Were Adam and Eve saved? How many children did Adam and Eve have? When were Adam and Eve created?

Looking at Adam and Eve as a type of Christ and the Church, as scripture fully warrants us to do, we see how that the death of Christ needed to be an accomplished fact, ere the Church could be set up; though, in the purpose of God, she was looked at, and chosen in Christ, before the foundation of the world. There is, however, a vast difference between the secret purpose of God and the revelation and accomplishment thereof. Before the divine purpose could be actualised in reference to the constituent parts of the Church, it was necessary that the Son should be rejected and crucified — that He should take His seat on high — that He should send down the Holy Ghost to baptise believers into one body. It is not that souls were not quickened and saved, previous to the death of Christ. They assuredly were. Adam was saved, and thousands of others, from age to age, in virtue of the sacrifice of Christ, though that sacrifice was not yet accomplished. But the salvation of individual souls is one thing; and the formation of the Church, as a distinctive thing, by the Holy Ghost, is quite another.

Ans. — That alone would not, for it might have been done simply as a type of what to us is salvation. But in calling his wife Eve (Gen. 3:20) Adam shows his faith in God's testimony concerning the promised Seed of the woman (v.15), and wherever there is true faith in what God reveals, there is salvation. The measure of spiritual intelligence depends upon the measure of the revelation given, and received in the heart; but whatever the measure of the revelation, the believing God is salvation. Abraham believed God's promise of a son when he was old and childless; “He believed the Lord, and it was counted to him for righteousness” (Gen.15:3-6).

8 But there are some very interesting circumstances to note in connection with the judgment under which man had fallen. We have seen that Adam fled from the presence of God. The judgment pronounced upon him, upon Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:14-19) is an earthly judgment, not a judgment of the soul. Adam, and Eve also, are placed in a state of misery, and under the yoke of suffering and death. Before being driven out, Adam, by faith, as it seems, recognises life in the place wherein death had entered (Gen. 3:20); but there is more; there is the promise made to the woman, of the seed which should bruise the serpent's head: the Christ, seed of the woman by whom evil entered into the world, was to destroy all the power of the Enemy. Then as sin had destroyed innocence, and given, through the shame of nakedness, a conscious sense of its loss, God Himself, by causing death to intervene, clothed Adam and his wife, and covered their nakedness (Gen. 3:21). Before this, there was unconsciousness of evil; now evil is known, but is covered by God's own act. Man had sought to hide his sin from himself; but when he hears God's voice, his fig-leaves are nothing worth; they are of no avail to an awakened conscience in the presence of God: "I hid myself," he said, "for I was naked." So also before driving him out, God did not restore his innocence, which indeed was impossible; He did better: He clothed Adam and his wife, so that He might see His own work, that is, what was suited to Him in the state in which they were, accomplished by Him in His grace, besides the crushing of him who had led them into evil. Still man was driven out of the garden, where he had enjoyed all God's blessings without faith, to till the ground, to die, and until death to be separated from the God who before had walked in the cool of the day in the garden where he had dwelt. Man, thenceforth, knew God only by faith, if faith was in his heart - a new, all-important principle: he had lost God, had acquired a conscience, and, if he could, must live in painful toil to gain a temporal subsistence; he must find God, if he could; but he was from thenceforth outside the precincts which God frequented, and where His abundant blessings were dispensed without suffering or labour. Man had fled from God's presence, and God had driven him out. Adam was no longer in the relation in which God had formed him to be with Himself, either as to the state of his soul, or judicially: he was in sin. I repeat, man had fled from the presence of God, and God had driven him from the position in which He had placed him when He created him; he was estranged from God with a bad conscience, knowing God just enough to be afraid of Him, having learned however that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head, and being clothed by the grace and the work of God in a garment that bore witness to death, but which, as coming from God, covered, and that perfectly, the nakedness, the consciousness of which was the expression of man's fall and of his state of sin. Man was now outside - could he enter, anywhere, into God's presence to adore Him, to be morally with Him whom he had forsaken?

However, though Adam might, and, through grace, did, see and feel that he could never accomplish all that had to be done, yet God revealed Himself as about to achieve every jot and tittle thereof, by the seed of the woman. In short, we see that He graciously took the entire matter into His own hands. He made it, altogether, a question between Himself and the serpent; for although the man and the woman were called upon, individually, to reap, in various ways, the bitter fruits of their sin, yet it was to the serpent that the Lord God said, "Because thou hast done this." The serpent was the source of the ruin; and the seed of the woman was to be the source of the redemption. Adam heard all this, and believed it; and, in the power of that belief, "he called his wife's name the mother of all living. This was a precious fruit of faith in God's revelation. Looking at the matter from nature's point of view, Eve might be mother called, "the mother of all dying." But, in the judgement of faith, she was the mother of all living. "His mother called him Ben-oni; (the son of my sorrow;) but his father called him Benjamin (the son of my right hand)."

But some will ask, how should Abel know that a lamb would be an acceptable offering in the eyes of God? Of this we may be assured, that whatever knowledge he possessed, his brother possessed also. "By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain?" and faith is always based upon some revelation from God. We need not go far for this in Abel's case. Had not the Lord God spoken in the ears of his parents of the Seed of the woman who should bruise the serpent's head, Himself a sufferer in the performance of His mighty work? Had not the Lord God also made coats of skins for Adam and his wife before expelling them from the garden for ever? (Gen. 3:15-21). Is it too much to suppose that the parents instructed their lads concerning these great principles? Evidence is not lacking that Adam and his wife both welcomed the testimony of God into their hearts. Why, otherwise, should Adam call his wife's name Eve "because she was the mother of all living," when as a matter of fact, she was not the mother of anybody? Speaking of "life," at the moment of his expulsion — what was this but faith? Then observe Eve, when her firstborn came, "I have gotten a man from Jehovah." Is not this suggestive that the word in Gen. 3:15 was ringing in her ears, and that in her heart she hoped her son was the promised deliverer? Doubtless she made a serious mistake as to the person and the time, but her words savour of faith nevertheless.

Christ is now everything to this pardoned sinner. In like manner, through faith, Eve exults in the promise. It is the joy and expectation of her heart; and Abel's religion is entirely formed by it. The penalties of sweat of face and sorrow of heart seem to be forgotten. And what is deeply to be considered — the earth is lightly held, when Jesus was firmly grasped. Adam has regained the Lord Himself, and he seems never to count on being a citizen of the world again, but a mere tiller of the ground according to divine appointment for a season; and then to leave it to share the full fruit of the grace and redemption he had now trusted, in other worlds. He dies — that is all. He seeks for no memorial here. He builds no city. He aims not to improve a cursed world. He toils in it, and eats his bread out of it. But he never forgets that judgment is upon it. The family of Seth call on the name of the Lord, and look, in God's way and time, for comfort and blessing in the place of present toil and curse. But that is the thing of hope and of prophecy, while strangership in the judged world, is the present path of faith and godliness. This is a wondrous Scripture indeed and it speaks to us of this very hour through which we are passing.

Herein is Wisdom crying in the streets, even where there is no speech and no word, "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." This, man never does until divinely taught. "Wisdom is justified" only "of her children." And Adam does not yet approve himself as one of these. His confession of sin is rather an accusation of God - "The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." In patient majesty, God turns to the woman. She, more simply, but still excusing herself, pleads she was deceived. - "The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat." Then, without any further question, He proceeds to judgment, - judgment in which for the tempted mercy lies enfolded, and where, if the old creation find its end, there appears the beginning of that which alone fully claims the title of "The Creation of God." In the judgment of the serpent, we must remember first of all the essentially typical character of the language used. We have no reason to believe that Adam knew as yet the mystery of who the tempter was. "That old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan," was doubtless for him nothing more than the most subtle of the beasts of the field which the Lord God had made. Herein, indeed, were divine wisdom and mercy shown, the tempter being not permitted to approach in angelic character, as one above man, but in bestial, as one below him; one indeed of those to which man as their lord had given names, and among which he had found no help, meet. How great was thus his shame when he listened to the deceiver! He had given up his divinely appointed supremacy in that moment. So in the judgment here it is all outwardly the mere serpent, where spiritually we discern a far deeper thing. "And the Lord God said unto the serpent, ‘Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed among all cattle, and among all beasts of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.' "Thus the victory of evil is in reality the degradation of the victor: he is degraded necessarily by his own success. How plainly is this an eternal principle, illustrated in every career of villany under the sun! By virtue of it, Satan will not be the highest in hell, and prince of it, as men have feigned, but lowest and most miserable of all the miserable there. "Dust shall be the serpent's meat." "He feedeth on ashes: a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?" But there is still another way in which the serpent's victory is his defeat: "And 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." That this last expression received its plainest fulfillment on the cross I need not insist upon. There Satan manifested himself prince of this world, able (so to speak) by his power over men to cast Christ out of it and put the Prince of life to death. But that victory was his eternal overthrow. "Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out; and I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me". This is deliverance for Satan's captives. It is not the restoration, however, of the old creation, nor of the first man. The seed of the woman is emphatically the "Second Man," another and a "last Adam," new Head of a new race, who find in Him their title as "Sons of God," as "born, not of blood (ie. naturally), nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." This is not the place indeed for the expansion of this, for here it is not expanded. We shall find the development of it further on. Only here it is noted, that not self-recovery, but a deliverer, is the need of man ; and if God take up humanity itself whereby to effect deliverance, it must be the seed of the woman, the expression of feebleness and dependence, not of natural headship or of power. The first direct prophecy links together the first page of revelation with the last, for only there do we find the full completion of it, - the serpent's head at last bruised. As a principle, the life of every saint in a world which "lieth in the wicked one" has illustrated and enforced it. In the next section of this book we shall return to look at this. The judgment of the woman and the man now follow, but they have listened already to the voice of mercy - a mercy which can turn to blessing the hardship and sorrow, henceforth the discipline of life, and even the irrevocable doom of death itself. That Adam has been no inattentive listener, we may gather from his own next words, which are no very obscure intimation of the faith which has sprung up in his soul. "And Adam called his wife's name Eve [life], because she was the mother of all living." The "woman which Thou gavest to be with me" is again "his wife," and he names her through whom death had come in, as the mother, not of the dying, but the living.

There was no promise given to Adam before he fell. He needed none; he was happy in his innocence and then present condition. And, after he had sinned, the promise given was not made to rest on any thing in him. The Lord came down to the garden, saying, "Adam, where art thou?" that he might be made to feel what the condition was into which sin had plunged him; and he answered, "I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself." The Lord did not give a promise to Adam (for he could not, in the state of sin in which he was, without dealing lightly with sin; neither could He leave Adam without promise, unless He cast him into remediless despair). What God does is to bring in "the seed of the woman" - the Second Adam. There was not a word of promise to Adam personally, the promise was made to "the seed of the woman" in pronouncing the curse on 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." This was a promise for Adam, one on which his soul might rest, one that faith could lay hold of - no promise to Adam in his sin, but a promise of blessing in and to Christ. And it appears that through grace Adam did rest on this interference of God, for he afterwards speaks of Eve as "the mother of all living."

God knows that you are sinners; He knows that it is the subtle iniquity of Satan, which would make man his prey. But there is to that an answer, of which Satan knew not, any more than poor, guilty, fallen man: the revelation of the Seed of the woman (v. 15). The question is really between the serpent and the second Man - not the first. It is neither a promise to Adam and Eve from God, nor a hope of improvement in their children; but God pronounces judgment on the enemy, and in the midst of it the revelation is made of the Saviour, child of the woman who had ensnared the man to be ruined of the devil. The woman's Seed shall bruise the serpent's head, but He is bruised Himself first. What grace, yet righteousness! What humiliation, yet victory! If Adam exalted himself as a robbery to be as God, He who was God emptied Himself to be a man, and became obedient unto death, as the other was disobedient unto it. To lost Adam, the first man, there was, and could be, no promise. All the promises of God are yea and amen in the second Man; but they become the portion of every believer. Faith finds and enjoys the promise, not sin and unbelief. To Eve and Adam God only speaks of the actual consequences of sin (v. 16-19). It is in judging the serpent (v. 15) that He reveals the coming Seed of the woman, and the way of His victory. Thenceforward the only hope of lost man is in this revealed Saviour; and before he is driven out he hears of what Jesus was to suffer in destroying the power of the devil; yet not a single sign of repentance appears in Adam after his sin. He had shewn terror of God, cowardly selfishness as to his wife, as much dishonesty in his own case as dishonour done to God. But God occupies Himself only with His counsels of grace in the woman's Seed, whose person and work and glory are developed in all the Scriptures.

Believers have constantly called it a "promise;" but it is not uninstructive to see that scripture never does. There was a revelation of an infinite blessing for man unquestionably, but hardly what is called a promise. It was addressed to the serpent. If a promise to any, it was to the woman's Seed, the last Adam, not to the first, who was just sentenced with Eve. Abraham, not Adam, is the depository of promise: so speaks scripture, as far as I know, invariably. We see why that ought to be. Was it a time for a promise? Was it a state for a promise? Was it a person for a promise? — one that had ruined the glory of God, as far as it rested upon him. No, but in judging the serpent there comes out the revealed purpose of God, not a promise to Adam in sin, but the revelation of One who would crush the serpent's head the first sinner and too successful tempter to sin. The Second man, not the first, is the object of promise. This indeed is the invariable truth of scripture, and runs through it to the last.