Through His Eyes E-Book

Jerram Barrs

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009

Beschreibung

Eve, Sarah, Deborah, Mary, the woman at the well… women have played pivotal roles in redemptive history. Their case studies reveal God's perspective on women, then and now. Few biblical teachings have been as misunderstood and muddled by those inside and outside the church as its instruction concerning women. Through His Eyes answers the question "What does God think about women, and how does he treat them?" by walking readers through several biblical case studies. Through His Eyes begins with Eve and a series of Old Testament examples that demonstrate the respect God gives to women and their significant place in salvation history. In the New Testament we see how God blessed Mary by calling her to be the mother of our Savior and how beautifully Jesus treated women. Here is a happy exposition of the dignity and glory the Lord showers on women. The author encourages women to delight in their creation and calling, and he challenges men to honor women as does the Lord himself.

Leseprobe

THROUGHHIS EYES

GOD’S PERSPECTIVE ON WOMEN IN THE BIBLE

JERRAM BARRS

CROSSWAY BOOKSWHEATON, ILLINOIS

Through His Eyes

Copyright © 2009 by Jerram Barrs

Published by Crossway Booksa publishing ministry of Good News Publishers1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law.

Cover design: Amy Bristow

Cover photo: The Bridgeman Library

First printing, 2009

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version®. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations indicated as from NIV are taken from The Holy Bible: New International Version®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. The “NIV” and “New International Version” trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by International Bible Society. Use of either trademark requires the permission of International Bible Society.

Scripture quotations indicated as from KJV are taken from The Holy Bible: King James Version.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

ISBN PDF: 978-1-4335-0567-6

ISBN Mobipocket: 978-1-4335-0568-3

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Barrs, Jerram. Through His eyes : God’s perspective on women in the Bible / Jerram Barrs. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4335-0224-8 (tpb) 1.Women—Biblical teaching. 2. Women in the Bible. I. Title. BS680.W7B36 2009 220.9’2082—dc22

2008037139

LB                18     17     16      15     14     13     12     11     10     09 15     14    13     12     11     10     9     8    7    6    5    4    3     2     1

To Vicki,

a woman of noble character who has been my partner in marriage for forty-one years. You have been an excellent wife,far more precious than jewels to me, my lover, my best friend, an outstanding mother and grandmother, daughter, sister and comforter to many. “Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.” Thank you, Lord.

CONTENTS

Introduction

1 THE FIRST FACE OF EVE: Eve at Creation

GENESIS 1:27–28; 2:15–25

2 THE SECOND FACE OF EVE: Eve at and after the Fall

GENESIS 3:1–24

3 THE THIRD FACE OF EVE: Eve, the Bearer of the Promise of Redemption

GENESIS 3:15

4 SARAH: The Mother of All Who Believe

GENESIS 11:27–23:20

5 TAMAR: A Righteous Woman

GENESIS 38

6 RAHAB: Deliverer of the Spies

JOSHUA 2:1–24; 6:15–25

7 DEBORAH: Courage under Fire

JUDGES 4–5

8 NAOMI AND RUTH: A Picture of Godliness

RUTH 1

9 NAOMI AND RUTH: A Portrait of Redemption

RUTH 2–4

10 HANNAH: A Woman of Prayer

1 SAMUEL 1:1–2:11, 18–21

11 ABIGAIL: A Woman of Noble Character

1 SAMUEL 25:1–42

12 TAMAR: A Woman of Tragedy

2 SAMUEL 13:1–39

13 TAMAR’S QUESTION: A Meditation on Tragedy

2 CORINTHIANS 1:3-5

14 ESTHER: Such a Time as This

ESTHER 1–10

15 THE WOMAN OF NOBLE CHARACTER

PROVERBS 31:10–31

16 MARY: The Handmaid of the Lord

LUKE 1:26–56; 2:1–7; MATTHEW 1:18–25

17 MARY: Queen of Heaven or the Mother of Jesus?

LUKE 2:1–52; MATTHEW 1:18–2:23

18 THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA: Beloved Outcast

JOHN 4:4–42

19 MARTHA AND MARY: Sisters Who Love Jesus

LUKE 10:38–42

20 YOUR DAUGHTERS WILL PROPHESY

ACTS 2:1–18; 21:7–9

21 THE BRIDE OF CHRIST

EPHESIANS 5:21–33; REVELATION 19:4–9; 21:1–5

APPENDIX EVE, THE FIRST WOMAN: A Wedding Sermon for Eve and Adam after the Promise of Redemption

NOTES

INTRODUCTION

I have been deeply troubled in our churches by the way much teaching on women begins with the restrictive passages in 1 Corinthians 11 and 14 and 1 Timothy 2 and often ends there. It is not that those passages are insignificant, but I have been eager to ask a more foundational question: How does the Lord see women? I felt the best way to answer this question was to look at particular women whose stories are told in the Scriptures and to reflect on what God has to say. What does God think about women, and how does he treat them? My passionate desire and prayer is that the book will be an encouragement to women and a challenge to men to treat women with the same honor that the Lord himself shows. I originally gave these studies to about two hundred women in the setting of a women’s ministry at a local church. They were greatly encouraged by the studies, and it was these women who urged me to write this book.

One particular example that stands out in my memory was that the study of the rape of Tamar by her half-brother Amnon encouraged women to be able to talk for the first time in their lives about sexual abuse they had endured, a couple of them fifty or sixty years before. Many other personal responses were greatly encouraging on a whole range of issues—singleness, motherhood, marriage, work, career, etc. Overall I think many of the women felt it was the first time in their lives that they had heard from Scripture about women being treated with such dignity and graciousness by the Lord. Since then I taught a class covering this material at Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, and it was well received by both female and male students. This past year I preached on the rape of Tamar at the Seminary as part of a conference on sexual abuse. Again the reception and consequences were very moving to me. I have preached sermons from some of these chapters in many different kinds of churches (Presbyterian, Baptist, Pentecostal, black, white, Korean, Chinese) and on every occasion have been overwhelmed by the response. One time in a setting that was very hierarchical the women stood up and cheered for several minutes in response to what I said about Jesus’ treatment of women and what it ought to mean for men (this astonished the men, as you might imagine).

This book begins at the beginning with the story of Eve and, in three chapters, considers her at creation, at the Fall, and as the bearer of the promise of redemption. Throughout the book I will put the woman’s name first (Eve and Adam or Sarah and Abraham) simply because this is a book about women through God’s eyes. We turn next to look at the lives of several very different women: Sarah, the mother of all God’s people, both Jews and Gentiles; Tamar, a woman of faith who disguised herself as a prostitute to ensure that God’s calling of her was fulfilled; Rahab, the prostitute in Jericho who came to faith in the God of Israel and who at great danger to herself sheltered the Israeli spies; Deborah, a chief justice, military leader, and prophet; Ruth, an alien from Moab, the hated enemy of Israel, who joined herself to God’s people and became an ancestor of Israel’s greatest king, David; Hannah, a troubled woman whose prayer for a child was marvelously answered by God; Abigail, a wise and beautiful woman who had to act quickly to overcome the awful consequences of her husband’s foolish behavior; Tamar, a desolate woman who was raped by her own half-brother and whose life was ruined but who will shine with honor in the kingdom of God;

Esther, a courageous Jewish girl who became a member of a despot’s harem. We also look at the portrait in Proverbs 31 of a woman of strength and see in her some of the characteristics that God values in his people. Turning to the New Testament we study the life of Mary in some depth, asking the question: What should it mean for us that all generations are to call her “blessed”? We also look at several examples from the Gospel records of how Jesus relates to women. Then we turn to the Day of Pentecost and the fulfillment of the prophet’s words, “Your daughters shall prophesy” and consider what this should mean today for all God’s people. Finally we reflect on the image by which God chooses to describe his church—the bride of Christ—and rejoice in the honor that God shows to all women with this title.

This book is a happy exposition of the dignity and glory that the Lord showers on women. Its aim is to encourage women to delight in their creation, redemption, and calling and to challenge men to honor women as does the Lord himself. My hope is that many men, especially pastors and teachers, will read this book and be challenged by it, in addition to the book giving great encouragement to women. My special prayer is that younger women who are becoming disenchanted with the church and with the Christian faith will be sufficiently encouraged by the book to embrace their faith much more wholeheartedly. I long for men to treat their wives, and women in general, better.

Many women experience discrimination and poor treatment in their churches and in their homes. In conservative circles this is sometimes defended and justified by specious appeals to Scripture. I am thoroughly conservative in my approach to Scripture, but I passionately believe that Scripture teaches our equality and mutual dependence. Some will be troubled that I do not devote a chapter to the so-called “restrictive passages” (1 Corinthians 11 and 14 and 1 Timothy 2) and to the issue of who should be pastors and elders with teaching and ruling authority in the churches. I have taught on this subject in many settings, and if anyone wishes to know my views on this, they can find them in a series of lectures on “Women in Church” and “Women in Society” that are available on Covenant Seminary’s website (www.covenantseminary.edu). However, my aim in this book was not to address that issue, a subject on which many volumes have been written, but to look at the far more extensive material in Scripture about God’s love and respect for women, material that is often neglected. My prayer is that the Lord will use this book to be an encouragement to both women and men, for we all need to see women through God’s eyes.

1: THE FIRST FACE OF EVE:

Eve at Creation

To commence these reflections on women of God, we have to go back to the very beginning, to the origins of the human race. Eve is the name that the first man, Adam, gives the first woman after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. God drives the two of them from the Garden after they have rebelled against him. But to turn to the shame of their disobedience takes us too far ahead, for the name of the first woman has nothing to do with her temptation or with her and Adam’s fall into evil.

We might ask, what’s in a name? For those who live in a western society, names do not usually have particular significance, beyond being the parents’ choice and sometimes being a name carried down through the generations. But in many cultures around the world names commonly have particular meanings—they tell others something about the specific person who carries the name. This was also true for the cultures of the peoples of the Old Testament. Eve’s name means “the mother of all living,” and it tells us something about her nature; it captures something of who she is as God created her to be. Revealing a person’s nature is what naming is all about in God’s Word. Naming also represents something of the significance of the one giving the name.

Eve, then, is the mother, the ancestress, of every human being who has ever lived, apart, of course, from Adam, the first man. We might respond with wonder as to how one woman and one man could have had such a genetic richness that all the diverse traits found across the world could have come from this original pair. But many secular thinkers, people who believe in the evolution of our species, rather than in the creation of humans by God, recognize that we are all descended from one human source. We do not know the exact date of our first mother’s existence but God has told us that there was indeed one mother of us all.1

For our reflections on the first woman, we need to consider the three faces of Eve—Eve at creation, Eve as rebel against her Creator, and Eve as the recipient of God’s promise of redemption. In each of these portraits we learn something about ourselves, for each one of us, female and male, can trace Eve’s features in our own lives, so many thousands of years after her life here on earth was finished.

EVE AT CREATION

What do we learn from Genesis 1–2 about Eve as she came from the hand of God?

Eve and Adam are described as “living creatures” (2:7) or “living beings” (NIV) just like all the other “living creatures” (1:20, 24). We are indeed “from the earth,” “natural” (1 Corinthians 15:45–49). We, as humans, are creatures with the same physical nature as the other creatures made by God that are all around us. Some may complain, “Surely I am not made of the same basic materials as a monkey, a mouse, or a mosquito!” However, we most certainly are made of the same stuff as monkeys, mice, and mosquitoes, and we should not regard this as a problem, for this is indeed what God made us to be. We bear the likeness of the first woman and the first man taken by God from the earth, and we bear the likeness of all the other creatures of this earth. We are more than animals, but there indeed is a sense in which we bear the same physical nature.

It is because of this fundamental physical similarity that we are able to live on this earth, breathe the air of our atmosphere, and eat what this earth produces. We share a kinship as physical creatures with the other creatures of earth, sea, and sky, and we ought to recognize this kinship (think of Francis of Assisi with his profound understanding of this when he called the animals and the birds of the air his “brothers and sisters”).

This kinship is important when we think of our stewardship of the environment, for we are those who are given authority over this earth and over all of its creatures—we are to see all other creatures as living members of God’s good creation just like ourselves. Scripture also acknowledges this kinship when all creation, including humans, is called on to offer praise to the Creator. See, for example, Psalm 148, which urges angels, sun and moon and stars, sea creatures and oceans, lightning and hail, snow and clouds, mountains and hills, fruit trees and cedars, wild animals and cattle, small creatures and flying birds, rulers and nations, young men and maidens, old people and children—all the creatures of this universe—to praise the Lord.

So the biblical text draws attention to our similarity to the rest of God’s creatures as well as to our uniqueness. Francis Schaeffer used to represent the dual reality of our nature in this way:

FIG. 1-1: MAN’S TWO NATURES

infinite

personal God

finite

personal humans made in God’s image

animals

animals

plants

plants

structures physical structures

structures physical structures

Eve and Adam were like but also different from all other living creatures; of them alone is it said that they are made in the image and likeness of God. Eve, our mother, and Adam, our father, bear the glory of being the crown of creation, the ones who are like their Creator and not merely like their fellow creatures. What does this mean?

The basic meaning of the two parallel expressions image and likeness is that there is a resemblance of being, a fundamental similarity, between the Creator and his human creatures, a resemblance that is not true of anything else in this creation. Eve and Adam are made as finite and visible/physical copies of the infinite and invisible God. The image, or statue, of a king was set up in a city square to be a constant visible reminder of the king himself and of his governing power to all the dwellers in that city. Just so with Eve and Adam.

Eve and Adam are not lifeless statues, of course, but living, breathing, personal representations of the Ruler of the universe. Eve and Adam are to be constant reminders, visible representatives, of God, the King of creation, to all his other creatures. The Scriptures do not define the precise content of image and likeness for us. But God’s people have always recognized that there are many consequences of this reality of being God’s image, and these may be summarized in the following way as we reflect on this traditional understanding, an understanding that came from seeking scriptural statements about the nature of God that are then applied to us his creatures, made to be like him:

Eve and Adam are created for dominion over the other creatures. God is the Sovereign over all creation, and we have a finite and limited sovereignty under him. We are designed to exercise loving and faithful rule over this earth and all of its creatures. We are not to be despots who simply use and abuse our environment for our own willful pleasure but rather those who are to imitate the loving, gracious, and caring rule of God. Psalm 8 teaches that this creational purpose—that a human person is designed to be ruler over all of this creation—is what makes King David declare:

You have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;you have put all things under his feet. (vv. 5–6)

Eve and Adam are created for love and relationship. Scripture draws attention to the personal and relational nature of the image of God. God declares, “Let us make man in our image,” and the text adds, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:26–27). Eve and Adam are made for a personal relationship as male and female. Just as the three persons of the Trinity love, relate, and fellowship with each other through all eternity, so we as those created in God’s image are made for love, relationship, and fellowship with our Creator and with one another. Fundamental to our humanity is that we are made to dwell in families, in community. As Paul would later write, “I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named” (Ephesians 3:14–15). Every human person is designed for loving union with God and with other persons who are made in his likeness.

Eve and Adam are created to be like God in righteousness and holiness. We are to mirror the moral nature of our Creator, to walk the way he walks. Behind every commandment of God stands the reality of God’s moral beauty: “You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2). Consider also the words of Jesus when, after an exposition of moral obligations, he teaches us, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).

Eve and Adam are created to be significant. We are designed to willingly and gladly choose to be what God has made us to be and to live in love and in moral beauty as he designed us to live, delightedly reflecting his nature in all we do. We have a kind of limited sovereignty over our own lives, mirroring in a little way the infinite sovereignty of God’s divine majesty. We are finite history-makers, under God, the Lord of history.

Eve and Adam are created to think God’s thoughts after him. We are made to be rational, to use our minds to the glory of our Creator, as we seek to understand our world and our life here in it, as we turn our thoughts to understand and to treasure all that is right and true.

Eve and Adam are created to be those who use language. We are all like the Word himself—we might say that we are “little words,” made to be communicators in words just like our Creator. God is the One who called all worlds into being by his creative word, who sustains and rules over all things by his powerful and law-giving word, who reveals himself by his truth-giving word, who communicates by his life-giving word. We are to use language in imitation of him by exercising the gifts of creative imagination, by understanding and naming the world around us, by revealing ourselves truthfully in all we say and write, by communicating with our Creator and with one another to build trust and to give life to all of our relationships.

These attributes of Eve’s and Adam’s humanity, and of ours, are basic aspects of how Scripture reflects on our likeness to God. Basically these are the characteristics of what it means to be a person, just as God is truly personal. Each of us shares these characteristics, and yet each of us is different from each other person. Each one of us is unique, just as Eve and Adam were alike and yet each was a different person from the other; and their children in turn were like them, yet different from each of their parents. In this, too, our human life reflects the nature of God in whom there is both unity and diversity.

Eve is as fully God’s image-bearer as is Adam. There is therefore complete equality between the first woman and the first man as we reflect on their fundamental nature as persons made to be like their Creator. This full equality means that there is no hierarchy of being between a man and a woman. As those made by God and made to be like God, Eve and Adam are made first of all for eternal personal fellowship with God, for a loving relationship with their designer, a relationship that is intended to endure forever.

This is important for us to remember, for before we start to think about the relationship between female and male we need to recognize that our relationship with God is even more foundational to us than any human relationship. This means also that our relationship with God takes precedence over any human relationship, whether it is a relationship between wife and husband, mother and child, father and child, sister and brother, friend and friend, ruler and subject, employer and worker, teacher and student, or pastor and church member.

Every one of us is answerable first of all to God, for we, each one of us, were made by him and for him, and each one of us will have to give our own account to him. When we answer to him, there will be no other human intermediary between each of us and him. Every woman will stand before God directly, giving her account of herself and her life to him, for she is his image-bearer made for fellowship with him and is therefore answerable to him, just as every man will stand before God giving his account of his life and choices.

But in addition to being made to love God and to know him as their primary characteristic and primary calling, these two, Eve and Adam, are made for each other as their secondary calling. We ought not to use these terms primary and secondary to suggest that our relationships with each other are secondary in the sense of less significant or as if they could be safely ignored or even set aside, for Scripture teaches us that we cannot properly claim to love God if we do not love our fellow human beings (see 1 John 3:16–18; 4:7–12—we are taught in fact that anyone who says they love God but hates his or her fellow human beings is a liar).

Rather, this language of primary and secondary reflects the way that Jesus himself speaks when he teaches us about the two great commandments in answer to the question, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:28–31). Jesus makes it quite clear that while the command to love God is primary, it necessarily carries with it and within it the second command to love our neighbor.

Returning to the account of our origins, Genesis 1 emphasizes our creation as those with a primary relationship upward to our Creator. Genesis 2 focuses on our secondary relationships horizontally with our fellow human persons.

In the second, more detailed account of creation, we learn that Adam is made before Eve. He is created first. He then needs to learn that he is alone, in the sense that while he has personal fellowship with God, his Creator, and he has a similarity as a fellow creature with other living beings that God has made, he has not yet met another who is his equal. God, the infinite One to whom he owes his existence, his life, his breath, and his world, is clearly his superior. The animals are brought before him to be named so that he, and we, may learn that no other living creature is like us. This naming of the creatures implies that Adam understands the nature of each creature, and the naming also implies his authority over the creatures as he is the one who can give to each one its appropriate name. As he understands and names them as God’s representative, he also understands that none of the other creatures is his equal or is fully like him. None of the other creatures is the image of its Creator.

Then God creates Eve from Adam to be his equal, his helper, and his complement—one similar to Adam, yet corresponding to him in her difference from him. An old English folk song that is often sung at weddings expresses in a graphic way the meaning of the phrase “a helper fit for him.”

She was not took out of his head, sir, To reign and triumph over man;Nor was she took out of his feet, sir, By man to be trampled upon.

But she was took out of his side, sir, His equal and partner to be.2

Adam cries out with joy, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23). This is the cry of all men and women when they find one who is their equal, their mutual help, one who will be the perfect complement to them. This creational likeness and complementariness is the foundation for monogamous, lifelong marriage; it is at the heart of who we are as women and men made for relationships with one another.

The text also teaches us that sexuality is God’s good gift from creation, a gift about which there should be no shame. Sadly, the church has not always acknowledged this. The primary purpose of the sexual partnership that God has given to us is not reproduction but rather the expression, the consummation, of love and unity between one man and one woman.3Of course, bearing and begetting children is a possible consequence of some of the occasions when a couple comes together sexually; but it is not a probable or even possible consequence of every sexual union. There are times of each cycle when pregnancy will not result from sexual union, and there is a time in every woman’s life when ovulation ceases (this is true during the months of pregnancy, and it is true after menopause), but this does not mean that sexual desire or sexual union and fulfillment come to an end. The joy of becoming one flesh is more fundamental to sex than is childbearing.

Any view that regards procreation as primary and that is therefore in principle opposed to any form of birth control fails to do justice to this text about the joy of becoming one flesh and so reflecting the unity of the Trinity and also fails to do justice to the difference between human sexuality and sex among other creatures. When a man and a woman come together, they sometimes hope and pray that they might have a child, but that is not the primary reason they come together. It is their love for each other, their desire for each other, and their delight in each other that is primary and that is basic to sexual union.

In addition to this delight in their physically coming together, God has made sexual union, as with most other creatures, the means of bringing a new generation into the world . All of us are the children, the offspring, the descendants of Eve and Adam. All that it means to be human, to be both a creature and to be in God’s image, comes to us through the fruit of this original union between Eve and Adam. God has created us so that we beget and bear children truly made in our own likeness—they bear the image of their mother and their father. Out of our greatest experience of unity comes the possibility of diversity, the bringing into the world of a new person, a unique daughter of Eve or son of Adam. This creation of diversity out of our greatest experience of unity is yet another way in which we as human persons reflect the likeness of God—in this case the unity and diversity within the Trinity. As we saw in an earlier section, our families are named after the family of our heavenly Father (Ephesians 3:14–15).

The text in Genesis 2 suggests that some kind of leadership is given to Adam, for he is created first , and Eve is created “from” him and “for” him (1 Corinthians 11:8–9). In addition, it is Adam who gives Eve her name, and, as was mentioned earlier, this implies a particular significance or authority in the one who does the naming. It is important to stress here that this structure in the relationship of Eve and Adam does not negate what has already been written about both the woman and the man being equally in the image of God. This leadership of Adam in relationship with Eve, and her corresponding commitment to him, does not mean that their equality is undermined, for Eve and Adam are like the Trinity in which there is a headship of the Father over the Son, and yet there is also a full equality of Godhead (1 Corinthians 11:3; Colossians 1:19; 2:9).

This last point needs to be developed more fully as it is an issue of such contention in our generation. We will reflect on this further after we look at the second and third face of Eve. For now, let us leave Eve and Adam enjoying the wonder of their union of equals—two who see in each other a perfect reflection of the glory of their Maker, two who see in the other a perfect complement to be a lifelong partner and helpmate, two who have the same dignity and yet are delightfully different, two who are designed to fit together and support each other in every way—physically, emotionally, mentally, imaginatively, volitionally, spiritually.

SUGGESTED READINGS AND QUESTIONS

1. Do you struggle with the biblical teaching about our origins? If you do, a fine book by Philip Johnson (Darwin on Trial) may be of help to you. Also see the excellent volume Science and Faith by John C. Collins.4

2. Does the teaching that all races are of one origin and therefore that the people of all races are all equally God’s image-bearers go against what you have been taught or what you have heard?

3. Some believers are troubled by the teaching that we are those who physically bear the image of God and insist that it has to be our spiritual nature that shows the image and likeness of God. How would you respond to someone who holds such a view?

4. What do you think are some implications of our sharing our physical nature with the other creatures of this earth? Do you find this idea distasteful, and if so, why?

5. What to you is the most wonderful implication of your being made in the image of God?

6. How do you see the equality of Eve and Adam as God’s image working itself out in your relationships with men or women (especially in your husband or your wife for those who are married)?

7. What was your experience of equality between the sexes (or lack of it) in the family in which you were raised?

8. How do you see being complementary, the fitting, supporting, and meeting one another’s needs of Eve and Adam, working out in your relationships with men or women (especially with your husband or wife for those who are married)?

9. Read Genesis 3:1–24. What changed in the relationship between Eve and Adam in consequence of the Fall? How does sin particularly impact us as men and women according to Genesis 3?

2: THE SECOND FACE OF EVE:

In our first chapter we learned something of the glory of Eve and what it means to be made in the image of God. The glory that all human beings experience in our lives is one that we inherit from the mother of us all. Though the Scripture does not use this precise expression (it does speak of human persons as rulers of creation), we might say that Eve was the queen of creation, given that position of authority by God when he made her in his likeness and gave her, along with Adam, authority or dominion over everything around them. As we think of ourselves and of all that makes us uniquely human, these are all things that we inherit from Eve, for we all share with her the likeness of God. She is the mother of every characteristic that makes us persons as we reflect in our finiteness the infinite majesty of God, the three-personed Lord.

Apart from dwelling in our minds and hearts on the greatness and glory of God, there is nothing more wonderful in human life than for us to treasure our creation in the image of God or more marvelous than for us to reflect on the glory of our humanness. This is something that those of us who name ourselves Christian believers need truly to cherish, not only in ourselves but also in everyone around us. We sometimes work very hard at seeing faults, and we appear to think it is very biblical to search out the sinfulness of people around us, both the sins of our fellow believers and, in particular, the sins of unbelievers. But that is not what Scripture calls us to do. We are indeed to recognize people’s moral failures, especially our own, but we are called first to recognize their glory as persons made in the image of God. With every man and woman we ever encounter we are to ask the question, “Who is this person, Lord, that you are mindful of him or her?” Our response ought to be, “Here is a person crowned with glory and honor” and not, “Here is a worthless sinner.”

We need to train ourselves to see the human dignity in the people around us. If we do not do this, we are being disobedient to the command of God’s Word and to the example of our Lord and Savior as he met and engaged women and men with such grace. One effect of failing to see and honor the dignity of those around us is that there will be no way we will be able to communicate the good news of the Christian message to them in a way that is obedient to the example of Christ and to the commands of Scripture. If we do not respect people as God’s image-bearers, we simply cannot communicate with them effectively and faithfully.1

We need to learn to trace that descent from Eve and to delight in what we see of the glory that shines in the image of God in every person around us. Invariably this should be our first impulse: where does this woman or this man or this child demonstrate the image of God? From this reflection on our human glory we turn to what we will call the second face of Eve, the broken, shameful, and sad side of our humanity—Eve at and after the fall.

EVE AT AND AFTER THE FALL

The text for our reflections in this chapter is perhaps the saddest in all of Scripture, for it describes the day when all of human history was permanently changed. We read of God coming to Eve and Adam after their disobedience and saying to Eve, “What is this that you have done?” (Genesis 3:13). God’s demanding inquiry expresses for us just how tragic the consequences of sin are. We will seek to determine what leads to the Fall, to reflect on the temptation by Satan and its appeal to Eve, and to ask ourselves about Eve’s response, and we will then study the consequences of her choice. As we read Genesis 3, the story seems very simple, but the issues in these simple brushstrokes of the narrative are very profound.

What happens on that day of death? We read that Eve is beguiled by the serpent and disobeys God by taking the forbidden fruit and then sharing it with Adam. These facts sound straightforward enough, but of course it is much more complex than that.

We are told that Satan comes to visit Eve in the form of a serpent, for he is the master of disguise, deceit, and betrayal. Jesus calls him “the father of lies” ( John 8:44), and in the same passage he is described as “a murderer from the beginning.” His purpose on this occasion is to turn Eve and Adam from their worship of God alone; to turn them from their trust in the Lord as their Creator, Provider, Helper, and Friend; to turn them from their contented knowledge of who they are and to make them dissatisfied; to turn them from their glad acceptance of their status as creatures in God’s world and to cause them to become distrustful of God’s good intentions toward them.

Eve and Adam have been created to glorify God as their Creator, as their provider, the One on whom they are dependent for existence and for the breath of life, for health, for happiness, and for their own glory. Satan wants to turn them from all this—from their acknowledgment of God as their Creator and from their trust in him as the one who has given and will continue to give them every good thing. He is eager to turn them away from their understanding that it is enough to be creatures in God’s world, completely dependent upon their Lord. Instead Satan desires that they join him in his own rebellion against God, the King of heaven. His plan is that they reject God’s rule and serve and honor themselves in place of God. In his own revolt against God, Satan seeks to put himself in the place of God, and he is eager to bring down others so that they may join him in his fall from heavenly splendor.

Satan, on this occasion, is not so much calling for Eve and Adam to worship him as he is tempting them to worship themselves, to put themselves in the place of God. This is what he himself has done. This has been his own terrible revolution, his own failed attempt to overthrow the divine majesty and to set himself up in the place of God. And now, in his rage at God for his own folly, not content to be under the sentence of destruction himself, he comes to Eve to try to bring God’s new creation down with him. He sees this beautiful world that God has made, and he sees the glory of this first human pair who are made in God’s image. He sees their happiness in knowing God, in knowing each other, and in ruling this earth, and he longs to overthrow it all. He burns with longing to take away from them the enjoyment of their life. He seeks to find a way to poison their contented delight in God. He hopes to dispossess them of all their joy so they will share in the disaster that has befallen him.

In desiring that they begin to honor themselves rather than God, his approach is to cast doubt on the word of God and more importantly to cause them to question whether God is really good to them. We all recognize this now as something that is a daily struggle within our own hearts, for Satan’s temptation to us today is just the same as it was for Eve and Adam: “Has God really said?” We struggle with, “Can I trust God?” “Does he have in mind what is good for me?” “Are his purposes for me good or are they evil?”

This is precisely the temptation that Satan sets before Eve. He assures Eve that God’s threat of judgment will not be fulfilled, that she “will not surely die” if she disobeys God. Instead, what he says to her in essence is, “Rather than dying or being punished by God, you are going to become even more godlike than you already are. You are going to have the wisdom and the knowledge of God himself. You can rival God if you disobey his word. God is, in fact, trying to prevent you from becoming more like himself than you are today. He is depriving you of what is rightfully yours, of your true and full destiny.”2

Of course, this promise and this charge against God’s character are deception, but these clever lies make up the temptation that is set before Eve. What is her response to these false promises and trumped-up accusations? Eve’s response, after some reflection, is to doubt God’s word, to doubt that his threat of judgment would come true, to doubt God’s goodness toward her, and to believe that God is indeed trying to prevent her from achieving her full glory and potential.

As we look into our own hearts, we need to acknowledge that these are very powerful temptations, temptations with which every one of us constantly struggles. It is easy to read this account in a superficial way and say, “What was she doing? How could she respond like that?” But if we examine our own histories of doubting God’s goodness, of failing to take his warnings seriously, of trusting our own judgment rather than his, of putting ourselves at the center of the circle of our lives, we might find it more difficult to cast our stones of criticism at Eve. The text describes how she turns Satan’s words over in her own mind as she looks at the tree’s fruit, as she sees its beauty, its value as food, and its promise of greater wisdom. These are the things that tempt her. We all wrestle with these issues: the importance to us of our outward appearance—“What kind of an impression do I make on those who see me?”; the significance of our daily physical needs being met—“How will I put food on the table?”; the value of being wise and of being seen by others to be wise—“Can I demonstrate how clever and sensible I am so others will think well of me?”

Eve sets these imagined gains against the command of God and against her own knowledge of the goodness of God. Instead she concludes that God is mean-spirited to deprive her of these wonderful gifts, gifts that she is beginning to think are rightfully hers. This, too, is the way all of us think at times. We ask, “Why does God want to deprive me of these legitimate pleasures—pleasures rightfully mine, pleasures he is obligated to give me for my enjoyment?” She sets these purely imaginary gains against God’s explicitly known commandment and against her own sure knowledge of the goodness of God.

We need to reflect more deeply on this latter point. Up to this moment, all Eve has ever experienced is a daily reality of many diverse and good gifts from the generous hand of God. This rich provision of God for her life is what Genesis 1–2 are about—the treasures and blessings that God has poured out on this first human pair. What does Eve have to set against this constant beneficence?

Against all that she has seen and enjoyed Eve has to set only the word of Satan, the deceiver, a creature whom she has no reason to trust at all. In contrast she has every reason to trust God. Against this certain knowledge of God’s goodness and against his warning of judgment she has her own imagination as to what the future might hold for her if she chooses the deceiver’s way. While she, no doubt, rationalizes her disobedience, as we all do, she has no reason to trust the serpent’s word, no basis for doubting the love of God, no knowledge to set against what she already was convinced of concerning God’s character. And yet she disobeys, and Adam also is persuaded to disobey God along with her (the text simply says, “she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate”).

In spite of the reality that the whole weight of evidence is against the way that she chooses, Eve turns her face from God and disobeys him. There is nothing more unreasonable than the choice she makes. But all sin is like this. We all need to admit that this unreasonableness is the nature of any sin, any disobedience against God. There is no excuse for sin. Sin cannot be justified, excused, or explained away. No matter how we hold sin up to the light of rational inquiry, no matter which way we look at sin, sin makes no sense. Sin is absurd. We may ask, “Why did Eve disobey?” or “Why did I turn from God’s commandments?” “Why did this woman or this man forsake her or his marriage vows, commit adultery, and wreck her or his beloved children’s lives?” We are desperate to be able to give a rational account of sin; we want to give sufficient reasons to show why Eve, or why you or I, make such a choice, but there are none.

We will never, no matter how much we search or however long we reflect, find a sensible or adequate explanation or excuse for sin. Sin by its very nature is against the structure of the universe, and therefore we cannot make sense of it. Sin is against the character of God, the Creator of all things. Sin is opposed to the way God designed the universe to be. Sin is contrary to the life that God created us to live, and it is contrary to our human nature as those made to be like God.

What are the consequences of this disobedience? We can summarize all the consequences of Eve and Adam’s sin and refer to all of it as the judgment of God. This is easily said, but what does this judgment mean? How does God’s judgment work itself out? We can try to capture it by speaking of the sevenfold effects of sin or the seven-pointed curse, to adapt a phrase of Francis Schaeffer who refers to a four-pointed curse.3

THE SEVENƪPOINTED CURSE

The first curse of sin is that God is alienated from Eve and from all of us . As the righteous, perfect, holy Judge of all reality, whose standard is moral perfection, he can have no dealings with sin or with sinners. His face is turned away from us, as Isaiah expresses it in one passage (Isaiah 59:2), so that he cannot hear us, for he can have fellowship only with what is good and perfect. This is true now, and it is true for all eternity. That is the first and central impact—God’s wrath and anger is directed against Eve, against sin, against sinners.

We may not want to think in such a way, but this is clearly what Scripture teaches us in one passage after another. Paul says that we are all “children of wrath,” like the rest of our race.4That is the reality and the first consequence—the settled anger and enmity of God against sin and against sinners. Some readers will object here and protest, “God hates sin, but he loves sinners!” While this sounds like a pleasant sentiment, it is necessary to remember that it is sinners who will face God’s judgment and not simply sin disembodied from the person who committed those sins. It is not a handful of particularly obnoxious sins but rather actual women and men who will “appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Corinthians 5:10).

The second curse of her disobedience is that Eve is alienated from God, and so are we all. In Genesis 3 we see Eve and Adam trying to hide from God because they no longer love him, because they have disobeyed him, because they have ceased to trust him, because they now doubt him, because they no longer seek the enjoyment of his company, and so they turn away from him. Eve becomes, and we all become, enemies of God, hoping and trying to hide from him our sin and our rebellion. We find ourselves longing to honor ourselves rather than honor him, for the very heart or essence of sin is pride.

At the center of the Genesis account of the Fall is the problem of arrogance, with which we all wrestle—that is, we seek to put ourselves in the place of God. We all find this tension in our hearts every day of our lives. This is still true of us as Christian believers who have bowed before God and who have prayed repeatedly that he will humble us before the infinite power and glory of his divine majesty. We are constantly eager to put our hope and confidence in ourselves rather than in God.

This then is the second consequence of sin: we have become enemies of God. The apostle Paul expresses it this way in Colossians 1: “[we] were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds” (v. 21). In Romans 3 he writes, “no one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside” (vv. 11–12). The world is not full of people desperately anxious to become Christians. We might wish that it were that way, or we may delude ourselves into thinking that it is indeed that way, but the truth is far different. The truth is that everyone is running away from God.

The reality is as C. S. Lewis said of his own conversion to the acknowledgment of God:

You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not see then what is now the most obvious and shining thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance to escape?5

That is the reality. Even when we do come to believe that Christianity is true, that it answers our most important questions and satisfies our deepest needs, we are still reluctant to bow before God and to acknowledge that he is indeed the Lord. It took me more than a year after I was persuaded that Christianity is the truth before I was converted. And even when we have come to know God through Jesus Christ, we still struggle with bowing daily before him. Women and men are not desperately seeking God. Rather, we are alienated from God in our minds and hearts.

The third curse of sin is that Eve is alienated from herself; and so are we all, each one from herself or himself. What is meant by this self-alienation? As we look within ourselves, we are aware that there is a disorder within us. We experience shame and even self-loathing because of who we are. We have all awakened in the middle of the night and reflected on things we have done, said, or thought, and even though there is no one else to see us (apart from the Lord), we have simply been overwhelmed with a sense of shame. We find ourselves blushing and sweating in the dark. We see Eve and Adam experiencing this sense of shame—before God, before each other, and even in their own hearts. We experience disgust with ourselves. Paul said of himself, and this was when he had been a believer and an apostle of Christ for many years, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24).6

We sometimes observe this self-loathing expressing itself in extreme ways. It is at times present in teenage girls wrestling with problems like anorexia or bulimia. But even when there is not the experience of such extremes of self-hatred, whenever there is any honesty about oneself, we all find ourselves struggling with a sense of dissatisfaction in our life, in our character, in our choices, in our behavior. I find a profound lack of happiness when deep within myself I face the question, who am I? There is no longer any per fect happiness for us in knowing ourselves and having to live with ourselves, either because we do indeed know ourselves or because we are trying desperately to avoid knowing ourselves.