This post is from Moms Take Ten episode 80, “Moms in the Bible–Eve, part 2”, which you can listen to wherever you listen to podcasts or at https://sites.libsyn.com/403493/moms-in-the-bible-eve-part-2
I have been thinking a lot about the ways that society and even the church discuss woman—why she was made, what her purpose is, and what the expectations are of her. The longer that I have been on social media, the greater window I have had into different viewpoints. It is important, as Christians, to root ourselves in what the Bible says. Eve’s story, the first woman in the Bible, speaks to these questions.
The creation of Adam and Eve was different than any other part of God’s creation, even from each other. In Genesis 1:26, we find God making the decision to create human beings. He said, “Let us make manin our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Verse 27 adds,
“So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.”
The God of the universe decided to make women. We were an intentional part of his creation. Why?
Many would say that it is because Adam needed her, since her creation follows God declaring that man should not be alone. Some have said that it is so she could have babies to populate the earth. Some would say that God himself needed company which is why he made people in general.
The idea of God needing man, or of woman being solely for man or having children, is refuted, I believe throughout the scriptures, but I want to read from one passage. Acts 17:24-27 says, “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,”
We learn a couple of things in this passage. God is self-sustained and self-sufficient. He does not need anything from us. We were not created because he was incomplete.
And yet, God does desire a relationship with us. The passage says that he made all so that we would seek him.
Woman was created for relationship with God first and foremost. Yes, we get to be in relationship with man. Yes, God designed marriage with men and women in mind, but also for so much more than that.
Paul, in Ephesians 5, says, “’Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh,’ This mystery is profound and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”
Quoting from Genesis 2, Paul takes the first marriage and ties it to a far bigger reality. Mama, what he is saying is, “You thought Eve was made just so Adam could have a wife. Oh no, she was made for God just as you were made for God. She was made so that you would have a living picture of how connected Christ is with the church and how much he loves the church.”
Here’s what this means for us: No matter our relationship status we can still live out who we were created to be because we can always seek God and grow in intimacy with him. We are not less of a woman if we are not married or if we cannot have children. We do not become less of a woman if our marriage ends or our child passes away. We are who we were created to be when we are pursuing the Lord and growing in relationship with him.
Eve experienced God in an incredibly unique way. She knew the sound of his footsteps as he walked in the garden. She heard his voice and conversed with him daily. She knew what it was to depend fully and freely on him, and to find abundant provision and safety in the world he made for her and Adam.
It is no wonder that the serpent bent on destroying God’s world and plan, and usurping the throne, would target Adam and Eve’s relationship with God. He raised doubts about God’s goodness. He invited her to question whether God was withholding something wonderful from her. He offered her the chance to be as wise and knowledgeable as God himself, meaning she wouldn’t need to be as dependent on God as she had been.
We know the story. We know that the doubts won out, and the temptation was too great to bear. We know that she and Adam ate and received the consequences of their actions. Still, God did not abandon the relationship. He did not leave Adam and Eve in their sin. Even as he disciplined, God spoke hope. As God cursed the serpent, Eve heard the promise of vengeance for what he had done to her. She heard the promise of a savior that would redeem what had been broken. God clothed her and Adam, covering their shame. He sent them out of the garden, imparting a loving, gracious consequence—that they would not be trapped living in a life of sin forever. God continued to help her after the garden as she became a mother and navigated the very difficult road that her children paved.
We know, too, that the promised savior has come. Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins, redeeming us from our sin and paving the way for us to have right relationship with God the Father once more. Eve’s story is the opposite of the story God is writing in our lives. Where she went from sinless to sinful, God is drawing us away from sin to a sinless life with him through Jesus Christ. God is working to reverse the effects of Eve’s sin on all of us and to bring us back to the place of true joy, true freedom, and true relationship.
This is the story of the Bible. The story of redemption. The story of God at work from the beginning of time to bring us into relationship with him for his glory and our good. The scriptures abound with descriptions of what relationship with him can be like.
1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Zephaniah speaks of God’s immense love and delight for us when he says,
“The Lord your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing.”
And Paul assures us in Romans, that because of the cleansing, restoring power of Jesus Christ, nothing can take God’s love away from us. “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom. 8:38-39) Eve’s sin didn’t remove God’s love from her. Our sin will not remove God’s love from us. He is the same God now as he was then and he is love.
In the stories of the moms in the Bible that we will study this year, we will see ways that God saw them and called them, ways that he grew them through relationship with him. We will also see how he uses our other relationships, particularly those with our husbands or children if we have them, to teach us even more about himself.
Lyssa Stoyko 