ENMITY
ENMITY
“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Gen. 3:15).
The Hebrew word translated as “enmity” is “ay-baw”. It means to “hate” or to be “hostile”. Note that this hostility is ordained by God Himself. God has decreed hostility between Satan and humanity. The reason is obvious. Satan is a liar, thief, and murderer who wants to destroy us. God wants us to be repulsed by his presence. This hatred began in the garden and was to continue between Satan’s offspring and the woman’s offspring. Today when we snatch someone from Satan’s grasp we are to hate even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh (Jude 23).
The devil does not cohabit physically to produce a child, but he does so in a spiritual sense. The Jews told Jesus: “Abraham is our father” (Jn. 8:39). This was true physically speaking. Spiritually speaking, however, Jesus was correct when He said: “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is n o truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (Jn. 8:44). A similar incident happened on the Island of Cyprus when a false prophet named Bar-Jesus tried to keep the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, from become a Christian. On that occasion Paul was filled with the Holy Spirit and said: “You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord?” (Acts 13:10). Can you discern Paul’s enmity?
John wrote: “This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother” (1 Jn. 3;10). We cannot avoid sinners without leaving the world (1 Cor. 5:10). Yet we are not to have “fellowship” with the children of the devil whose goal is to take us to hell. Paul put it like this: “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial. What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols?” (2 Cor. 6:14-16). Paul was jealous over them with a godly jealousy. He wanted to present them as a pure virgin to Christ but was “Afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ” (2 Cor. 11:2,3).
Alexander Pope said it like this: “Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, that to be hated needs but to be seen. But seen too often, familiar with her face, we at first abhor, then pity, and then embrace”. ‘The Biblical answer to this problem is “Therefore to come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing and I will receive you” (2 Cor. 6:17).
Our task is made more difficult by the fact that the devil has deliberately planted tares in the midst of the wheat. The field is the world, the good seed are the sons of the kingdom, and the weeds are the sons of the evil one (Matt. 13:38). Among the many illustrations to help us understand how the church can be in the world and yet not of the world is the concept of colonization. Paul wrote to the Christians in Philippi reminding them that “our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil. 3:20). They were in a Roman city but still citizens of heaven. When our pilgrim forefathers came to America they were English citizens known as “colonists”. They spoke the English language, wore English style clothing, built English style homes, and obeyed English law. The colonies they established were called “New England”. We, who are citizens of heaven, can do the same thing. We can speak, act, dress, and behave like citizens of heaven no matter where we live or what others are doing.
Please ponder these inspired words: “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in him. For everything in the world — the cravings of sinful man the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does — comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away but the man who does the will of God lives forever” (1 Jn. 2:15-17). This “enmity” for the world is ordained by God!