The Fall

In my previous blog entry we saw what God had intended for a man and a woman within a marriage before the fall. Let’s now take a look at the consequences of the fall and its impact on the relationship within a marriage.  Let start with the women.  If we fast forward to the New Testament we find the following:

Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. (Eph. 5:22-24)

Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. (Col. 3:18)

Most women are probably asking, “Why do I have to submit?” The answer to this is because she didn’t submit to the truth of God’s word which was, You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die (Gen. 2:17). Eve was probably told this truth by either God or Adam or maybe both, but she chose to ignore it and ate of the fruit. So now wives must submit to their husbands because Eve failed to.
Now let's look at the man:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body. (Eph. 5:24-30)

Now let’s see how these verses refer back to Genesis. At the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Adam was there with Eve when she fell.  He should have been her savior. Where was the love when Adam watched and listened to the temptation of Eve and her eventual fall?  He knew what would happen! So because Adam did not love and stand up for Eve and save her from her fall, he is now commanded to do both; he is to love her and be her savior when she needs saving. Even if she doesn’t submit and falls, he is still to be there to pick her up and love her, for this is what a savior does. If a person is about to fall into a river with a fast current you can save them before they fall in, but you can also save them if they have fallen into the river. So husbands love your wives and be ready to save them before and after they fall.