Why Did Adam Name His Wife Eve?
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In Genesis 2:15-17 God warned Adam about the consequences that would come from eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil:
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
The relationship that existed between God and Adam had a condition placed upon it, which was Adam’s obedience. God’s command to Adam included both a reward for obedience (life) and a consequence for disobedience (death), and Adam represented all of humanity in this covenant. Adam failed to keep God’s command; instead, he and his wife ate the forbidden fruit, bringing death and condemnation upon themselves and all Adam’s posterity.
Why didn’t Adam and Eve die on the day they sinned in the garden of Eden as God said they would, and how is Eve’s name connected to Jesus?
The protoevangelium is the first announcement in the Bible of the gospel.
There is one key verse in the Old Testament that points us to the only way for people to be returned to a right relationship with God: In Genesis 3:15, a verse containing the protoevangelium (the first announcement in the Bible of the gospel), God pronounces his curse on the serpent, and with the curse is the great promise that summarizes the Bible:
“I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.” (Gen. 3:15)
Theologian Louis Berkhof points out that Genesis 3:15, while not specially naming Christ Jesus, points to him:
The prophecy of redemption is still impersonal in the protoevangel, but it is nevertheless a Messianic prophecy. In the last analysis the seed of the woman is Christ, who assumes human nature, and, being put to death on the cross, gains the decisive victory over Satan. — Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (1996 ed.), p. 294.
In his mercy God let Adam and Eve live so that the messiah would come from the seed of the woman.
God had a plan all along. Because God is all-knowing, he knew from eternity that Adam would disobey him and that Adam’s only hope—and that of his descendants—could only come from God himself. A second Adam must pass the test Adam failed to pass. Satan appeared to have the victory (“you shall bruise his heel”) when Jesus was crucified, but it was actually Jesus who triumphed over sin, death, and the devil (he shall bruise your head).
The second Adam, Christ Jesus—both fully God and fully man, would keep God’s law perfectly and bear the full punishment for sin as the perfect once-for-all sacrifice, so that his people would once again be in full communion with their Creator.
In naming his wife Eve, Adam showed his faith in God to keep his promise in Genesis 3:15.
Adam and Eve would not die right away because they must bring forth children from whom the Savior would come. Adam showed his faith in God’s promise to save him by naming his wife Eve, which means the mother of all living (Gen. 3:20). Indeed, the seed of the woman, Christ Jesus, would fulfill all his Father sent him to do so that all who believe in him would have life in the presence of God for all eternity.
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