Commemoration of Adam and Eve
December 19
Today, we remember and give thanks to God for the parents of the human race, Adam and Eve.
The Lord God created humanity as the crown of His creation, His final work on the sixth day. He made us male and female, and told us to be fruitful and multiply and to exercise dominion over all the earth. The first man, called Adam (from the Hebrew ademah, or earth), God formed from the dust of the earth. He breathed into the man’s nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living soul or being.
Causing a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, God took a rib from the man and formed it into the woman and brought her to the man. Adam received this gift with joy and named her “Woman [ishah], because she was taken out of Man [ish].” Thus marriage was founded, the human family established, and Adam’s primordial headship shown by his naming the woman as gift from the Lord.
Our first parents were placed into a paradise of plenty. It was a place without fear, for there was no death yet. No sin to stain their conscience. That soon changed. The serpent deceived the woman and led her (and the man who was with her) to take the one fruit God had not given them, the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Thus sin was ushered into the world and brought with it death, separation from the God of life. From that point, all born in the natural way would inherit a rebellious human nature. Immediately, Adam and Eve knew shame and sought to hide from each other behind fig-leaf aprons. When they heard the sound of God in the evening, they ran into the trees and tried to hide.
God called the man to account. Adam blamed first God and then the woman. The woman in turn blamed the serpent. God then spoke words of judgment, but also of hope. He cursed the serpent and foretold the coming of the Seed of the Woman (who is our Lord Jesus) who would finally crush the serpent’s head and undo the damage he inflicted. For the woman, He foretold pain in childbearing and child-rearing, and for the man, struggle and hard work. He took off their pitiful fig leaves and clothed them with the skins of an animal, which died in their place to cover their shame. He exiled them from paradise, lest they eat of the tree of life and live forever in their fallen state. Adam then gave his wife her proper name, Eve, for she was to be the mother of all the living. Together they waited for the promised Seed until their own deaths: “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22).
Prayer: Lord God, heavenly Father, You created Adam in Your image and gave him Eve as his helpmate, and after their fall into sin, You promised them a Savior who would crush the devil’s might. By Your mercy, number us among those who have come out of the great tribulation with the seal of the living God on our foreheads and whose robes have been made white in the blood of the Lamb; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
William Weedon Celebrating the Saints 228-229