Jesus, mother of all living

“And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.” (Gen. 3:20). “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men.” (John 1:1-4).

“The Sovereign of the universe was not alone in His work of beneficence. He had an associate―a co-worker who could appreciate His purposes, and could share His joy in giving happiness to created beings.... Christ, the Word, the only begotten of God, was one with the eternal Father―one in nature, in character, in purpose―the only being that could enter into all the counsels and purposes of God.” Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 34.

Adam was made in the image of God, “God, who created all things by Jesus Christ” (Eph. 3:9). Adam and Eve were made in the image of the Godhead. “This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made He him; male and female created He them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.” (Gen. 5:1,2). “Let Us make man [H120, “adam”] in Our image, after Our likeness: and let them have dominion....” (Gen. 1:26).The first parents were the progenitors of the human race, as the Father and Son Godhead were the progenitors of the universe.

The sinless man, kingly, strong, calm and settled, not easily disturbed, all perfectly represented the great God, the beloved Father. Like God, Adam’s was the final say; and, at first, the only say. Adam went about his work, mastering and organizing the garden, as God had done His universe of suns and galaxies and super-clusters. The glory of the garden filled Adam’s being. But, like the Father had once been, Adam was alone, and he had an unrest about it. The garden was full of wonder and goodness; but it wasn’t yet perfect.

So, as the Lord God had done earlier outside the garden, He quickly made every specie of the animal kingdom, right there before Adam’s eyes. Now, animals lowed, insects creeped, and fish swam. Birds of all sizes and colors soared, wafted, and flitted around him. They cawed and sang millions of melodies to the bold ruler over the powerful animal kingdom, as the hosts of heaven had done for God. Still Adam felt alone.

The Lord God knew it wasn’t right for Adam to live without another in whom he could share his deepest companionship. But, He wanted Adam to come to that realization himself, and to ask for her. He wanted Adam to have ownership  for the new arrangement and commitment for his new counterpart. So, He gave Adam a task that would raise the Lord’s desire in Adam’s mind, the Lord’s plans “being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will.” (Eph. 1:11).

Back in the dateless ages, a long period of singleness without perfect companionship had been the Father’s experience before begetting His only beloved Son, the Prince of heaven, the Lord God. Then the Counsel of peace was between Them both.

And now, the Lord God, acting in His Father’s behalf, designed this circumstance with Adam and the animals in order for Adam to see his need for fellowship with like-minded company, an eternal life-mate and a “like”-mate, as the divine Lord God had been to His Father God. In accordance with the Lord God’s plan, Adam noticed over and over that all the various male animals had their mates. His conclusion: “Lord, may I have a mate also? My fellow creatures are beautiful and intelligent in many ways, but, none of them are just like me; and therefore can none satisfy this strong need I have for a creature like me.”

The Lord’s answer was already prepared. As He would later describe the paradise made new after the great controversy of sin: “Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.” (Isa. 65:24). Adam was so submissive to the Lord God, their thinking was so alike, that it was the Lord’s joy to give all that Adam could ask or think.

So, the Lord sedated Adam and did same-day, outpatient surgery on him. With one of his bones, (why should it not have been the rib next to Adam’s heart?), the Lord God “made He a woman, and brought her unto 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. 2:22,23). She had his similar shape and similar skin—no fur or feathers, no scales or exoskeletal armor; and no walking on all fours! What a wonderful thing, the solution to all of Adam’s longing, this person who had come out of the womb of the man made in God’s image. She did not feel it a robbery because man was greater than she. She did not take her husband’s place as ruler of the world; but he exceedingly loved her and exalted her, nonetheless. He happily put her by his side, and made them equal.

Like a father of the bride, the Son of God personally introduced Eve to Adam. At first He let them court one another and made them betrothed groom and bride. Later, when they would know each other better, and when they had both passed a big test, then He would unite them in an even closer bond and relationship.

Eve was a little smaller than Adam. She was gentler and more deferential than he; she was quieter, but more expressive of her thoughts and emotions. She had as much energy as her betrothed Adam, but not the power; and she happily looked up to him for advice in everything. Their counsel together was perfect peace.

Her body came with all the machinery and tools for accomplishing many miracles in the reproduction and maintenance of the original human creation. In this way, she represented the Lord God, the Son of God, by whom everything was created. Later, Eve would be the spokesperson for Adam to the children, naturally imitating the work of her Creator, the Word of God. Like the Prince of the Godhead, her voice naturally was more comfortably within the children’s hearing frequency range, while Adam spoke more like the sound of a roaring, tumultuous surf, and sometimes even thunder. The woman, for her children’s sake and without even trying, had the softer body and skin, the softer disposition, the softer heart than Adam. The man had a tenderness for his animal kingdom, but not to the peculiar degree that the Lord God had put into the woman for them and, more so, for her later children. Thus, in many ways did Eve resemble God’s dear Son, our soft-hearted Intercessor, the “tender plant” (Isa. 53:2) of God.

The man and his betrothed wife both had a love for each other’s society, but, like the Lord God to His Father and to the peoples of His vast universe, especially so did the mother of all living, more than the man, love to get and keep her spouse and her later children close by her. “Behold, I and the children which God hath given Me” (Heb. 2:13), says the Lord Jesus. And as Rebekah slowly died because she lost the love and presence of her precious Jacob, so did the Son die in His heart when He lost from His most precious children the communion He had with them in the garden. Thus, when they fell into sin, it was only right for God to choose the Lord God to die for the salvation of Adam’s race, since dying had already been the Lord God’s constitution after losing the especially close embrace and fellowship of His special Earth-born children.

So, temptation came, and with it entered sin into their garden home. When sin comes in, so does pain and sorrow, lamentations and mourning and woe. All the pleasantness of the world was now jeopardized. Eve must endure torment when producing her children, and Adam must treat her more controllably than before sin came. His new unbalanced, fallen nature would be more impatient, more forceful, more demanding. “Unto the woman He said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” (Gen. 3:16).

Likewise, the Father required more of His Son because of sin. He would become more controlling than before, for the sake of His eternal kingdom. And, understanding the mind of His Father, the Lord God would dutifully fulfill all of His God’s demands. A special revelation of Themselves in the holy pair, now, due to sin, the first humans’ special representation of the Godhead as much misrepresented Them and wreaked havoc in Their kingdom. God the Father must make it an urgent matter to stop and destroy sin, and to work to salvage Their human children without jeopardizing the rest of the kingdom with rebellion.

When the Son of God designed the Earth without sin, He joyfully birthed Adam and Eve. He Himself had formed the bodies, even as Eve would produce non-generative eggs; and the Father had provided life through His Son, as Adam would provide the power to transform Eve’s eggs into living, multiplying zygotes.

The humans failing in temptation was anticipated by the Son of God because He knew the overwhelming lust in Lucifer to destroy God’s new children. But, being the one who bare them in their first birth, they were so precious to the Son of God that He could not help but risk His eternal life to regain their original love and devotion, and their eternal safety. He would fight like a she-bear for His people if necessary to save them from the abduction of Satan.

And now that sin entered the world, Eve’s first joy and pleasure in conception would later turn into pain that would wrack her whole body, mind, and soul, but would afterward give her a care and worry and an undying devotion for her newborns. After that much agony, she would never forget them for a moment. And the mixed blessing of agony and her compulsion for supporting and childrearing would legitimize her Edenic justification. “She shall be saved in childbearing.” (1 Tim. 2:15).

In every way the same for the Son of God. Delivering His children from Satan in their second birth would “greatly multiply” His sorrow, under the tremendous wrath of His Father toward mankind’s lost nature. “He is...a Man of sorrows.... Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.” (Isa. 53:4).

From Gethsemane to Golgotha, His Spirit would be without form and void while His body would be bloated and exuding blood from every pore,  and then hung up for all to see. The divine wrath would press out of Him all that the Father’s eternal Spirit had impressed into Him. There would be no beauty in the Beloved that we should desire Him as He would be reborn in us. After that infinite agony, never in a million eternities could He forget His born-again children of God as their Mediator before His Father’s throne.

The only legal redemption for Adam and his race must be the Father’s infinite severity upon His only begotten Son, hardening and bringing to new life His Son’s already never-ending tenderness and infinite intercession for them. Our redemption came out of the Father’s infinite accountability upon Christ before the Law, thus creating His infinite advocacy for us to the Father before the Law. In order to ratify the Father’s original provision for our salvation, infinite mercy was birthed out of infinite justice, delivered through Their infinite desperation to love us and to woo us back from destruction. Captured in the agony of His Father’s infinite wrath against our sin, Himself in need of deliverance, Christ’s infinite yearning to have and to hold us ‘til death do us part, satisfied His Father. “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.” (2Cor. 5:19). “He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied.” (Isa. 53:11).

“And therefore” our redemption “was imputed” to the Son “for righteousness” (Rom. 4:22) before God. “To declare, I say, at this time [the Father’s] righteousness: that He might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” (Rom. 3:26).