ENMITY

Genesis 3:15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel."

What is enmity? It means to be hostile towards, to be an enemy. As a part of the curse God would put, meaning to fix or station, hostility between the serpent and the woman. But more interesting is that this same hostility would be between her seed and the serpent's seed.

Now I am sure we all understand that the “seed” promised in this verse is Christ who would be bruised by the serpent, the Devil and the Devil would have his head crushed by Jesus.

But I also want to look at another aspect of “seed”, that of offspring or children. We all know that we are the children of Eve, being human beings. But is there more here? If Christ is the seed and we are in Christ then are we included in this seed? Even more interesting is who the seed of the serpent is.

Look at the following verses:
Matthew13:38 The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one,
1 John 3:10 By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.

Notice also how many times people are referred to as sons of the Devil:
Acts 13:10 and said, "You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord?
John 8:44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

So we can see that there appears to be a distinction between those who are of God and those who are of the Devil. We see this throughout scripture but we also see this in practical life. Colossians 1:13 says He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son which means we can be brought from one kingdom to the other. That is a large part of the church’s job, to bring people to a knowledge of God and be delivered from one kingdom to another.


But there is a more fundamental battle that brings brings the idea of enmity to our daily lives. It is well portrayed in Romans 6-8 with 8:7 being “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.”

The word “hostile” in the Greek the the word for hostility, in the King James Version it is translated enmity. The greatest battle of the universe being played out right now is still the oldest battle in the universe, between the seed of the woman and the seed of the Devil. We see it played out in our lives as the battle between the Spirit of God in us through faith in Christ and the flesh we live in dominated by sin and under the control of the Devil and all evil. Every day we live out enmity!

Romans 8:7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.
James 4:4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of (at enmity with) God.


A big question then arises, where has enmity gone? There does not seem to be the battle with sin anymore in our society, or more alarmingly in the church. It is almost as if that battle of the ages was relegated to the archives of experience as outdated and irrelevant to our modern lifestyle. Is it?

Where has the enmity between Godliness and Evil gone? Where has that enmity in our lives gone? Where is the struggle against sin? I hardly think the absence of struggle means we have overcome sin (would to God this were true) but more that we no longer struggle with it. Oh, we still stand against the ‘biggies’ of sin in our lives but the small skirmishes have been left behind as unimportant. We neither struggle against nor with sin anymore to a large extent.  Sin in the believer is seen today as normative, as if it were an undeniable consequence of being human in today’s world.  Those who would call against sin in the believer’s experience are judged to be either fanatical, judgmental, unloving or too out of touch with reality.

Leaving behind “enmity” is much like ignoring the little foxes spoken of in the Song of Solomon 2:15 NIV
     Catch for us the foxes,
     the little foxes
     that ruin the vineyards,
     our vineyards that are in bloom.

The following is an excerpt from the Biblical Illustrator by Rev. Joseph S. Exell, M.A. written in 1905 on this verse. Let these words sink in, listen and ask the Lord if there are areas where we need to recapture the concept and practice of enmity:

v. 15 Little foxes
I. What the little foxes are--what we are to understand as represented by them.
1. A little lie. Not a great, black, ugly lie, enough to make conscience cry out, and to startle yourself and everybody that knows of it, but a little untruth that does not hurt and need not frighten anybody.
2. A little theft. It was only a penny or halfpenny or farthing--only a bit of pencil or a bit of ribbon--only a sweetmeat or a pin. It was only some little unfairness in the class or in the game, that got you a place or credit that did not belong to you.
3. A little outburst of temper. You were provoked, and flew into a passion, and you looked or spoke or acted your anger.
4. A little act of disobedience, refusing to do, or putting off doing, or not doing pleasantly and cheerfully, what a parent asked you to do. You say you must do something else first.
5. A little oath, or slang expression, or low bad word.
6. A little act of selfishness.
7. A little yielding to indolence, laziness.
8. A little breaking of the Sabbath.
9. A little omission of prayer.
10. A little yielding to envy or jealousy.

II. The harm the little foxes do.
1. Little sins are real sins. A little fox is a real fox. A little tiger is a real tiger. A little serpent is a real serpent. The smallness of it does not alter its nature.
2. Little sins are apt to be little thought of. That is one great part of their danger. You say “it is only a little fault. Who would think anything of that? It is only a little fox, what harm can it do?” The little sin does not ruffle your conscience, or make you unhappy, or make other people think much the worse of you for it. That is the worst of the whole case. That is one of the strongest reasons why you should be afraid of it.
3. Little sins prepare the way for big ones, and form habits of sin…

III. How to catch them and kill them. “Take us the foxes, the little foxes.” Have you ever seen a party setting out for a day’s fox-hunting? How eager all are--men, horses, and dogs. They are prepared to run any distance, to cross rivers, to leap over walls and hedges, each more in earnest than the other to catch the fox. Their first concern is to discover where he is, and then they set out after him with a will. And so your first concern should be to discover what and where the little foxes are, that are spoiling your vines. And having learned that, your next business is to catch them and kill them. There are two hands with which you must seek to catch them. Neither will do alone. Both must go together. These hands are prayer and pains…
(J. H. Wilson, D. D.)

What a powerful call to enmity with the world and sin. Let us once again put enmity between us and the enemy of our souls with his works.