Chapter One

The Creation of Eve

The Fall

The Curse

The Promise

Life in the Garden

Eve’s Relationships

An amalgam of insights

The Creation of Eve

We begin with the second account of the creation of man, specifically, the formation of Eve; bone of Adam’s bone, flesh of his flesh.

Of course, the first thing that should be observed is God’s unceasing goodness toward Adam. Adam needed a helper, and God created the whole animal kingdom and brought it before him to see if a suitable helper could be found. When no suitable helper could be found, God decided to remove from Adam that part which made him whole, and form it into a woman

God took from Adam a part of his body, leaving Adam no longer whole, but missing that part. Adam, created whole, was now incomplete. But he was not truly complete before, else he would not have needed a helper suited specifically to him.

We should note that here, before Eve was created, she was intended to be a helper to Adam. Thus, she was created subordinate to him. That was her natural position in creation. Although that reality is restated in the curse upon women (Gen 3:16), it was not a part of the curse. Eve was created to assist Adam in his care of the Garden of Eden. Had pride and lust not intervened by the temptation of the serpent, she would have served Adam completely, blissfully, forever.

God knew Adam’s every slightest need, and the woman He created for him was suited perfectly to fill every one of those needs, as Adam was also suited to know and to fill each of Eve’s. Neither was complete without the other but, together, they formed a perfect whole

The Fall

Ah, but the serpent did intervene. Let us look first at verse twenty-five:

They were not ashamed because they did not realize that they were naked. They had not yet partaken of the forbidden fruit. This is an important point.

It was not, as many people suppose, an apple that Eve ate in the Garden of Eden. The fruit that was forbidden was from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The fruit was the very knowledge of good and evil. But suppose it had been an apple. What would have happened to that apple? Their bodies would have assimilated it and it would have become part of them. We are what we eat, someone has said, and it is essentially true.

When Eve first ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that knowledge became a part of her. She went immediately from incorruption to corruption. Her entire flesh and spirit were pervaded by sin and corruption, making of the innocent woman a sinner. She went from innocence to guilt. She passed from life to death. She went from the light of the presence of God to utter darkness. Let us examine the account of the fall of man.

The first thing that the Bible has to say about the devil is that he is cunning. The old King James Version used the word "subtle." The NIV says "crafty." All three words are found in the Strong’s Hebrew dictionary. The point is that he is able, through subtlety, to deceive.

The next thing that is glaringly apparent in this passage is that the first question mark in the Bible finds the devil questioning God’s word. He questions whether God had in fact said what He clearly did say in chapter 2, verse 17. God had said to Adam, "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die." But Eve had not yet been created when God spoke these words to Adam, and so she had only Adam’s word that God had said this. And the devil uses this opportunity to place the seed of doubt in her. Her faithfulness to her husband’s word should have been inviolable.

Eve, answering the serpent’s question, then changed God’s word, making Him more severe than He made Himself. He had not commanded the man that he could not touch the fruit. He could have rubbed it all over his body, but he could not eat it. He could climb the tree and sleep in its great branches, but he could not taste its fruit. Oh, how tantalizing that lovely fruit must have appeared to Eve! Her heart began to desire it, and the devil began the process of logical rationalization that would permit her to actually taste its glory.

Then Satan goes so far as to openly refute the clear statement of God. He said, "You will not surely die." That statement should have been enough to set the alarm bells ringing in Eve’s mind. She should have known that God had not lied, and that her husband had not either, but that the serpent was the liar. The moment the serpent said ,"For God knows that in the day you eat of it ..." Eve should have realized that her serpent friend was ascribing to God motives that were neither righteous, just, nor based on a loving relationship. He was making God appear to be scheming and conniving, holding Eve down, so that she could not rise to His level.

According to 1 Tim 2:14, Adam was not deceived, but Eve was. From the context, it seems that Adam would not have been deceived, and the devil selected Eve rather than Adam, knowing that she would be. We will return to this concept shortly, but let us first consider the next aspect of this event.

The deception lay in the devil’s assertion that Eve would become like God if she only ate of this fruit, and would know both good and evil. She knew that the tree existed, and that its fruit was proscribed by God Himself, but she was drawn by her lusts, wanting her eyes to be opened.

In the Apostle John’s first epistle, he says, "Do not love the world, or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world." (1 Jn 2:15-16).

It was these things that were in the fruit. For Eve saw that the tree was good for food (lust of the flesh), that it was pleasant to the eyes (lust of the eyes), and a tree to be desired to make one wise (pride of life).

What was in the fruit? All that is in the world. Every sin that Eve could commit, she committed in partaking of that fruit. What a tragic deception that was. And she gave it to Adam, and he also ate of that fruit.

Why did Adam, who was not deceived, eat of that fruit? What so compelled him, knowing the punishment that would befall him, that he would repeat Eve’s sin? Eve was deceived. She believed that if she ate that fruit, she would become like God. Adam knew that he would not become like God, but that he would die. What compelled him to commit this act of suicide? For it was as surely that as any suicide that can be performed with a gun, a rope, or drugs.

Let us attempt to place ourselves in that Garden with Adam and with Eve, immediately following Eve’s deception and her partaking of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Adam, still in sinless perfection, still immortal, looked upon his wife. She stood before him, no longer immortal, no longer innocent, but corrupt and dying. His heart knew in that instant that if he did not join her, he would eventually be forced to face an eternity without her, for he knew that she would surely die.

Oh, what a love story! Romeo and Juliet never had it so good. Adam willingly chose Eve and death over God and life. We do not know how many eons Adam may have lived in the Garden before God made Eve. The Bible is silent on the subject. It may have been ages, or it may have been a very short time. Whatever the case, it was long enough for Adam to know that he did not wish to live forever without her.

Neither do we know how long they may have lived in the Garden together before the serpent deceived Eve. But we know from the events that transpired that Adam must have loved Eve with a selfless love, for he was willing to give up all that he had to stay with her. And what does this tell us about Adam? That he did not trust God, who had given him Eve in the first place. It tells us that Adam chose self over God. Though motivated by love for his wife, Adam became a sinner.

And how could he not? Were they not one flesh? Was his sin inevitable once Eve sinned? No, but his sin would begin a chain of events that would stretch over millennia, culminating in the appearance in the flesh of the Word of God, not once, but twice.

The first time that God came to earth in the flesh of a man, man crucified Him. The second time, He will establish a mighty Kingdom in Jerusalem that will sweep over all the nations of the earth as He takes His rightful place as King of kings and Lord of lords. It is never God’s will that any of His own should sin, but man is ever free, and God knew that Adam would sin, and provided for that sinfulness in His great wisdom and foresight. Adam took of the fruit and ate.

If the deception of Eve by the serpent was tragic, the sin of Adam was fatal. They knew at once that they were sinners. They knew the lost condition of their souls, and were convicted, not only of eating the forbidden fruit, but of every sin, for that was what was in the fruit. It is not the thing that is forbidden that is sinful, but the rebellion against God. No doubt they both looked about frenetically, searching for somewhere to hide, and for something with which to cover that most glaring of their sins, their nakedness.

Eve ate the fruit before Adam. She must have realized immediately that she was naked. When she stood before Adam, tempting him to join her in eating the forbidden fruit, she did not try to hide her nakedness from him. Rather, she must have realized how sorely tempted he would be by that nakedness. Her first reaction was not one of fear, but the tempted became the tempter. So wholly was her heart turned by the eating of the fruit that she felt no compunction about using her sin to tempt another. She used her nakedness as a lure to tempt Adam.

The fig tree produces a leaf that is broad and deeply lobed. It would not have taken many leaves to fashion coverings for themselves, and could be done in a matter of minutes. Suddenly, they were conscious of their sinful character, and sought to hide it from God by the works of their own hands. They hoped to deceive God by presenting themselves to Him as sinless. Adam and Eve began immediately to attempt to correct their sinfulness -- to reform their flesh from sinful to sinless. By hiding their nakedness, they sought to stop being what their own actions had made them, sinners. And the attempt to hide their sin was itself sin, as they were deceiving themselves, and trying to deceive God. God didn’t see it precisely the same way that Adam and Eve did, as we shall shortly see.

We need not try to imagine how the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day might have sounded. It is enough to note that the sound compelled Adam and Eve to flee from His presence, and to attempt to hide from Him. As innocents, they communed with Him, no doubt as He did walk in the garden in the cool of the day. Now they were terrified.

God called to Adam, saying, "Where are you?" God did not need to ask. He was God then just as He is God today, and knew precisely where Adam was. As He calls us, so He also called to Adam, to see if Adam would respond. Adam responded, fearfully, but by his own choice. He heard God speaking in the garden. It would be wonderful to know what words God would speak in a lush garden of His own creation, as He walked amidst its glory in the cool of the day. The very earth we inhabit has felt the footsteps of God and heard His voice in ways that no man alive since Adam has known. The text of the Bible seems to speak of an oft-repeated pastoral scene of such tranquillity and love that we cannot truly conceive of it today. While we do not see it today, that very closeness with God is our present hope, and should spur us to heights of spirituality that we have not yet scaled. Let us walk in the garden with Him, hearing and understanding His word.

Adam told God that he had heard His voice in the garden, and that he was frightened because he was naked, and so, had hidden himself. Was Adam naked? He had sewn fig leaves together to cover his nakedness. Why then did he fear God? Adam told God that he was afraid because he was naked; God did not tell Adam that his nakedness was the reason for his fear. Adam, in a fallen state, focused on the most outward of his own sins, ignoring the greater sin of rebellion against the will of God. Adam must have been completely stunned when God asked him who told him that he was naked. He must have quaked fearfully, knowing that his effort to hide his sin was useless. He must have seen the total inadequacy of his ability to reason with God, and despaired because of the futility of the fig leaves.

God did not dispute with Adam as to whether or not he was naked. It is clear that the fig leaves did not hide his nakedness, but emphasized it. Standing in the presence of God, Adam had no confidence in the works of his own hands to save or excuse. Today we try to hide our inherent sinfulness behind a facade of good works and a show of holiness, but God knows that inner man in each of us who cannot cease from sinning.

When God asked if he had eaten of the tree, Adam turned to Eve, for whom he had sinned, and placed the blame squarely upon her. God turned to Eve asking, "What is this you have done?" She said, in effect, "The devil made me do it." The fallen heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.

They were sorrowful, but not yet repentant. Repentance follows the bestowal of grace, and that had not yet happened. And where we find the first instance of grace in the Bible, it is bound up in the curse. For without a curse there would be no need for grace.

The Curse

Here, then, is the curse. God curses the serpent, the woman and the man. Let us look at these curses, and then let us find the grace among them. Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!

How grand the serpent must have been. What close relationship Eve must have had with this creature who spoke with her. If the curse was going upon the belly in the dust, then prior to that, the serpent must have been upright, delightful in its beauty, able to speak, else Eve might have reacted differently to such verbosity of serpent. Of course, the serpent was merely the vehicle of Satan, the chosen flesh through which he might commune visually, orally and aurally with his victim.

Why then curse the serpent? The magnitude of the offense is the reason. So serious was the fall of man that not only the serpent was cursed, but the entire created universe (see Rom 8:20). In carrying the message of death to God’s created woman, the serpent transgressed so badly that it was wholly cursed. But the worst of the curse was not being made to crawl on its belly.

We will deal with the bulk of verse fifteen when we have finished exploring these curses. But we do want to look at the beginning of the verse here. God said that He would put enmity between the serpent and the woman. There are, of course, exceptions but that portion of the curse has generally borne itself out. There are not many women who will get near a snake.

God then turned His attention from the serpent toward Eve. How her soul must have quaked when He first looked at her and asked, "What is this you have done?" How she must have shuddered to see the face of God. For therein she would have seen His anguish over the sinfulness of His own. She would have seen the stern face of infinite justice staring down at her, knowing that, though He loved her, His justice would not allow Him to overlook this watershed transgression.

She might have been wondering at God’s words in the latter portion of verse fifteen as He turned His gaze to her. Most likely, however, she cowered in abject terror, convicted by her own self-gained knowledge of good and evil. What that fruit did to this woman! The tragedy of sin cannot be measured. For what it did to her, it did to everyone of us.

Pain and sorrow. This is the legacy of fools. And therein does woman find herself embroiled until the curse is lifted. Unfulfilled desires and a more sinister subordination to man, for it is no longer voluntary, but enforced upon a rebellious heart. Had Eve been properly subordinated to Adam’s will, she would never have been tempted by the serpent. Because she rebelled against that which could only have brought her bliss, God said all these things to her. He did not say that He would personally cause these things to come to pass, but merely that they would come to pass. Woman had become a sinner, and it was not possible for her to become innocent again. We are not sinners because we sin; we sin because we are sinners.

There can be no doubt that Adam was everything that Eve needed or wanted in their innocence. Their love for one another must have been selfless and absolute. One can almost see them walking slowly, hand in hand, through the Garden of Eden, stopping occasionally, each to look in wonder at the other, or perhaps to embrace. Surely they often raised their voices in praise of God for the wonderful works of His hands.

But when Eve sinned, Adam sinned as well. He was no longer that doting husband. He had become a selfish and self-centered creature of his own making, as Eve had made herself still less attractive to him by her sinfully fallen state. The things that a woman wants from a man, she inevitably does not receive. It is the most common complaint in counseling. By robbing their wives of the natural affection due them, it is men who carry out the execution of the curse upon women, and they do so to their own detriment.

This was the rule of life for husbands and wives for countless thousands of generations. As we get further into this study, we will see that, in the Age of Grace, the curse is ameliorated greatly, though the proper role of the wife is still in submission to her husband.

Take heart, faithful souls! When Jesus Christ establishes his Kingdom, the curse will be fully lifted. What we find now is that rebellion continues to keep woman from real submission to her husband, just as it keeps the husband from submission to God. To the degree that we are able to submit to the will of God in all things, that is the measure of our blessing.

The wholly surrendered and submitted wife will not look first at her own will, or even at her husband’s, but at the will of God. If her heart trusts Him, He will bless her in her marriage. If she looks to her husband for her happiness, she will not find it there, though he might love her as Adam did Eve. If she looks to herself for her happiness, all she will see is her own convicting knowledge of good and evil. Had the latter portion of verse fifteen not been written, Eve would have been in a most hopeless situation. But it was written, and we shall see it shortly.

God said to Eve, "In pain you shall bring forth children." This, unlike her subjection to Adam, was apparently not her condition before the fall. It seems far more likely that childbirth was intended as an exquisitely pleasant experience, the vestiges of which remain with us today in that act which eventually brings childbirth. How great was the Fall?

Now God turns to Adam. Women may feel that God is unfair to make them subject to their husbands. If that is so, it is because they have not considered the curse pronounced upon Adam. Not only was Adam cursed, but on his behalf the entire creation was cursed. And from this cursed ground he was told that he would be forced to eke out whatever living he could by the sweat of his brow. The crowning of the curse upon Adam came in the pronouncement, "In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you shall return"" (Gen 3:19).

The curse upon man is bound up in that of which he is made. In the sweat of his face, fashioned from dust, would he eat bread. Bread, from barley or wheat, comes from the soil and is but reconstituted dust in the form of grain. He was dust, what he was to eat was dust, and he would return to dust, no longer a man, broken down into his essential elements, made one again with the earth from which God had formed him.

Women are subjected to their husbands, but the husbands are confronted with the thorns and thistles that life in a cursed world brings forth. The imagery here is that of facing life with a constancy of the pain from the piercings of many thorns and the scraping and scratching of thistles against tender skin. Adam’s labors in the Garden of Eden were as nothing compared to the ceaseless toil of life in a cursed world. From the time of the curse until the day that he returned to dust, Adam did his toilsome labors, and so men continue to this day.

By removing themselves from self-protecting submission to their husbands, liberated women bring even this curse upon themselves. Are we not rebellious? Are we not proud? It isn’t that women can’t do the work of a man, but that they should not, for that is not how they were made.

Submission to the will of God brings blessing. Look at the world around you and see what rebellion against God has produced: anger, strife, hatred, more rebellion, division, conflict, confusion, greed, cold-heartedness, chaos, and a grimly determined unhappiness that boils just beneath the surface of the roiling human heart, ever threatening to explode in violence or in the sundering of families. Where is the will of God in the heart of man? Yet, we are where we are by the grace of God.

The Promise

What a great paradox this all is! Until, that is, one turns back to the latter portion of verse fifteen: "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel" (Gen 3:15)

Here, God is speaking to the serpent. He has just pronounced the belly-crawling curse, and then He says this enigmatic thing. To the unilluminated, this is imponderable. But to the illuminated soul, it is the first promise by God of a Redeemer. Here is where we find the grace of God stated in the curse. This grace is not extended toward the devil, but toward mankind, through the woman, who by her sin made the grace of God necessary in the first place.

God said that He would put enmity between the serpent and the woman. This is easily enough understood. But He also said that He would put that same enmity between the seed of the serpent and the Seed of the woman.

There is not a person living on the earth today who was born of the seed of a woman. Every person since Adam and Eve, save One, was born of the seed of a man. Can a corrupt tree produce incorrupt seed? Adam’s sinfulness pervaded his whole being, to include his seed. The Christ, born of a virgin (see Isa 7:14; cp. Lk 1:26-27, 34-38), was the only One born of the Seed of a woman. Jesus, the Lamb of God, sacrificed on Calvary, was that Seed of the woman promised so many millennia before. There has been conflict between the devil and the Word of God since the fall of Lucifer. It continues today. However, two specific aspects of that enmity are detailed in this passage.

Surely, Eve did not understand the meaning of God’s words, that He would place His Seed in her by the Holy Spirit; that she would bear the Word of God in the flesh of her Child; that her Child’s Blood would be used as the payment price for the sins of the world, fulfilling every facet of the law that demanded death for sin on behalf of as many as would believe, defeating Satan forever.

Satan understood all too clearly. The seed of the serpent was to persecute the Seed of the woman, to the extent of bruising His heel. The Seed of the woman was to gain the final victory in the bruising of the head of the seed of the serpent. The serpent bruised the heel of the Christ in the crucifixion. However, the Seed of the woman (Christ) gained the victory forever when He bruised the head of the serpent in the resurrection.

Even as God was pronouncing the curse on the serpent, He was also promising the One who would remove that curse. Therein is the grace of God found.

God had no reason other than his love and mercy to provide a Redeemer at all. Grace is unmerited favor. God, in His lovingkindness, and from His eternal councils, determined to yet save as many as would believe. Even in their rebellion, God loved Adam and Eve, and extended His grace toward them.

Then God demonstrated the proper method of returning to fellowship with Him.

Eve, whose name means lifegiver, would become the one through whose womb would begin the long line of the descent of man from the first Adam to the Second. She was a lifegiver in the ordinary sense of the word -- she became the mother of all living. She also became the author of all her descendants’ deaths. But she who brought death to the race would become the channel through which the Redeemer would eventually come who would give eternal life to as many as believed.. For Eve was deceived, but Adam was not. His was the greater rebellion, though any rebellion against God is immeasurably arrogant. Mankind cannot comprehend the magnitude of even the "smallest" offense against an infinitely holy God. Neither can he understand the perfection of God’s holiness. God made coats of skins.

How fondly we picture in our minds the pastoral setting in which a loving and forgiving God would provide for Adam and Eve coats of skins. Most imagine the coats of skins to be fleecy white robes of the finest lamb’s wool, though the Bible does not tell us the kinds of animals whose skins were used. We think of God, sitting under a majestic tree, on a large boulder perhaps, quietly and patiently sewing their coats, forgiving their sin and restoring them to full fellowship with Him.

But it was neither pastoral nor pretty. Nothing had ever died. Not a blade of grass, not a leaf. Nothing. From whence came these coats of skins? How shocked and appalled Adam and Eve must have been when God took up the animals -- lambs presumably -- and slew them, ripping their very hides from their living bodies. How horrified when He approached them with the bloody hides! How terrible when He removed their fig leaves, exposing their sin completely. And how they must have recoiled when He wrapped the bloody skins around them, adequately covering their sin. For without the shedding of blood there can be no remission of sins (Heb 9:22).

Those bloody hides represented the blood of the covenant that God made with Adam. Henceforth, man would be shedding substitutionary blood on account of his sins; until the Lamb of God would hang on a tree with His own blood draining from the Body that God had prepared for Him (Heb 10:4-7). Twice, God let His mercy and grace shine through the curse, once at the beginning, and once at the end.

Eve’s Relationships

Now, let us go back and look at Eve in her various relationships thus far. We shall see the wise woman and the foolish, the virtuous wife and the harlot. We will find Eve in relationship with Adam, God, the serpent and herself.

With Adam

This seems a bit of a strange place for God to say this. After all, neither Adam nor Eve had parents. Adam’s Father was also his Creator, and he did not have to leave God in order to be joined to his wife. This being so, there must have been another reason for God saying these particular words at this particular time. What we find here is a principle being established, a pattern by which we might understand how God made us, and by which, if we conform ourselves to it, we may find happiness.

Bone of Adam’s bone, and flesh of his flesh, Eve was united to Adam in a physical way that men and women cannot share today. She needed no Cyclosporin or other anti-rejection drugs to keep her alive, for she was his flesh and his bone. But the physical union was not that which was truly fulfilling. It was necessary, for neither was whole without the other, Adam having a part of his body missing, and Eve being only that part of him, made into a woman. Until that flesh was reunited, neither could be whole.

But it was the spiritual union that truly made of them one flesh, for Eve had a mind of her own, and so did Adam. Until their spiritual union was complete, they were not man and wife, but lovers. Fortunately for Adam and Eve, she was in that perfect state with Adam from her first moment of consciousness, as Adam was with her from the same moment. She was created as his wife, and began life in that role. No other generation has enjoyed that advantage.

We learn much of Eve’s relationship with Adam from our studies of the virtuous wife. Sin was not the issue here. Eve had not yet been tempted. For at least a period of time, Eve was a virtuous wife to Adam. She was flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone. She was a member of his body, but he was the head. "For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church. . ." (Eph 5:23).

Adam’s responsibility to Eve was greater by far than hers to him. Husbands who do not attend to their wives as Christ attends to His own, are shirking their responsibilities to their wives. It is the intimate responsibility of the head to the body. It is the nurturing of every need, scratching of every itch; it is the feeding of the soul of the wife by the mind of the husband. It is bringing the wife into closer relationship, not with the husband, but with the God who made him. Adam surely provided all of these things to his wife, for he lived in sinless perfection. Before the Fall.

Eve was not without her corresponding responsibilities.

Who can find a virtuous wife? The first time that question was recorded was during the days of Lemuel, the king of Israel. There is no historical or Biblical confirmation of this kingdom, however. It is supposed by many that this "Lemuel," whose name means "devoted to God," or "God is bright," was actually either Solomon or Hezekiah, who used that name as a sort of title, by which any righteous king might be called, just as Solomon called himself "The Preacher" in the Book of Ecclesiastes, or so it also is widely supposed. The question is found in the thirty-first chapter of Proverbs, and credited to Lemuel.

The point is, as far back as then, Lemuel’s days, self-willed women were seeking liberation from the will of God, yearning after their own wills instead. Women have always sought to rebel against the plain declaration of God. It’s just that in our generation, communications are much improved. The prince of the power of the air had not the tools then that he has given us today. The hearts of men and women have not changed. They certainly have not improved. Our technologies reveal the shameless depravity of our hearts.

Lest we digress too far, let us return to Eve, before the Fall, and see what the role of the virtuous wife is.

After the question is raised, "Who can find a virtuous wife," her worth is told. Far above rubies. It is fair to say that, if a man owned all of the rubies in the entire world, and lacked a virtuous wife, he could not be as rich as the most starving peasant who had a virtuous wife. A wife who is not virtuous is a harlot and a fool. No man’s heart can safely trust in any fool. Neither may he expect to increase his holdings under the hands of a harlot, for she will seek what is her own, even as she is diminishing the interests of her husband. She will be seeking her will, not his, and doing so to the detriment of both herself and her husband. Her heart will not be true to her husband, who is her head, and she will destroy both herself and him.

It isn’t that God says, "Submit to your husband or I’ll make you miserable." Rather, it is an understanding that the will of God is in perfect accord with the way He made us and, if we attempt to be other than that, we make ourselves miserable by rebelling against our very natures. Are we perverse? Without any doubt.

In the Garden of Eden, Eve was properly submitted to the will of her husband, and God blessed her in every way, through that husband. Adam was assuredly the most devoted of husbands, attending to his wife’s every need, cherishing constantly the wonders of the woman that God had given him. His heart beat with joy when his eyes rested upon her. The uplifting lilt of her voice satisfied the hunger in his ears for beauty. There was an undivided unity of spirit between them. She conformed her will to his perfectly, trusting him explicitly, and his heart safely trusted in her.

There is love as it should be. Wives are normal to want the attention of their husbands. That is as it should be. It is as God made woman. And men should be toward their wives as Adam was toward Eve. For a man cannot know the love of a properly loved woman until he has loved properly himself. By depriving our wives, we deprive ourselves. How juvenile. And how very rebellious.

Eve’s relationship to Adam changed when she ate the fruit. Indeed, her heart changed toward Adam before she ate the fruit, in the moment in which she decided to do so. That was the moment that she turned from his will to her own. It is as though she shouted to the ages that she was getting hers. "I’ll offer it to him when I get there," she exclaims, "but I’m getting mine now!" Her heart turned against itself when it turned against her husband. The virtuous wife became the harlot. The wise woman became the fool.

Adam, however, had not rebelled against God’s will. His heart was unchanged toward Eve. One can only guess the pain it must have brought to Adam to see this wife, whom he loved so tenderly, turn violently away from him. Eve had no idea the violence that lay in the essence of that fruit. Hurt as he must have been, Adam still loved Eve with the love they had shared together before. He was still innocent. But there can be little doubt that he saw the horrible changes wrought in her when she tasted the fruit. Forgetting the first disappointment he had ever known, moved to the depths of his love for this fallen creature, Adam reached out his hand and took the fruit. The first timorous taste was crushing.

How great was the Fall of Man? As great as the difference between darkness and light. As great as the difference between life and death. Oh! How great a rebellion sprang from that tiny seed! Loving Eve, Adam had no choice but to follow her. Loving God, he could not follow her. God supplied every need to both body and spirit. Adam’s spirit was that which communed with God, while his flesh communed with his wife. Adam chose the things of the flesh. He preferred the earthly lusts to the heavenly pleasures. But only until he had them.

Fallen, aware of the curse, Adam might have wished sorely that he had not sinned. Now, he could do nothing but sin, for his heart was rebellious toward God. What was incorrupt had become corrupt. What a horror of fears must have gripped his soul to know how sinful he was. And what a great comfort those tunics of skin, symbols of God’s promise of a Redeemer, became.

Eve, having proven her heart to be untrue to Adam, could not squeeze up to him now and say, "Trust me." There was the disintegration of the marriage relationship. Adam’s heart could no longer safely trust her. King Lemuel knew what he was saying. Marriage would not be the same again. Always there would lie at the very core of both the man and the woman a discordant note of rebellion.

Deep in the soul of woman are etched the desires of the virtuous wife. The desires for the love and attention that Adam gave to Eve are written behind the eyes of every wife today. She wants to be loved as purely and unconditionally as Adam loved Eve in the Garden. She wholeheartedly desires that her emotional needs be met, as Eve’s were. She wants to be held and cherished by the man to whom she has submitted, and in every way to be treated as tenderly as his most precious possession.

From her desperately wicked and deceitful heart, however, come the issues of her life. By her own attitudes and actions she withholds from herself her own desires. It is perverse. That is the curse. How great was the Fall? As great as that. And greater.

Understanding the nature of the curse upon women does not fully take into account the ramifications toward women of the curse upon men. If Adam had not sinned, he would have without doubt forgiven Eve completely and loved her until she died.

If we look back to Genesis 3:17, we find that it was because Adam had heeded the voice of his wife that he was cursed. Implicit in that statement, in a Pavlovian sort of way, is the notion that man would not be so foolish again. An untrusting heart is colder than one that safely trusts. It listens from a distance. It is not swayed by emotional pleas. It is not soft and pliable, but flinty.

Surely, when Adam saw his wife, corrupt in her nakedness, he saw the immediate result of her sin. No doubt, she pleaded with him, telling him that the fruit was wonderful, now more than ever seeking her own will. She was surely afraid to be facing this death alone. Had she not sinned, she would have gladly given up her life for her husband. Now she was demanding his death as well as her own. Adam was not deceived; he was enticed. No more should a wise man be enticed by a foolish wife.

With God

In turning from her husband, the virtuous wife turned also from God. Like Esau, who would come later, she sold all that she had for the pleasures of the moment. The virtuous wife became a harlot.

We are not told much about Eve’s relationship with God. She most surely had such a relationship, but the Bible speaks of her in relationship to her husband, and the husband in relationship to God. Her obedience to God was inextricably bound up in her obedience to her husband. In the same fashion, the love that flowed unreservedly between God and Adam also flowed between Adam and Eve. When Eve threw off the fetters of submission to Adam, she also threw off the love of God in order to serve her own will. Her heart became as hardened toward God as it did toward Adam.

She had been a virtuous and wise woman. She must have stood in perfect awe of the wisdom and power and greatness of God, realizing as the Psalmist later would say, "I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them" (Ps 139:14-16).

For thus does the wise woman ever view herself in relationship to God.

The wise woman loves God, not only because He is God, but more, because He has made her. If Eve had an intimate relationship with Adam, her relationship with God must have been even closer. She stood in such perfect harmony with His will because she knew that she was herself the very fruit of His love for her husband, whom she also loved. It is a certainty that Eve never once felt that she was second in God’s love. For, "Happy are the people whose God is the Lord" (Ps 144:15).

But when people make gods of their own wills, they become harlots. Eve became adulterous toward God, placing her lusts and pride above Him, selling the eternal love of God for temporal pleasures. And so the harlot continues to this day to do.

She may have traded away the rights to His love, but God continued to love Eve, and so also does He love sinners today. When He promised a Redeemer, He did not make that promise to Eve alone. In fact, when God promised that the Seed of the woman would be victorious over the seed of the serpent, He was not speaking to Eve, but to the serpent.

With the Serpent

We may deduce that if Eve had not sinned, the Son of God would still have come to earth in some context in the flesh of a man; if not as Redeemer, then in some other role. It is apparent from other Scriptures that Satan’s purpose was so to corrupt the race that such a thing would become impossible.

This is certainly evident following the promise of a Redeemer. Cain killed righteous Abel, for Abel’s was the chosen bloodline. Pharaoh ordered the babes of Israel killed, lest their Deliverer should come from among them. Herod repeated this crime when he learned that the Christ had been born, slaughtering babies and toddlers in the vicinity of Bethlehem. Repeatedly throughout the history of Israel, Satan has sought to so lead the Jews astray from their relationship with God that they would become an unfit people for His name.

Eve’s relationship with the serpent may have been an ongoing thing for many, many years. We do not know how long she was in the Garden of Eden before the Fall. It may be that she frequently had conversations with that lovely creature. Whatever the case, we do know the end result of that relationship.

The placing of enmity between the serpent and the woman implies an earlier close relationship. He was cursed because he drew away the woman, who trusted him, for she had no reason not to, and caused her to sin against God. But that is not precisely right. He did not cause her to sin; he tempted her to sin.

Eve surely did not realize that it was the devil himself who was speaking to her through the words of the serpent. She must have been shocked to hear the blasphemy that came from him, but the Scripture does not indicate so. Rather, she listened to his seductive promises and reasoned arguments. At that point, she lost her virtue. For by listening to the serpent, Eve confessed that her husband was wrong, and that there might be another truth than the one she had heard.

Surely, in her virtuous condition in the Garden of Eden, Eve’s relationship with the serpent was both proper and good. The creature was likely possessed of beauty and great wisdom. It was not, however, like gossiping with him over the back fence. She had no tales of corruption to share with him. She had no complaints to lodge against her husband. She did not lust after the serpent, for she was virtuous, and had a husband.

God had blessed her, and communed with her during His walks in the garden. If Eve did indeed converse with the serpent before the Fall, she must have extolled the wisdom of God in the glory which He had bestowed upon the serpent. It is probably fair to speculate that the serpent was one of Eve’s favorites in the animal kingdom. How very like the devil to choose a trusted ally as the vehicle of his deception. The uncursed serpent may have walked with her and sang praises to his Creator with her.

At some point, however, innocent Eve’s trust crossed the line separating virtue from fault. Whether it was at the first moment of temptation or some time subsequent to that, the bald fact remains that this wise and virtuous woman, conformed to the will of God in every particular, turned her affections selfward, becoming a foolish woman.

The eating of the forbidden fruit was almost anticlimactic because the first sin was rebellion. Eating the fruit was merely the fruit of the sin that she had committed when she rebelled against God and her husband by deciding to heed the temptations of the serpent. Her virtuous mind certainly must have argued vehemently against the temptation.

The sin was not imputed to her until she actually took the first bite of the fruit. Virtuous Eve must have vacillated for at least a moment. She must have teetered on the brink, hearing the tempting words of her friend, the serpent, as he gave the most compelling of all reasons for her to eat the fruit -- she would become like God, whom she admired so well. It was for this that the serpent was cursed.

Before we turn from Eve’s relationship with the serpent to her relationship with herself, it is interesting to note what Lucifer’s sin was, that he might become Eve’s tempter in the body of the serpent.

Now we begin to see the method in the devil’s madness. We see that what he offered to Eve he first attempted to take for himself. The original sin was not when Adam and Eve ate the fruit in the garden, but when Lucifer decided in his heart that he would supplant God. He said, "I will be like the Most High." And he told Eve, "You will be like God."

It was ever Satan’s goal to place his throne above the stars of God. Thwarted in his own attempt, he has been working through the agency of man ever since. That is what the tower of Babel represented. It was Satan, working through man, attempting to build a tower unto God.

Who do you suppose put it in the heart of man to fly? Or to travel into the heavens? And what should the fact that we are able now to fly into space tell us about where we are on the great span of time? Man is proud of his technological prowess. He attributes it to his indomitable spirit and intelligent will. He dreams of the day when he will conquer and colonize the heavens. Poor Eve did not know the might of her adversary, or the persistence of his sinister will.

With Herself

Let us now turn our gaze toward Eve’s relationship with herself. There are two things, at least, that separate man from the animals. The first is a consciousness of self. The second is a consciousness of God. Vegetation has life, but has no discernible consciousness. The animals have life and consciousness, but they have no conception of either self or God. With a consciousness of self there must also be found a will. With a consciousness of self, there comes immediately to mind the question of the Ages: From whence am I? Only man and the angels have these attributes. And, of course, God Himself.

There are no true atheists. Everyone knows in the core of his being that God is God. There is no one who does not believe in God; there are only rebellious hearts, turned from that which they know to be so because of their own pride and fear of judgment.

Eve must have seen her own beauty. She must have known with full assurance that God had performed a marvelous work in forming her. She must have looked upon Adam’s beauty and seen herself in it. How thrilled her soul must have been to realize that she was made a perfect companion and helper to this man whom she loved so much.

Eve obviously could not feel Adam’s feelings, but she surely felt her own. Her heart must have leapt at his touch. His hand, brushing against hers in passing, must have started her magnets humming. The strings of her soul must have stirred within her when she saw the joy in his eyes as he beheld her beauty.

She must have stared into whatever reflecting pools there were and praised God for her very existence. And more, that she was perfect in every detail and attribute. Eve’s joy must have thrilled her, knowing her compatibility with the responsibilities that God had given her as Adam’s helper. She must have danced to the exquisite music of God’s love for her, and exclaimed blissfully over the glory of the Garden of Eden and the love of a perfect man.

What must Eve’s virtues have been? We have already alluded to her essential chastity. Her elemental kindness would cause her to reach out her hand to any needy, if any needy could be found in the Garden of Eden. We know that such could not be the case, but the heart that could respond properly every time was in her.

Eve was wholly patient. Unflappable? That was Eve. Patience might be considered some sort of sub-virtue to faith, because by faith we understand that God is in control, and we cease to be concerned, recognizing both His sovereignty and His wisdom. That is patience. Patience is the antithesis of anxiety, and gives no heed to time, but relinquishes all to God in complete faith. Such was the bond between Eve and God, such the love, and such the trust, that she could be patient in every circumstance.

Diligence is a virtue that must also have characterized Eve. We cannot know what specific responsibilities Adam may have assigned to Eve, but we may rest in the certainty that she approached each assigned task with a measure of excellence far beyond fallen man’s capacity to do. Indeed, it seems inarguable that Eve’s standard of excellence was perfection. Surely, in a wife’s attendance to her husband, Eve has never been surpassed. Every nuance of his every need was met perfectly in her, even as he also intimately knew and met her needs.

Diligence is that quality of attention and focus that shuts out all else when considering a thing. It is that which allows a person to stand back and survey a situation and meet its every requirement in the smallest detail. Excellence is the product of diligence. There can be no doubt that Eve was excellent in every aspect.

The greatest of the virtues, Love, also was an inherent characteristic of Eve. Love is not something that Eve said or felt; it is an attitude of the heart, made by choice, which was expressed by the things that she did for Adam, for the garden, and for all the creatures therein. It was that attitude of heart in her that was benevolence to all in every way. Eve’s love was wholly selfless. Not once did she consider her own needs above any need outside herself. Until the Fall. The very love of God was perfected in Eve from the moment she was created until she herself corrupted it. A mother’s love is the glory of God shining through the curse.

Faith. The substance of things not seen. The evidence in the heart that God will provide all, that His providence is sufficient. Faith is the absolute assurance that God loves you, personally, so that you can fully place your trust in Him for every one of life’s requirements and pleasures. Faith is the trust that God will keep you, in spite of yourself. Faith is that certain inner knowledge that both your present and your eternity are secure in Him. This was Eve’s proper attitude toward God in the garden. But her faith was not like that of today, for she had physical evidence of all that she believed. She walked with God in the garden; her faith was not faith as ours is, but presence. Her life and her attitudes about life were bound up in the presence of God always.

Righteousness, and Justice. Righteousness was inherent. There was no sense of guilt or condemnation. The human heart was unburdened by a conscience that continually knits a small web of fear in the pit of the stomach. When a heart rebels against the will of God, there is that "certain fearful looking for of judgment," (Heb 10: 27) as the KJV puts it. Conscience is that within each of us which knows our depravities, though our conscious minds attempt to look away. It is that quietly gnawing fear that lurks in the heart that tells everyone who will search it out that he is a sinner. Adam and Eve had not this burden in their lives. How bitter it is today. They simply were righteous. In every particular, their wills meshed perfectly with the will of God.

Because they were righteous, there was no place for the justice of God to come into play, except in the sense of implied justice in His providence. Justice is that attribute of God which demands that unrighteousness be punished. It was not put into operation regarding man before the Fall, but stood as a warning beacon, illuminating the tree of the knowledge of good and evil with the light of God’s Word, so that they were without excuse. As surely as the Fall of Man became an historical fact, that surely did the judgment of God follow. If God did not judge sin, He could not be God. He would not then be just. If He winks at sin, He is a liar. There is no sin ever committed by man or angel which has not or shall not be judged.

The justice of God is not stern and forbidding, as some would teach. For every man can find mercy rather than judgment, though he remains a sinner. Mercy is found in the shedding of substitutionary blood, as in the making of coats of skins for Adam and Eve, as in the sacrifice of animals during the Dispensation of the Law, as in the sacrifice of the Lamb of God at Calvary. Judgment fell on the substitutions rather than upon the sinners. It was so from the Garden of Eden, and it remains so today.

From the coats of skins to the temple sacrifices under the Law of Moses, all the substitutionary shedding of blood on account of sin pointed ahead in time to the Cross, whereon, the full sin debt of the entire race was once for all paid fully.

The justice of God demanded judgment; the mercy of God provided a substitute who would receive the wages of sin on our behalf, so that He might be just, and the Justifier of him who believes in Jesus (Rom 3:26).

Through faith, it is now not our own righteousness that is charged to our accounts, but His. Accepting the sufficiency of His sacrifice to pay for all of our sins, past, present and future, we find that God charges to our accounts His own righteousness, for that is the righteousness required if one is to get to heaven on his own merits. Neither justice nor mercy could come into play until man sinned. Then those virtues, though corrupted by the hearts of men, came into being as responsibilities of the wise and the virtuous.

We have alluded to selflessness above, under the virtue of love. But it deserves a standing of its own among the virtues. One may be selfless without particularly loving, though one cannot properly love without selflessness. Self hates virtue and wisdom and love. It is the antithesis to all of them. Self talks and thinks about self. It is proud, not humble. Humility is a virtue that is often made to stand alone. It is better placed within the virtue of selflessness. Selflessness is the springhead from which flows humility.

Love, wisdom and virtue talk about those to whom they speak. Self seeks its own. Selflessness brings peace and love to others, not only in attitude, but in action. Selfishness is the love of the flesh. Selflessness is the love of God for others. One cannot love God selfishly. While the other virtues speak of character, some in almost a forbidding way at a superficial level, selflessness is that virtue which endears one to another. It is the greatest act of love. Eve in the garden was the very personification of selflessness.

Serenity, Contentment, these two are sisters. A serene mind is one that is not troubled by the cares of this world. It is a mind that is relaxed in the will of God, eager to be who and what God made it. Both serenity and contentment flow from a peaceful heart. Contentment is the satisfaction that one finds in God alone.

The moment Eve ate the fruit in the garden, she realized fully that discontent always springs from fountains of flesh, and flows in rivers of desire. Before the Fall, however, no more serene creature could be found than wonderful Eve. She was a paragon of serenity, moving with a grace beyond our poor eyes to see, contentment flowing from her toward all that she beheld or touched.

Then there is decorum. Do you suppose that God made a fishwife for Adam? Like the Bride of Christ ought to today, Eve conducted herself in the world as the very Ambassador of God in such a manner that she brought credit to Him. Decorum is focused on the power of God, not upon the reasonings of men. It is the light that emanates from the virtuous woman that speaks of confidence, not in herself, but in God.

Finally, we come to wisdom. In the Scriptures, wisdom is always cast in a feminine light. When wisdom speaks in the Book of Proverbs, it is always "she," not "he." And what does that Book say? "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding" (Prov 9:10).

Knowledge is inventory; wisdom is function. Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. Perhaps it is because wisdom and understanding are handmaidens that wisdom is spoken of as a woman, for no heart more surely understands the needs of others than that of a wise woman. No love can more surely comfort, no patience can more faithfully wait, no kindness can more wholeheartedly give, than the heart of a virtuous woman.

If love is the greatest of the virtues, wisdom is by far the most valuable. If all of the virtues were boiled down into a single concoction, the essence of the brew would be wisdom. Eve in the garden and the Bride in the Kingdom -- these are the two virtuous women.

Why would Eve, or the Church for that matter, need to fear such a wonderful and loving God? How can terror be the beginning of anything other than dread? How can fear be the beginning of wisdom? And how can it lead to anything positive? The word that is translated "fear" in that proverb is one of twenty in the Old Testament alone that are so translated.. The Bible uses other words to describe terror, or even the most subtle of fears. The word used in the proverb, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," is never used outside the context of the particular fear of the Lord. It is not about human fear, but relates specifically to the fear of the Lord in its every instance. It is His fear, that he places in people, but it is not terror.

The word that is translated "fear" has a moral application that means "reverence." The fear of the Lord is the growing understanding of His omnipotence, His omniscience -- it is the understanding, in ever greater degree, of the awesome power, majesty, might, mercy, glory, and love of God.

The more we come to understand the attributes of God in our finite minds, the greater He becomes to us. The more we know, the more we realize how little we know. The fear of the Lord is not terror. It is an awesome thing to contemplate the very love of this great God for a sinful soul. It is a sobering thought to consider that His very essence is in every Christian.

And so it was with Eve as it is with us; it is a respect that reaches unto the hoary heights of awe, but it is without terror, for we are secure in Him. Eve’s "fear" of the Lord was far above ours, for she was not a fallen creature before she fell. She communed with God and her fellowship was unbroken by sin. Her assurance and security were unassailed by twinges of conscience or hammers of conviction. With Eve, the fear of the Lord, her reverential awe of His Person, was swathed in His love for her, and hers for Him. This "fear" of the Lord is what causes the angels to break into song when a soul is saved. It is awareness of His glory.

There are many virtues not listed here that characterize the virtuous wife and the wise woman. We shall see more of them as we go through this study, but here we begin to paint a recognizable portrait. We find some glimmer of the wise woman in all of this. We cannot see the reality through fallen eyes, but we can recognize the wonders that will be ours in the Age to come, the Kingdom Age. May it please God, soon.

What caused this virtuous woman to cast aside this Utopia for anything? Some understanding might be found in the writings of the prophet Ezekiel.

God, of course, was not speaking to Eve in these verses. He was speaking to Lucifer, the highest of all the created beings, chief of the Cherubim. The Cherubim are the highest order of angels, and serve before the throne of God continuously, guarding His righteousness, mercy and government. In the Holy of Holies, the Cherubim "overshadowed" the mercy seat, beneath which was the Ark of the Covenant, containing the tables of the law, among other things. It was between these Cherubim that the presence of God dwelt with Israel. In Ezekiel, chapter one, we find these creatures descending before the throne of God. Lucifer was the highest of the highest. In God’s chain of command, Lucifer was angel number one, directly below God Himself.

God’s glory shined through Lucifer. He was covered with precious stones, through which the brightness of God was manifested in multi-hued array. Lucifer, ruler over all that God had created, became caught up in his own beauty and position, and became jealous of God’s sovereignty. He began to consider in his heart that he could manage things quite well without God, and determined that he would supplant God. This is the decision that is detailed in the Isaiah fourteen passage quoted earlier.

Consider for a moment how great Lucifer’s mind must be if he has the ability to manage the created universe. One would think that Lucifer was practically omniscient. Oh, no. How much more exceedingly intelligent and powerful must He be who created this marvelous angel? Still, the devil is no intellectual lightweight.

Although God was speaking to Lucifer, many of the same things might have been said of Eve. Certainly it could be said that she was perfect in the day that God formed her. There can be little doubt that, in the Garden of Eden, she was a wise woman. For how long that may have been so, we cannot say today. She did dwell in God’s garden, as Lucifer apparently did before her (see Ezek 28:13). There can be no doubt that Eve was perfect in her ways from the day that she was created until iniquity was found in her. There are at least these parallels between the fall of Lucifer and the fall of Eve.

It is hard to understand what Eve’s conception of herself must have been in her innocence. We can only deduce what we may, and speculate as to the rest. So little is told us of that state that, if we wish to understand, we must turn to the faulty realm of spiritual congruity. That is, many principles that apply to us today would have applied then. The marital relationship, for example, was according to a formula that is often repeated in the Scriptures, both in the garden and after the Fall. There must have been many physical differences that have not occurred to us to consider. What colors or sounds could the uncursed eye and ear see and hear? Was there the changing of the seasons? Were the natural laws governing their bodies the same as we have today? Or were their bodies like that of the resurrected Christ, that could pass through walls and lift itself from the earth?

It seems probable that Eve did not focus much on herself. More likely, her mind was turned mostly to thoughts of God and her husband. But when she spoke with the serpent, or when Adam spoke to her of her beauty, she must have had a real awareness of her splendor. She would not have seen herself in the giddy or vain way that some men and women today seem to view themselves. To her, beauty was everywhere; she probably could not have conceived of ugliness. If she saw it anywhere, she probably did not recognize it as such. It seems most unlikely, however, that there was anything as incongruous as ugliness in the garden anywhere.

Her chaste heart could not have been a surprising thing to her, for it was as natural to her as her beauty. The same must also be true of her wisdom. She could not have been surprised, but she must have been moved. Not surprised, but in awe of the handiwork of God. She must have seen herself in her proper light as a true child of God. When Eve stared into whatever might have reflected her beauty, she must have known that she was exquisite, and not have become vain. She saw her beauty and virtue reflected in her husband’s eyes, and she must have simply been grateful to be who she was and where she was.

Life in the Garden

-- An Amalgam of Thoughts

We still have not nailed down how Eve, who had it all, could be enticed to sin. Why she would throw it all away to satisfy a passing curiosity. It was no passing curiosity. It was no light moment. Presented with a serious opportunity (or so she saw it), Eve made a conscious decision to attempt to overthrow this God who had so richly blessed her. The partaking of that fruit was her attempt to finally understand God fully, rendering Him vulnerable. Like Lucifer, Eve reflected upon her subordinate position, and became dissatisfied.

While the scene as depicted in the third chapter of Genesis appears to be a single conversation, it may well have unfolded over the course of many conversations, with the salient features of each presented in their proper order, though presented as one talk. Indeed, the Bible itself is a progressive revelation. It is possible that the serpent coaxed Eve over a long period of time, finally persuading her that if she only partook of the fruit, she would become like God.

The devil surely cared nothing at all for Eve, but was intent upon using her to accomplish his earlier stated goal. No doubt, as his own vanity was appealed to, so he also appealed to hers. She must have seriously believed that she had a real chance of success in that venture, else she would never take such a risk. She was, after all, wise.

How, one might ask, was she allowed to have such lengthy and in-depth discussion with the serpent about the overthrow of God without bringing His wrath down upon herself? There was no prohibition against discussing the overthrow of God. The only prohibition was against eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Wisdom should have prevailed. Eve should not have been deceived. So badly was she deceived that she believed that she, who had created nothing, could become like Him who had created her. So subtly did the serpent do its work that Eve lost all of her perspective, becoming more and more enamored of herself, less and less respectful toward God.

She must surely have mentioned to Adam the possibilities that the serpent had laid out before her. There can be little doubt that Adam was wholly confident his wife would never attempt such folly. He must, however, have been acutely aware that she was tempted. Why did he not confront the serpent Himself? Why not banish him? Because Adam had no concept of evil. He might have understood that Eve was hearing something that he had not heard, and which he did not understand, but he could not have considered it an evil thing. Knowledge is inventory, and Adam’s inventory of the knowledge of evil -- those shelves were bare.

One wonders if perhaps Adam did not engage Eve in long discussions of these issues as they strolled the fragrant pathways of the Garden of Eden. She must have looked to him and seen the great decorum of the man of God. She must have understood the depth of his wisdom. His manly beauty and physical strength must have contrasted sublimely with the tenderness of his love. His devotion to her and to God would certainly have been apparent in his attempt to understand the ramifications of what she told him.

In the very heart of his heart, he knew, for God had expressed Himself clearly and succinctly. Adam must have puzzled over the inconsistencies of the two positions, not understanding that one was evil. He did not know evil, but he did know that the fruit Eve was telling him about was prohibited on the pain of death. Adam likely had no real concept of the death of which God spoke. Death was as unreal to him as evil, for he was not yet corrupt. Nor had anything yet died.

Eve, yet unfallen, must have watched her husband’s thoughtful ruminations, not knowing herself how both he and the serpent could be right. In her own considerations she must have been torn between loyalty to her husband and the apparent soundness of the serpent’s reasonings. As wise as Eve was, it is almost inconceivable that she would act rashly. Her relationship with herself would have prevented that possibility. It was almost a "Catch-22" situation. Eve was subject to her husband, had no concept of evil, and was tempted by a friend whose logic seemed greater than Adam’s. When she finally leaned too far toward the serpent’s deception, she fell. Then her relationships with herself, with the serpent, with God, and with her husband were all irrevocably changed.

Chapter Two

A Word on Method

After the Fall

The Heart of Adam

The Heart of Eve

A Word on Method

The notion that the serpent, who had never before spoken, walked up to Eve and said, "Here, eat this and you’ll be like God," and Eve said, "Oh, Ok," does not seem as valid as this more natural structuring. Eve’s inherent virtues would argue against so rash a decision of such great importance. The telescoping of time in this fashion is not unknown in the Bible. It is clear that the events occurred in precisely the order recorded, and precisely as recorded, but there is no valid argument against there being many passages between, whose content we need not know, just as there are often many generations between the "begats" of the Bible. A literal interpretation of the Scriptures does not suffer from this assumption.

Obviously, much of what we have considered thus far is the sheerest of fancies, for no record is given of Adam’s or Eve’s thoughts or feelings on any subject, before the Fall or afterwards. Much is speculative, not a derivation of the human condition, but an extrapolation from it.

Those virtues that we admire, and can only partly practice in this Age, must have been complete in Adam and Eve before the Fall. It seems reasonable to assume that the differences between virtue then and now would be in the consistency, quality, and degree of each, with Eden getting higher marks than the late twentieth century. There are some virtues today that would not have been necessary in the garden. There would have been no use found for mercy, for example. Before the Fall, there was no place where compassion could come into play. Nevertheless, the hearts of Adam and Eve were surely fully prepared to exercise those virtues, had they become necessary.

In this chapter and those which follow, we shall examine Adam and Eve after the Fall, and then look at some Old Testament characters and situations. We shall see that vestiges of the characters of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden remain through the generations. We shall see examples of the virtuous wife, the wise woman, the foolish woman and the harlot. And we shall see that both men and women have each of these characteristics.

The method we used in the narrative of the creation and fall of Adam and Eve is that which we shall employ in this second chapter. We shall attempt to apply whatever understanding the Lord may give of the human condition to the characters and events of the Old Testament. While historical settings change over the millennia, we find that the human heart has not changed one whit.

The human condition has been the same since the Fall. We have dressed it in nicer clothes, and given it all of the modern conveniences. We have educated it with the finest writings of philosophers, scientists and theologians. Mankind today enjoys better health. But the heart of man has not changed. It remains rebellious, corrupt, dying.

We enjoy standards of living which, by comparison with the lives of Old Testament times, are simply dazzling. Human engineering has produced systems of communication that make possible such rapid advances in technologies that our modern wonders would undoubtedly have appeared miraculous only a couple of hundred years ago. The worldwide web was not conceived of until a few years ago Two or three thousand years ago, men would not have conceived of heaven itself with the marvels and conveniences we so take for granted today. And what marvels there shall be in heaven!

But that which drives us, that which controls our emotional and psychological reactions to the various stimuli of social interaction, the heart, has not changed. The human condition remains essentially unchanged since the Age of Grace began. For unbelievers, even in this remarkable age, it has not changed since Adam and Eve cast their last mournful look back at the Garden of Eden. Since the Fall, the heart of man has not become any better than it was at that moment. Since the Cross, the Holy Spirit has been indwelling believers, making possible, not a reformation of, but a renewal of the heart. Man is still sinful, but virtue becomes a muted possibility again, though not to the degree that it was natural in the garden, or will be again amongst the saints in the Kingdom.

After the Fall

From the glorious liberty of the children of God, Adam and Eve descended into the depths of darkness and depravity, slaves to sinful natures they could neither reform nor escape from. As with the turning of a switch, they passed from understanding to ignorance, from virtuous to wholly corrupt. Their harmony with the will of God was turned into selfish rebellion at every point. Even with the garments of skin that God had given them, their faith had to be in His mercy, not in their own acts of righteousness, for they had no righteousness of their own. By their deeds and by the attitudes of their hearts, they showed themselves to be sinners, undeserving of the mercy they received. A tree is known by its fruit.

God did not have to provide a substitutionary sacrifice. There needed be no vicarious payment for the sins of Adam and Eve. For God had fairly and clearly warned them. But for the grace of God, Christ would not have died, and men and women could not be saved.

Oh, how Adam and Eve would gladly have stayed in the Garden of Eden! There were safety and tranquillity to be found there. These they had lost in the Fall. Whereas, in the garden, God had created the animal kingdom and paraded them past Adam to see if a suitable helper could be found for him, and the animals were all intimate friends of man, now there was born an antipathy between man and the animal kingdom.

Beasts that once communed with their human friends now tried to eat them. Animals that once trusted them were now afraid of them. Perhaps they could sense the evil heart of man; perhaps they knew somehow the sin that was in man, and understood that man no longer could be trusted.

Fangs were added. Stings and poisons, treachery and cunning -- these separated Adam and Eve from the sheer bliss of the garden. Bitter winters and harsh seasons added travail upon travail. Sickness, degenerative diseases, toils, fears, aging, and the utter futility of life were heaped upon the man and woman whom God had cursed.

Not only were animals made to be frightened of man, but there was a natural animosity between species after the Fall. Carnivores came onto the scene. Adam and Eve must have been shocked to see their friend the lion kill and eat the graceful antelope. What a statement it must have made in their hearts when they saw the graceful hawk come swooping down out of the heavens, from whence had come God for His walks in the garden, to snatch the baby rabbit from its very mother.

How fearfully they must have quaked to see and hear a roaring wall of flame approaching them across the vast plains, not knowing if the mighty River Euphrates could hold back its searching and consuming fingers from destroying even them. How horrifying to hear the terrible screams of animals trapped in the approaching flames.

Everywhere they turned, there was a surprise waiting for them. And the surprises were seldom pleasant. Sand spurs ripping shoeless feet, thorns tearing tender flesh as they ran in panic from the carnivores. How they must have scurried from shelter to shelter in their hunger and in their desperate attempt to flee this hostile and dangerous world into which they had consigned themselves with their rebellion.

How very desperately afraid both Adam and Eve must have been, never knowing if the worst of the curse had yet been revealed to them. What despair must have filled their souls as they remembered the many harmonies of the Garden of Eden. How sad their souls must have been to have such intimate fellowship with God broken so completely.

The Heart of Adam

It is this context in which we begin to examine the post-fall hearts of Adam and Eve. We are told so very little of this period of human history. Yet, it was the hearts that were in Adam and Eve immediately after the Fall that are in us today. The natural mind, the fleshly mind, has occupied mankind throughout the pages of the Old Testament, and will do so until the end of the Millennial Kingdom.

The unregenerate heart of man today is that same heart with which Adam and Eve left the friendly confines of the Garden of Eden. It is that same heart that makes this world of individual souls what it has become today. While the circumstances of our lives differ immensely from those of Adam and Eve in their primitive world, our emotions and fears are driven by the same factors. Thus, when we examine the heart of Adam after the Fall, we also examine Old Testament Man and modern, unsaved man.

Let us understand first the heart of Adam in the garden, to see from whence the fallen heart degenerated. Men tend to think of Eve as virtuous, while Adam was a "man." What a strange notion. He was every bit as virtuous as Eve.

In our competitive world, we see aggressiveness and cold, calculating hearts as assets. No doubt, Adam was strong and beautifully created, but he was gentle of disposition, honorable of character, and possessed of every virtue that so graced Eve before the Fall. He was at least as wise as her, and was certainly a man of great decorum. Adam would have engaged in no shady business deals, would not have compromised the truth in order to rationalize a situation to his advantage, would not have spawned division between two men in order to gain advantage with both.

Adam’s integrity in the garden was matched by his loving faithfulness to God. He did not need to show himself that he was a man; he simply was a man. He was a virtuous man. All of the great virtues that were evident in Eve were also well manifested in Adam. He was not a beer drinking macho sort at all, but a Godly man of great intelligence and wisdom who conducted himself at all times in a dignified yet very humble manner. He knew the God whom he served, and walked with Him in the Garden of Eden. We lose sight of the grandeur and the might and glory and wisdom of God when we think in our hearts, "Oh, so Adam walked with God. . ." We lose sight of the infinite greatness of God, and the purity of His love for us. We lose sight of the Person of God when we think that way. We should think, "Adam walked with GOD!"

Now, however, outside the garden, terrors on every side, ignorant of the dangers that would rise up to devour him, Adam must have taken Eve and begun immediately to seek protective shelter.

His heart must have been near panic when God turned away and left them standing there, with cherubim guarding the entrance to the Garden of Eden. Adam could not go in there again, and he knew it. God could not let them return to the garden because in it grew the Tree of Life. Had they eaten of it in their fallen condition, they would have lived perpetually in sin. The wages of sin is death. Adam must have groaned inwardly as God disappeared from view. Then the fears from behind his back must have begun to creep nearer to his heart.

It was the cool of the day when God confronted him in the garden. Perhaps it was now turning dark. Adam knew nothing of the terrain, had acquired no survival instincts, did not know which creatures would harm him, which plants might not. Great clouds of bloodthirsty mosquitoes might have arisen around them as the night mists came up.

Adam and Eve, now cruelly cursed, might have spent that first night under the overhanging branches of some primordial tree. They may have seen the rising moon and hurled their despair and their terrors in piercing howls to the shining eyes that watched them. Those poor, misshapen, frightened creatures, huddled against the darkness and the dangers, must have cringed at the thoughts of what the morning might bring.

After a few days, a few weeks, a few months, the fears began to grow into perspective. Adam and Eve must have found themselves a cave in the hills somewhere. What? Did you think that they maybe went down to West Palm and bought a condo? Man did not evolve from apes; he was cursed. So far above the apes, and yet, so very far to go. No missing link will be found. How great was the fall of man? He fell from immortal perfection to cave man.

Adam’s heart must have changed toward Eve in the instant he ate the fruit. Now, weeks later, he must be terribly resentful toward her. She could not leave him, however, for she was yet subject to him. In her heart, she knew that she could not leave him and survive. When she got in his way, he likely shoved her roughly aside. In his heart, he must have seen her as the cause for his desperate plight. It is likely that he sent her out daily in search of berries and fruits and roots. If she returned with the wrong food, or with poisonous plants, he might have cuffed her angrily.

Neither could he leave her, for he was incomplete without her. If the human race was to survive, Adam and Eve must make their cursed bodies fruitful. What a change must have come over them both, having fallen from the tender love of the Garden of Eden to the violent rapes of the caves. Deep inside both of them lay the germ of the love they had shared, but circumstance and danger kept those flames from growing. What is more, sin kept that spark from erupting gloriously into the pure and undefiled love they had known.

God surely watched over them in His providence. He would not allow them to be killed before they spawned the generations that were destined to spring from Adam’s loins. Adam, however, must have lived in constant fear of death. He knew that the penalty for eating the fruit was death. His heart must have tied itself in knots whenever he came across the half eaten carcass of some creature that had not been as fortunate as him the night before. He must have stared long at the glazed eyes, pondering the darkness behind them. Cold fingers of fear must have wrapped themselves around Adam’s heart, squeezing the hope from it.

Adam made his sacrifices, not out of love for God, but out of abject fear of the consequences of not doing so. He had begun to grasp the severity of the consequences of sin. It would be generations before men would again call upon the name of the Lord. Though Adam and Eve now feared God, and though their hearts were rebellious and angry, they respected the truth of His words. They were aware of their own sinfulness, and knew their need for redemption, and so they followed the ritual of blood sacrifice that God had shown them.

That is the springhead in us from which trickles the desire to wear the furs, wool and hides of animals. Those who would deprive mankind of that experience today deny themselves as well of the essential blessing of that elemental desire, for it comes to us from God.

Whereas, under the Law of Moses, the people who made the sacrifices ate the flesh of the substitutionary animals, in Adam’s day, meat had not yet been added to the diet of man. Adam and Eve did not eat their sacrifices; they wore them. Those coats of skins that primitive man wore were foreshadowings of the robes of righteousness the saints shall wear in heaven (see Rev 19:8), though our robes then will be, not of skin, but of fine linen, for the Sacrifice that the killing of the animals foreshadowed was fulfilled at Calvary. We no longer have any need for coats of skins in terms of redemption, but the essential desire for them springs from their original promise of redemption through the shedding of blood. God does nothing without design or purpose. Outside of sin, we have no instincts or urges that are contrary to His will.

Adam and Eve did not commune with God as they once had. They feared Him, but they respected Him. They recognized their sinfulness, and they made the requisite offerings. It is a certainty that they explained to their children the necessity of obeying this God against whom they had sinned and brought this tragedy upon themselves.

We tend to think of Adam and Eve after the Fall in rather civilized terms. Perhaps it is because they and their descendants had names, and those names were recorded in the Bible. But it was not Adam who recorded those names. It was Moses, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, millennia later.

Adam and Eve, after the Fall, were surely very primitive people. Early man. The earliest. Lucy, if she really was a woman, was probably much later than Adam and Eve. There is really nothing that sensational or shocking about the concept of Adam and Eve suffering the physical degeneration of the curse that sin brought, for they died.

Before the Fall, he and Eve were both innocent and perfect. Afterwards, ah, afterwards. Adam went from a physique that was created for the Garden of Eden to one that was suited for heavy toil and harsh conditions. His mind, and his heart, went from wise to foolish. It went from virtuous to adulterous. He loved Eve more than God. It went from incorrupt to corrupt. It went from everything to nothing. It went from knowledge of the world he was made for to ignorance of the dangerous world into which he had thrust himself.

Until after Cain had killed Abel, until after the birth of Seth, and after Seth begot Enosh — not until then did men begin again to call upon the name of the Lord. "And as for Seth, to him also a son was born; and he named him Enosh. Then men began to call on the name of the LORD." (Gen 4:26).

We know that Adam lived a hundred and thirty years before he begot Seth. But his aging may not have begun until after the Fall, because he was timeless in the garden. He was an eternal creature. Though time could be measured then, for the lights had been placed in the heavens for that purpose, it was surely without relevance to Adam and Eve until the Fall.

Seth lived one hundred and five years and begot Enosh. If the twenty-sixth verse of chapter four were not in the Bible, then we might find some argument for Adam and Eve being God-fearing and upright after the Fall. But it is there, and we can extrapolate much information from it with due consideration. We already have. Adam and Eve did not call upon the name of the Lord.

If Adam and Eve were not upright before God after the Fall, what were they? The pattern was established when God questioned them. They would blame anyone or anything but themselves. They would even blame one another. They were liars. They deceived