“Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’ And the woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate.’” (Genesis 3:13).
In the last posting, we saw how Adam and Eve led an idyllic life in the Garden of Eden. There was no sin as yet. They did not experience any pain, sorrow, sickness, or suffering of any kind. They walked with God every day and enjoyed complete fellowship with Him. They operated in a mutual, loving partnership, tending the garden.
Then along came the Devil and tempted Eve and she ate the fruit. She offered it to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it too. Immediately, their beautiful, carefree, guilt-free fellowship was broken with God. They had not cared before about being naked, but now they were ashamed and try to cover themselves with sewn fig leaves. They tried to hide from God.
Thankfully, the Lord came looking for them and called out to Adam. We all know what happened. Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent. God made pronouncements about what the future would be like. He cursed the serpent. In the midst of this curse, He also promised the Savior Who would come and defeat Satan.
Some say that God went on to curse Eve and Adam, but as in part I, let us be careful to read what the Bible says. Does God say He’s cursing Eve? The only other curse is against the ground. Adam and Eve will have to work really hard now to cultivate it and get their food.
Let’s look at what God did say to Eve and what the consequences would be for her life, and for the lives of all women for the entire history of this world.
He said, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain you will bring forth children” (Genesis 3:16). One consequence of eating the fruit is that our bodies will now get old and we will die. We will have sickness and disease. Having babies will not be as easy as it would have been before Eve sinned. But having a child would still be the wonderful blessing it was meant to be; that is not a curse.
Our egalitarian and hierarchical friends actually focus their attention and their disagreements on the next part of God’s pronouncement, “Yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” I guess if you are a far-left liberal feminist, desire for a husband who would rule over you would be a curse!
I do not believe that the interpretation given to this verse by our patriarchal friends is correct either. They insert the idea that the woman’s desire will be to rule over her husband. They make this statement categorically because it fits in with their own patriarchal agenda. They compare this verse to Genesis 4:7, where God tells Cain, “Sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” Therefore, the only thing women desire is to rule over their husbands. I believe that we are all selfish sinners; we all want to get our own way. But may we please just go with what the verse says and not read something into it? A desire for a husband is not the same thing as a desire to rule over him.
I don’t really see a curse here. Wanting marriage and family is a good thing. We do see here that the relationship between husband and wife has changed. Before the fall, Adam and Eve were equal partners. Eve could make her own decisions because they would be right and good. After all, she had God right there and she would know what to do because of her intimacy with Him. When she made the autonomous decision to eat the fruit, she was disobeying God. Adam also ate and now all human beings would be sinful creatures. Now, because of her sin nature, she would desire to get her own way. She would be married to a sinful man who could be wrong once in a while and she would want to go against him. We all live with this desire – to be like God, deciding on good and evil for ourselves. At the heart of all sin is a selfish, willful nature.
And so, God set up a government structure to prevent chaos that would be caused by sinful people all wanting to be “god” themselves. Though the woman took the first bite, Adam took the rap. We are told that death and sin came through our “federal head” – Adam (see Romans 5:12-21). He would shoulder the final blame.
God’s design for the family now is for the husband to be the head. Yes, Adam
would rule over Eve now. But we also know that the husband’s leadership is to be like the leadership of the Lord Jesus Christ over His church. Christ died for his bride. Jesus also said that the ones who would be great, need to be servants (Matthew 20:26). Jesus Himself was the most humble of all and is our example of humility and unselfishness (Phil. 2:3-5). The picture we see of marriage in the New Testament is of a loving, humble husband whose wife is joyfully submitting to this good man. This is an ideal.
The Scriptures don’t tell us a lot more about Eve and Adam. We know that they lived over nine hundred years and had many children. We have hints that Eve had repented and put her faith and trust in God. When Cain was born she said, “I have gotten a manchild with the help of the Lord” (Gen. 4:1). Clearly she was rejoicing in God’s grace, compassion, forgiveness, and promises.
There was sadness as sin showed just how ugly it could be when Eve’s firstborn son, Cain, killed his brother, Abel. But God blessed Eve with another son, Seth. We are told that some years later, “men began to call on the name of the Lord” (Gen 4:26). Where would these descendants of Eve have gotten the knowledge of God unless it was from their mother and father? And of course, Adam and Eve would have had the best knowledge of God since it was first hand. What a shame that they lost that close fellowship and had to live in a world of sin. But it seems that Eve was a faithful mother teaching her children to honor God.
Eve, the mother of us all, gave birth to a godly line that still exists today. There have been millions of believers who have put their faith in the One Who crushed the serpent’s head. The second legacy that Eve has left will last for eternity. Happily, millions of her redeemed offspring will be united in Heaven with her celebrating at the banquet with the Lord.
