The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you will go, And dust you will eat All the days of your life; And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.” (Genesis 3:14–15 NASB 1995)
“Redemption is promised in this one verse [Genesis 3:15], and the Bible traces the development of that redemptive theme.”[1]
1. John D. Currid, Exodus, Volume 1 (EP Study Commentary; Darlington, UK: Evangelical Press, 2000), 18.
According to one estimate, 108 billion people have lived and died on the earth.[2] Our current world population is estimated at 8.2 billion people, which amounts to only seven percent of all people who ever lived. In other words, if this is accurate, then 93% of all the people who ever called earth home are dead. A pastor friend of mine recently shared that when he drives by cemeteries, he points there and says to his children, “Look there kids! That’s where we are going.” Morbid? Perhaps. Accurate? Yes (albeit incomplete). So much for “It’s a Wonderful Life.” It seems more like a cursed life if we all end up dead.
2. Manon Bischoff, “How Many People Have Ever Lived on Earth?,” Scientific American, October 2, 2025.
Curses at Christmas? Who would want to dwell on such a depressingly negative theme! When you hear the word “curse,” what first comes to mind? Perhaps you hear “curse” and think of some spell in a fictitious book or movie. Maybe when you hear the word “curse,” you think of C.S. Lewis’s classic The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when Jadis, the wicked white witch, spoke of the “deep magic,” declaring “every traitor belongs to her as her lawful prey.”[3] For the Christian, when we hear “curse,” we rightly think of the curses detailed in Genesis 3.
3. C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1950), 141-142.
We are all born into a world long tyrannized by the curses detailed in Genesis 3. Every day in the United States roughly 8,460 people die. That’s 352 deaths per hour! Over 3 million deaths every year in one nation alone. Across all nations there are 172,825 deaths per day, which amounts to 7,201 deaths per hour. 120 per minute. Two deaths per second. And every year across the world a staggering 63,081,125 people die. Men, women, boys, and girls departing their earthly bodies and leaving behind family, friends, and neighbors full of grief, sadness, and an opportunity. The seventeenth-century Puritan preacher and author Thomas Watson (1620–1686) once memorably wrote: “Till sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet.”[4] Similarly, we could also say, “till the curse be bitter, the cure will not be sweet.” In this article, let’s dwell together in the curses of Genesis 3 and then savor the God-provided cure that we can (and should) delight in this Christmas.
4. Thomas Watson, The Doctrine of Repentance (1668; repr., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1987), 63.
The Curses
Many commentators have pointed out the only direct curses in Genesis 3 are on the enemy and the ground. Who is our enemy? That “deceitful snake” (as New Testament scholar Andy Naselli put it).[5] He is the father of lies (John 8:44)—the original Scripture-twister who added to God’s Word. The serpent depersonalized God (Gen. 3:1, 4) and questioned, confused, undermined, and distorted God’s clear Word. He rejects the judgment of God (Gen. 3:4) and cast doubt on God’s character (Gen. 3:5). This serpent is the Pride month OG—the original gangster. He is a champion and lead celebrater of destroying humanity through destructive lies. The accuser. The blasphemer. And this serpent who spoke against God’s Word heard the curse of God spoken against him. Yet clearly some of the Lord’s just verdict declaring His disfavor and condemnation fell upon Adam and Eve as well:
5. Andy Naselli, “The Deceitful Snake in Genesis 3,” Christ Over All, April 4, 2025.
To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you. Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life. 18 “Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; 19 By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:16–19, NASB 1995)
Along with the certainty of death on our minds and all around us due to the curses in Genesis 3, God declared our closest, most intimate relationships fractured. Because of our first parents’ rebellion and our ongoing treason, the first marriage—and every marriage (i.e., God’s good design of one man and one woman becoming one flesh covenantal union)—drowns in struggle and conflict with the woman seeking to rule over or dominate her husband (Genesis 3:16).
Old Testament scholar Allen P. Ross put it in these sobering terms:
Whereas the pair had life, they now have death; where they had pleasure, they now have pain; where abundance, now a meager subsistence; and where perfect union and communion, now alienation and conflict.[6]
6. Allen P. Ross and John Oswalt, Cornerstone Biblical Commentary: Genesis, Exodus (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishing, 2008), 54.
This Christmas, I do not know exactly what consequences from the curses of Genesis 3 you are going through. Perhaps you are experiencing severe grief. Bitter pain. Uncertain future. A looming crisis. A wayward child. The pangs of childbirth. Deep sorrow. Profound confusion. A sinful desire to dominate your husband. Or frustration with work. In our fallen, death-filled world, it would be easy for anyone to despair. We should never mock or belittle those around us who are depressed and discouraged. As one popular Christmas hymn (O Holy Night) memorably put it, “long lay the world in sin and error pining [pining means languishing or gradually failing in health or vitality].”[7] We should also reject offering or believing in our hearts that any shallow, worldly, quick-fix cliché that is not rooted in God’s Word. While the world is wonderful in many, many ways, it is also still marred by this ruinous fall. It is filled with these curses and their verdicts and consequences, terrorizing us like a bad smell we cannot get away from.
7. Placide Cappeau, “Cantique de Noël” [O Holy Night], 1847, trans. John Sullivan Dwight (1855), music by Adolphe Adam.
The Cure
Where can any cure of hope be found in such a bleak and cursed world? Can life and light break through and prevail over such a powerfully sorrowful and sin-filled world? Can human beings find freedom from relational fracture, frustration, and the fear of death?
Praise be to God, the answer to all of these questions is yes!
The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you will go, And dust you will eat All the days of your life; 15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.” (Genesis 3:14–15, NASB 1995)
In commenting on Genesis 3, Matthew Henry noted:
A gracious promise is here made of Christ, as the deliverer of fallen man from the power of Satan. Though addressed to the serpent, yet it was said in the hearing of our first parents, who, doubtless, took the hints of grace here given them, and saw a door of hope opened to them, else the following sentence upon themselves would have overwhelmed them. Here was the dawning of the gospel day. No sooner was the wound given than the remedy was provided and revealed.[8]
8. Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible, vol. 1, Genesis to Deuteronomy (1708–1710; repr., Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), commentary on Genesis 3:14–15.
So, this Christmas, let us rejoice:
Rejoice in the God who spoke hope in judgment (Gen. 3:15).
Rejoice in the God who firmly declared a curse on the Scripture-twisting enemy of our souls (Gen. 3:14)!
Rejoice in the God who graciously drew near to our first parents even after their rebellion (Gen 3:8–9)!
Rejoice in the God who perfectly delivered on His promise of a son (Gen. 3:15)!
Rejoice in the God who kindly came to seek and save the lost in Jesus Christ (Luke 19:10)!
Rejoice in the God who powerfully destroys the devil to free us from fear of death (Heb. 2:14)!
Rejoice in the God who definitively declared death is an enemy with an expiration date—death will be put under Christ’s Lordship (1 Cor. 15:26; Rev. 21:4)!
No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make his blessings flow
Far as the curse is found.[9]
9. Isaac Watts, “Joy to the World,” in The Psalms of David: Imitated in the Language of the New Testament, and Applied to the Christian State and Worship (London: J. Clark, 1719), hymn based on Psalm 98, stanza 3.
