The Will of God Regarding the Roles of Obedient Men and Women, Part One
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God’s love for men, women, and children is so very great that he created us in his image and likeness. With the same love God has for us, he commands us to love one another. More importantly, God commands that we love him. How do we know we love him and he loves us? Jesus answers, “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and manifest myself to him” (John 14:21). Keeping God’s commandments allows Jesus and the Father to live at home in us (v. 23). From the love of God and for his pleasure, he established the order of things: the creation of the man and then the woman, boundaries and commandments regarding the man and the woman, marriage, and the roles and lifestyles of the man and the woman in relation to the church.
For God’s Pleasure and Humankind’s Enjoyment
“Thou art
worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created
all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created” (Revelation 4:11).
The Father made every provision for the man and woman so they could partake in God’s
wonderful blessings. God created all they would ever need. God communed with
them from the beginning. The only thing the man and woman had to do was care
for and enjoy the treasures God placed at their feet. They were free from hard
labor. They also had a choice to know both good and evil.
God intentionally planned and
ordered creation to follow a preordained path that includes the enjoyment of
what he created for Adam and Eve, face-to-face fellowship with him, and
righteous living without fear or shame. God’s will for humanity is still the
same, even though the man’s and the woman’s circumstances have changed.
Creation of Man and Woman
Knowing the
order of creation is critical to our knowledge of God and God’s word. If we
don’t know the history, we will fall for the doctrine of the false prophets and
all who push lies and call those lies the gospel of our Lord. False doctrine is
powerful and leads people away from God; it can prevent us from knowing what
truth is and even what God’s will is for our lives. The world is generations
upon generations removed from God’s truth, so far removed in fact that humanity
has created its own fraudulent and counterfeit gospel that twists God’s words
like the serpent did when he beguiled Eve in the garden. Now, the lies that blur
the purpose of God for the man and woman have become the accepted truths of the
world.
We must pay
particular attention to the order of creation. Remember, God laid the roles and
purposes of the man and woman from before time. Genesis presents the true and accurate
historical account, according to the LORD God. “And God said, Let us make man
in our image, after our likeness … So God created man in his own image, in the
image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:26-27).
There is no confusing God’s words with man’s. Two genders—male and female—were created
in the image and likeness of the gracious Creator, by God and for God’s
pleasure! There should be no room for error here.
God created
the man, Adam, first, and from Adam’s rib, God created the woman. God didn’t haphazardly
create the man first. God chose Adam to care for the garden and to name all the
living creatures that God brought to him. After making the woman from the man’s
rib, God brought her to Adam, “And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and
flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man”
(Genesis 2:22-23). God chose the man to be the head from the beginning. Notice
that the standard of marriage was God bringing the woman to the man to live
together as one flesh, until death. The woman does not go looking for the man,
nor does the man for the woman, but God brings them together. That was the first
marriage, the marriage God created to be the standard for every marriage. “What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put
asunder” (Mark 10:9).
God’s Instructions
Without the
commandments of our LORD, we get to go up and down the earth, engaging in all
manner of wickedness without shame and inner conviction. There would be
lawlessness without boundaries. Thankfully, God has set the limits of evil that
is to take place on the earth, and although sin exists, it cannot overtake believers
to the point where we have absolutely no hope.
There hath no temptation taken you
but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to
be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way
to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)
The believer can count on that same promise God made to the
people in Corinth, through the Apostle Paul. He is letting them know that God
will help them gain victory over sin. However, the unbeliever who does not
adhere to the orders of God, which the Scripture outlines perfectly, does not have
the same kind of protection, for the unbeliever has no fellowship with God, the
Holy Spirit, or with Jesus. Such persons do not know God and cannot hear from
him. Jesus tells his disciples, “And I will pray
the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you
for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it
seeth him not, neither knoweth him …” (John 14:16-17). We must believe
God’s word for it to work in our lives the way God intended. Looking back to
the beginning, we read about God’s first instructions to man and how their
disobedience led to the great fall.
We can find
the earliest of God’s commands in the book of Genesis. To the husband and wife,
“God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue
it …” (Genesis 1:28). God gave them rule over all the creatures that move about
the sea, air, and earth. “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every
tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it …” (Genesis 2:16-17). The Bible does
not state whether Adam passed the command to Eve, whether she was born knowing
it, or whether God spoke the command to her directly. However, Eve knew and
quoted God’s command forbidding Adam and her from eating from the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil.
The Serpent Beguiles the Woman
Apart from her husband, Eve fell
under the influence of the serpent: “Now the serpent was more [cunning] than
any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman,
Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” (Genesis
3:1). Eve was alone and unprotected by her husband.
Satan used the serpent to beguile
the woman, not the man. God had given the man and woman free rein over all the
trees in the garden, but one, and that is the one fruit tree Satan used to pique
Eve’s curiosity. She responded, “… We may eat of the fruit trees of the garden:
But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, Got hath said,
Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die” (Genesis 3:2-3).
In Eve’s response, she didn’t capture the full extent of the punishment she and
her husband would suffer should they eat the forbidden fruit: God said they would
surely die. The serpent seemed to sense Eve’s desire to eat the forbidden
fruit, so he went a step further, saying, “Ye shall not surely die” (v. 4).
Satan planted the seed of doubt in Eve’s head, and that seed grew as Satan did
not ease up on the craftiness. He said to the woman, “For God doth know that in
the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as
[God], knowing good and evil” (v. 5).
To this very day, Satan is in the
ears of the people, telling the same old lies and using the same tactics he
used with Eve. His cunning ways worked then, and they are fully effective in
this age. That is, indeed, what Jesus tells us about the devil, his lies, and his
children who help him spread lies to the masses.
Ye do
the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of
fornication; we have one Father, even God. Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I
proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.
Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are
of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a
murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no
truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar,
and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not. (John
8:41-45)
The devil is a powerful creature; he is the chief influencer
of influencers. Nothing is off the menu for Satan and his servants of sin. For
those reasons, Paul instructs people who would live according to the Word not
to forsake the way of the Lord. He teaches those desiring to live godly that
“evil men and seducers shall [grow] worse and worse, deceiving, and being
deceived” (2 Timothy 3:13).
The Disobedience of Eve and Adam
Eve and Adam
were living their best lives. The time in the garden is the only time human
beings have lived their best lives—in purity—as God intended. The serpent,
determined to ruin that for the husband and wife, whispered deceit into the ear
of the vulnerable woman, and she opened her ears to him.
“And when the woman saw that the
tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be
desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave
also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. (Genesis 3:6)
The woman fell for the tactics of the god of this world. “For
all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and
the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2:16).
Eve gave in to temptation, falling in all areas. The husband went along for the
ride, knowing God had made him head of the woman. The blaming started when God
questioned them—the man blaming the woman and the woman blaming the serpent.
They did not hold themselves accountable, setting the blueprint for blaming
others for our own vile behavior.
Consequences of the Fall
God said to
the serpent, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed
and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Genesis
3:15). That statement gives us insight as to what was to come. Our Savior,
Jesus Christ, would be born to the virgin Mary and eventually suffer on the
cross and die for the sins of the world. Jesus would rise again, having conquered
death, thereby defeating Satan forever.
Because the
woman defied God’s instructions, God told Eve he “will greatly multiply [her]
sorrow and [her] conception; in sorrow [she shall] bring forth children; and [her]
desire shall be to [her] husband, and he shall rule over [her]” (v. 16). God’s
punishment for the woman because she sinned is ongoing. The woman’s gift from
God is the ability to have children. However, because of her sin, women will bear
children in pain.
God created the man and woman to
enjoy sex in the confines of marriage. They were to desire one another in
purity. However, the desire for her husband is different than the desire God
intended. The woman’s desire after the fall is likely an urge to challenge the
husband’s leadership role. Yet, he shall rule over her. God set the man’s
authority or leadership over the woman.
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