Chizuk Emunah Under the Microscope: Chapter 12

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.”
(Genesis 3:15, ESV)

Troki argues that this "protoevangelion" is not a type of Jesus crushing the head of Satan, since how can Satan bruise the heel of Jesus if Satan's head has already been crushed? Satan seems to play a role in the entire New Testament, even up to Revelation.

This objection is pretty easy to refute.

    Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years,
(Revelation 20:1-2 ESV)

    And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them, and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
(Revelation 20:7-10 ESV)

It is here that Satan is completely destroyed. As for the death and resurrection of Jesus, that is the time where Jesus first crushed the head of the Serpent, yet no Christian tradition states that the crushing of Satan's head meant that Satan would die. Satan bruies the heel of Jesus due to the crucifixion, but Jesus triumphed over Satan through his resurrection, bringing hope of forgiveness and eternal life to all of humanity.

To say that Genesis 3:15 is a prophecy that people will hate snakes is to misunderstand the social context of the book of Genesis. In ancient religions, particularly in the near east, there was not an effort to explain human relations to animals. Instead, the animals in those stories represented spiritual forces. These were not like, nor were they related to, the "just-so" stories of other mythological traditions.

A second interpretation is that humanity and sin would be at war with one another. with this interpretation, though, one can include Jesus as the focus of the prophecy. Indeed, he is the one who ultimately pays the price for our sins and defeats sin. Jesus, as our representative, will plant his foot on the head of sin, and crush it.