Cheryl Schatz

gengwall,
I am very pleased that you are allowing yourself to be open about Eve not having sinned in rebellion after the fall.

Either Gen 3:16 is exclusively about Adam and Eve and is inapplicable to any other marriages;
or Eve’s “desire” is exclusive to Eve and Adam’s “rule” is a condition of both his sons and daughters.

This is a false dilemma which is a logical fallacy. It doesn’t have to be a or b. Eve’s desire is not exclusive to Eve as men are to have this same desire and they are encouraged to “leave and cleave”.

Genesis 2:24 (NASB)
24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.

The term “be joined” means:

(1) TO CLEAVE, TO ADHERE, specially firmly, as if with glue, TO BE GLUED,
Gesenius’ Hebrew and Chaldee lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures (185).

Jesus represents the perfect example of a husband who left heaven to pay the price for his wife and He “cleaves” to her and promises that He will never leave her. His longing and desire is for her.

But for us – all of us humans get the “full meal deal” of the sin nature with the possibility of committing every sin. While it is relatively uncommon for women to be the abusers of men it is not unheard of. They too can have this nature if they follow the inclination of evil in that direction. But as our world shows, it is far more common for men to have this sin that manifests a stronghold in their lives because men are more apt to be aggressive and to want to control every situation. But it is not a “given” that all men will seek to rule and all women will love even when they are not loved back. There is an identifiable pattern for both but it is not a hard and fast rule.

So while Genesis 3:16 is specifically about the first humans and their life outside the garden, in this verse there is a pattern that we can identify in a good portion of men and women. We can learn something from this pattern that may reveal our own heart and help us to understand our weaknesses and struggles but it would also be wrong to force an application onto every male and every female. It is not true that one cannot be male unless he has a propensity to rule the female. Nor is it true that one cannot be female unless she only desires the good welfare of her husband. All of us are a mixture in some way of our two original parents and all of us are capable of both good and bad.

So the bottom line is that anyone who seeks to lord it over others is following the example of Adam. Jesus said that this is not to be the attitude among us. It is not to be the attitude of males nor is it to be the attitude of females.

And the fact that Adam brought sin into the world is not an indictment on every male. It is not because he was male that he sinned in this way. It is because he, like satan, chose individually and willfully to sin in rebellion. And we have been stuck with his nature, except that through the last Adam we now have freedom to live as though we are dead to this sin nature so that we can live in union with Christ and exemplify his righteousness by our changed lives.