Original Love and Women's Ordination

During His sermon on the mount, Jesus touched several key areas that are a struggle for man. One of the points he mentioned was this.

Mat 5:27-28  Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:  (28)  But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

For any Christian man, these words seem to provide the crushing blow to any sense of righteousness he might feel he possesses. In these words Jesus touches the very core of man’s slavery to sin. For any man seeking to be pure in heart, this pronouncement drives him to his knees in sorrow and a deep sense of his need of the living Saviour in His heart. To know Jesus is to know that He never looked upon a woman to lust after her. With the knowledge of this reality, we have hope that we as fallen men might be transported in our hearts back to original love.

When we think about the event when Adam first saw Eve, most men imagine that Adam said WOOO! MAN! Yet this places onto Scripture the inclinations of the perverted heart. Many men can’t even contemplate imagery of the garden for fear their corrupted nature will take control. To understand the love that was in the heart of Adam when he saw Eve we simply need to read the Bible.

Gen 2:22-23  And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.  (23)  And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”

Notice carefully the words of Adam as their eyes meet. “This is bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” The basis of this original love was not that Adam saw something beautiful which he desired to possess. He saw someone that had drawn their life from him; he saw a person that had come from next to his heart and therefore he cherished her as his second self. As Paul clearly expresses it:

So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.  (29)  For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church. For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. Eph 5:28-30

So we see that just as Adam said to Eve you are of my flesh and bone, in the same manner the second Adam says to the church, you are of my flesh and bone. He loves us not because we have anything to offer him but because we came from Him. Such love!

Beyond this, if you read the story in Genesis 2 carefully, you will see that Adam was placed in the garden over all creation before the woman was created from His rib. When she came forth from him, all that he possessed He gave to her to be a joint steward with him. Once again, did he do this because he saw something he desired to own and control? Did he seek to buy her with his assets? No, that is not the love that was in Adam’s heart for Eve. The love that was in his heart was the love that comes from God, for God is love. But what love is that? The Greek for this is Agape which means benevolent love; a love that does not depend on any qualities possessed by the receiver. The Greek word that often means love today is Eros, which is never endorsed in the Bible. Eros is a love of that which is beautiful, noble and lovely. Eros is the desire to possess and enjoy the things that please our eyes, appetites and bodies. See Judges 14:2,3 and 2 Sam 11:2 as examples.

When Eve came to Adam with the forbidden fruit, she came possessing something that God had not given to Adam to give to her. With this fruit Eve now possessed something that he did not have. She had come from the tree with her mind filled with a new way of thinking:

But the serpent continued, in a musical voice, with subtle praise of her surpassing loveliness; and his words were not displeasing. PP 53

Satan spoke to Eve as one who possessed beauty in herself. He did not address her as one who had received her inheritance from Adam. He addressed her simply as beautiful and this flattered her and caused her to forget the source of her beauty. The mind that looks upon a woman and thinks of her beauty in order to obtain something from her is a mind inspired by Satan.

There was something strange yet exciting about Eve when she came to her husband immersed in her rebellion. With her new sense of who she was, her forwardness, self-confidence, her ambition had a kind of attraction to Adam. It was strange yet intriguing. In taking the fruit Adam not only defied the law of God, he also established a law that would cause all his sons to look to the woman to give them something. Within the hearts of men would be stamped this sense that the woman was the life giver, she possessed the path to life. And so the worship of the sacred feminine began and the symbol of man’s new slavery was the image in his mind of the naked female form. This is the image that for most men would become the token of that transaction in the garden, the man would look to the woman to give him life rather than the woman looking to the man to give her life. In that transaction the love of man switched from Agape to Eros.

Of course this new love placed the woman in another form of slavery. In order to provide the man his eye candy, in order to attract the man, she must possess something to give him. A whole industry of fashion and body enhancements is born. The woman must now draw from a well that cannot give water and therefore the experience is hollow for both the man and woman.

Note carefully the original love that Adam felt for Eve was not based on what she possessed in herself but that she had come forth from him. He bestowed all that he was given upon her because she had come from him. That is Agape, that is original love.

Note also that the only way to ensure that Agape is pure is to know for certainty that the receiver had nothing inherently to cause the love to be awakened. If the woman possessed something inherently that had not come from the man, then Eros would awaken and the woman then must continue to produce what first attracted the man and this leads to death. Remember, Adam gave the reason why he loved the woman – she is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh – that is the basis of original love.

And just as the inheritance of Eve from Adam was the surety of his Agape for her, so too the inheritance of Christ from His Father is the surety of His Agape for His Son, for we were made in their image.[1] The Father stated

Matt 3:17  And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved  [Agapetos]  Son, in whom I am well pleased.   

The only possible way for God to truly have Agape for His Son is that the Son received all He had from His Father. That is the only way to ensure benevolent love. If the Father looks into the eyes of His Son and loves Him because He is omnipotent or because He is Omniscient then this is not Agape, rather this is a form of Eros. Yet because the Bible tells us that God gave His Son everything, this reveals that His love is purely Agape and this is the love He shares with us. We love with Agape because He first loved His Son with Agape.

1 John 4:19  We love [Agape] him, because he first loved [Agape] us.

If we worship a God who loves because of inherent qualities then we will do the same. We become what we behold. Yet if we worship a Son who was given all things and rests in the assurance of His Father’s sweet benevolent Agape love, then we can be transformed into the image of this love and love as God loves His Son.

Those who pretend that 1 John 4: 8 is an expression of three co-equal persons who "love each other" alter the true meaning of the words that John wrote; that God was and is Agape. Agape does not seek what is equal, Agape makes equal by a gift, it just seeks to give.

Those who seek to ordain women turn to the inherent qualities of women that make them equal to men. Eros naturally leads to such things. Woman's ordination is a rejection of the truth that the woman came out of the man and looks at him for spiritual leadership and supplies. Ordination of women is actually the woman who comes from the tree of knowledge with the fruit that promises to give life but brings death.

Our God is Agape and in Him is no Eros at all.

[1] And now God says to his Son, "Let us make man in our image." 1 SP 24,25