By Doug Redford
One of the most tragic ironies in the Bible occurs very early within its pages. We find it in Genesis 3:20, where “Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living” (New International Version). And yet, only a few verses later in Genesis 4, we read of Cain’s murder of his brother Abel.
God had told Adam that if you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, “you will certainly die” (Genesis 2:17). But Adam and Eve did not physically die at the time of eating; they continued to live, yet now one of their sons was no longer alive. What was that like for Adam and Eve to learn of this? Did the memory of their act of disobedience come back to haunt them? Were they filled with remorse: “If only we hadn’t eaten from that tree?” Did Adam return to blaming Eve much as he had done after the Lord confronted them with their disobedience in the garden (Genesis 3:12)? We don’t know. How very sad that Eve, the “mother of all the living,” had suddenly become “mother of the non-living!”
Even before this tragedy, however, God had already announced his plan to “reverse the curse” brought about by the sin in the Garden of Eden. He promised the serpent (and thus Satan) that Eve’s offspring would crush his head (a death blow) while the serpent would merely strike the offspring’s heel, a “flesh wound” by comparison (Genesis 3:15). And Eve’s offspring, Jesus, did strike that death blow to Satan by his death and resurrection. Thus Eve was granted the privilege of living up to her name, for she became “mother of the Living One,” Christ Jesus, who destroyed the devil’s work (1 John 3:8).
A song often heard at Christmas asks the question, “Mary, did you know (what your baby boy would accomplish)?” But could Eve even begin to know how her offspring would allow her to live up to the meaning of her name: “mother of all the living”?
At Communion, we should reflect upon how blessed we are to live in the era of fulfillment, knowing that the promise made in the Garden of Eden (and numerous others throughout the Old Testament) have come to pass in Jesus, who countered the devil’s lie (“you will not certainly die”) with his certain promise of life “to the full” (John 10:10) and gave the first mother a second chance to live up to her name.
Doug Redford has served in the preaching ministry, as an editor of adult Sunday school curriculum, and as a Bible college professor. Now retired, he continues to write and speak as opportunities arise.
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