Commentary on Genesis, Vol. 1: Luther on the Creation

by Martin Luther

PART IV. THE SERPENT AND SATAN CURSED. THE FIRST PROMISE.

I. V. 14. And Jehovah God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.

After judgment has been pronounced and the whole case completely gone through, follows the execution of judgment, in which, as we shall now hear, there is rendered to each party according to their work, but not one like the other. Now this passage claims our thoughtful attention in the first place, because there is not found throughout the five books of Moses so long a speech in the person of God. And in the next place, because this divine speech contains no law whatever as to what the serpent or man was required to do. The whole speech is occupied in promising that good or threatening that evil, which should come upon each party concerned.

And it is worthy our particular observation here that, after the sin of the fall, no further law whatever was imposed on Adam, though nature in its state of perfection had a divine law set before it. The reason of this was, because God saw that nature, being now fallen and corrupt, could not only derive no help or relief from any law given to it, but that, being thus corrupted and also disorganized and confused altogether, it could not bear any syllable of law whatsoever. Wherefore God did not increasedly oppress nature, already thus oppressed by sin, with any further law of any kind. But on the contrary God mercifully applied unto sin as a terrible wound, a healing plaster, that is, the promise concerning Christ, still using that caustic, the curse on sin, which the devil had caused to be inflicted. For as wholesome plasters, even while they heal, yet corrode and pain the flesh; so the healing promise is so set before Adam that the threatened curse on sin should be added, to operate with it in curing the lust of the flesh. By the lust of the flesh I mean, not only that foul motion and itching of lust, but also "all manner of concupiscence" and uncleanness of soul, as Paul terms them, Rom. 7:8; Eph. 4:19, through which we are by nature inclined to idolatry, unbelief, self-security and all other horrible sins against the first and second Table. To curb and cure all this depravity of nature, we have need of the operation of this burning caustic, the curse of God on sin.

I would that I could handle the text now before us in a manner becoming its depth and dignity, for it embraces all that is glorious in the whole Scripture, containing in it the curse of God on Satan and the destruction of the seed of the serpent by the seed of the woman. The former part of the text is wholly figurative. God speaks to the serpent, but it is manifest that the serpent alone is not here to be understood as addressed by God. For these are not the words of God as a Creator, as were those words above, when he said unto the beasts of the earth, "Be fruitful and multiply;" nor when he said to the earth itself, "Let the earth bring forth grass, and herbs, and trees, yielding seed after their kind." They are words of divine threatening and a declaration of mind and will, such words as God never speaks to an irrational creature, but to an intelligent creature only.

God does indeed address the "serpent" by name, but he is all the while especially speaking to Satan, who ruled in the serpent, and by the serpent deceived the first parents of mankind. Nevertheless as, on account of the sin of man, the lord of the whole creation, all animals and all trees perished in the flood, just as the subjects of a nation are often punished on account of the misdeeds of their prince, so it befell the serpent. That animal also was punished because of the sin of the devil, who had abused the serpent in making use of it to work so mighty an evil as the sin of the fall. God however intends, figuratively, to be represented under this punishment of the serpent, the deluging punishment of Satan.

The obscurity which lies in this figurative representation has been the reason why this text, which ought to be most clearly known and understood by all, has never to my knowledge been explained by any one with sufficient diligence and clearness. And I have often wondered what the fathers and the bishops could have been about, who, when occupied in the government of churches and in the condemnation of heretics, did not feel that they had a still more important duty to perform in devoting themselves with greater diligence to the explanation of such passages of the Scriptures as these. Such bishops and fathers possess nothing more than the name, for they may with more truth be called destroyers than watchmen or guardians of the churches. I am now speaking of those of our fathers and bishops who really excelled in holiness of life and doctrine. Even among these not one is found to have explained the text before us in any manner becoming its great dignity. Perhaps those various engagements which generally beset the rulers of churches too deeply involve them to leave them time for the purpose.

The disgrace of our more recent divines is notorious. They have even shamefully corrupted this whole passage, and out of the neuter pronoun ipsum they have made the feminine, ipsa, which, with the most open wickedness, they have thus wrested, and have applied it to the Virgin Mary, "She shall bruise thy head," verse 15. I can pardon Lyra, who was as it appears a good man, but he conceded too much to the authority of the fathers, and hence he suffered himself to be drawn aside by Augustine, to the most weak and foolish allegorizings, which system Gregory also follows in his "Morals," maintaining that by the woman in this part of the sacred record ought to be understood the inferior power of reason, as by the man, the superior power of reason; and by her seed, the operation of good; but by the seed of the devil, his evil suggestions.

But what need, I pray you, friendly reader, is there of all such darkness of the most absurd allegories in all this clear light of the truth? But grant that we might with any propriety divide reason into two qualities or powers, the superior and the inferior. With how much greater propriety may we term that the inferior power of reason which is adapted to the government of domestic and political affairs, and not that which is concerned in swine-like pleasure and gratification? calling that the superior power of reason by which we contemplate those things which are separate from economy or polity, and which pertain unto religion, the solemn things of the Word, in which we do nothing operatively, but only contemplate and learn? Although we thus speak upon these things what have they to do after all with the sacred text before us? Do they not altogether encumber and keep out of sight its real sense, and substitute a spurious sense in its stead, a sense which is not only useless but pernicious? For what can reason do or what light can it give in the divine matter of religion?