EVE’S HOPE
Genesis 4:1, 25 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD. …And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.
There are many sermons on Eve’s expectation of Cain as the savior. She had heard and believed God in Genesis 3:15 “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” How many saviors do you think Eve gave birth to? We see in verse 25 that Eve hoped Abel and then Seth to be the appointed savior. In how many sons did Eve place her hope, and then grandsons, great-grandsons, etc.?
How long after Cain was born did Eve transfer her hope to Abel? We know Cain had once been Eve’s hope. Yet we also know Abel had become her hope until his murder. Her hope then fell to another child, Seth. Cain must have been quite the character for Eve to reject him while he lived and Abel must certainly have been righteous for only his death to dash her hope. Can you imagine the scrutiny of a mother’s gaze as she evaluates each successive son for hope’s fruition? Eve certainly had a desire to see the savior. One would have to say she placed complete belief and trust in the redemptive hope of the savior.
For Old Testament saints this was the only requirement for salvation, just as today. Today we place our belief in the fulfilled and not in the hoped for redemption of Christ. Old Testament saints carried the hope of the savior in their basket of faith. We carry Jesus Christ in our basket of faith. And the basket of each is the heart.
The hope of the savior and Jesus Christ are the same! There is no more hope for the Messiah, any further hope is anti-Christ. That is the foothold Anti-Christ will exploit over Israel during the tribulation; their continued and fruitless hope of the Messiah.
Was Eve wrong in placing her hope on successive offspring? She believed there would be a savior; she just didn’t know his name. In each succeeding generation the people hoped for the coming of the Messiah. Who can blame anyone for evaluating and scrutinizing for the right savior? We take for granted the Bible and its entirety, but we must remember that Eve and others didn’t have much if any of the written Word of God. It is imperative we apply the same study as Eve to our own choice of a savior.
Are you sure you’re putting your belief and trust in the right messiah?
God ensured people would recognize the real Messiah by the prophecies told in scripture. There is ample evidence in the Bible to identify Jesus as the Messiah. We can take the scripture apart, look at it sideways, upside down, or place it under microscopic scrutiny, and it will still identify Jesus as the one and only Messiah.
How many years do you think Eve spent searching for the savior?
And we think our mothers were strict and had high expectations of us. Smart as Eve must have been she didn’t understand the difference between her seed and Adam’s. God made it plain the Messiah or savior would be of woman’s seed, which precluded any portion of Adam’s involvement and prescribed a virgin birth. But, again, we have the whole Bible to study, she didn’t. How sad it must have been for Eve when she realized the broad consequence of her and her husband’s transgression. Every day more people were being born into sin. Every day she saw the affect and proliferation of sin. Every day and with every birth she hoped for the savior. Catch 22? People were being born unto death for the hope of life. Do you think she sat idly by and shared with no other her hope and faith? After all, she was mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, etc. Everyone had to listen!
Grandma Eve had probably made it her mission to bring the story of hope to every generation. After all, she wasn’t going to live forever. She had to share her belief and faith. And, where do you suppose Adam was in all this? Was he in search of the savior, or perhaps like Judas, felt shame and sorrow without any hope of redemption? We can only imagine the burden these two felt for their part in bringing unbelief into the world. Did this burden crush them or strengthen them? One day we will know, if we know belief in the one and only Messiah, Jesus Christ.
Eve would be the first to believe Jesus Christ is the Messiah or savior. In fact, she probably was the first to believe.
In who or what do you believe?
