The paradox of Genesis 2 is also seen in the fact that the woman was made from the man (her equality) and for the man (her inequality). God did not make Adam and Eve from the ground at the same time and for one another without distinction. Neither did God make the woman first, and then the man from the woman for the woman. He could have created them in either of these ways so easily, but He didn’t. Why? Because, presumably, that would have obscured the very nature of manhood and womanhood that He intended to make clear.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\nSo why is it that complementarians like Raymond Ortlund charge Eve with taking a forbidden role in leadership? I submit that it is because their theology is far more focused on <\/span>man than it is <\/span>on God. \u00a0By creating a <\/span>male-right that needs defending, Ortlund creates prohibitions that do not exist in the text and violated rights<\/em> that were never given by God in the first place.<\/span><\/p>\nLet’s look at what Eve did during the time of temptation to see what she has been charged with by complementarians and to compare the charges against God’s word. \u00a0There are 9 charges against Eve that have been identified by complementarians and we will test these by the Biblical record.<\/span><\/p>\n1. Eve is charged with having an illegal conversation with the serpent<\/h2>\n
The serpent asked the woman a question and by answering his question Eve is said to have usurped Adam’s authority. Ortlund writes:<\/span><\/p>\nThis may explain why Satan addressed Eve, rather than Adam, to begin with. Her calling was to help Adam as second-in-command<\/em><\/strong> in world rulership. If the roles had been reversed, if Eve had been created first and then Adam as her helper, the Serpent would doubtless have approached Adam. So Eve was not morally weaker than Adam. But Satan struck at Adam’s headship.<\/em> His words had the effect of inviting Eve to assume primary responsibility at the moment of temptation<\/strong><\/em>: (pg 108 Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\nThe charge is that the one who is second-in-command<\/em> is not allowed to answer a challenge about truth.<\/span><\/p>\n2. Eve is charged with ignoring her<\/strong> second-in-command position<\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\nNotice above the subtle adding to God’s words to set up a charge against Eve? Godnevergives the woman a secondary rule<\/em>. She is not second-in-command. She has the same rule as Adam does. In fact the only time that rule is mentioned is with the same word that applies to both.<\/span><\/p>\nGenesis 1:26 (NASB)\u00a0Then God said, \u201cLet Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule<\/em><\/strong> over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\nGenesis 1:28 (NASB)\u00a0God blessed them; and God said to them<\/em><\/strong>, \u201cBe fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over<\/em><\/strong> the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n
The Hebrew word for rule means:<\/span><\/div>\n\ndominate, direct, lead, control, subdue, i.e., manage or govern an entity, people or government with considerable or forceful authority (Ge 1:26, 28;<\/span><\/div>\nDictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\nThe Hebrew word for subdue means:<\/span><\/p>\n(2) to subject, to subdue to oneself, e.g. of. beasts, with regard to man, Genesis 1:28;<\/span><\/p>\nGesenius’ Hebrew and Chaldee lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures (383\u2013384).<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\nThe fact that Eve is given rule shows that she too had permission to lead as an authority set up by God.\u00a0So if Eve was given the rule over all the animals, then<\/strong> she had permission to speak to the serpent<\/strong><\/em> by the very nature of her rule. It is impossible for her to be usurping Adam’s authority by talking to the serpent since she was given the exact same authority over the animals by God Himself.<\/span><\/p>\n3. Eve is charged with illegally speaking for Adam and taking his God-given position thus usurping his authority<\/strong><\/h2>\nGenesis 3:1 (NASB)\u00a0Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman<\/em>, \u201cIndeed, has God said, \u2018You shall not eat from any tree of the garden\u2019?\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\nNotice that the serpent did not question Adam but he spoke directly to Eve. When Eve spoke to the serpent she did not insert herself into the conversation by answering a question given to the man. She answered a question directed to herself.<\/em><\/strong> Since she was a ruler over the serpent she had the right to speak to him directly without asking permission from Adam. Remember that it was God who made her the ruler over the animals<\/em><\/strong>. Adam did not give her that rule so she was not responsible to ask his permission to work out her rule. \u00a0She was under the direct authority of God. God had not given over her a superior ruler to report to. She was not a secondary ruler but she had the exact same rule as was given to Adam<\/em><\/strong>. The idea was she was second-in-command is a work of fiction and has no Biblical support at all.<\/span><\/div>\n4. Eve is charged with speaking for God which is a responsibility given only to the man<\/strong><\/h2>\nOrtlund says that the serpent struck directly at Adam’s headship by coming to the woman. Where is the Biblical support for this? There is none! While God made Adam a watchman of the garden before Eve was created, a responsibility for protecting the garden from evil, God never assigned Adam as a watchman for God Himself. There is no evidence that God assigned the man the sole responsibility to speak for Him or to defend Him. Surely both the rulers of the earth had the responsibility to defend God<\/em> in their very own territory. How did Adam do in defending God? Silence is usually not a good defense, is it? How did Eve do? Did Eve represent God fairly when she spoke up to defend Him? The fact that she started out defending Him is commendable.<\/span><\/p>\nThe serpent asked Eve if God had failed to give them permission to eat from the fruit of the trees in the garden. The Hebrew shows that the serpent used the plural you<\/em><\/strong> showing that the question was about God’s permission for both of them<\/em><\/strong>. Eve answered that they did have permission to eat from the trees of the garden except for the fruit from one tree. This is what God had said in Genesis 1 where He gave them both permission to eat from all of the trees that had seed bearing fruit. Eve had every right to speak and answer and show that God had given her permission to eat. There was no prohibition ever given to her that would make it a sin for her to defend God.<\/span><\/p>\n5. Eve is charged with speaking to the serpent initiating a sex role reversal<\/strong><\/h2>\nOrtlund states that Eve was disobedient in that she took the male role in speaking to the serpent and the human race fell on the sex role \u00a0reversal.<\/span><\/p>\nIsn’t it striking that we fell upon an occasion of sex role reversal<\/em>? Are we to repeat this confusion forever? Are we to institutionalize it in evangelicalism in the name of the God who condemned it in the beginning<\/em>? (pg 107 Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood<\/em>)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\nInstead of saying that the human race fell by disobedience to God’s command, the fall is reinterpreted by Ortlund as an occasion of sex role reversal. Not only does he reinterpret the fall but he boldly states that God condemned this sex role reversal<\/strong><\/em>. Where is his Biblical proof of this statement? He gives no words from God that would make Eve’s talking to the serpent a sex role reversal but it appears that we are to simply accept his condemnation of Eve without a quote from God. This is another occasion of pure fiction that has been added to God’s word.<\/span><\/p>\nThe next part of the “role reversal” is charged to Adam for listening to his wife.<\/span><\/p>\nThe third interesting point is the very fact that God addresses Adam with this introductory statement, “Because you have listened. . . .” God does not address Eve in this way, but God does issue a formal indictment to Adam before his sentencing. Why? Because Adam was the head, the finally responsible member of the partnership. (pg 110 Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood<\/em>)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\nAccording to complementarians this “listening to his wife” is about Adam allowing his wife to persuade and\/or deceive him, but the Scripture doesn’t say this. Nowhere is it recorded in the text that Eve had to persuade Adam to take the fruit or is it said that Adam was deceived by either the serpent or his wife. Instead the charge against Adam is about his listening to his wife in the only recorded account of her words during the temptation – while she was being deceived by the serpent. Adam’s duty was to protect the garden from evil and and to speak out the truth when he knew that what was being said to his wife was a lie. When Adam let the serpent deceive his wife when he knew that what the serpent was saying was a lie, and he stayed by his wife silently<\/em><\/strong> letting her be drawn into disobedience through deception, Adams action was considered an act of treason just as God said in Hosea 6:7.<\/span><\/p>\n6. Eve is charged with sinning against the man by giving the fruit to him and thus initiating his fall<\/strong><\/h2>\nGiving the fruit to Adam is considered as Eve exercising headship thus subordinating him to her authority.<\/span><\/p>\nBut Satan struck at Adam’s headship. His words had the effect of inviting Eve to assume primary responsibility at the moment of temptation: “You decide, Eve. You lead the way. Wouldn’t you rather be exercising headship?” Just as Satan himself fell through this very kind of reasoning, so he used it to great effect with Eve. Presumably, she really believed she could manage the partnership to both Adam’s and her own advantage, if she would only assert herself. (pg 108 Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood<\/em>)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\nWhen Eve offered the fruit to Adam, she was in a position of one who truly believed that the fruit was good for them. In her mind she was offering him the good portion. But offering him the fruit is not the same thing as making him take it and eat it. Eve took no authority over Adam to make him obey her. She just gave to him. \u00a0The Hebrew word translated as gave<\/em><\/strong> means to give, offer or present. Eve merely offered him what she considered was her best. It is not a term of force but of a voluntary offering.<\/span><\/p>\nBut in Ortlund’s reality, offering the fruit to the man was taking leadership over him. But what Ortlund may not realize is that by taking this stand, he is aligning himself with Adam’s excuse of blaming his wife for his own sinful action. This is not an issue of disallowed leadership but of blame.<\/span><\/p>\nGenesis 3:12 (NASB)\u00a0The man said, \u201cThe woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree<\/em>, and I ate.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\nNotice that even Adam’s lame excuse doesn’t say that the woman God gave him took authority over him or that she took leadership over him. He hides his sin by blaming her for merely giving the fruit to him. It is an invalid excuse and yet complementarians are now using this to say that Eve sinned by usurping Adam’s authority when she gave him the fruit. Offering the fruit has become equal with challenging the man’s rule, but that meaning is foreign to the text.<\/span><\/p>\nLet’s think this one through. If giving food to the man is challenging his rule, then no woman would be safe by offering a man anything. If the mere act of offering something is equivalent to lording it over him according to the accusation against Eve, then any woman is subject to this charge. Should women stay away from offering food, directions or advice to a man for fear that they will also be charged with usurping his authority? This argument is so bad that it didn’t fool God. Why do we let it fool us today?<\/span><\/p>\n7. \u00a0Eve is charged with being a sinner before she ate the fruit <\/strong><\/h2>\nIn an attempt to further charge the woman with sin, Ortlund states that she misquotes God and added to His words:<\/span><\/p>\nEve also enlarges God’s prohibition with her own addition, “you may not touch it.” In her mind, the limitation is growing in significance. (pg 106 Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood<\/em>)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\nWe have dealt this issue before on this blog showing that it isn’t possible for Eve to have added to God’s Word, but I will point out here that God’s speaking to Himself in Genesis 3 shows that the concern over Adam is that Adam would reach out<\/em><\/strong> and eat<\/em><\/strong>, the very two things that Eve said were forbidden by God. The word for touch<\/em><\/strong> that Eve quoted God as forbidding them to do with the fruit, has the meaning of to reach for. And look carefully at what God said after the fall:<\/span><\/p>\nGenesis 3:22 (NASB)\u00a0Then the LORD God said, \u201cBehold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out<\/em><\/strong> his hand, and<\/em><\/strong> take<\/em><\/strong> also from the tree of life, and eat<\/em><\/strong>, and live forever\u201d\u2014<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\nNotice that there are two things that God doesn’t want the man to do? \u00a0He is not to reach out for and take AND eat. How interesting that God affirms Eve’s words as the word “take” in the Hebrew means:<\/span><\/div>\n\n
\ngrasp, take hold of<\/em><\/strong>, i.e., grasp an object with the hand<\/span><\/div>\nDictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\nSo while Ortlund disbelieves Eve’s testimony that God said that they could not reach for and take the fruit and they could not eat the fruit, God Himself affirms that she did not lie about what He said. He says that these two things are what is not allowed. No reaching forth to take and no eating. What a sad thing it is when complementarians charge Eve with sin even though God does not say that she added to His Word and the proof that she did not is right there in God’s own words!<\/span><\/p>\n8. Eve is charged with claiming that God said she would die if she ate of the forbidden fruit when God never brought death upon her for eating the fruit<\/h2>\n
Ortlund asserts is that Eve did not die because she ate the fruit. Rather she had the sentence of death on her only through the man.<\/span><\/p>\nThe fourth point here is that God told Adam alone that he would die. But Eve died, too. Why then did God pronounce the death sentence on Adam alone? Because, as the head goes, so goes the member.<\/em><\/strong> (pg 110 Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood<\/em>)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\nThis claim actually calls God’s words into question just as the serpent said “Has God said?…you will surely not die”<\/span><\/p>\nDid or did not God say that if they would eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would die? This is the testimony of the woman that God said this to them and God affirmed his prohibition to both of them. \u00a0He did not ignore the woman so that she died because of Adam. \u00a0God came to her individually by asking her what she had done. Yet Ortlund is now claiming that she didn’t have to die from eating of that fruit. He claims that in Genesis 3:19 God pronounced the death sentence on Adam alone.<\/span><\/p>\nGenesis 3:19 (NASB)\u00a0By the sweat of your face\u00a0You will eat bread,\u00a0Till you return to the ground,\u00a0Because from it you were taken;\u00a0For you are dust,\u00a0And to dust you shall return.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\nBut what Ortlund is saying is not true. The death sentence was given before they ate<\/em><\/strong> to be in effect the very day they ate.<\/span><\/div>\nGenesis 2:17 (NASB)\u00a0…for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die<\/em><\/strong>.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\nWhen God spoke to Adam later, He did not pronounce the death sentence. Instead God told Adam what his life would be like until the day he died:<\/span><\/p>\nGenesis 3:19 (NASB)\u00a0By the sweat of your face\u00a0You will eat bread,\u00a0Till you return to the ground,\u00a0Because from it you were taken;\u00a0For you are dust,\u00a0And to dust you shall return.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\nIn verse 19, God did not pronounce the death sentence to Adam as it had already been pronounced by God “if” they ate the fruit. It was given\u00a0before the fall happened. The pronouncement of death was that dying they would die. \u00a0and the Hebrew and Aramaic lexicon shows that this is dying to become mortal:<\/span><\/p>\n1. die: a) natural death …b) …death penalty…become mortal<\/span><\/p>\nA concise Hebrew and Aramaic lexicon of the Old Testament. (188).<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\nAdam did not become mortal when God confronted him<\/em><\/strong>. He became mortal at the time that he ate the forbidden fruit. This is what God had warned him about beforehand.<\/span><\/p>\nSo when Ortlund denies God’s word and claims that Eve died because of Adam’s sin, he directly contradicts God. \u00a0It is impossible for Eve to have died because of Adam’s sin. She was not like us who were “in Adam” when Adam sinned. His sin could not cause her to die<\/em><\/strong> and such teaching is erroneous and dangerous. This teaching that the husband can cause a wife to die by his sin<\/strong><\/em> instead of by her own sin is contradicted by the Scripture. When Ananias and Sapphira had conspired together to lie to the Holy Spirit, Sapphira was not put to death because of her husband’s sin. Instead she was given the opportunity to come clean and tell the truth. Her husband was already dead when she was confronted and he died because he continue to lie. But his wife did not automatically die when her husband died. His sin did not kill her. It was her own continued lie that caused her death. (See Acts 5:1-10)<\/span><\/p>\nIt is a harmful teaching that women have no choice but to be held accountable under their husband’s leadership. The fact is that God looks on us as individuals and each one is responsible for himself or herself. God didn’t call Adam to account for Eve. God called each one of them to account for their own sin.<\/span><\/div>\n9. \u00a0Eve is charged with giving ungodly pressure to Adam to eat the forbidden fruit and also for having an insubordinate desire for him<\/h2>\n
The last thing that Ortlund asserts is that the man is the one who acted in a loving way and the woman was the one who was punished by God for what she did
![\"man's](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mmoutreach.org\/wim\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/mans-authority-2.jpg?resize=350%2C239\")
<\/p>\n