Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  For though both had sinned in the fall, Satan especially, and man through Satan, yet the judgments now pronounced upon Satan and upon man are widely different. God does not join them together in one and the same punishment, as he might righteously have done. He makes the widest distinction between them. For although he is angry with man also, who obeyed the enemy of God, disregarding God himself, yet the divine indignation against Satan is by far the greater. Satan God plainly convicts and condemns in the sight of Adam and Eve, so that Adam and Eve, from this very condemnation of their enemy, might have a little time to recover their breath; and might feel how much more blessed their condition was than that of Satan. The first part of the great consolation here graciously given lies in this: that the serpent was accused and cursed and together with the serpent Satan also, for Adam and Eve’s sake. Not so much for Satan’s judgment and damnation, as for Adam and Eve’s comfort and salvation.

  Wherefore, by this judgment of Satan that sun of consolation, which had been just before hidden as it were behind the darkness of certain heavy clouds, now rises above those clouds and shines with its most heavenly light on the affrighted hearts of Adam and Eve. For they not only do not hear themselves cursed, as the serpent was, but they hear God declare, that he has put them into the ranks of a constituted army against their condemned foe; and that too with the hope of an almighty help, which the Son of God the Seed of the woman should bring unto them. By this therefore the remission of their sins and their full reception into grace were plainly revealed to Adam and Eve; who were thus perfectly freed from their sin and guilt, redeemed from death, and delivered from hell and from all those terrors under which they were utterly sinking in the sight of God.

  Such is the great consolation which arises from the fact so carefully to be observed by the godly, that God did not curse Adam and Eve as he did the serpent. All that God did to Adam and Eve was to put them into an army of continual battle with this enemy, that they might not live a life of ease and indolence. This very thing therefore turned out for the good of man.

  But the chief part of the great consolation here vouchsafed was, that although this enemy should ever war by subtlety and snares, yet that a Seed should be born, which should bruise the serpent’s head. For hereby is set forth the final destruction of the tyranny of Satan; although that tyranny will never come to its end without a most terrible conflict; a conflict which must be fought out by man. But only reflect how unequal the conflict is; it is the “heel” only of the man that is in danger; his head is safe and invincible. On the other hand, it is not the tail nor the belly, but the “head” itself of the serpent that is to be bruised and crushed under foot by the Seed of the woman. And this victory is given also to us all; as Christ plainly declares when he says, that after the strong man armed shall have been overcome the spoils shall be divided. For the Christian is by faith at once made conqueror over sin, the law and death; so that the very gates of hell cannot prevail against him.

  This first great consolation therefore our first parents and their posterity searched into and learned with all diligence, as being the original fountain and the fountain head as it were of all the promises. For they saw, that had they been left without this promise the blessing of generation would have indeed remained with men, as with all other animals of the creation, but it would have been only a begetting and a being born unto death. That great blessing bestowed of God upon human nature is here highly increased, yea, consecrated; seeing that the hope hereby added to the blessing of generation, is such that through it the head of Satan shall be utterly crushed; and that not only his tyranny shall be destroyed but that human nature itself, thus made subject to death through sin, shall attain unto eternal life. For Moses is now no longer dealing in his narrative with the natural serpent; he is now speaking of the devil, whose “head” is formed of death and sin; as Christ describes him when he says, John 8:44, that he was “a murderer from the beginning, and a liar, and the father of it.” Therefore, whenever and wherever his power is destroyed; that is, when sin and death are taken away by Christ, what remains but that the children of God shall be saved!

  It was in this manner therefore that Adam and Eve understood this text and comforted themselves against sin and despair by the revealed hope of this future crushing of the serpent’s head, by Christ, the Seed of the woman. And through this, their hope in the promise thus given unto them, they shall also rise again at the last day unto life eternal.

  V. 15b. He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

  Who is not filled with wonder, yea, rather with execration, at the malicious design of Satan in having attempted to transfer this divine text, so full and running over with consolation concerning the Son of God, to the Virgin Mary! For in all the Latin Bibles, the pronoun ipse is put in the feminine gender ipsa, “She shall bruise.” And Lyra, who was by no means unacquainted with the Hebrew language, was carried away by this error as by the violence of an overflowing and resistless stream into the same impious interpretation; so that in the face of its plain meaning, he interpreted the passage as applying to the blessed Virgin; making her the person, by whom the power of Satan should be broken through the mediation of her Son. And he applies to the Virgin also that passage in the Song, “Thou art terrible as an army with banners.” And, although Lyra professes to hold this interpretation of the present passage as received from others, yet his sin is great in not refuting it. Many afterwards followed him. And all the more recent interpreters have perverted this most holy passage to serve idolatry, finding no one to stop or resist them.

  All this however has arisen either from the ignorance or negligence of the rulers in the Church. Because these did not set themselves against idolatry, sound doctrine was by degrees suppressed and became extinct. And since we have now by the blessing of God restored the sound doctrine, these disgraceful beasts, given to serve the belly, plainly show that they care not for religion, but for their own benefices only. And because such idolatry promotes the interests of these men, they even show their indignation at people being taught the truth. But these blind beings do not see that the Gospel is a doctrine of the divine nature, that those who receive it lose nothing by it but their sins and eternal death; and that they gain in their stead deliverance from all idolatry and from the dominion of Satan.

  Wherefore let us render thanks to God that we have this passage also restored to its full integrity. Not that thereby any honor due to Mary might be taken from her, but that all idolatry might be shut out. For as to men saying that Mary crushed all the power of Satan by giving birth to Christ; if that be the true state of the case does not that same honor belong equally to all the other women who preceded Mary in the same line of genealogy? Nay, a part of this same honor pertains to all the husbands also in Mary’s line and to all her ancestors. For had she not descended from all these as her forefathers, she herself could not have had existence. For she was born by marriage according to the common order of nature. If Mary, by the act of giving birth to her Son, bruised the head of Satan, all the ancestors of Mary must of necessity be ranked in the same degree of dignity and honor.

  The Scripture however teaches us very differently, when it says that Christ “died for our sins and rose again for our justification,” Rom. 4:25; and when it said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!” John 1:29. Wherefore let the blessed Virgin hold her place of due honor, as the woman whom God adorned with that high privilege above all other women, that she as a virgin should bring forth the Son of God. This honor however ought by no means so to be bestowed upon her, as in any way to take from her Son, our Lord, the glory of our redemption and of our deliverance from sin and death.

  Moreover, the peculiar expression of the holy Scripture in this passage is most carefully to be held and guarded by us, as affording a truly wonderful light which opens unto us the depth of the divine goodness, revealed to us in the present sacred text; where we are taught concerning that enmity which God put between th
e serpent and the woman; such an enmity that the Seed of the woman should crush the serpent with all his powers. This crushing, Satan perfectly understood at the time, and therefore it is that to this day he rages with so much hatred against our human nature. Adam and Eve on the contrary, raised up by the promise of this crushing, conceived the hope of their restoration in all its fulness. And being thus filled with faith they saw that their salvation would assuredly be God’s peculiar care; seeing that God had expressly testified, that the male Seed of the woman should utterly defeat and crush this their enemy. For the words are divinely put together with a wonderful emphasis.

  III. The divine expression here is, “I will put enmity between thy seed and her seed.” As if God had said, Thou, Satan, by means of the woman didst attack and seduce the man that thou mightest by means of sin be the head and lord over them. I therefore in like manner will execute my secret purposes against thee by means of the very same instrument. I will take hold of the woman, and by her I will produce a Seed; and that Seed shall bruise thy head. Thou by means of sin didst corrupt and make subject to death the flesh of the human nature. I will produce from that same flesh such a man, who shall crush and utterly defeat both thee and all thy powers.

  By these divine words therefore both the promise and the threat were expressed with the most perfect plainness. And yet they were most obscure. For they left the devil in such a state of doubt and suspense that he held under suspicion all the women which brought forth from that time, fearing lest they should give birth to this Seed; though one woman only was designed to be the mother of this blessed offspring. Therefore as the divine threatening was expressed in a general term, “her Seed,” Satan was so mocked thereby that he feared this Seed from every woman who brought forth.

  In the same proportion, on the other hand, the faith of all mankind was confirmed. For, from the hour in which the divine promise was made, all men expected that promised Seed, and comforted themselves against Satan. Hence it was that Eve, when she brought forth her first-born, Cain, hoped that she had now “gotten” that bruiser of the head of Satan. And though she was deceived in that hope, yet she saw that the promised Seed would assuredly at length be born at some time or other from her posterity. And thus, with respect to all mankind also, this promise was most clear and at the same time most obscure.

  Isaiah threw some additional light upon this glorious promise when he said, “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son,” Is. 7:14. For it was then made certain that this Seed would not be born from the union of a man and a woman. But the prophet added certain other particulars, by which he still involved his prophecy in obscurity. In such obscurity therefore this most clear promise still remained until Mary had brought forth her Son. Of this birth then angels themselves were witnesses; and after the angels the shepherds and the wise men; until this birth was proclaimed abroad by the apostles, throughout the whole world.

  This obscurity therefore tended to increase the concern and suspense of Satan to the highest degree. As it had been said, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman;” so Satan suspected and held as his enemy every woman alike, who gave birth to a child from the time that word was spoken until Christ was revealed. On the other hand, with respect to man, this same obscurity increased and strengthened his faith. Though each woman saw that she was not the mother who gave birth to this Seed, yet they all believed and were fully assured that this Seed would be born from some other woman.

  God having thus spoken individually or personally, if I may so express it, that very manner of expression tended most effectually to mock and rack Satan, and to console the godly and to raise them to faith and hope. Thus women continued to bring forth until the Flood; and afterwards also, until the time of Mary. But the seed of none of those women could truly be said to be the Seed of the woman, but might rather be said to have been the seed of the man. But that which was born from Mary was conceived of the Holy Ghost and was the true Seed of Mary, the appointed woman. This the other promises also testify, which were made to Abraham and to David; according to which promises Christ was called “the Son of Abraham” and “the Son of David.”

  The meaning of the original promise here given Isaiah first revealed, when he prophesied “that a virgin should conceive and bear a son,” Is. 7:14. Afterwards, a clearer explanation and confirmation of it was made by the angel in the New Testament. Wherefore I doubt not that there were many saints under the Old Testament, who did not understand this mystery, but who nevertheless fully expected that Christ would be born into this world of a woman, and that he would be the deliverer of the human race; though they knew not what would be the particular manner and circumstances of his birth. With this general knowledge they were content and by this knowledge they were saved; even though they knew not the manner in which Christ would be conceived and born. For this knowledge was reserved for the New Testament to reveal, as by the clearer and brighter light. And it was set forth in the first age of the Church with a greater obscurity, purposely on account of Satan, whom God willed to be mocked and racked in this manner that he might thereby have less rest and be more filled with fear on every side.

  Wherefore after this great original promise had been thus set forth generally in the beginning and had by degrees been more circumstantially particularized, and then confined to the seed of Abraham; and further restricted by means of the patriarch Jacob to a certain tribe, the tribe of Judah; after this the devil became unconcerned about other peoples and tribes, and persecuted this one line of generation with marvelous cruelties and stratagems; until about the time of Christ it had been reduced to the extremest poverty and had become a hopeless trunk-root, from which no one could hope for either fruit or leaves. And hence it is that the Scriptures term that line of succession a “stem” or bare root as it were of Jesse, Is. 11:1, signifying thereby a decaying trunk from which nothing whatever could be expected.

  This hatred and this fury of Satan are the effects produced on him, which the Lord here predicts, when he warns the serpent of the enmity which he had put between his seed and the Seed of the woman. For Satan primarily sought this Seed of the woman with hostile hatred, through all the peoples, families and lines throughout the whole world. When the promise was transferred to Abraham and restricted to his posterity, we see from history by what various means Satan attempted to hinder its fulfilment. And when this glorious promise was further transferred to the line of Judah and restricted to that tribe, we behold with what horrible calamities it was oppressed and agitated, until at length it seemed to be wholly subverted and eradicated. So that at the time of the birth of Christ poor Mary was living at a long distance from Jerusalem in the little and insignificant town of Nazareth, and Jerusalem itself was possessed and governed by wicked heathen. Wherefore most correctly and beautifully was this tribe of Judah compared to a dead and hopeless “stem” of Jesse. But as God cannot lie, this “root,” so much decayed and despaired of, at length blossomed forth.

  Satan however did not even then cease from his cruelty, hatred and enmity against the Seed of the woman. While he lay in the cradle Satan sought him out by the instrumentality of Herod. So that the new-born Christ was compelled to live among the Gentiles in Egypt. After this also, Satan adopted and tried all possible means to destroy him, until finding him and seizing him, he threw him into the hands of the Jews and nailed him to the cross. No! nor could his inexhaustible hatred be satisfied even then. He feared him even as he lay in the tomb, so desperate was the enmity which was “put” between him and the Son of God! Nay, even now, when Satan sees the Seed of the woman sitting at the right hand of God, and, according to the old proverb, “out of gun-shot,” he vents his fury in every possible way against his Church and the poor helpless members of his body. Of all these sufferings and perils the clauses of the divine passage now before us were prophecies. From these same words nevertheless, in meditating upon which we ought to employ our whole souls, we derive a confidence in the Son of God, that he will bruise Satan utterly.r />
  But to return to the text. This promise, as I have already said, is at the same time most clear and yet most obscure. For since God, as I have also observed, here uses the expression, “The seed of the woman” generally, he does it that he might cause all women alike to be suspected by Satan, and that he might thus rack the serpent with perpetual suspense and dread. The expression therefore is a wonderful synecdoche, “condensation of instruction.” It bears a general reference to all individual women, and yet contains a direct reference to one individual woman only, to Mary and to her Seed, who was to become a mother without any intercourse with the male sex. For God, I repeat, thus willed all women to be suspected by Satan, while on the other hand he willed that a most sure hope should be left to the godly, which should lead them to expect this salvation from all parents until in the fullness of time the true mother should be revealed. As therefore the first clause of the passage, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman,” refers to all women in general; so this second clause, “her Seed” refers, with a special individually, if I may so express myself, to that seed which should be born of Mary, of the tribe of Judah, who was espoused unto Joseph.

  This text therefore contains that glorious promise which revived Adam and Eve and raised them again from death unto that life, which they had lost by their sin; though the life to which they were thus raised again was rather a life hoped for than a life possessed; as Paul also frequently speaks when he uses the language, “We die daily.” For although we do not wish to call the life which we live here death, yet it is in truth nothing more or less than a continual living on to death. For as he who is infected with a pestilential and fatal disease begins to die from the moment of his infection; so from the moment this life of ours is infected by sin, it can no longer properly be called life on account of that sin and death, its sure punishment. For we begin to die even from our mother’s womb.