This is part 5 of a series exploring how the Bible teaches that Jesus was greater than all who came before him.  This series is not intended to be exhaustive.  The topic of Jesus as “greater than” or “better” than those who came before him is inexhaustible.  Libraries could and should be written on this subject.  But we have attempted in these pages to explore what such a rich subject would look like. (Each entry is excerpted from There Is No Greater Love)

Christ Greater than Adam (3 of 6)

Now the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”  And he said, “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.”  And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”  And the man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.” Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”  And the woman said, “The serpent beguiled me, and I ate” (Gen 3:9-13).

The loneliness of our first mother in this judgment scene is heart wrenching.  Eve speaks the truth to the Lord.  In point of fact, the serpent had deceived the woman (1 Tim 2:14). But now Adam, who had originally celebrated the wonder and beauty of Eve’s creation in song (Gen 2:23), utterly abandons her in the hour of her most desperate need.  She not only stands alone before the judgment of God, her husband actually accuses her before Him, claiming that it was her sin that caused him to disobey God.

As Eve stood under the penalty of death for her transgression of God’s command and at the same time stood condemned by her husband in her most desperate hour, what loneliness must she have felt! What was there to say?  God would be just in condemning her for her disobedience.  Adam was quick to abandon her and to blame her for his own sin, inviting the wrath of God to fall on her instead of him.

What kind of husband might Eve have dreamed of in such an hour? Perhaps she could have imagined a husband who would have stopped to consider that God had blessed the couple in the beginning with the promise of life.  She could have dreamed of an Adam who would understand that he could not fulfill that blessing if his bride had fallen under the just judgment of sin and death. Perhaps she could have imagined a husband who would not join her in her sin—much less condemn her in it—and who would have actually appealed to God on her behalf.  She could have dreamed of a husband who would have represented her before Father God and who, while confessing that the serpent had indeed beguiled her, as the priest of the family, would have offered to take her judgment of death upon himself so that she might be spared.  Had he preserved his own integrity, Adam could have offered his own life to satisfy God’s judgment for Eve’s sin.  He could have pleaded for her sake that God, who had made the man of dust in the beginning, would afterwards remember the dust of Adam’s death and raise him up again to be the righteous husband necessary to fulfill God’s command to fill the earth with a godly seed through the woman. But, after Adam’s sin, Eve could only dream of a better husband. And in all her dreams, Eve would have imagined a husband like Christ, the true Adam and husband of His people, who gave His life so that His bride might live again (Eph 5:22-27)