FAITH AND PROMISE TRIED

The promise of God also proved sufficient for Eve. Adam named her out of faith, but she was graced with faith to receive this name. Eve needed soul-deliverance just the same as Adam. She too had sinned. In fact, she had sinned first. Though she was not formally part of the Adamic covenant-head representation in the covenant of works, she was nevertheless the one that interrupted the harmony of paradise and gave her husband to eat what God had forbidden. At best, all she could expect now was to become the mother of sinners under the sentence of death. She was relegated to a condemnable form of motherhood. But now, in the midst of such condemnation, God tells her that she will be “the mother of the living.” Both she and a blessed portion of her offspring will be raised up out of the depths of sin and grafted into eternal redemption. Miraculously, her own husband now confirms this heart-felt realization by calling her “Eve.”

Immediately, Adam and Eve realized that both their souls and their marriage were saved. Loving hearts replaced bitter words. A new life expectancy surges through this couple, for they share mutual faith in God’s Word. New hope springs out of the context of sin and guilt — hope that fixes itself on the Promised seed. The tie that now binds them together is stronger than the natural and physical one. It is the tie of faith in Christ. Reverently speaking, Adam and Eve found each other again in Christ. Eve’s reception of her name testifies vividly: sin destroys, separates; grace restores, reunites.

The blood of Christ as the Promised Seed would be the cement that would hold their marriage in spiritual unity for the centuries to come. Indeed, nothing else could have held it together, for Adam and Eve’s faith in God’s promise was sorely tried. Expulsion from paradise; thorns and thistles; pain in childbearing, and even more, sorrow in childbearing — all sought to chip away at their hope. Yet, the promise was still there; yes, the Promise/Promiser gave continuing strength. Strength to endure the losing of their only two sons at once; Cain in a two-fold way, as murderer, and worse, as wanderer from God; and Abel, not only literally, but especially as the godly seed who contained their hopes for the Messiah to come.

Oh, the bombardments of Satan against the bulwark of God’s salvation cemented by the blood of the coming Messiah! Adam, do you now dare to call your wife Eve? Eve, where is the reality of your name? Where is the Promised Seed? True, Abel’s soul is saved eternally, but where is the Seed, the godly line that shall bring forth the Messiah?

Permit me to say this with reverence: so impossible the promise of God can become in the life of the true believer, that the promise itself may internally become a stumbling-block rather than a door of hope. Yet the depth of such ways is so profitable, for God’s chosen Adams and Eves must learn two lessons: first, that everything from their side must be experientially cut off as assets to fulfilment; yes, their best offerings are injurious to fulfilment; and second, in a certain sense even the work of God must be cut off so that they end not in the promise per se, but in the Promiser — not in the benefit, but the Benefactor.

The God who cuts off also steps in: “And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, saith she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel” (Gen. 4:25). Is not the connection obvious between the “I will” of Genesis 3:15 and the “for God” of Genesis 4:25?

Seth means “appointed” or “restitution.” He represents the godly line, the line of Christ as the Father’s ultimate Appointment and Restitution. Seth, Noah, Abraham, David ... yes, in the fulness of time, the Seed shall be bom. Four thousand years of attacks shall not crumble God’s promise nor chip the cement of Christ’s blood. For God is the I AM, Jehovah, the faithful, covenant-keeping Lord. He remembers His promises through all generations. This is not only the hope of baptism — it is the hope of all the means of grace. God is faithful to His covenant because He is faithful to Himself. Thus the living Church must end in sovereign pleasure.

Christ must be born under our guilt and curse and in our need and death to be the Advent Savior and Lord. Therefore Seth must be born. Eve was rightly named Eve after all, no matter how different God’s ways were from her and Adam’s expectations.

May we who know so much more about God’s way of salvation, share in this same faith and hope with our first parents. In the fast-approaching days of Advent, may we look forward with great joy to the birthday of Eve’s great Seed, Jesus Christ. May it be confirmed also for us: He appeared among us “to destroy the works of the devil” (I John 3:8), and to give us life eternal.

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