Overcoming the Curse of the Woman

The first utterance of the Gospel is recited by God in the third chapter of Genesis when God confronts Satan. The Lord curses the serpent promising, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will crush your head, and you will strike His heel" (Genesis 3:15).

After announcing that the hope of the world would require Eve to bring forth offspring, God then explained that Eve's curse would be to suffer in childbirth. The Bible explains, "To the woman He said, 'I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain you will bring forth children...'" (Genesis 3:16).

Do not miss the irony of this situation. The hope of redemption came with a cost. God promised deliverance, but the only way Eve could see this promise come to fruition was to willingly endure the burden of her curse. Both Adam and Eve are faced with two options: (1) They can obey God's command to "be fruitful and multiply," or (2) They can perish without children.

- The first option offered eternal hope only through present suffering.
- The second option assured eternal death and worldly comfort.

Only faith would have led Eve to suffer the excruciating pain of childbirth in order to bring forth the promised Redeemer, and this Redeemer would take the curse of the woman upon Himself!

Just as you brought intense agony to your mother so that you could be delivered into this world , Jesus endured immeasurable suffering so that we could all be delivered into the eternal life of the next world. Jesus took the curse of the woman upon Himself and He brought forth mankind's spiritual rebirth.

In his letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul explained that the redemption of the world would be like childbirth. "The creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God," he explained. "We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time" (Romans 8:22). The pains of this redemptive childbirth are laid upon the shoulders of Jesus Christ.

If you are hoping to get to heaven, Jesus instructs, "You must be born again" (John 3:7).

And how may we partake in this new birth? The Apostle John explains, "As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:12-13).