Eve often gets a bad wrap for being the person who brought on the fall, the first person to sin, but I think we will find a lot more to her with a little digging. Eve sinned, but because of our salvation through Jesus Christ, that is not the end of the story, and our sin is not what defines us. So let's discover Eve's personality together, let's dive into her account and be encouraged by her faith rather than discouraged by her sin.
Where Eve's story begins, God is forming her from Adam and crafting her with his hands. Something I never thought about before was that there was no childhood for Eve. She was brought into the world facing all the responsibility adults must meet, yet she had no experience to prepare her for them. She was physically a woman, but emotionally a child.
Eve was created to be Adam's helper, perfect, and complete just how she was.
Genesis said God formed the man of dust with his hands and breathed his breath, the breath of life, into their bodies. He created them carefully, intricately, and formed them in His likeness.
How beautiful. Here we discover Eve's true worth and from it our own. We were created wondrously in God's image, and although we would sin, he pronounced us good.
Eve was called 'woman' for she came from man. God made woman and man, separate, but one. God formed us with different strengths, with different ways of thinking, and with different ways of expressing ourselves. He created women to bear and nurture children and men to provide for and protect them. When a man and a woman are joined together in marriage, they become one, and their partnership resembles God. Our Lord is our nurturer, but also our protector and advocate. Together man and woman reflect the nature of their Lord and Creator.
Eve was created after Adam and from him. Her creation took place after God warned Adam about the danger of partaking of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This means Adam had to have told Eve of the warning himself. In chapter three, verse three, Eve repeats God's command, yet "...or you certainly will die" was added to it. Whether Adam added it when relating God's message to Eve or Eve added it when telling the serpent, we will never know.
After the fall, Adam put the blame on Eve, and in turn, Eve placed it on the serpent. Every one of them was guilty, and each was responsible for their actions. The punishment of the human race was death and all the other suffering leading up to it.
There isn't much we know about Eve, but the thing that sticks out to me the most was her response when giving birth to the first child ever born and birthed by women. When Cain, her oldest son, was born, she rejoiced, exclaiming, "With the help of the Lord, I have brought forth a man." WOW. How powerful. What faith. Eve had no guidance. No one had ever borne a child, and no one had ever given birth to one. She was the original mother. She had no one to walk her through her pregnancy and no one to guide her through labor. I cannot imagine how scared she must have been, but she responds by glorifying God and praising him for helping her bring forth a man.
After the murder of Eve's son Abel by her eldest son Cain, Eve is blessed with another son, Seth. After losing her son. Her son. Eve praises God for replacing her suffering with a miracle. She rejoiced saying, "God has granted me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him." Again we see her faith and gratitude.
We don't know much about Eve, yet we can conclude that she was a praiseworthy mother and wife. She loved God very much, but, just like all of us, unable to resist the temptation to disobey her father.
Despite our sin and our many shortcomings, we, like Eve, have hope. Hope that one day all will be restored, and we will be reunited with our Creator and Father.
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