1 Timothy 2:15 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Bible Comments

Though the woman was so unhappy as to be deceived by the serpent, and to be the first in taking the forbidden fruit, and an instrument to entice her husband to do the like, which may give all of that sex a cause of humiliation, and show them the reasonableness of God's order in putting them in subjection to man, and prohibiting them to break God's order in usurping authority over the man; yet through the gracious interposition of the Mediator, (afterward born of a woman), she hath no reason to despair, either of a temporal salvation, from the peril and danger of child-birth, or, much less, of an eternal salvation, for she shall be saved; she stands upon equal ground with the man as to eternal salvation, who cannot be saved without faith and holiness, and a discharge of the duties incumbent upon him, and patient enduring the crosses and trials God exerciseth him with; and the woman also shall be saved, by faithful performance of her duty, and patiently enduring her crosses and trials, in the pains and peril of child-bearing; notwithstanding they are the sensible marks of God's displeasure for sin, yet the sufferings of Christ has taken away the said bitterness. If they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety; if she also liveth in the exercise of faith in Christ, and love to God, and her husband, and all saints, and in all exercises of holiness with sobriety. Some refer the pronoun they to the children, because the apostle had been before speaking of the woman in the singular number; but there is nothing more ordinary than that change of the number, especially where collective words are used, that signify a whole species or sex; and it is unreasonable to think the apostle should suspend the salvation of the mother upon the faith and holiness of the child, and to interpret it of the mother's endeavours towards it, seemeth hardly a sufficient interpretation of the term continue.

1 Timothy 2:15

15 Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.