The First Woman
Genesis 2:20-25; Genesis 3:1-16
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
When we enter into the Bible story of creation there is something that makes it all seem so real, so definite, and so certain. Evolution has nothing of certainty in it; the story of creation has everything. For instance, the whole earth was prepared for God's creation of man. Everything that man needed for sustenance, for clothing, for pleasure, was to be found in the physical creation. Thus, as we enter the Garden of Eden, we enter a realm beautiful beyond description.
There was just one lack in it all, and that is expressed in the Scriptures in the words of Genesis 2:20, "but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him." In the above Scripture is the account of the creation of that "help meet." We are to speak of the first woman, who was the mother of us all.
May we here bring before you a line of thought which is often overlooked in the study of the creation. The usual conception of Genesis 1:2-3 is that in it we have the beginnings of things historical so far as the physical earth and its first inhabitants are concerned. The part overlooked is that in the historicity of the first Chapter s of Genesis we have an unveiling of prophecy such as is not found elsewhere in the Word of God. We mean that God, when He created the heavens and the earth, the cattle, and every living thing, and also man, was unveiling the far-flung vision of His purposes and plans which He had formed before the world was.
Let us give you a few Scriptures bearing upon this:
1.Ephesians 1:4-5; Ephesians 1:7-9. "According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world." Our mind's go back in this verse before Adam and Eve were created. It was then that we were chosen in Christ. It was then that we were predestinated unto the adoption of children.
Not only, however, do Ephesians 1:4 and Ephesians 1:5 lead us into God's eternal purpose, but Ephesians 1:8 and Ephesians 1:9 tell us that the riches of His grace abounded toward us "in all wisdom and prudence; having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself." We take it, therefore, that God not only planned His creation, but that He revealed unto us His plan.
2. Our second Scripture is 2 Timothy 1:9; "Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, * * according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began."
With these two Scriptures before us we need not marvel that in every historical event God was making known unto men His foredetermined purposes. Let us suggest one of these.
When we read in Genesis 1:1 that "In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth," we think of nothing but a good and perfected creation. The 2nd verse tells us, however, how the earth became waste and void. Genesis 1:3 follows with the statement, "And God said, Let there be light." In this is the story of man.
First of all, God created man and he was perfect. Then came the fall by Adam's sin; next, God said, "Let there be light," and the light shown in the darkened heart, and man was brought, by the Blood of Christ, into the new life. The creation of Genesis 1:1-31, thus, anticipates the creation of the new man.
Thus we might go on, from passage to passage, through the whole Book of Genesis showing how history became prophecy, because God so ordered; His acts, that they prophesy His eternal purposes in redemption.
I. EVE CREATED (Genesis 2:21-22)
1. Adam's lack. "There was not found an help meet for him." It was for this cause that God made the woman, and presented her unto the man. In this we recognize that, in all of the creation of God, including angels, archangels, cherubim, and seraphim, there was found no helpmeet for Christ.
2. The manner of Eve's creation. Genesis 2:21 says, "And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man." Many mock at this, and call it the "rib story"; however, in it lies hidden the marvelous message that on the Cross the side of Jesus Christ was opened, that from that side His Bride might be formed.
3. The consummation. Genesis 2:22 tells us how God brought the woman, whom He had made, unto the man. We would not detain you by discussing the joy that Adam felt as, awaking from sleep, he beheld the woman. We would rather ask you to put your mind upon another scene which will come to pass when the Church shall be presented unto Christ in the air, a glorious Church without spot or wrinkle of any kind. It will be a blessed hour when the Lamb is married. Even now it seems that the nuptial hour is hastening on. It will not be long until God will send out His invitations for the Bridal Feast. We read, "Blessed are they which are called unto the Marriage Supper of the Lamb."
II. ADAM'S STATEMENT CONCERNING THE WOMAN (Genesis 2:23-24)
As Adam beheld the woman standing before him in all her glory and beauty, he said, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh,"
Therefore, the woman, Eve, received by the man Adam, as a "help meet," stands before us as the. basis of God's dealing's in the Christian home. In Ephesians these very words just quoted are used by the Spirit with this additional statement: "This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the Church." The first woman, therefore, stands before us as a Divinely-given type of the Church which is Christ's body, and, also, His Bride, Even now, we can hear the call of our God to leave all father, mother, brothers, sisters, houses, and lands, and to cleave unto Christ. As the husband and wife are reckoned as one flesh, so does Christ reckon Himself with us as one flesh. The Epistles tell us that Christ is our life. We do not have two lives: He, one, and we, the other. The life which we now have is Christ in us the hope of glory.
Adam made a wonderful statement about the woman, a statement that reached down through the years in all family relationships, but which, also, prophesied those keener, closer, spiritual relationships which must ever exist between Christ and His Church.
III. EVE DECEIVED BY SATAN (Genesis 3:1-6)
We enter now into a sad story. God had created the man and the woman with a nature that was holy and pure, but not impeccable. It was possible for Adam and Eve to sin. Thus it was that Satan, covering his personality in the form of a serpent, approached the woman, and, with a slur, said, "Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die."
In this the woman overstated God's command. God did not say, "neither shall ye touch it." Satan replied, "Ye shall not surely die; For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Immediately, the enemy impuned, not only the Truth of God, but that God had uttered an untruth in order to get the sacred pair into subjection to His will. Mark now the three things which overcame the woman.
1. She saw that the tree was good for food. There was the lust of the flesh.
2. She saw that it was pleasant to the eyes. There was the lust of the eyes.
3. She saw it as a tree desired to make one wise. There was the pride of life. There are the three things which belong to the world. It is in 1 John 2:16 that these words are written, "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." The temptation of Christ in the wilderness, when Satan met Him, was patterned after this same vain conception.
IV. THE IMMEDIATE RESULTS OF EVE'S SIN (Genesis 3:7, l.c., 8)
1. There was a sense of their shame. They saw that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together for aprons. In this, we have written ahead of time the present-day effort of men and women to cover their sins with a covering that is altogether objectionable to God.
You remember that God, when He saw their fig leaves, went into the garden and brought the skins of beasts with which they were to be clothed. It is the same story over and over again. That which we cover, God will uncover; that which God covers, will never be uncovered.
2. There was a sense of their fear. Our verse tells us that they hid themselves in the trees of the Garden. This is exactly what sin does today. It makes men afraid of God. The sinner loves darkness rather than light because his deeds are evil. He cannot hide himself from God, and yet he is forever trying to do it. Has not God said that He fills the whole heavens and the whole earth? The Psalmist truly said, "Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy presence? If I ascend up into Heaven, Thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, Thou art there."
There is no place that we can go where God does not see us for His eyes run to and fro through the whole earth, and all things are naked and open unto Him with whom we have to do. If there is anyone desiring to clothe his shame, let him be clothed with the robe of the slain Lamb of Calvary.
If there is anyone wanting to hide from God, let him the rather come and cast himself upon the mercy of the God who says, "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
V. GOD'S QUESTIONINGS (Genesis 3:9-10)
1. God came walking in the Garden of Eden. He first asked Adam a question, and afterward He asked the woman a question. To Adam God said, "Where art thou?" This question should be considered by every unsaved man and woman: Where are you, and whither do you travel?
"Oh, to have no Christ, no Savior,
How dark the world must be!
Like a steamer, lost and driven
On a wild and shoreless sea."
In answer Adam said, "I heard Thy voice in the Garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself."
Oh, sinner, if thine own heart condemns thee, God is greater than thy heart. Are you afraid to stand in His sacred presence? Does His holiness cause thee to cower? Does His justice cause thee to cringe?
2. Then He asked Eve a question. He said, "What is this that thou hast done?" If we could only sin to ourselves! If our wrongdoing's could only end in their dire effects upon us alone, it would be different. God, however, has plainly told us that no man lives unto himself. Every life is indissolubly linked to every other life. The ties that bind become more apparent to those who are in our immediate environment. The sins of the parent are passed on to the children unto the third and fourth generation.
Could Adam and Eve have only looked down through the centuries and seen the havoc which was wrought by their first sin, we wonder if they would not have done differently!
If we could only look down the years and see how far-reaching is every evil act of ours, we are sure that we would live more carefully.
VI. THE CURSE UPON THE WOMAN (Genesis 3:15-16)
In our scripture we read, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her Seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel." Then addressing the woman God said, "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception."
In these two statements which we have partly given, we find:
1. A continual conflict between Satan and the woman: a conflict which was to head up in a final battle between Satan and the Seed of the woman, which is Christ. We have learned in history that the enmity between Satan and the woman never ceased. The devil goes about still as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. He, and the powers which are under his control, are ever working against the good of the race.
There was a man who was driven of the devil into the wilderness. There was a woman whom Satan had bound. There were two saints into whose hearts Satan entered, causing them to He to the Holy Ghost. Satan asked that he might have Peter to sift him as wheat.
Where is he who has not felt the enmity between Satan and the Seed of the woman? The climax is in one particular sin.
2. A great sorrow as a result of sin. When God said to the woman, "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow," He spoke particularly of her womanhood and motherhood. Our minds pass from the Garden down through the centuries until we stand amazed at the Cross, and behold Jesus Christ, the Man of Sorrows, hanging between two thieves. It is the hour of His travail, but from His sorrow and His travail children are born. Thus it is that Heaven itself shall be filled with sons born out of the travail of the Son of God.
VII. THE AFTERMATH (Genesis 3:23-24)
Out from the Garden went Adam and Eve. They went with heads bowed and their hearts heavy. Behind them they left the tree of life and its wonderful fruit. Behind them they left Eden, and all of its glories. They left the sweetness of fellowship they had with God. They went into a world whose ground was cursed, to soil which brought forth thorns and thistles. They left the rest, comfort, and peace of the Garden of Eden. They went to a place where they should eat bread in the sweat of their brows. They went from life into the realm of death under the words, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."
The aftermath of the Garden of Eden is plainly written all around us. It is still seen transmitted from one to another, for we read, "In sin did my mother conceive me."
There is not a place where we turn our faces that sin does not reign unto death. Everything that is born is bora to die. It all fades as fades the summer day. The summer turns to fall, and we see the trees made bare, and the ground soon covered with snow. We seem to behold everything that man touches in decay. The light of the eyes daily dims; the step becomes more and more feeble until man goes to his home, The darkest picture, however, in sin's aftermath is not physical death, but it is eternal death. It is not separation from the Garden of Eden, but it is separation from that City whose Builder and Maker is God. It is that separation which means that the wicked shall be cast into hell, and all nations shall reject God.
AN ILLUSTRATION
The literature of all ages has paid tribute to mother, the chronicles of all nations acknowledge their debt to her. And the sacred Word is full of the highest homage to mothers. "The Lord could not be everywhere, so He made mothers," said a Jewish rabbi. "Mother in Israel" has become a term of the highest regard. The Fifth Commandment, and the first with promise, says, "Honor thy * * mother."
Eve, the mother of the human race, as her name signified, is shown in her motherhood naming her children as gifts from God.
Sarah was promised to be the "mother of nations," and manifested her motherhood in her solicitude for Isaac.
Rachel, the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, is held forth as the most lovable character and appearance, and her name used frequently in later history.
In the mother of Moses, recorded only as "A daughter of Levi," is a most beautiful presentation of unselfish motherhood. She crushed her own feelings, hid her wealth of love for her beautiful baby that his life might be spared. And what wonderful reward was hers when she saw in her boy God's deliverer for Israel.
In Naomi, made more famous by her daughter-in-law Ruth, is pictured a faithful mother.
There is no more beautiful mother in history than Hannah, the mother of Samuel. Consecrating her child before birth to God's work, she bravely fulfilled her vow. In quiet and faith she prepares him for the future. When the time came she took him to the temple and left him for God's service.
But it is in the New Testament that we find the culmination of the exaltation of motherhood in the life of Mary, the mother of Christ. From the time that the angel announced to her, "Blessed art thou among women," until the day that Jesus said from the Cross to his beloved disciple, "Behold thy mother," she was ever the highest type of motherhood. R. E. Stewart.