Another Look at the Curse

Genesis 3:16: "To the woman he (God) said, 'I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."


The recorded events of Genesis 3 describe the infamous rebellion of the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, against the sovereign rule of the One True God. Whereas God had given the couple the abundance of blessing in the Garden of Eden, God had also communicated to Adam the prohibition of consuming the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (with death being the consequence). Now there have been many opinions as to why God would put such a "test" before mankind, but I believe that the best conclusion is that God wanted to give humanity the opportunity of freely demonstrating its love and loyalty to the Creator. It has been said that love is only true when it is demonstrated by one's free will; thus, God gave man the opportunity to love Him by choosing to follow Him obediently.


Tragically, both Adam and Eve were consumed with the quest for their own lordship, for they had been informed by the Evil One that the forbidden fruit would make them "like God, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:5). After they defiantly ate of the forbidden fruit, their eyes were opened to their nakedness; and as a result, they hid from the Lord when He came to visit them in the cool of the day. God's holiness would not be mocked by the rebellion of His creation; therefore, He pronounced curses upon the serpent, Adam, and Eve for their disobedience.


Whereas the curses were retributive and punitive in nature, one can see divine remedy in the latter half of each of the judgment directives for Adam and Eve. For example, Adam had previously enjoyed the pleasure of working in a perfected Garden . . . one that produced an abundant harvest, free from the encumbrances of thorns, disease, and drought. Now, these detrimental ingredients would be introduced to the now accursed ground, which would result in Adam having to work in difficult toil to see a harvest. Work now would not necessarily be a delight but would be painful and arduous. In the end, Adam (and all of his descendants) would die and their bodies would return to the dust from whence they were created.


Still, this pronouncement of death would be a deliverance in that Adam (and his descendants after him) would be freed from the ever-declining physical condition of the physical body and the physical world, both now subject to the curse. This is why God banished Adam and Eve from the Garden and placed cherubim with flaming swords at its entrance . . . to prevent Adam and Eve from eating the fruit of the Tree of Life and thus living forever in this perpetual physical decline. One can only imagine living in a body that had spent its physical strength and yet did not die. In fact, some of us have had the difficult experience of visiting an incapacitated person in a nursing home. After our visits to those who linger in such a state, without much hope for recovery, we conclude that death would be the blessing of emancipation from such physical bondage. We are not nearly as saddened when we hear of that person "passing on" into eternity; in fact, for the believer, we celebrate the new life of vitality that the person is now experiencing. Therefore, we can see in the latter half of the pronounced curse upon Adam, there is a offering of remedy for his despicable state of sin.


So too, we find that the latter half of the curse communicated to Eve provides remedy from the consequences of her sin. God declared that the woman would experience "pain in childbearing." The very experience that should be a total delight to the woman, now would involve a painful process before the delight of birth. God then declared that the woman's husband would rule over her as her desire would be for her husband. Most scholars would conclude that this continued sentence for sin is punitive in nature, but as with the latter half of Adam's judgment, we may be able to see God's love in providing a strategy that may mitigate the severity of the curse.


We first find that the husband would rule over his wife. If we see the husband/wife paradigm as a God-orchestrated, tangible illustration of Himself (husband) in marital communion with His bride (the Church), then we can see that this spiritual leadership role of the husband would have been God's model even before the pronounced judgment for sin. This certainly seems to be suggested by the Apostle Paul in I Timothy 2:12-13 & Ephesians 5:22-23. Just as Christ is the spiritual head of his family, so too He has mandated that the husband is to be the spiritual head of his family (Ephesians 5:22-24). Now we must clarify that this "ruling" of the husband is to be modeled in the spirit of self-sacrificing love that Christ Himself has presented to us (the Church) as His bride. And of course we know that Christ offered His very life for His bride, which is the greatest expression of love (John 15:13).


When we think of healthy marital relationships, we find two specific ingredients: one is a husband that knows that his wife finds him desirable. This man knows that he is loved by his wife, for she makes it a point to demonstrate to her mate that he is her sacred treasure. This man is showered with the affections of love that make him feel treasured and important. Equally true, the wife of a healthy relationship is one who knows that her husband loves her by providing the Godly, consistent, spiritual leadership for her and her children. She basks in the stability and security that her loving husband provides to her family. This wife never has to worry if her husband will do the right thing, because she knows that this familial leader is driven by the principle of obedience to his Lord and the principle of love for his wife and children. She is comforted in knowing that she is the treasure of her husband, as he will take all measures necessary to see that she is esteemed. Therefore, the sentence of "ruling" and "desire" may in fact be a remedy to unhealthy familial relations that were introduced into the world with the advent of sin.


Even with the pronounced curse against the deceiving serpent, God implicitly communicates rescue for humanity. Specifically, God states that He would put "enmity between the offspring of humanity and Satan, culminating with the crushing of the serpent's head by Eve's offspring (namely the Messiah). Even from outset of the first rebellion by humanity, our Lord was seeking to provide salvation for His people.


Whereas we should be contrite for the sin that we have perpetrated against the Holy God, we can be assured from these scriptures that God has provided ways to escape the full impact of these acts of rebellion. For those of us who have responded to God's offering of grace through Jesus Christ, we are assured that death is our deliverance from the bondage that sin has been introduced in this life. We also know that in God's design of the first relational institution that He created (the family), we would do well to respect the ingredients of desire and submission that can provide relational and emotional fulfillment in a rather dysfunctional world.