To the woman He said: “I will increase your pains during childbearing, with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

I had hoped for a more positive verse in Genesis 3:16 as a start for this journey, but that’s not God.  “This isn’t a romp,” he’s telling me. “This is serious stuff about my plans for you and the ways you insist on messing those plans up.” It is good that we’re starting off with a verse like this because God knows this world and he knows us.

He knows we will sin, and he wants us to know that sin matters to Him. The consequences of this original sin of Eve’s (and Adam’s, as we shall see), affected all womankind and mankind.

There was childbirth pain before Eve took the apple – it has always been a part of creation, because God said “increase” not “cause.” But sin made it worse. It is still the same today. We all have pain and we sometimes sin in an effort to relieve the pain – but sin always makes it worse.

Passing through sin and back to God is a joyful blessing, just as the newborn infant makes the mother forget her pain. The mother glows when the infant is in the womb, then the baby leaves her, with pain, through the birth canal. But then, when the infant is placed back on her breast, the pain is gone; the joy returns. It’s the same with God and us, there’s pain when we leave Him and joy when we return to Him.

Eve was independent, lacking a sense of the need to defer to her husband. Had she asked Adam, “Should I take the apple?” human history might have turned out very differently. But she didn’t ask Adam – or God – she just took it. Adam didn’t ask God what to do about that – he just took the apple, too. And mankind paid the price, as we see in the very next verse, as God addresses Adam:

“Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.”

No more lounging in the Garden of Eden for Adam. No more walking with God in the quiet of the morning. Sin matters to God.

Eve was given a greater pain because of her sin, but also a greater, better desire: “Your desire will be for your husband.” Before, we just see desire of self: “I, Eve,  want that apple.” So, God is good. Even as he punishes her for her sin, he gives her the gift of love and desire within the marriage – a desire that will lead, in short time, to her experiencing the pain of childbirth and the joy that follows.

In marriage, we still have Eve’s desire for our spouse. When we sin in secrecy and are found out, like Eve, the pain we have caused and the threat of losing the one we desire is overwhelming, increasing the desire to hold onto that person – to hold onto God – and not sin.

This entire message seems to revolve around the pain of childbirth, which is still with us and is still amplified because of Eve’s sin. It is so much a part of the human experience that it is our universal measure of pain; just look at Psalm 48:6 for one example:

Trembling seized them there, pain like that of a woman in labor.

The kings in this verse were primed for battle, ready to go, but were stopped short in excruciating pain by the mere sight of the Holy City they were planning to attack. How bad was the pain? A ten out of ten! Like that of a woman in labor!

And what of Adam in all this? He was passive, allowing a sin to continue because he also wanted the apple, so God, being fair, didn’t just condemn Eve to pain. We only have to go forward one verse to learn that because of his role in the Original Sin, Adam was condemned to a less intense but life-long pain: Working, aching, toiling to eke out nourishment from the soil. And let’s not forget that Eve was working at his side much of the time, with aches and pains of her own. They had, as we do to this day, a family to provide for and no Garden of Eden, with its labor-free abundance.

From Genesis on, the Bible prepares us for this sinful world so we can prepare ourselves for judgment and, with the love of God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ in our hearts, for heaven. So, this 3:16 was a good start, then, especially when we look at the model Adam and Eve provided for us after the apple.

They left Eden to live their lives together because God said they would become one flesh (2:24). And when Eve first felt the pain God visited upon her because of her sin, when she birthed Cain, did she curse God and flee to the Serpent’s false comfort? No, she did not:

With the help of the Lord, I have brought forth a man. (4:1)

She didn’t say, “through the painful curse of the Lord,” but “with the help of the Lord.” Go Eve!

Thought for the Day: God is there to help me through any pain I might have brought upon myself.

Prayer: Dear God, thank you for this lesson about sin and its consequences. Thank you for your kindness, in giving Eve the desire for her husband, not just the pain of childbirth. You are a good and gracious God and I am honored and amazed that I am your child. Help me today to stay close to you and not to separate myself from you by falling to temptation. In Jesus’ name, amen.