Who was Eve in the Bible?

A name given by Adam to his wife after they had fallen, and after God had spoken of 'her seed,' and had told her that in sorrow she should bring forth children. The Hebrew name is chavvah, which signifies 'life,' Adam adding that at she was 'the mother of all living.' Gen. 3:20; Gen. 4:1. Eve being formed from a rib taken out of Adam, which God 'built' into a woman, and hence called by him Isha, is a beautiful type of the church being of Christ and presented to Him: cf. Eph. 5:31-32.

Eve is twice mentioned in the N.T. A woman is to be silent in the church: she is not to exercise authority over the man, for Adam was formed before Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but she was. This deception is further explained by showing that it was the serpent who beguiled Eve by his subtilty, and it is the same enemy who seeks now to ensnare the saints. 2 Cor. 11:3; 1 Tim. 2:13.

Moreover, Eve could not have come into the garden with Adam, for the obvious reason that Adam was created before Eve came upon the scene. Adam, we read, was put into a deep sleep by God, from his side a rib was taken, and from it a woman formed. Thus was Eve presented to Adam by God to be his “help meet.” This is a most beautiful account of how man and woman came into this world by the creatorial act of God, full of deep and wonderful meaning for all of Adam’s descendants, and also full of rich typical teaching concerning Christ and the Church. Compare Genesis 2:24 with Ephesians 5:31.

The great frequency of names is apparent to the ordinary reader of Scripture. The Bible is a veritable biographical dictionary, historical thesaurus, and a geographical gazeteer. Names of persons and places abound everywhere. This in itself would show us that we cannot ignore their presence. A casual examination of Scripture, however, will show that many names, at least, have been given for specific reasons. Thus, the first names, Adam and Eve, Cain, Abel, Seth, have an evidently appropriate significance. Adam is "made of the earth," as the word would suggest. Eve, "living," was "the mother of all living." Cain, "acquisition," speaks of the fond hope, so rudely disappointed, that he was the "gotten one," the promised woman's Seed. Abel speaks of the "frailty" and brevity of his life. Seth, "appointed," of the one appointed to fill his place. Noah, "comfort," answers to his name.

Genesis 3 brings us into the presence of the great catastrophe. The source of it is uncovered — the serpent; but in the serpent we discern the devil who is called Satan, for he had evidently entered into the serpent, then a far finer creature than now, to carry out his evil design. The woman, Eve, becomes the medium of it. Approached by the serpent, she listened, and then taking the lead, which was not her place, she acted and disobeyed. Adam, however, was the responsible transgressor. It is always Adam's sin of which Scripture speaks, and 1 Timothy 2:14 supplies us with the reason. Eve was deceived but Adam was not. His eating of the forbidden tree was therefore an act of pure defiance of God. It was undiluted lawlessness, and that is the very essence of sin.

Accordingly, the woman was formed by Divine handiwork, not from the dust of the ground as Adam had been, but out of Adam himself, so that literally the woman was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. Eve was the Creator's provision for Adam. Discerning the incompleteness of Adam in his solitude, God provided for him a consort designed exactly to meet his deficiencies. Accordingly, in their marriage the two became one flesh, each being the complement of the other.

The marriage of Adam is the prototype of the marriage of all his sons. In every case of true matrimony, God arranges the union. Divine wisdom observes the moment when the loneliness of the man is no longer good for him, and He provides a bride who is the complement of his nature with its personal characteristics. Adam had no choice of brides; there was but the one that would suit him, and she was prepared of God especially for him. Adam had no rivals for the possession of Eve. Nor can such a thing be imagined in Eden, where each of the two found in the other everything required to complete their enjoyment and to perfect their capacities. There was no alternative that either could have chosen or found.

It is too common to view redemption as bearing merely upon the blessedness and security of individual souls. This is entirely too low a view to take of the matter. That all which pertains, in any way, to the individual is, in the fullest manner, secured, is, blessed be God, most true. This is the least part of redemption. But that Christ's glory is involved in, and connected with, the Church's existence, is a truth of far more dignity, depth, and power. If I am entitled, on the authority of Holy Scripture, to regard myself as a constituent part of that which is actually needful to Christ, I can no longer entertain a doubt as to whether there is the fullest provision for all my personal necessities. And is not the Church thus needful to Christ? Yes, truly. "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him." And, again, "For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man; neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man … Nevertheless, neither is the man without the woman. neither the woman without the man in the Lord. For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God." (1 Cor. 11:8-12) Hence, it is no longer the mere question whether God can save a poor, helpless sinner — whether He can blot out his sins, and receive him in the power of divine righteousness. God has said, "it is not good that the man should be alone." He left not "the first man" without "an help meet;" neither would He leave the "Second." As, in the case of the former, there would have been a blank in the creation without Eve, so stupendous thought! — in the case of the latter, there would be a blank in the new creation without the Bride, the Church.

Let us, now, look at the manner in which Eve was brought into being, though, in so doing, we shall have to anticipate part of the contents of the next chapter. Throughout all the orders of creation there was not found an help meet for Adam. "A deep sleep" must fall on him, and a partner be formed, out of himself, to share his dominion and his blessedness. "And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, builded he a woman, and brought her to the man. 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." (Gen. 2:21-23.)

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.

That gracious promise had not been lost upon Adam's ear, and they took the relief it gave to their souls, with them, on entering upon a world and life of sorrow and care. Adam, no doubt, by faith in that promise, called his wife "Eve," (Heb. "Chavah") i.e., "living," "because she was the mother of all living."

And after his faith had begun to be answered, in the temporal sense, by Eve having borne children to Adam, and they had thus entered upon the second family-relationship, provided by a merciful God; the happy but responsible relationship of parents and children; do you not think, Christian reader, that both parents, when they, resting from the toil of the day, under the shelter of their poor abode, told their growing sons, along with the solemn and humbling tale of that lost paradise, and the cause of its loss, and the effect of it, as a warning to their young consciences, also told them of those words of God's gospel-promise, which they had been permitted to listen to, before they as exiles, had to enter upon their new existence of sorrow and toil? Those words had sunk down into the ears of Abel; and his sacrifice, to which God had respect, and by which he obtained witness, that he was righteous, and by which he, "being dead yet speaketh," showed, how deeply the words he had heard from his parents, had been lodged in Abel's conscience and heart. It was otherwise with Cain, alas! He was Eve's first-born, and she said, I have gotten a man from the Lord." How far motherly pride and natural affection may have influenced the training of the child, and thus prevented the good seed falling into good ground, is a question we cannot enter upon here.

In like manner, Eve. She had listened to the same promise, and therefore, as soon as she had brought forth her first-born, she gives witness that this promise lived chief in the thoughts of her heart. "I have gotten a man from the Lord," said she. She as much overlooked herself as Adam did. She gloried only in her Seed. She had listened to the promise with too faithful an ear to mistake herself for her Seed. It was not over herself, but over him, that she now, in the language of another mother, was singing, "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour!" There was a mistake here, it is true. But there was witness how the object of faith filled her visions, and the expectations of faith stirred in her heart. And so soon as disastrous events manifest her mistake, and prove to her that this first-born of her womb was anything rather than the promised Seed — that instead of being the bruiser of the serpent's head, he turned out to be the murderer of his brother — still is she found on the rock where faith had fixed her soul. "Let God be true, but every a man a liar," was her triumph. Over Seth she exclaims, "God hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew." Though every cistern fail, she knows the fountain cannot. One son had been a murderer, and another his victim; but still God is true. "I will sing of the mercies of the Lord for ever; with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations."

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.

*As Eve at the birth of Cain seems to have been unduly excited, and expecting I think a deliverer in the child whom she named as gotten from Jehovah, so she seems to me to express a sobered if not desponding sentiment in saying at Seth's birth, "Elohim has appointed me another seed," etc. In the latter she only saw a child given of God naturally. Both appear to me natural and purposed.