Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. This is study #27 of Genesis, chapter 3 and we are going to read Genesis 3:20-21:

And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living. Unto Adam also and to his wife did JEHOVAH God make coats of skins, and clothed them.

In our last study we asked the question: Why did Adam call his wife’s name Eve? The reason given was because she was the mother of all living, but at this time in history she was not yet a mother. That led us to look for the spiritual meaning and we went to Galatians, chapter 4, and I am going to turn there again. It says in Galatians 4:21:

Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?

This is a very important statement, especially with what God says next, in Galatians 4:22:

For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.

Verse 21 and its reference to the Law is referring back to the Book of Genesis, which is known as the Law of Moses because God used Moses to write the first five Books, also known as the Pentateuch and each Book is a Book of the Law. Again, God is asking the question, “Do ye not hear the law?” We would expect Him then to lay down some Law or commandment, like “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” or “Thou shalt not kill.” That tends to be our understanding of the Law, but, instead, God is referring to historical events that took place in the Book of Genesis and He is saying, “This is the Law. Do you not hear the Law?”

Last time I made reference to a verse in 1Corinthians 9 and I want to go there again because we were right at the end of our study and I felt a little rushed to comment on it. It says in 1Corinthians 9:7-8:

Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also?

There it is again – a reference to the Law. Then it goes on to give the Law in 1Corinthians 9-9:

For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen?

First He states the Law, as found in Deuteronomy 25:4:

Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn.

There is no interpretation or indication of any kind that God meant anything other than what he literally said when He said, “Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn.” It is stated but it is not explained and the task of the child of God is to understand the Law. Why did God say it? What was His reason? If we only had Deuteronomy 25, verse 4 we might think that God is a God that is so loving of all His creatures that He has a deep concern for oxen. We can gather that we are to treat our animals well. You know, a lot of people would love that kind of preaching – they are very concerned about animals and, maybe, not so much for their fellow man. We can glean that particular moral understanding and it is true that God would not have His people to abuse animals in any way, although God has given animals to man to have dominion over them and the animals are there to serve man. There is nothing wrong with eating animals or using animals for various purposes, like using an ox to tread out the corn.

Yet, the primary purpose of the Bible is not for God to instruct us on how we can best live in this world using earthly things. It can be a secondary understanding and a moral principal is fine and God would allow us to glean those types of things, but the reason for the Bible is the Gospel – it is the spiritual truths. The primary purpose and the supreme purpose of all Scripture is for spiritual truth, even verses that seem far removed from the Gospel, like Deuteronomy 25, verse 4.

So the question is asked by the Apostle Paul under the inspiration of God, “Doth God take care for oxen?” In other words, is God primarily concerned with oxen? And the answer is, “No.” Look at 1Corinthians 9:10:

Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope.

For our purposes, the spiritual meaning is not important to our study, but only that we see that there was a Law stated and there was a deeper spiritual meaning. And this applies to the entire Bible, whether it be in Genesis with several chapters involving Abraham, Sarah and Hagar, which were an allegory that explained two spiritual covenants or whether it is a single verse with a seemingly obscure type of Law, like Deuteronomy 25, verse 4. The Laws had an application on a physical level and the Jews were to obey these Laws, but the real application of the Law was spiritual and that is what God says in Romans 7:14:

For we know that the law is spiritual…

Therefore, the Law in Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua or Judges or any part of the Bible is spiritual. That is why we compare spiritual things with spiritual and this applies to the entire Bible because the Bible is the Law Book and all the law is spiritual: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.” All Scripture is the Law and all Scripture is spiritual. It is spiritual when Christ spoke a parable, like when He said, “The kingdom of heaven is like unto,” and then He would go on to give the allegory. That is spiritual and the reader recognizes that and we know we had better look for another kind of understanding. Can you imagine if someone were to read the parables of Jesus and they just took them literally or naturally? They would take the Parable of the Ten Virgins and they just wonder who these ten virgins were or where these actual ten virgins are in the world? That is ridiculous, is it not? It would be nothing but a complete waste of time to try to understand the natural implications. If they were reading what Christ said about separating the sheep and goats, all they would glean from it was that you must keep your sheep and goats separate. But even the natural-minded reader knows that when Christ spoke a parable, you do not look to the woman that lost her coin as an actual woman who lost an actual coin. You do not look at the 100 sheep as representing actual sheep. We know that these things are parabolic and they represent something else.

But a problem comes when a natural-minded person goes to the rest of the Bible and they approach the rest of the Bible in a natural-minded way. They read about Hagar or Sarah or they read about the ox treading out the corn and they read about leaven and they only think about oxen and leaven and actual women and their children. They think about the historical setting, and so forth, and yet the Law is spiritual: “And do ye not hear the law?” It is a similar statement to what Jesus said after giving the Parable of the Sower. He said in Matthew 13:8-9:

But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.

Christ had indicated it was a parable, so you must “tune” in your ears. On a radio dial, you have to tune in the station and have the right frequency so you can hear clearly what is going to come across the air waves. So, when Christ says, “Who hath ears to hear, let him hear,” we know that it is a parable and we have to “adjust” our ears and our thinking to listen for parabolic meaning or things that mean other things. Later on, the sower is explained to be the Son of man and the seed is explained to be the Word. The seed falls on stony ground or it is choked by the cares of this world and this has to do with the Word of God as it falls on the hearts of men. So, our ears have made an “adjustment” and as we read we look for the relationships: 1) the Sower is Christ; 2) the seed is the Word of God.

But the problem is that we should be making that adjustment at all times when we read the Bible, wherever we are reading within the Bible, from Genesis through Revelation and everywhere in between: “Do ye not hear the law?” The Law is spiritual. These things are an allegory concerning Sarah and Hagar and their sons Isaac and Ishmael, and so forth, and we can see these things only when we “tune in” to the proper frequency in the Bible. It says in Romans 10:4:

For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.

On one level, we can understand this to mean that we cannot get right with God by keeping the Law. The Law of God directs us, ultimately, to the Lord Jesus Christ and we are saved by the grace of God. But, also, the Law is the Bible and the end of the Law is Christ and when we are searching the Scriptures, studying the Bible and looking for truth, if we stop short of Christ (as Christ is the essence of truth), we have not found that deeper spiritual meaning. Then we have only read the Law, but we have not heard the Law. The hearing of the Law is when we find the underlying Gospel intent of the verse or the deeper spiritual meaning of what God has declared. When we have done that correctly, we can say that we have “heard the law.”

The problem is that spiritual hearing requires salvation and this is why Christ opened the ears of certain individuals in order that they could “hear.” It is really a picture. The healings that Jesus did were mini-parables. They are a picture of salvation. When God saves us, He opens up our ears. Once our ears are open, when we come to the Bible we begin to hear. We hear the voice of Christ, according to John 10:27: “My sheep hear my voice.”

Israel of old and the unsaved in the churches today profess the name of Christ. They say they have faith or they say they are Christians, but they lack the ability to hear. They demonstrate that they lack hearing when they insist that you must understand the Bible literally. You must understand the Bible according to their own hermeneutic: the historical, grammatical manner of interpretation and you cannot look for a deeper meaning. In other words, they are saying, “You cannot tell me that you hear additional underlying things in the Scriptures.” It is foolishness to them. Why is it foolish to them? It is because they cannot hear it. When a child of God has been given understanding and ears to hear, by God’s grace, we come to the Bible and we see not just the allegory concerning Abraham and his wives and their sons, but we see the allegory in creation and Adam and Eve.

If you have been following along with our study, you have noticed that we continually point out that Adam was a figure of Him that was to come (Christ). We have pointed out that Eve came out of Adam’s side, which points to Christ’s side being pierced at the cross. We have pointed out that the Garden of Eden was the outward representation of the kingdom of God, as Old Testament Israel and the New Testament churches would later be that outward representation. We have been “hearing” these things as we go along and we have not been waiting to see if the Bible will later explain and define the underlying things for us. Instead, we have looked at the fact that Christ spoke in parables and without a parable He did not speak. We have correctly concluded that Jesus spoke in parables in order to teach His elect how to understand the entire Bible because He is the Word made flesh. As the Word made flesh, He was instructing us on how to rightly understand the Word or Law of God – you must always look for the deeper spiritual meaning. We have taken that instruction. We have taken the instruction from Galatians, chapter 4 where God takes care to lay this out and to very carefully show us how we must study the Bible in order to interpret the meaning: “Do ye not hear the law?” That means you have to look at the Law of God as an historical parable. God defined the parable for us in order to tell us what the deeper meaning was, just like Jesus told us the “field” was the world and the “reapers” are the angels, and so forth. Christ would give the spiritual meaning and identify one thing with another thing and that is what God is doing in Galatians 4:22-24:

For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise. Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.

God makes that identification with two children born of two different mothers. The one of Agar (Hagar) the Egyptian identifies with Mount Sinai. Why is Mount Sinai significant? It is because the Law was given at Sinai and that genders to bondage because if you are under the Law you are under bondage. There is no salvation or deliverance if you are under the Law. Then it goes on to say in Galatians 4:25:

For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.

There is no deliverance with Agar or her son Ishmael, but it goes on to say in Galatians 4:26:

But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

Jerusalem above is free, as it said in Genesis 4, verses 22 and 23 that there was one son by a free woman and “he of the free woman was by promise.” That was Isaac who was born of Sara (Sarah), the free woman. She was not a bondmaid. She gave birth to the son of promise because God had told Abraham that He would give him a son to be his heir and, yet, God waited until Abraham was 100 years old and Sara was 90 years old and well past childbearing age. The son was born miraculously according to the promise of God and born of the free woman, Sara. The Lord is connecting Sara and being a free woman and the birth of the child of promise to “Jerusalem which is above.” This Jerusalem is the heavenly Jerusalem that we see coming down in Revelation 21 and it is said to be the bride of Christ. Remember, it said in Revelation 21:2:

And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

This “Jerusalem above” that we read about in Galatians 4 is the bride of Christ. Adam is a figure of Christ and Adam’s bride is Eve. Do you see the connection? Adam’s bride is Eve and Eve is a picture of Jerusalem above. Notice that is says, “But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.” And what did the Bible say when Adam say called his wife’s name Eve? It said, “And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.”

In Galatians 4, verse 26 where it speaks of Jerusalem as the mother of us all, who is the “all”? Is it all mankind or every human being? No – it is very definite that God makes a distinction between His people and the unsaved. Christ came to save His people from their sins. The “all” are the elect, everyone whose name was written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. Jerusalem, the bride of Christ, is the mother of us all. Eve is the mother of all living. They are very similar statements.

We will try to finish this when we get together in our next Bible study.