Man’s first fall was initiated by Satan through the deceiving by the serpent (2 Cor. 11:3). The crafty serpent was the embodiment of Satan, the Devil, the enemy and adversary of God (Matt. 13:39; Rev. 12:9 and note Rev. 12:9^3b and note Rev. 12:9^4c) and the tempter of man (Matt. 4:3; 1 Thes. 3:5).

Immediately after the first two chapters of Genesis, Satan came in, and immediately before the last two chapters of Revelation, he will be cast out (Rev. 20:10). Between the first two chapters and the last two chapters of the Bible, Satan, the serpent, is constantly working to corrupt and damage humanity and to thereby frustrate God from carrying out His eternal purpose. In every generation the goal of God’s divine work is to build up the Body of Christ to express His Son, Christ, and also to eliminate the serpent.

The serpent contacted the woman, not the man, because the woman is the weaker vessel (1 Pet. 3:7).

In tempting the woman, Satan first touched her mind by questioning God’s word, causing her to doubt God’s word. The serpent’s question stirred up Eve’s doubting mind and prevented her from using her spirit to contact God. Satan’s evil thought entered into Eve and contaminated her mind even before she ate of the tree of knowledge.

The outward cause of man’s first fall was the serpent’s temptation. The inward cause was the woman’s assuming the headship (vv. 2-3, 6). The woman represents man’s position in relation to God. God is man’s Husband (Isa. 54:5); man’s position is that of the wife. As the man should be under the headship of God, so the woman should be under the headship of man (1 Cor. 11:3). This is a safeguard against the subtlety of the enemy. Here Eve assumed the headship by speaking to the serpent directly, without the covering of her husband. Thus, she was ensnared by the serpent and was deceived (1 Tim. 2:14). Eve’s failure here typifies man’s failure in putting God aside and assuming the headship over God to act independently of Him, thus opening the way for Satan, the subtle one, to deceive man. See note Rom. 7:4¹.

This slanderous word from the evil one caused Eve to misunderstand God’s love and to doubt God’s heart in His forbidding man to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:16-17). It poisoned Eve’s emotion, causing her to dislike God.

Or, gods.

In the process of man’s fall, man failed to use his spirit to contact God, thus bypassing God and putting God aside. Instead, he exercised his soul, reasoning with the serpent in the mind, desiring the tree of knowledge in the emotion, and deciding in the will to take the fruit and eat it.

The dreadful result of man’s first fall was manifold. First, man transgressed God’s commandment (Gen. 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 Rom. 7:8¹). Thus the human body, which was created pure and sinless, was transmuted into the flesh of sin (Rom. 7:18 and note Rom. 7:18²). As a consequence of the fall man’s spirit was deadened (cf. Eph. 2:1, 5 and note Eph. 2:1^2a), 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. 5:12, 14; 1 Cor. 15:22). Consequently, man was spoiled from fulfilling God’s purpose, which is to express God in His image and represent God with His dominion (Gen. 1:26). Finally, because of man’s fall all the creation is subjected to vanity and the slavery of corruption (Rom. 8:20-21).

This is the beginning of the function of the human conscience. The conscience, being a function of man’s spirit (see note Gen. 2:7^5b, par. 3), came into being at the time man was created by God. However, it was not until after man partook of the tree of knowledge that the function of the conscience was manifested. After the fall Adam was ashamed of his nakedness (cf. Gen. 2:25) because the function of his conscience was activated. From that time the conscience in man began to bear the responsibility of refusing evil and accepting good. See note Rom. 9:1².

Fig leaves are of the vegetable life, which has no blood for redemption (cf. Heb. 9:22). The coverings of fig leaves represent man’s own works in attempting to cover his sinfulness. Such works are inadequate to cover man’s nakedness that he might be justified, accepted, before God (cf. Rom. 3:20a). See note Gen. 3:21¹ and note Gen. 3:21^2a.

Or, voice.

Lit., breeze; Heb. ruach.

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 Acts 2:23^1b; 1 Pet. 1:18-20 and note 1 Pet. 1:20^1a).

Immediately after the fall, Adam and Eve knew that the result of their transgression was to be death (cf. Rom. 1:32; 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.

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).

God did not judge Adam and Eve, but He judged the serpent by cursing him.

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).

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 Gen. 3:2¹), as represented by the universal woman in Rev. 12:1 (see note Rev. 12:1^1b). Thus, the enmity between the serpent and the woman is the enmity between Satan and all God’s people (see note Rev. 12:4²). The serpent’s hating and fighting against God’s people began when Satan instigated Cain to murder Abel (Gen. 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).

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 Rom. 7:18²), 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.

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 Rev. 12:5²). The man-child, the corporate seed of the woman, includes the Lord Jesus, the individual seed of the woman. Psa. 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.

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 Rev. 12:9¹).

Childbearing with suffering and pain (1 Tim. 2:14-15; 5:13-14) and the ruling of the husband (1 Cor. 11:3; 1 Tim. 2:11-12) were ordained by God as a restriction and protection for the woman, who took the lead in man’s fall.

Or, pain. The ground’s growing thorns and thistles (v. 18), man’s enduring pain, toil, and sweat all the days of his life (vv. 17, 19a), and his returning to the ground, i.e., dying (v. 19b), were all ordained by God to restrict and protect fallen and sinful man.

Meaning living. God’s announcing of the glad tidings in v. 15 concerning the seed of the woman destroying the serpent was the first instance of the proclaiming of the gospel in the entire Bible. After hearing the glad tidings, Adam believed that he and Eve would live and not die (cf. John 3:14-16); thus, he called his wife’s name Eve, living. Hence, God was the first preacher of the glad tidings of the gospel, and Adam was the first believer.

Probably the skins of lambs sacrificed as substitutes for the sinful Adam and Eve, with the shedding of blood for the forgiveness of sins (Heb. 9:22). The killing of the lambs by God foreshadowed the substitutionary death of Christ as the Lamb of God, with the shedding of His precious blood for the accomplishing of redemption, based on which God justifies the believing sinners (John 1:29; Rev. 13:8b; 1 Pet. 1:18-20; 3:18a; Eph. 1:7; Rom. 3:24).

Genuine substitution is based on union. After being clothed by God with a coat of lamb skins, Adam became one with the lamb. Thus, the sinner became one with the substitute. This is union. Union brings in the effectiveness of substitution. When we believe in the gospel, Christ is put upon us as our covering righteousness (cf. Luke 15:22), and we are put into Christ (1 Cor. 1:30), making us one with Christ. Since we are one with Christ, whatever He has accomplished on the cross becomes ours. To believe in Jesus Christ is to be one with Him, to enter into a union with Him (see note John 3:16^2d). In such a union, whatever Christ is, whatever He has, whatever He has done and will do, and whatever He has attained and obtained are ours. See note Gen. 6:14³, par. 2; note Gen. 8:18¹, par. 2; note Exo. 12:22²; and note 1 John 2:2².

The main items of the gospel are seen in v. 15 and v. 21, which indicate that God, the Creator of man, became man’s Savior after man’s fall by becoming a human seed to die in order to destroy Satan, to redeem fallen man, and to become man’s righteousness before God that he might be justified and be in God to be one with Him.

Although Adam and Eve had the anticipated redemption, they did not yet have the actual redemption, which was accomplished by Christ on the cross. They were still sinful in nature. If they had eaten of the tree of life while in that condition, they would have lived forever with their sinful nature. God did not allow that. The tree of life, signifying God as life to man, must not be touched by sinful man. Thus, before the actual redemption was accomplished, God had to close the way to the tree of life. Once the actual redemption was completed to take away man’s sin (John 1:29) and terminate man’s sinful nature (John 3:14 and note John 3:14¹; Rom. 8:3 and note Rom. 8:3³), access to the tree of life would again be possible (Rev. 22:14).

God closed the way to the tree of life by means of three items: the cherubim, the flame, and the sword. Cherubim signify God’s glory (cf. Ezek. 9:3; 10:4; Heb. 9:5), the flame signifies God’s holiness (Deut. 4:24; 9:3; Heb. 12:29), and the sword for killing indicates God’s righteousness (cf. Lam. 3:42-43; Rom. 2:5). These attributes of God placed requirements on sinful man. Since sinful man was unable to meet these requirements (Rom. 3:10-18, 23), he was not permitted to contact God as the tree of life, until Christ fulfilled the requirements of God’s glory, holiness, and righteousness by His all-inclusive death on the cross to open a new and living way for us to enter the Holy of Holies and partake of the tree of life (Heb. 10:19-20 and note Heb. 10:20^2b; Rev. 22:14 and note Rev. 22:14^4d).