What does it mean that the woman was deceived (1 Timothy 2:14)?

The apostle adds another reason, "Adam was not deceived; but the woman quite deceived is involved in transgression." The man may have been in a certain sense worse. He followed the woman in wrong against God, where he ought to have led her in obedience; and he did it knowingly. She was beguiled outright; he was not. Her weakness therefore, and its dangerous effect on man, are urged as an additional plea, why she should be in quietness, neither teaching nor ruling; let her own sphere be at home (1 Tim. 5:24).

As to the temptation, Adam was not deceived, but choosing to follow Eve, gave up God. Nor, as we see from Eve's reply to the serpent, was she deceived as regards ignorance of the divine prohibition, but as to the true character of the tempter, and by the falsity of the serpent's words. The lie by which he deceived Eve was a lie of the worst sort, — that kind of lie which has enough of truth in it, the more effectually to deceive. They did not die physically, on the literal day of twenty-four hours, in which they disobeyed; yet in every other sense they did die, even though they became "as gods, knowing good and evil," where before they had been simply innocent. This function of conscience they acquired in and by the fall. But what a fearful thing it is to know good and evil as a fallen being! In this respect then Adam and Eve became "as gods, knowing good and evil." It is no question now of our being restored to what Adam was as innocent, it is now a question of being "renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him," i.e. that created the old man, the first Adam. We are therefore called to holiness, not to innocence.

She ought to have said; 'Why ask me? Surely He hath done whatsoever it hath pleased Him to do.' A right mind would have rejected the temptation at once; a true heart would have fallen back upon God. "He that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not." (1 John 5:18.) Satan "touched" Eve. He had got his question into her mind and she had departed from her strength, for God had lost His place in, her soul. When Eve began questioning God's, goodness and answering Satan's question, she was putting herself above God, and judging God, and thus putting herself into the hands of Satan. Had Eve been worshipping God, Satan could not have "touched" her; but, judging God, she took the place of independence, and thus Satan had power over her and, being wiser than she, he deceived her.

She ought to have said, Why ask me? Surely He hath done whatsoever it hath pleased Him to do. A right mind would have rejected the temptation at once; a true heart would have fallen back upon God. "He that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not," 1 John 5:18. Satan "touched" Eve. He had got his question into her mind, and she had departed from her strength; for God had lost His place in her soul. When Eve began questioning God's goodness and answering Satan's question, she was putting herself above God, and judging God, and thus putting herself into the hands of Satan. Had Eve been worshipping God, Satan could not have "touched" her; but, judging God, she took the place of independence and thus Satan had power over her, and, being wiser than she, he deceived her.

How had the serpent beguiled her, or as the New Testament says, "And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression" (1 Tim. 2:14).

The serpent had deceived her by insinuating a doubt in her mind, for had he not said unto her, "Yea, hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" The woman lied to the serpent saying, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: but of the tree which is in the midst of the garden God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die." "And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." "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 gave also to her husband with her; and he did eat."

The extraordinary subtlety, with which the serpent is credited in verse 1, is exemplified by the very manner of his approach. To the woman his words are addressed. The weaker vessel was chosen as the object of attack. It cannot but be remarked too how cautious are his steps, how warily his part of the conversation is conducted. it opens mildly. To insinuate a doubt is, assuredly a more effectual way of overthrowing convictions than to meet them with a fiat denial, for the mind is thus left, as it were, to draw its own conclusions. And an insinuation it is that appears in his words — "Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" From the woman's reply it is evident that her mind had caught the drift of his language, and that her heart, alas! had entertained the implied question as to God's goodness. Confidence in God destroyed, or at least enfeebled, His word now assumes to her the character of an unpleasant prohibition, and surrender of it is thus made more easy. "Of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die." The prohibition increases — "neither shall ye touch it"; the penalty is rendered less threatening — "lest ye die." A small circumstance it may seem, yet sufficient to show where she is, her attitude towards God's truth.

Judging things to be now ripe for it, Satan does not hesitate to boldly deny what he had already questioned; and his lie is accepted in exchange for the truth she has come to so lightly esteem. The words of Eve in reply to God's question, "What is this that thou hast done?" aptly describe the process by which the enemy's triumph was accomplished — "The serpent beguiled me." Her statement receives inspired corroboration from 2 Cor. 11:3 — "the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety." And that record also is true which declares that "being entirely deceived she was in transgression" (1 Tim. 2:14). How deep the fall! How serious the consequences to a creature endowed as man was! The height of the honour of his former position measures the depth of his degradation now. The very possibilities of enlightenment then enjoyed, such of them as were not lost in the catastrophe itself, become now so many probable inlets for further deception. Completely at the mercy of that wily antagonist we may not describe ourselves for truth still finds that in us to which it can appeal; but biased in the direction of error (we may say) man has seemed to be ever since. Measure the effects on man of the fall, even in this respect, we cannot fully; but considering whence we have fallen or to what descended, we do well to attend to that which wrought our undoing.

Notice, that while the woman was deceived, and not the man, yet the man falls as the woman does. Nor is the woman suffered to be assailed with open evil until she has already invited it. The first question might have been answered innocently. The woman's heart was her strong point, and not her head, and her heart should have answered easily in paradise! But she makes the question put to her a question in her own mind, and it then becomes a question of God's love, and a prelude to the open disobedience. She tampers with God's word, adds to the prohibition, trifles with the penalty — as to the certainty of it, and the bold attack of the wicked one naturally follows.

The Serpent gains the attention of the woman to words in which there was some suggestion injurious to her Lord and Creator. It was a lie, though subtly conveyed; the only instrument by which he could reach and tempt her. She listens and answers — and her faculties thus enlisted are soon in action in the cause of her seducer, and she falls.

The woman then was beguiled, quite beguiled as we are told in 1 Tim. 2:14, and so became involved in transgression; but what of man? Of him we hear not a word in the colloquy of the serpent and Eve. The same N.T. authority assures us that he was not deceived: with his eyes open, he transgressed, swayed by his affection for his wife. It was deliberate disobedience on his part, not here thoughtlessness, or deceived as the weaker vessel by a mightier and subtle rebel; for both and their posterity it was ruin and death, to man irreparable.

This is emphasized too by the fact that Adam was not deceived, but the woman, being deceived, was in the trans­gression. The woman did have a safeguard if only she had remembered the woman's place. When Satan tempted her, she could simply have referred the matter to Adam; for here was a case of the tempter ignoring her head, and coming to the weaker vessel. Adam was not deceived, but sinned with his eyes wide open, no doubt out of affection for his wife. Certainly he is no less responsible: it is guilt in both cases; but this still illustrates the fact that man, being characterized particularly by intelligent and deliberating judgment, is fitted for the public place; and woman, more rightly marked by her feelings and intuition, is fitted for the more quiet place of subjection.