Sermon Tone Analysis

*Family Foundations, Part 4 – The Biblical View of Children (Genesis 4:1-2)*

/Preached by Pastor Phil Layton at Gold Country Baptist Church on December 14, 2008/

www.goldcountrybaptist.org

 

Genesis 4 introduces to us the first two children ever born.

We’re not going to focus this evening on the ensuing story of Cain and Abel and what happened later and the deterioration of the family and society in Genesis (that will come in another couple lessons) but we want to start with the foundation that is laid down in God’s Word for children and family

 

Genesis 4:1-2 (*NKJV*) 1 Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, “I have acquired a man from the Lord.” 2 Then she bore again, this time his brother Abel.

Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

I don’t know if you’ve ever given much thought to what a remarkable evidence of God’s grace this passage is.

We have just turned the corner from Genesis 3 (what happened in chapter 3)?

Sin has come to our world, and God had made very clear to man that if they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would surely die deservedly and instantly seems to be understood.

We all know the story; a snake shows up speaking partial truths and questioning God’s goodness, i.e., “/why He is so restrictive?/”

(3:1, 4-5).

Eve was tempted by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life (v.

6) and she eats the fruit and gives to her husband with her and he eats, too (v.

7).

They can run but can’t hide from God – God calls Adam as the responsible head first, even though Eve sinned first, the husband bears primary responsibility due to his role as head of the family.

God calls him out on the carpet of lush paradise, and singles him out as the man in v. 11 emphatically /“Who told *you* that *you* were naked?

Have *you* eaten from the tree of which I commanded *you* not to eat?”/

You also are familiar with what happens next, as you’ve heard before, Adam blames Eve, Eve says basically “the devil made me do it,” and the serpent doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

The serpent is not given any chance to speak or repent (no fallen angels are given such an opportunity) and God could and should at this moment punish mankind by death, physical and eternal.

Spiritual death, separation from God due to sin, did take place that very same day that they sinned, but notice as I read verses 14 and following that this passage we typically identify as God’s curse or judgment would have been originally heard as including grace

 

Genesis 3:14-21 (NASB95)

14 The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you will go, And dust you will eat All the days of your life; 15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And *between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”*

Wait a minute, “her seed”?

God is not talking to the woman, but you better believe she picked up on it.

/That means I’m going to have a child, that means I’m not going to die today!

What mercy!/

Look at God’s amazing grace in the second half of the v. 15: “He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

This male offspring would be attacked by the serpent personally (ultimately the devil behind the serpent) and there is the great promise: that same One Man will deal a fatal final blow to the head of the evil one.

God’s first words after sin enters creation are not all bad news; there is very good news, good tidings of great joy as Christmas celebrates.

This is the first promise of a Messiah!

The blessing of life and children is also seen amidst this judgment:

 

16 To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply Your pain *in childbirth*, In pain *you will bring forth children*; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you.” 17 Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it *All the days of your life.*

18 “Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And *you will eat* the plants of the field; 19 By the sweat of your face *You will eat* bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.”

20 Now *the man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all /the /living.*

21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.

Instead of killing them, God apparently killed an animal as a substitute for them, clothing them instead of condemning them.

You can’t help but think what a picture this is of grace and what a picture this is of the gospel for sinners like them.

Adam believes God (v.

20) and God is true to this promise of children in 4:1-2.

Genesis 4:1 says Adam literally “knew his wife Eve” – that’s a biblical word that often refers to the closest intimate relationship, in this context the one-flesh marital intimacy including intercourse.

NASB “the man /had relations with/ his wife”

NIV “Adam /lay with/ his wife”

HCSB better “Adam knew his wife /intimately/”

NET “the man /had marital relations with/ his wife”

 

It’s been pointed out that this euphemism or ‘idiom appears again in this chapter in vv.

17 and 25.

It is not without significance that often the sexual relationship described in the Bible is one in which the partners fully know each other [and are in a relationship of committed covenant love].

One partner does not exploit the other.

Rather than being an end in itself, cohabitation is a means to an end, and that end is a deeper, more intimate knowledge of each other.

In other words, expressing oneself sexually is not just a [biological] function’[1]

 

Outside of a covenant love commitment (2:24) man and woman are never to be joined as one flesh in this way, as the original readers of Genesis would later learn in the law.

Sexual relations outside of marriage, adultery, is so serious to God that His law gave the death penalty for such violations.

Sex is God’s good gift for man and woman’s pleasure (Prov.

5, Song of Solomon), partnership (Gen.

2:18-25), purity (1 Cor.

7) and procreation (here)

 

 

What a gift of grace that the woman whose sin brought death was allowed to become the mother of all living instead!

Man and woman after marring God’s creation are given the privilege of procreation to restore and reproduce God’s image on earth through godly offspring as we saw a few weeks back.

Can you imagine what it was like to have never known anyone pregnant before and to become pregnant and to feel and see a child growing inside of you for nine months, to be the first ever to experience this?

 

*Principle #1: Children Are a Supernatural Gift From God*

 

Every child is a miracle, but imagine the first time ever.

Kent Hughes imagines how

‘Eve’s pregnancy certainly must have been a source of joyous wonder to the couple.

Like millions of her daughters to follow, Eve likely placed Adam’s hand on her tummy so he could feel the stirring life.

Perhaps he even listened in awe to the busy heartbeat within.

[/What a supernatural thing this is!/] Eve’s was the first pain ever in childbearing.

But those terrible pangs gave way to a joy so deep that it subsumed her pain.

The Hebrew for “man” (/ish/) is not used anywhere else in Scripture to describe a baby boy [the NASB “manchild” is ok, but reminds me of Mogli in Jungle Book, so I prefer just “man”].

The baby’s gender was that of Adam.

This was another /ish/!

Eve said in effect, “/God made man, and now with the help of the Lord, I have made a second man!/”

She rightly saw Cain as a work of God.

Her words were an implicit declaration of faith.

Adam had believed the promise of Genesis 3:15 and so had named her Eve: /“The man called his wife’s name Eve [“Life”], because she was the mother of all living”/ (3:20).

And the new mother praised God with a newly charged faith … Abel’s birth doubled her joy.

Eve had become the mother of two sons.

Three men filled the earthly horizons of the mother of all the living.

Hope welled high in the first family.’[2]

We saw in chapter 2 that God intended man to realize what a grace and gift from God it was to have a wife, in the way He created woman different than the rest.

Children are also portrayed as a gift.

For woman in particular, God communicates what a grace and gift it is to have children and to be a mother, the blessing of childbearing and childrearing is conveyed here.

This is a divinely designed role for the woman created by a good and gracious God.

Adam’s faith came out in 3:20.

Eve’s faith in God comes out here.

One commentator writes on her reference to the LORD in 4:1 as the ultimate source of her child shows: ‘both thankfulness and praise: thankfulness at deliverance from pain and danger, praise that Jehovah is manifesting His grace and faithfulness in giving a son.

So the use of the name "Yahweh" should be observed.

Apparently, then, since the name stresses His gracious faithfulness, Eve praises God that He who promised victory to the seed of the woman actually lets "seed of the woman" be born.

Nothing indicates whether Eve did or did not anticipate that this very seed, Cain, should personally crush the serpent’s head [some writers suggest this].

But, in any case, she had a token of Yahweh’s fidelity.

That she expresses it as she does also affords proof that the mother of our race had not remained in her sin but had come to repentance and faith in God’s promises … her utterance is also to be regarded as a word of faith.’[3]

She believed this child was not merely produced by her and Adam.

She understood children to be a gift from God Himself.

What an amazing thing it must have been to be the first mother to ever witness the miracle of a birth with no prior context, with no doctor or midwife, with a husband that probably didn’t know what to do, she had to rely on the LORD for every part of this miracle.

*Principle #2: Children Are Seen as a Blessing Not a Burden*

 

One commentator said Eve’s words in 4:1 are an exclamation of joy that she had a child.

The Hebrew brings out a play on words: the name “Cain” she gives in the original language sounds like the verb in v. 1 “I have gotten ~/ acquired ~/ brought forth.”

His very name testifies to her understanding of a divinely enabled blessing:

 

            “with /the help of /the LORD” (NASB, NIV, ESV)

            “from the LORD” (NKJV)

 

The underlying Hebrew (/‘et/) is not often translated that way, but is used similarly at the end of Genesis, 49:25, in part of Jacob’s words to Joseph: “From [/min/] the God of your father who helped you, from [/‘et/] Shaddai who blessed you.”

Supporting evidence for /‘et /meaning “from” is now found in … Akkadian … Ugaritic’[4]