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.