The following was typed from tapes of a series given by Brian Cunnington in an adult Sunday School class at Bridletowne Associated Gospel Church on male/female relationships in the home and in the church.  This material was spoken, I typed it from the tapes, it is unedited by the speaker.  Please forgive the rambling sentences or any errors.  The message is the important feature, not the lowly typing.

Tape 1

The one thing that we certainly cannot say about the church of Corinth was that it was dull or predictable.  There was always something happening and as we begin this unit, we are coming into contact with a large body of literature that really revolves around a theme of abuses in worship, abuses in worship as they relate to men and women in worship together, abuses in worship at the Lord’s table, abuses in worship as it relates to spiritual gifts and other abuses in worship as related to a general sense.   Men and women in worship is not an issue that divides liberals from conservatives.  Most if not all liberal theologians would hold ‘yes’ to all the questions re women being ordained, being elders and deacons etc., but still the issue itself is not one that separates liberals from conservatives, nor is it an accommodation to a feminist theology.  Let me mention a few names of the more prominent conservative scholars who would say ‘yes’ to these questions and they would say yes not because of an accommodation to feminism, but because of a very careful Biblical scholarship (names are given, not sure of sp). 

The topic we are studying is not an insignificant issue for many reasons.  Theologically, we hold of course to the fact that Scripture is authoritative for faith and practice and if our response to these questions is ‘yes’ then, as individuals and collectively as a church, we need to look at whether or not Scripture is indeed authoritative for our practice collectively in the church.  James Dobson did a survey several years back and found that the most prominent problem that women experience in the evangelical churches is depression and I remember hearing his program (this was not part of his study), where he was speculating that depression among evangelical women was more prominent that in the non-churched.  He did find that the number one problem reported by evangelical women is depression. That at least causes us to stop and question - “what is going on?” 

Just to say a little about how we are going to approach this study, we are going to depart from our regular methodology.  Rather then beginning with the particulars in 1 Corinthians 11 and other texts, and then going to the general, we are going to begin with the general, the larger picture, and put the particulars within that larger perspective.

So as a result, we are going to be leaving 1 Cor. for a while as we go through the overall Biblical study.  To treat this issue properly, we have to come at it from a lot of different directions.  Biblically, we have to look at what the texts are saying – how they are to be read in the context in which they are found.  We have to look at it theologically as the image of God, the theology of the nature of ministry, the meaning of priesthood, the meaning of the priesthood of all believers, the nature of service, the nature of authority, themes such as headship and submission, all these would be theological approaches to the topic.  Historically, we would need to look at how the dogma of a separated priesthood and celibacy affected the role of women in ministry from what, I believe, was a very active role of ministry for women in the early church to a diminishing role to a point where it is almost extinct.  Philosophically, we would want to look at how different philosophies’ perspectives have influenced the translations of different versions of the Bible.

One of the basic premises in Biblical theology is that God’s revelation of Himself and His will is progressive.  When we talk about a progressive revelation, we mean that it unfolds progressively through time.  There is a progression through Scripture that fits the human context, and we can summarize this progression by three words:  creation, fall and redemption.  Creation is explained and opened up for us in the first two chapters of Genesis and, in creation, we find the original purpose of God for mankind.  The fall (Gen. 3-11) very graphically depicts life in a fallen condition – the introduction of sin through the fall of Adam and Eve caused the destruction in the creation order, in God’s intention for creation (people as well as creation itself).  The theme of redemption becomes very clear from Gen. 12 through to Revelation, and within that section we see that God acts to reclaim human beings so that His original purposes in creation may be realized both individually and corporately through the church and creationally, so that all of creation will realize redemption. 

We can break down the last section of redemption into two stages – a preparation for God’s redemptive work and a fulfillment.  We are oversimplifying, but we need a scheme in mind.  The preparation is what you read in Gen. 12 through to the end of Malachi where God is working to prepare for the great redemptive act.  Human sin was a very human aspect; the fall was a personal reality, redemption had to be a personal reality, and God chose people in that way.  He chose Abraham, He chose His people, the children of Israel, to begin to prepare for the eventual expansion of redemption to all humankind.  Then there is the fulfillment aspect from Matt. 1 through the end of Revelation.  In the fulfillment, we see God restoring creation to its original purposes.  We see this first of all through the ministry of Jesus Christ and then through the ministry of His new community when He establishes the church.  Again, in light of what we have been talking about, we can divide fulfillment into two stages:  a fulfillment inaugurated by the coming of the Kingdom and a fulfillment consummated when Christ comes back again.  We live now in between those ages – the inauguration of the fulfillment of the ages and the consummation of the fulfillment of the ages.  We move from a paradise lost to a paradise restored.

If we were to ask what was God’s intention for the male/female relationship in creation, then the clearest presentation of that is in the first two chapters of Genesis.  We see what happens to those relationships under the fall, and we see that in a very pronounced way in Genesis 3-11.  What is the effect of God’s preparation for His redemption on the male/female relationship?  In Gen. 12 through to the end of the Old Testament and then into the New Testament, we start to see how the fulfillment of redemption impacts on the male/female relationship.

This means that Biblical texts that pertain to each of the phases of creation, fall and redemption, are to be interpreted in their specific frame of reference.  One would then apply the description of male/female relationships in Gen. 3 to the creation context of what God intended for male/female relationships in Gen. 1 and 2.  Each text has a canonical context in Scripture because revelation has a progressive nature.  One must be sensitive not only to the cultural context but also to the canonical context i.e. where does it fit in God’s progressive revelation of Himself?

To begin, we must ask:  what was the nature of the male/female relationship in God’s original design of creation, Gen. 1?  There is a very swift movement in this chapter from the development of infinite space to the development of heavenly bodies, to the establishment of earth itself.  Next, God causes the creation of life, both vegetable and animal life.  Then there is a pause at verse 26 when God intends to create human life.  “Then God said, Let Us make man in Our image, in Our likeness and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth and over all the creatures that move along the ground.  So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them.  God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth, subdue it, rule over the fish and sea and over the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.  Then God said, I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it, they will be yours for food, and to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground, everything that has the breath of life in it, I give every green plant for food and it was so.  God saw all that He had made and it was very good and there was evening and there was morning.”

God created man in His image.  In vs. 26 and 27, He determines to make man, singular, but He refers to them as plural.  The designation of “man” in chapter 1 is a generic term for humanity encompassing maleness and femaleness.  The same thought is in Gen. 5:2:  “man” is a common noun and a generic term for all of humanity and within that humanity is maleness and femaleness.  “Man” is called to bear the image of God as male and as female.  Femaleness pertains as much to the image of God as maleness.

By virtue of the fact that human beings bear God’s image, they are delegated to exercise some of God’s authority over creation.  Since man and woman both bear equally the image of God, they are both equally assigned the task of ruling over the earth without any differentiation on the basis of sex.  There is no division of responsibility, no distinction in rank.  Together, man and woman are equally entitled to act as God’s vice-regent over His creation.  Throughout Gen. 1, there is a lot of emphasis on distinguishing between things.  Light is distinguished from darkness and, subsequently, there is a forming that goes through a process of increasing distinction, and within that distinction that continues through Gen. 1, one sees an emphasis on hierarchy – a “chain of command” (vs. 16-19).  In the context of Gen. 1, there is a lot of emphasis placed on distinguishing one thing from another and on placing one thing in relation to a structure or hierarchy in relation to something else. 

But when we come to the reference to humankind, there is no reference to one ruling over the other; there is no reference to authority roles between man and woman as there has been in the previous part of the chapter (one thing being different from another and being higher or lower in relation to another).  When it comes to humankind, the relationship is seen as one of mutuality and equality, equality as the image bearer of God and equality as God’s vice-regent.  Man and woman receive equally the creation mandate.  It did not come from man as male; it came from man as humanity.  Man and woman, as God’s image bearers, bear the responsibility for fulfilling Gen. 1:28 of ruling, of subduing the rest of creation.  Sexual differentiation is present, however, and that allows for the complementarities we see in Gen. 2.  Because male and female are different sexually, there is a complementarity allowed and together, because of that complementarity in procreation, the fulfillment of Gen. 1:29 occurs.  There is a male/femaleness that allows for humanity to extend authority over all creation.  Sexual differentiation allows mutuality and partnership, and out of mutuality and partnership, authority is to be expressed.  From Gen. 1, we see that neither maleness nor femaleness connotes a disparity in rank or in function.  Both man and woman bear the image of God equally, and, as a result, they both share the God-assigned task of creation rulership without any intimation of role distinction.

The two basic themes of Gen. 1 are that male and female equally bear the image of God, and equally bear the creation mandate (Gen. 1:28).  In Gen. 2, we have what is rather like God turning up the power of a microscope to allow us to see more clearly the final phase of God’s creative acts – the forming of man and woman.  The sixth day of creation is replayed in slow motion, in close-up, so that we can see a lot more of the detail of male and female in God’s creation intent.  Gen. 2 amplifies the teaching of Gen. 1:18 (so the Lord God caused the man…and they felt no shame). 

There are four common arguments that Gen. 2 presents a picture of subordination of woman to man as being part of the creation plan and that man has a rightful role of dominion over the woman:

1.  that woman is created after man and is therefore secondary to man;

2.  that woman is taken from man and is therefore secondary to man;

3.  that woman is named by the man and is therefore secondary to him;

4.  that woman is created to be a helper for man and, as such, is subordinate to man.

Though man is in hierarchy over creation, man as male and female is in that hierarchy, not man as male over creation and female as something lesser than man and subordinate to him.

Tape 2

The four basic arguments used to support the case that women are to be subordinate to men and that subordination is found in and governed by the creative intent of God are:

1.that woman was created after man and is, therefore, secondary to man;

2.that woman was taken from the man and is, therefore, secondary to man;

3.that woman is named by the man and is, therefore, secondary to man;

4.that woman was created to be a helper for man and is, therefore, secondary to man.

These four arguments will be looked at one at a time.  If the arguments are looked at all together, there is a sense in which the cumulative impact of the four is fairly great, but the cumulative effect can be no stronger than each of the individual arguments itself.  The arguments must be looked at to see whether they do present an argument for subordination of one sex to the other in God’s creative intent.

The first argument – “woman is created after the man and is, therefore, secondary to the man” is referred to in literature as the argument of primogeniture:  that because something is created temporarily earlier than something else, it is superior to what follows.  Does temporal priority of creation in itself imply superiority of either being or function?  James Hurley, author of the book “Man and Woman in Biblical Perspective” presents a hierarchical view of male/female relationships.  Hurley, when he deals with 1 Tim. 2:8-15, supports his argument for primogeniture in Gen. 2 with this argument – “Paul’s appeal to the prior formation of Adam is an assertion that Adam’s status as the older carried with it the leadership appropriate to the firstborn son”.  Hurley is stating that because Adam was created prior to Eve that the male is in a leadership capacity over the female.  Hurley states that temporal priority means leadership priority and that that is proved in the creation of man and woman.  If there is an argument for prior creation in Genesis, then that would be something we would expect Paul to use when he comes to the pastoral epistles, even though in 1 Tim. 2, as Hurley admits, Paul himself does not draw any implications from the fact that Adam was created first before Eve. 

Paul does not draw any implications from primogeniture, he merely states the fact.  If the Gen. account does not teach leadership authority in relation to temporal priority, then we would not expect Paul to use it in that way.  John Calvin, who is a very strong traditionalist in male/female relationships, recognizes that there is no strong argument here for primogeniture – “the reason which Paul assigns that woman was second in order of creation appears not to be a very strong argument in favour of her subjection.”

To take this argument a step further:  first of all, we run into some logical difficulties in relation to the argument of prior creation.  The first logical difficulty ( if we are to assume that particular logic) is the conclusion that animals are superior to both man and woman.  As soon as primal origination becomes a norm, this would confer dominance to the first in line and so both Adam and Eve would fall under the rulership of the animals.  If the logic of prior creation is to be held, then we have to carry it to its logical conclusion and, since Adam and Eve were created after the animals, then rulership is given to animals over human life.  That, obviously, is not the intent of Gen. 1.

Secondly, by way of basic logic, the whole flow of the Gen. account unfolds from chaos to its supreme form.  Out of nothing we see the creation of things that are progressively more beautiful and, if we were to accept that, then we would be saying that woman is superior to man because she was created later.  So, we have chaos in man and we have the supremacy of humanity expressed in God’s creation of woman.

(Hebrew logic is circular and differs from western thought which goes in straight li primogeniture legislations come subsequent to creation, and the fact that there are only two or three incidental references to it should create some degree of caution even if we were to follow Hurley’s logic.  The fact that there is so little emphasis on primogeniture legislation should caution us that this might not be the best way to read literature.  We do not see primogeniture legislation in relation to Cain, Abel and Seth.  We do not see it in the daughters and sons of Lamech, nor in the daughters of Seth.  We do not see it in the sons of Noah.  We do see primogeniture legislation in Gen. 27 and 1 Chronicles 5 where primogeniture privilege is actually taken away from Reuben.  Even taking it on a Biblical basis, primogeniture was not treated with much seriousness at all times.  Therefore, to take something that is not treated all that seriously in Old Testament scripture and put it back into a context in which it is not even mentioned and then make that the interpretive norm is questionable in every way.

Hurley uses the argument of primogeniture legislation incorrectly because primogeniture applied to male siblings only – one never finds primogeniture applied between males and females in either a marriage relationship or between males and females who are brothers and sisters.  Primogeniture, when interpreted in its context, occurs only between male siblings.  Hurley’s attempts to apply primogeniture to the relationship of Adam and Eve, who were male and female and not brothers, puts a strain on the logic of his use of temporal priority.

There is also another difficulty in Hurley’s logic because primogeniture deals exclusively with property rights and not with leadership rights.  Primogeniture rights are not used in scripture to confer authority of leadership of one person over another.  Primogeniture is always used in terms of inheritance law – of who gets the farm – and that is how it is always used in scripture.  To take something that is subsequent and applies only to male siblings and only to the inheritance of the family wealth, and then to read that idea back into scripture in an entirely different context between male and female and in terms of leadership authority, is a questionable procedure.  Primogeniture is never seen in terms of leadership.  Ishmael did not rule over Isaac.  Manasseh did not rule over Ephraim.  Judah, the fourth in line among Jacob’s twelve sons, was given the promise that his brothers, including the older ones, would fall down and worship him.  David was made king over all his brothers even though he was the youngest.  Solomon ruled over his older brother Adonijah.  Primogeniture applies strictly to inheritance laws and not to any form of authority and rulership and yet, Hurley in his book takes this one concept and makes it say something primogeniture cannot say.  The practice of primogeniture in the Old Testament was observed loosely, and the rights of leadership were not intrinsic to that legislation.  The proof is convincing.  If we were to accept the argument of temporal priority in creation and say that primogeniture is God’s intent for male/female relationship, it proves far too much.nes – from here to here.  In Gen. 2, we have the ring construction of Hebrew thought.  In western thinking, logic moves from A to B whereas, in Hebrew, thinking moves from A to B, B to C, C to C, C to B, and B to A.  A is always parallel to A, B is parallel to B, C is parallel to C, and the flow goes through A to B to C.  In some Hebrew literature it may go to M and back.  That type of thinking creates a very different way of reading Hebrew literature in relation to other literature.  In Hebrew, what is important is placed at the beginning and at the end of the thought.  In chapter 2 that is exactly what we have when God is talking about the man and then deals with animal life – ABBA.  What is important is placed at the beginning and at the end.  A is always equal to A and B is always equal to B.  So, this type of logic, i.e. prior creation, assumes a western type of logic where there is a flow all the way through something.  Hebrew logic is not developed in this way.)

Hurley develops the arguments for primogeniture in some detail:  that what is formed first is of primary importance or of superior importance to what is formed later.  Primogeniture is, however, a collage type of Bible study, where something is taken from one context and put into another context.  Hurley takes primogeniture legislation, as articulated in the Mosaic law of Deut. 21 where the firstborn receives the inheritance of the father even if the firstborn comes from the wife he loves least.  The intent of primogeniture legislation was to protect the property rights of the firstborn so that there was some basic protection of that right.  The father was not able to dispense with his property at his whim whether he liked the wife that son came from or not.  That was a right protected by legislation.  Note that this is a legislation that comes much later than Genesis.  The collage type of Bible study takes something that comes later, puts it back into another context and says that the later is a standard for the first.  This is erroneous for many reasons.  First of all, the

What that would mean is that, in the church, if we were accepting primogeniture as an argument as to how male and female should relate, we would have to, by logic, accept the full weight of the actual intent of primogeniture.  No brother would be allowed to rule over another brother in the church.  Our family life would be affected because rulership would be placed on the older brother.  The inheritance laws would be affected because the older brother would receive the double portion.  We do not use even the intent of primogeniture that way whether in our family, in our inheritance laws, or in our church policy.  How can Hurley use primogeniture to read back into the creation intent that this is God’s intent for male/female relationships?

Finally, Hurley uses and misuses the concept of the firstborn (i.e. Adam as the firstborn).  In the New Testament, the use of firstborn is never in terms of prior creation.  Christ is the firstborn, but in New Testament scripture, that is not a title given to Christ because of a temporal creation.  There have been many problems in church history over that very fact.  Christ is the firstborn not because of temporal creation, but Christ is the firstborn because it is ascribed to Him in terms of a title of dignity and description.  Christ is the firstborn, in that He is the originator and the inheritor of the church and all creation.  Nowhere in the New Testament does one ever find firstborn linked to any concept of temporal or prior creation.  Since temporal or prior creation is not used in relation to Christ, it is inappropriate to take a New Testament term and read that back into Old Testament literature and the creation account and to then interpret that Adam is thus in a leadership capacity over Eve.

The second argument – “that woman was taken from man and is, therefore, secondary to man” is the argument of derivation.

E. Jacob in his book “Theology of the Old Testament” accepts the argument of derivation as proof that man is superior to woman, and he is quoted – “man by himself is a complete being, the woman who was given to him adds nothing to his stature whilst the woman drawn forth from man owes all her existence to him.”  There is a matter of perspective here.  One could say that man is incomplete in himself and needs woman to be complete.   There are serious difficulties in Jacob’s point of view.  The fact that woman was created from man does not, in its context, argue for difference or diversity.  The fact that woman is created from man is an argument for unity and relatedness.  The fact that the whole of humanity comes from one ancestor establishes the absolute unity of humanity.  The identical substance of both male and female is established absolutely in a way that could not occur had God used the same form of creation when he created woman, by taking her out of the dust.  Confusion comes from Jacob’s premise.  Is woman, then, really human?  The fact that woman is taken from man presents in as clear a way as possible the absolute unity of male and female in creation.  All the way through Gen. 1 and 2, God created out of dust.  God created animals out of dust, yet when He came to woman, He created in a very different way.  He created woman out of man.  The impact is not to emphasize distinction in terms of rank or function, but unity and relatedness, so that there can never be any dispute that woman is somehow different from man in terms of rank or function.  The unity comes as clearly as possible in the fact that God formed woman out of man.  God gave the woman her being – not the “rib”.  One reads many articles that argue for the subordination of woman on the basis of derivation, and the arguments are that woman owes her existence to the “rib” rather than to God.  God, however, is the source of male and female.  Man is not the active source of female.  God is!

Quote from Phyllis Tribble – “Man has no part in making woman.  He is neither a participant, nor a spectator, nor a consultant at her birth.  Like man, woman owes her life solely to God.  For both of them, the origin of life is a divine mystery.”  It is wrong to say that woman owes her existence to man, just as it would be wrong to say that man owes his existence to dust, and that, because man is created from dust, he is, then, subordinate to dust!  It is just as wrong to argue that way, as it would be to say that woman is subordinate to the material out of which God, as the active creator, created the woman.  Man is not subordinate to dust because he was created from dust.  Woman is not subordinate to man because God created her from man.  The creation of woman from man is as strong an argument as you will find for their unity and their relatedness, not in terms of superiority of one over the other.

The third argument – that “woman is named by man and is, therefore, secondary to man” is a very common argument and one that Hurley also uses.  The argument comes from the naming process in Genesis.  Again, there are difficulties in reading subordination into the text on the basis of naming ceremonies.  Some but not all naming ceremonies in the Old Testament imply authority of one person, the namer, over the other person, the named.  One sees this in certain instances in the New Testament when Christ asked for the name of the demon.  Christ, in asking for the name of the demon was Christ asserting His authority over the demons.  That is part of the naming ceremony that implies authority of one over the other.  But the fact that it is true of some naming ceremonies does not mean that it is true of all and, in fact, in the Old Testament, there are many naming ceremonies in which authority of one over another is not the impact.  In many more cases, in the Old Testament, there are 25 instances of women naming their sons, rather than the father patriarch naming the sons.  There are only 20 instances of fathers participating in the naming ceremony.  The logic of that would call into question whether naming ceremonies are an authoritative ceremony of one person over the other.  If that were true, then the woman is the authority in the family.  But again, that is not the intent in the naming ceremony.

Hurley, in his book, discusses the topic and interestingly he discusses the naming aspect of Gen. 2 under the title “Naming the Animals”.  He states that the naming in Gen. 2:23 “stresses his role over her, in that, he assigns her a name”.  Later he says, “the power to assign a name or to change a name signified assumption of authority”.  The assumption that naming must mean the exercise of authority, however, has to be read into the account in Gen. 2.  First of all, what is the purpose of the naming of the animals?  Hurley says very clearly that the purpose of the naming of the animals in Gen. 2 is for man to assert authority over the animals.  However, that is a wrong assumption that must be read into the text and does not come out of it.  The purpose of the naming ceremonies in relation to the animals is not for man to assert authority over the animals because that is an authority already granted in Gen. 1:28.  Man, as male and female, is given dominion over the animals.  In Gen. 2, the purpose of the naming ceremony is not an assertion of authority but rather to find a helper for man.  In Gen. 2:18, “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone.  I will make a helper suitable for him.’”  And then God presents all the animals before man.  Vs. 20 – “but for man, no suitable helper was found.”  Here is an example of Hebrew type of thinking.  The purpose is A – to find a helper for man.  B – the parade of animals.  A – no helper was found.  The purpose of the naming ceremony in relation to the animals is not to assert authority; it is to find a helper because, in all the various creations, no helper was found.  Therefore, God created woman.  (The tape ended here although the speaker was not finished.)

Tape 3

Hierarchy denotes an inequality based on sex.

Lamech is the first example of a polygamous relationship in the Old Testament, only six generations from the time in which Gen. 2 gave a very clear expression of the one-flesh relationship.  After Gen. 2, there was a movement from one-flesh equality to hierarchy, and from hierarchy to polygamous relationships.  It is inevitable that, with a concept of male dominance in marital relationships, there is the disposition to multiple wives (as in the example of Lamech).  Polygamy reaches rather hideous proportions under King Solomon with his 1,000 wives and concubines.  We see very quickly that the “ruler of women” (hierarchy) rapidly becomes the “owner of woman”, and the “owner of woman” becomes the “owner of women”.  That is the nature of the fallen individuals that we are – we are collectors in the sense that two is better than one and 1,000 is better than two.  Lamech was no friend to anyone.  He was the murderer of men and the possessor of women.  In Lamech it is not hard to see the very obvious distortion that sin had on the male/female relationship.  The effects of sin are very pervasive, not only in exaggerated forms such as Lamech and Solomon, but also as it pervades society and social institutions in general.  Even in the case of Abraham, we have a movement away from what was talked about in Gen. 2

In Gen. 24:4, we see a very significant difference from Gen. 2:24.  “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.”  In Gen. 24:4, we see Abraham talking to his servant issuing a command, which is significantly different – “Go to my country and my relatives and get a wife for my son Isaac.”  This is a significant change in the relationship between male and female.  How did we get there from here or here from there?  To answer that, we have to move through Gen. 3, where we see the fall and the effects of sin and the disruption of the male/female relationship.

In Gen. 3, we see the fall and the consequent disruption of the male/female relationship.  It is important to remember to think in terms of a canonical context – that questions associated to creation and God’s creative intent relate to Gen. 1 and 2, and questions related to the fall come out of Gen. 3.  We do not look for answers to questions about God’s creative intent in Gen. 3.  It is an error to take something from one context and make it apply to a different context.

As we leave the creation intent of God, we see that mankind as humanity (the generic name, man as male and female) bears equally the image of God, and because man as male and female bears equally the image of God, man as male and female equally receives the creation mandate.  Man as male and female, together, is to be fruitful, to increase in number, to fill the earth, subdue it, rule over the fish of the sea, birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.  That is the creation mandate in Gen. 1:28.  When we look at Gen. 1, we see a hierarchy.  The hierarchy we see in Gen. 1 and 2 is one in which man, as male and female, is the image bearer of God.  Both are under the sovereignty of God and because mankind has been appointed vice-regents of creation, nature is under the rulership of man as male and female.  In Gen. 3, the picture changes rather drastically.  In Gen. 3, there is a clear picture of the way in which the relationship between the man and the woman, as intended by God, was spoiled by sin.

God had created a garden and into the garden God had placed a particular tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  In relation to that particular tree, God gave a particular command not to eat of it.  Gen. 2:16-17 – “And the Lord commanded the man saying, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for when you eat of it you will surely die’”.  Now, as the tree stood there, the tree was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  It was designated by God as the tree of knowledge, and it was that by reason of the prohibition that was placed on it.  Its very presence provided mankind with the constant knowledge of the nature of humanity in relation to God and of the necessity of humanity to maintain subservience to God.  Mankind as male and female is under the sovereignty of God very clearly, and it provided mankind with the knowledge that the weight of fulfillment is through obedience to God, and the way of misery is through disobedience to God.

Gen. 3:1 – “Now the serpent was much more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made.  He said to the woman, ‘Did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden?’”

We will now look at some questions that relate to the nature of the male/female relationship.

Why did the tempter approach Eve rather than Adam?  Does the fact that the tempter approached the woman and not the man suggest that she was the weaker or more inferior being?  This is a very common misconception – that woman is the initiator of sin.  The scriptures do not comment on these questions.  Martin Luther, in his Genesis commentary, says – “the subtlety of Satan shows itself also when he attacked human nature where it was weakest.  I believe that if Satan had first tempted the man, Adam would have gained the victory”.

The fact of the matter is, however, that the woman faced the tempter’s challenge with a lot more authoritative confrontation than did Adam (Gen. 3:2 and 6).  I believe that the most obvious reason why the tempter approached Eve in this particular situation was that Eve was more vulnerable than Adam.  But the vulnerability was not, however, the result of a weaker character based on her sexuality.  She was not vulnerable because she was woman; rather, I think it had to do with the circumstances surrounding the moment when God gave Adam the prohibition to eat from the tree.  At the time when God gave Adam the prohibition in Gen. 2:16-17, he was alone in the garden.  Eve was not yet in existence.  As a result, Eve had not had the personal involvement in the command of God not to eat.  That was a personal encounter between God and Adam.  Eve had not been part of the living experience of God putting the tree off limits.  For Eve, the prohibition was a matter of theoretical knowledge rather than personal experience.  She was the first victim of the second-generation-believer fade-out syndrome.  What she knew about the prohibition came second-hand through Adam.  Adam had received personal instruction first-hand from God; Eve knew about the prohibition second-hand from Adam.

In reading through Gen. 2, one sees the very rich personal experience that Adam had with God in the garden, which Eve was not personally involved in.  The creation of the garden, the animals, the giving of instructions and in all of this, Eve was not personally involved in that encounter with God.  Because of that, she was situationally vulnerable and because of that, she did not have access to the same revelational opportunities that had enriched Adam’s life prior to her existence.  Because of that situational vulnerability, she was more easily deceived and misled by the subtlety and cunning of the tempter’s suggestions.  “Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made.  He said to the woman, ‘Did God really say (a recognition that Eve knew second hand rather than first hand) you must not eat from any tree in the garden?’  The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat from the trees in the garden, but God did say you must not eat from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it or you will die.’  The serpent said to the woman, ‘God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good from evil.’  When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some of it and ate it.”

Why was Eve approached first?  I am saying that Eve was approached first because she was situationally vulnerable to being deceived because there was a difference in the revelational opportunities for Adam as compared with Eve.  This is called the “Eve as sinner” theme.  It is interesting to see how Paul uses this very same “Eve as sinner” theme in the New Testament.  Paul makes reference to this twice in his writings.  In 1 Tim. 2:14 – “And Adam was not the one deceived, it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.”  Here, Paul is making use of an Old Testament theme and a rabbinic theme called the “Eve as sinner” theme to make a point.  He is using it as an illustration not building doctrine on this.  He is using the theme as an illustration when he writes a letter to Christians in the city of Ephesus who are having difficulties, and he uses that illustration from the Old Testament in a way to support his teaching in 1 Tim. 2 that he is not allowing women to teach authoritatively in the church.  After that, he refers to the fact that Eve was deceived and became a sinner because she was deceived.  In Ephesus, the women were not instructed in theology, it was not part of their lot.  There weren’t many personal opportunities for women to learn and be taught directly and, because of that, they were in danger of being misled and deceived.  Take a look at what is going on in Ephesus in II Tim. 3:6-7 (again, Paul is using an Old Testament illustration to substantiate what he is saying is going to be relevant to the context of what is going on in Ephesus) – “They are the kind who worm their ways into homes and gain control over weak-willed women who are loaded down with sins and swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth.”  There were a lot of false teachers in Ephesus who were trying to make inroads into the church.  They were doing that by approaching the women first and teaching the women who, because they had no opportunity to counter that teaching with the truth (vs. 8), were situationally vulnerable to false teaching, being misled and deceived.  That is how Paul uses this text – because of their lack of knowledge he is not allowing them to teach in the church.

What I have been stating so far is that Paul has made use of the “Eve as sinner” theme in relation to the women in Ephesus as recorded in 1 Tim. 2, and the situation is sufficiently parallel that Paul is able to use the theme as an illustration.  In Gen. 3, Eve was situationally vulnerable because she had not been exposed to the direct teaching from God and, as a result, was vulnerable to being deceived.  In the same way, the women in Ephesus had not had the opportunity to be exposed to teaching in theology and they were situationally vulnerable to being deceived through the influence of false teachers who were, as we have seen from II Tim. and Titus, making inroads and leading women astray by their false teaching, false teaching which the women were not able to counter because they had lacked teaching prior to that.  They were situationally vulnerable because of their lack of direct teaching.  Paul uses that illustration from Gen. 3 to apply to the situation in Ephesus in relation to women.  There, Paul says, because of the knowledge that may have probably come to them from false teachers who saw the women as easy marks because they lacked sufficient substantial teaching and learning opportunity, the knowledge that they did have may have been a distorted and erroneous knowledge.  Thus, they should not be in a position of authoritative teaching.  Rather, Paul says, they should be learning – 1 Tim. 2:11 – “a woman should learn in quietness and in submission.”  We will be talking further about that verse when we come to this passage later on. 

But Paul also uses this same “Eve as sinner” theme in a second place in the New Testament is II Cor. 11:3-4 – “But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ, for if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preach, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you have received or a different gospel from the one you have accepted, you put up with it easily.”  Vs. 13-14 – “For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ and no wonder, for Satan himself, masquerades as an angel of light.  It is not surprising then that his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness.”  Now here the context is again similar enough for Paul to use the very same “Eve as sinner” theme.  There was a danger in Corinth of the church being misled and deceived by other teaching and by other teachers because they were not sufficiently grounded in apostolic teaching.  But here the “Eve as sinner” theme is applied differently from that in 1 Tim. 2:14.  Here it is applied to both men and women alike; Paul here is addressing the church.  Thus, Paul does not use this theme to prohibit women as women from teaching, but as a warning to anyone, male and female, who may, because of a lack of true teaching in their lives, be easily deceived by false teaching and thus lead a congregation into error.  Thus, this suggests that Paul does not use the “woman as sinner” theme in 1 Tim. 2:14 to apply to women because they are women, but to women because they were situationally vulnerable to deception because of their lack of knowledge.  To counter that, Paul says they should learn in quietness and in submission.  Eve was deceived by the tempter’s suggestions, which hooked her own personal desire to transcend her humanity and to become independent of God by becoming like God.  Eve’s downfall was not caused by weakness or stupidity; it was the result of an aggressive quest on her part for God’s likeness.  Her quest was exploited by the subtlety of the tempter’s suggestion and was not countered by any reference to direct personal knowledge of a living experience of the Creator’s prohibition.  Even though what she knew was communicated differently coming through Adam rather than directly from God leaving her situationally more vulnerable, what she knew was sufficient had she chosen to act on what she did know.  Her choice led to sin even though it was mediated by deception.

So, what are we saying here by way of summary?  First of all, there is no evidence of God having revealed himself to Eve in person before the fall.  Two, she was more vulnerable to error because her information regarding the tree was obtained by transmission and not directly from God.  Three, she was encouraged by the tempter to doubt God and to play God, as we are all prone to do.  Four, Eve’s sin, desiring to be independent of God, was the result of being deceived.  And five, there is nothing in the Biblical account of Eve’s sin nor in Biblical references to it that allows the conclusion that Eve is inferior in being or function or secondary in any way to Adam.  While none other than God’s archenemy led Eve into error, a powerful supernatural opponent, Adam’s fall, on the other hand, came at the mere suggestion of his wife.  Gen. 3: 6 – “when the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it.”

The following is a quote from an author one to two centuries before our Lord’s birth – “from a woman did sin originate and because of her we all must die.  Eve, and consequently all women, now become responsible for the presence of evil in the world.  Eve has become the totally ennoble character.”

However, Eve may not have been so totally evil or so totally culpable as many perceive her to be.  First, who is present in that historic dialogue between the serpent and Eve in Gen. 3?  Of course, only the serpent and Eve speak.  However, when the serpent speaks to the woman, it uses the plural “you”, not the feminine singular “you”.  Contemporary English employs only the one word “you” to signify one or more than one person.  The King James Version, though, still retains the archaic “ye” – “ye” may not eat, “ye” will surely die, “ye” will be like God.  As well, the text reads – “your” (plural) eyes will be open.  God had used the singular “you” (thou) in Gen. 2:16 when speaking only to Adam.  Thus, the serpent is not merely repeating God’s command.  Probably the serpent employs the plural “you” because it wants to ensure Adam falls along with Eve.  It may also be possible that the serpent employs the plural “you” because it addresses Adam, as well as Eve.  Adam may have been present although not speaking.  As vs. 6 indicates – “she gave some also to her husband who was with her and he ate it.”  The possibility that Adam was present during the dialogue is confirmed in vs. 6.  After Eve eats the fruit, she gives it to her husband “with her” (King James Version).  Many English translations tend to omit the words “with her” because they are difficult to translate.  In English they appear unnecessary, but in Hebrew they were also unnecessary unless the writer wants to specify that Adam was present with Eve.  Consequently, although the dialogue of ch. 3 is between the serpent and Eve, Adam may very possibly have been present.  His lack of action signified his consent to the train of thought.  That consent is overt in Adam’s act of disobedience – “and he ate.”  Thus, Eve apparently was not totally at fault.  Both Eve and Adam appear to have been present during the dialogue.

Now, after the fall we see the consequences of sin.  Before the fall, God had warned Adam – “in the day that you eat of it, you shall die (2:17).”  But, eat they did, and that disobedience triggered catastrophic upheaval that invaded all areas of life.  The intrusion of death in the midst of life caused devastating reversals in the relationship of humanity with God, within the social structure, within the social institutions, in their vocational lives and in the ecological realm.  But here, once again, our interest is specifically in the relationships between male and female.

Let’s pose another question.  Does the fact that God summoned Adam before Eve to account for the fall suggest that Adam was in charge of Eve in the Garden of Eden?  Here, Hurley suggests that it does.  But Hurley does this in a curiously deceptive way.  First, he makes a supposition.  Next, he accepts the supposition as fact, and then, he builds his argument on that fact.  Listen to Hurley, page 216 – “while it is precarious to build much upon the fact, it is worth noting that it is the man who is addressed and questioned.”  Now, from this observation, Hurley then ventures the supposition “it is apparently he who is the family spokesman.”  This is strictly a supposition on his part.  Three pages later, however, he states – “Adam functions as priest, bringing in a concept of priesthood with all its associated reality into the creation account.”  That’s an example of collage Bible study – taking pictures that don’t relate and making them relate.  Then one page later he states very clearly – “the headship of the man was reflected in his being called upon to answer for the pair.”  Now, not only does this illustrate the danger of making a supposition and then turning the supposition into fact, it is purely and simply, wrong.

Let’s look at the text.  First, did God call upon Adam to “answer for the pair?”  If he called Adam to be the spokesman for the pair, i.e. to represent Eve before God, then there might be the suggestion that God recognizes a sexual hierarchy in male/female relationships.  But, does He do this?  Adam was the sole recipient of God’s personal prohibition in Gen. 2:17.  The pronouns “you” are singular.  It is thus only logical that God should first call Adam to account for his direct disobedience.  Vs. 11 – “who told you (Adam, second person singular) that you (Adam, second person singular) were naked?  Have you (Adam, second person singular) eaten of the tree, which I commanded you (Adam, second person singular) not to eat?”  Did Adam respond for the pair in this confrontation with God?  Vs. 10 – “I heard, I was afraid, I was naked, I hid myself” – all first person singular.  God asked Adam a simple straightforward question – “did you eat?”  Adam said – “yes, I ate.”  (3:12)

But, he did make reference to Eve.  Here a simple contrite “yes, I ate” would have sufficed.  But far from acting as Eve’s priest, Adam acts as Eve’s accuser.  “The woman you put here with me, she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it.”  (3:12) Is this the concept of priesthood?  Is Adam acting as Eve’s priest?  Is this a demonstration that God recognizes Adam’s headship in the garden?  No!  God calls Adam to account for Adam, and Adam accounts for himself even though in doing so he blames Eve.  And then, God turns to Eve and he calls on Eve to account for Eve.  Eve had no representative, no priest, and no head to speak for her.  Eve was called to account for Eve herself as was Adam called to account for Adam himself.  But with Eve there was a difference.  Eve stood there and took it like a man (Gen. 3:13) stating very factually – “Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’  The woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me and I ate.’”  All very factual statements.

What are the results of the fall?  Specifically, the serpent is cursed in Gen. 3:14-15.  And in these two verses, the whole history of Satan is expressed, including the battle that will eventually be waged between himself and God’s Messiah; and the final outcome of that battle, the crushing of the serpent’s head.  Secondly, the ground is also cursed because of Adam’s sin. (vs. 17-18))  Thirdly, Adam and Eve are judged (vs. 22-24) and in that judgment both equally were banished forever from the garden.

Another question – does the description of life outside the garden (Gen. 3:16) represent God’s standard for male/female relationships?  What will life be like outside the garden?  In Gen. 3, we see life described outside the garden.  Life outside the garden and life outside the redemptive action of God is described in Gen. 3:16-19.  Because the death predicted in 2:17 is now a reality, death permeates all realms of life and suffering, as a preliminary form of death, will now mar the process of life from its very beginning.  In vs. 17-19, Adam is told that the ground which once produced fruit of its own will, will produce it now only through suffering.  And also, human reproduction will be subject to pain and suffering from the very beginning.  Life will go on after the fall, but because of the pressure of death, it will be a struggle from the very beginning.  Specifically to Eve (3:16), God’s description of life after the fall is as follows – “your desire will be for your husband.  You will yearn for that one flesh relationship that defined your relationship prior to the fall (2:24), your desire will be for your husband so as to perpetuate the intimacy that once characterized your relationship.  But your husband will not reciprocate your nostalgic yearning for that relationship of love and equal mutuality that existed between you and your husband before the fall when you both desired each other.  Instead of meeting your desire and responding in a mutually supportive and nurturing way, your husband will rule over you,”

A former fellow student of mine at Gordon Conwell in her doctoral dissertation at Harvard wrote this – “the woman wants a mate and she gets a master.  She wants a lover and she gets a lord.  She wants a husband and she gets a hierarchy.”  This is the clear meaning of Gen. 3:16.  As a result of the fall, Adam and Eve suddenly found themselves in an environment pervaded with the reality of death outside the garden.  And because of that reality, they also experienced the pervasiveness of pain, of struggle and of suffering – all the harbingers of death.  Having dismissed God through rebellion, they both became subject to secondary authorities in their lives.  Adam became subject to the soil from which he had been taken.  Eve became subject to Adam from whom she had been taken.  But this subjection in both cases is the result of Satan’s work, not God’s intent.  As a result of Satan’s work, God describes the experience of life outside the garden, outside His redemptive action, as man mastering and dominating woman, and as the ground mastering man and eventually engulfing him in death.

But both death and male dominance are antithetical to God’s original intent in creation.  Both are the result of sin itself instigated by Satan.  Gen. 3:14-19 is not the punishment of God for sin; the punishment of God for the sin of Adam and Eve is expulsion from the garden.  Gen. 3:14-19 is not God’s new prescription of what male and female relationships should be like, it is not as if God were saying, “I guess my original intention in creation was wrong, so now I’ll make a new prescription for how man and woman should relate to each other.”  Gen. 3:14-19 is God’s description, not a prescription, of what life is going to be like on the outside.  It is God’s description of male/female relationships under the influence and as a consequence of sin.  It is not God’s intent for life but God’s description of life outside of His intent for life.

Here, then, we see the emergence of a new paradigm for male/female relationships.  First, in God’s creative intent, the paradigm is one of mutual equality stated clearly in Gen. 1 – mutual equality as God’s image bearers and mutual equality as God’s vice-regents over creation.  This mutual equality of Gen. 1, rather than being altered in Gen. 2 is, in fact, re-emphasized.  But now with the introduction of sin into creation, we experience the disruption of God’s creative intent in all areas of life and in male/female relationships.  Where there was co-operation, we now see competition; where there was mutuality, we now see selfishness; where there was equality, we now see the emergence of hierarchy.

Which paradigm is the church to adopt?  One, the paradigm of mutual equality as found in God’s creative intent? Or two, the paradigm of hierarchy that emerges from the fall?  The full answer to that needs to wait until our full study of the New Testament text.  But here, just a few comments.  Is the church, in any way, justified in building a practical theology, a theology of practice on the basis of Gen. 3:16 – “He shall rule over you.”  This verse is no more God’s prescribing His will for male/female relationships anymore than death may be regarded as God’s creative will for mankind.  Gen. 3:16 acknowledges the emergence of a disaster.  Gen. 3 describes life under sin, life outside the garden, life outside God’s redemptive activity.  Gen. 3 is not God’s prescriptive will or God’s intent for life in any sphere.  Gen. 3 is a hard-nosed description of the reality of sin as it will be experienced and it is this description of the devastation brought on by sin that God Himself, right here at the beginning (Gen. 3:15) pledges to fight until it is totally destroyed.  And it is against this same devastation in all areas of life that He calls on you and I, individually and collectively as His church, to join Him in this fight.

Sin inevitably led to the disruption of the relationship between mankind and God.  This, in turn, led to the disruption of the relationship between man and woman and between mankind and the ground.  However, to see either of these disruptions as the permanent will of God for mankind and to treat their results as abiding law is surely to misunderstand the purpose of the text.  It must always be recognized that mankind’s sin has effects, which go far beyond the sinner.  The effects, for example, on the families of imprisoned criminals are inevitable.  But it cannot be assumed that it is wrong to try to offset them.  Thus, man weeds his garden and seeks to ease his burden of toil with technology.  Similarly, medicine is used to ease pain in childbirth.  There appears to be no reason why the disruption of relationship described in the second half of vs. 16 should not similarly be eased.

Thus the narrative of Gen. 3 with its description of the events and consequences of the fall provides an explanation, but not a justification, for male domination in Israelite society.  It shows that a profound change took place between men and women as the result of sin.  Where there had been communion, there would now be conflict.  Where there had been equality, there would now be domination.  Of course, it has always been possible even in pagan society for mankind to offset some of the worst consequences of the fall, if only temporarily, and it must be remembered that the close relation between the sexes, though spoiled, still exists.  Nevertheless, however, as much as the results are offset, the conflict situation remains.  It is only in Christ that the broken relationship between man and woman, as that between God and mankind, can fully and permanently be restored.  Gen. 1 and 2 presents man and woman as different but united, each the perfect complement of the other, each playing his or her part in the God-given task of filling and governing the earth.