Enmity

A picture of enmity

“So the Lord God said to the serpent, ‘. . . I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers’” (Genesis 3:14-15).

God Himself actually placed a barrier of enmity between human beings and Satan.* Punishment for Satan for his role in the Fall. Protection for us.

What does that enmity look like on our side? Conscience. Repulsion or horror when we see people stepping over the boundaries that God’s given us. Discomfort and hesitation when someone asks us to do something that we know is wrong. Guilt.

Most importantly, that barrier looks like a heart turning away from evil, toward God. (One way we respond to physical barriers is by turning back and heading in the opposite direction.) Repenting. Believing Him, trusting Him, following Him.

Enmity with Satan results in a willingness to stand up for the weak and oppressed. To care for the helpless. To give generously to those in need. To sacrifice for others.

It leads to turning the other cheek when someone slaps us. Carrying their burden an extra mile. Providing a soft answer in the face of wrath. Forgiving. Loving those who hate us. Meekness. Mercy. Purity of heart.

Much of spiritual warfare consists not in our acts of bold defiance and aggressive attacks, but in apparent weakness. The weakness of a Savior dying on a cross.

Life without enmity

What would life be like if that enmity didn’t exist?

It would be too easy to think of Satan as our friend. He’s so willing to give us the things that God doesn’t want us to have. Isn’t that what a friend does—gives us all we want?

Without that enmity, it would be much harder to resist our natural bent toward defying God. Doing wrong can feel so good. At least for the moment.

Selfishness would reign supreme. Every one of us would be lying, stealing, hating, and betraying others far more often than we do now. Few (if any) good, healthy, loving relationships would exist. Most of us would be unable to work together in harmony. Civilization might never have developed. Human beings might even have killed each other off within a few generations.

We need enmity with Satan to protect us from our own evil desires. We need that barrier to give us any hope of turning to God.

Rebelling against enmity

And yet, what have people done regarding God’s curse, especially in modern times? Worked hard to find ways around it.

Using anesthetics to minimize or do away with pain in childbirth. Denying the roles God ordained for husbands and wives. Reducing the aching toil of cultivating crops by using fertilizers, irrigation, insecticides, and machinery. Developing ways of prolonging life in hopes of defeating death. Suppressing and defying clear signals from our consciences.

There's nothing wrong with using some of these methods to relieve suffering and bring greater health to many. Doing so is consistent with God’s love and Jesus’ life on earth.

But we Americans are living in a time and place where freedom is being defined as overcoming all our natural God-given inhibitions. Breaking down that barrier between the woman’s offspring and Satan’s.

That’s not an easy thing to do, or the world would have crumbled into chaos long before now. It takes a real effort.

I read an article many years ago (I think it was in WORLD magazine) about our inborn inclination against killing a fellow human being. If my memory of what the article said is accurate, there are three specific aspects of our created nature that all have to be overcome before someone can take another person’s life. Armies must put their newest members through a variety of exercises and experiences in order to accomplish this goal, to break down that part of the barrier between Satan and us.

Reigning vs. serving

In Paradise Lost, John Milton wrote the famous line, “Better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heaven.” That quote is used today to justify rebelling against God. God is oppressive because He demands that we serve Him, even in heaven.

But how much does anyone other than Satan reign over anything in hell? Jesus always describes it as a place of punishment and suffering (e.g. Matthew 25:30, 46).

And Satan doesn’t have complete control, even there. God still has total power over him. He’s allowing Satan some freedom for a limited time, but in the end He’ll throw him into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10). Satan’s reign is far more limited than he’s willing to admit.

Some think Milton’s statement portrays Satan as taking a heroic stand, so of course we should follow his example. But it’s dangerous to glamorize Satan and view his actions as ones that we should imitate. God placed that enmity between us to protect us from this danger.

Satan is not heroic. He’s a greedy, self-centered destroyer. His sole purpose is manipulating others to increase his own power. True heroes are those who sacrifice themselves to save others.

Heaven and hell

What’s the real difference between heaven and hell? Is heaven really a nice place but one of constant servitude, while hell offers at least some people an opportunity to reign over their fellow sufferers?

No. Heaven is full of beloved children who serve their Father with joy as they receive the greatest possible blessing, the fulfillment of all their deepest hopes and dreams. Our shallow earthly appetites are mere shadows of our intense longing for a more profound kind of beauty and refreshment and intimacy. A longing that will be abundantly satisfied in heaven.

Psalm 16:11 says, “You will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” Hardly a picture of resentful service. Or of a stern God who denies us any form of pleasure. According to John’s vision of heaven in Revelation 22:3-5, God’s people will serve Him, but in addition “they will reign for ever and ever” (italics added).

In contrast, hell is full of despised slaves being used and abused by one who cannot love. Even if Satan was, by nature, capable of caring about others, it would be impossible for him to do anything other than hate us because of the enmity between him and us.

I tend to think of God as pronouncing only curses in Genesis 3. But there are blessings hidden behind some of those curses. When God deliberately put enmity between people and Satan, He was protecting us more than we can ever imagine or appreciate. We can fuss and complain about how He places all those annoying restrictions on our freedom. Or we can praise and thank Him for His tender loving kindness.


*Some commentaries limit that enmity to the conflict between Jesus and Satan (and his followers). The verse is understood as a prophecy of the virgin birth. Jesus is the only person who could ever be described as the offspring of a woman, without a man contributing to His conception. Others include a broader application, as I do here.

 

What Would People Think?

My fear of others’ reactions

I’m getting dressed in the morning, knowing I’ll be going in for my allergy shot this afternoon. It’s late winter/early spring. Still too cool for short sleeves. I’ve got exactly two tops with long sleeves that can be rolled up high enough to expose my shoulder for the shot. I pull one off its hanger, but I know it won’t keep me warm enough by itself.

A few years ago, I bought some cheap undershirts to use in this kind of situation. They do the trick, but I’d be embarrassed if anyone knew I was wearing one of them. I don’t think it’s an acceptable fashion nowadays.

As a nerd, I’ve never been comfortable with this whole idea of style. I’d been ridiculed and deeply shamed a few times in high school when I’d stepped over some invisible line that I didn't even know existed. So I hesitate before putting on an undershirt beneath my long-sleeved top. It might show when the nurse exposes my shoulder to poke me with the needle. Will she laugh at me?

Why would I care if she does?

I don’t want to care. I don’t want someone else’s opinion about something as trivial as the clothes I wear to have any impact on me at all.

The shame of nakedness

And yet we can’t get away from this type of thinking. It started with the Fall and it’s been with us ever since.

When Adam and Eve sinned, one of the first consequences that they experienced was knowing that they were naked, and feeling ashamed. They began to fear that they couldn’t measure up to each others’ expectations. What if the one they loved so dearly saw their flaws and imperfections (or even just their differences) and laughed? Or looked down on them. Or rejected them. That would hurt too much. So they covered themselves.*

The Bible doesn’t say they should have been ashamed, as if their bodies were somehow impure in and of themselves. God created those bodies and pronounced them very good. The author simply states the truth of their brokenness—they were ashamed because they were naked.

And what was God’s response? He rebuked them for disobeying Him, but not for covering themselves. He didn’t try to convince them that their bodies were beautiful and nothing to be ashamed of. He knew that in their fragile fallenness they were incapable of tolerating being naked in front of each other as they went about their everyday tasks. They didn’t have that kind of emotional strength.

They must cover themselves in order to cope with their new reality. God even provided better coverings for them—animal skins instead of fig leaves. (These last three paragraphs refer to Genesis 1 through 3).

My need for a pseudonym

In describing my writing, three words come to mind: authentic, transparent, and vulnerable. And yet I’m using a pseudonym. Doesn’t that sound sort of self-contradictory?

Maybe. But it’s based on a simple fact of life. Like Adam and Eve, we all need some type of covering. I knew from the start that I could not write the way I do if I attached my real name to my book and blog. No matter how hard I might try to be truly authentic, no matter how much I might bravely attempt to accept being naked, I would subconsciously and unintentionally recoil from completely baring myself for total strangers to see. I would be incapable of sharing freely. I had to use a pen name.

I need that kind of covering in order to survive emotionally and psychologically. We cannot be totally, one hundred percent, nakedly honest with each other without facing serious consequences.

Our inner censor

I read several years ago about a study that identified certain regions of the brain that act as mirrors when we’re talking to someone else face-to-face. We were created to automatically, subconsciously reflect the other person’s facial expression, body language, and use of words. In a way, it sounds like we’re being manipulated by our own brains into being inauthentic. Tricked into acting like the other person instead of being ourselves.

But what would happen if we didn’t have this basic mechanism? Would we still have the capacity (or desire) to understand and relate to another human being if we weren’t constantly, irresistibly putting ourselves in their shoes? Could we do anything other than selfishly cling to our own feelings and ideas? Would every attempt to communicate end in anger and frustration? Could we carry on any kind of meaningful conversation at all? Could civilization exist?

What happens when people are able to voice their thoughts openly and “authentically” without activating this inner censor by actually seeing or hearing the other person? We get millions (or is it billions?) of vicious, uncensored online screeds. If we didn’t have this natural bent to mirror each other, to feel in our own bodies what the other person feels, we couldn’t speak the truth with love (Ephesians 4:15).

And how authentic is it really, when I pour out my anger and scorn without concern about how it might hurt someone else? The part of me that cares about others is also an authentic facet of my personality. That’s why I used quotation marks in the paragraph above. There’s something darker behind those screeds than a genuine desire to be real.

The challenge of being honest

At the same time, God calls me to be truthful. How do I obey Him in this area while also protecting myself and others from the damage done by exposing my nakedness?

Maybe it starts with deliberately being honest with God. Confessing my sins. Sharing my doubts and frustrations. Even admitting my anger with Him instead of trying to hide it inside.

Not because He couldn’t see the truth if I didn’t reveal it to Him. But because I need to face that truth myself. And I need to experience the wonder that He knows that truth and still loves me dearly. Once I have this foundation of unconditional love from the One who sees all and knows all, an unconditional love even for ugly naked me, I can start to expose my more difficult truths to those around me.

But I have to be careful. I have to set wise boundaries.

I need to discern who among my friends can bear my nakedness without scorn or disdain or repulsion. (That terrible pain that my fig leaves are designed to protect me from.) Not that they won’t ever rebuke me or question my thinking. But it will be done with gentleness and concern for my spiritual health.

They’ll have to remove their own coverings of pride and judgment in order to minister to my needs. Our relationship will grow deeper as we each peel back some of our layers of clothing. Which means that I’ll have to become someone who can lovingly bear another person’s nakedness, too.

I’ll also have to be discerning about what I share. I’ll need to resist the selfish impulse to pour out my soul without discretion simply for the relief it brings me. One friend might be able to bear a particular truth better than another. Some truths might be best left with God alone.

That doesn’t give me a license to intentionally deceive, though. I’m very upfront with letting my readers know that I’m using a pseudonym. I’m also very careful to be completely, totally, nakedly honest about the thoughts and emotions that I choose to reveal. To protect my identity, I put on certain additional coverings—using fake names for any people that I refer to in my writing and modifying the circumstances that I describe. But the message remains real and true.

Just as we need our clothing to protect us from the shame we feel when others see our imperfect bodies, we also need coverings to protect us from the psychological damage we would sustain if others saw every facet of our personal imperfections or if they exposed all their ugly nakedness to us. We cannot live any other way in this fallen world. But we can be totally nakedly authentic with God. And we can, and should, be taking wise steps toward being more open and authentic with each other.

*My thanks to Jordan Peterson for describing this aspect of Adam and Eve’s reaction in his book, Twelve Rules for Life.