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Have any of you ever experienced an earthquake? We have had few recently apparently during the period that some drilling for shale gas was being carried out in the locality. I can’t say I really noticed them, but I do remember about 30 years ago I was driving through Blackpool, and I felt a bump as if my car had gone over a large pot hole. I got out and could see nothing, on the car and the road appeared smooth. When I got home, I heard it on the news that Blackpool had had an earthquake that day. Someone told me a colleague of theirs who loved to sit at his desk balanced on the rear two chair legs with his feet on the desk fell over backwards, but that was the extent of the damage of the Fylde Coast Earthquake. If you live in Southern California or Japan, your experience of an earthquake might be very different. 

Sometimes things can be destroyed to such an extent it seems impossible that they can ever be returned to normal again. It seems to me that that's something that could be said of the garden of Eden experience. Adam disobeyed God and that act of disobedience was like a spiritual earthquake that destroyed everything. It devasted things to such an extent that as Paul says in Romans 8 that since then, “the earth groans to be redeemed”. A relationship with God was broken that day. Adams relationship with this wife was also fractured that day and even the relationship within himself was damaged. Then on top of all of that he and Eve were thrown out of the garden of Eden and God put angels in charge so that they could not get back in. Maybe the questions in Adams mind at that point was, “can this ever be fixed, can things ever be re stored”? In a sense, perhaps we should ask the same question. I think that’s a fascinating question.

We will pick up the story after God has pronounced judgment on Satan, Eve and Adam. Earlier in Genesis chapter 3 we have been told in detail about Satan's temptation of Eve. We have also been told how Eve and Adam succumb to that temptation and we've also seen that God them all as a result of what happened. Then in verse 20 it says this;

Adam named his wife Eve because she would become the mother of all the living.

(Gen 3: 20)

If you're following the flow of the chapter that verse really seems out of order. Where did that come from, why did he say that suddenly, why is that in here at all? If we back up a few verses, we heard last week the text telling us 

To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labour you will give birth to children.

(Gen 3: 16a)

Please note earlier God promised that Eve would bear children, but by the time we get to the verses we are looking at today, they still have not had any children. Adam knew was that his God had promised that he was going to have children. Furthermore, back in verse 19 God said to Adam.

“By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return”.

(Gen 3:19)

So, in verse 16 he says Eve is going to bear children. In verse 19 he says, by the way, you are going to die. All Adam knows at this point is that somewhere between the promise he gave Eve and his eventual death He and Eve was going to bear children. Now if you get the flow of the passage with that in mind then re-read verse 20 and it really makes sense.

And Adam called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living.

(Gen 3: 20) 

In other words, by calling her Eve he is giving her a name that means giver of life. He is reminding himself and her of God’s promise that she is going to become a mother. I think verse 20 fits the context because it is the fact that Adam believed god's promise. Now, having made that point I can't help but make another. What Salvation really comes down to is just believing the promise of God. Salvation is nothing more than being fully convinced that what God promised he is able and willing to do. The essence of faith is being fully convinced that what God promised he's able to perform. To put it as simply as I possibly can we just need to take God at his word and whatever the outcome at the end of it, God can still be glorified.

We will look a little more closely at these promises of God next time.