto Himself. We are thus saved "in" hope; and we wait for the time for which creation also waits; only, meanwhile, the Spirit helps our infirmities, and becomes in us the interpreter before God of the sorrows of the scene around, which we feel but cannot utter. But in the very groans which He produces He makes intercession for us according to God.
The power of resurrection-life takes all strength from Satan.