Adam as head of the family
Nov 20th, 2006 by Cheryl
It is common for hierarchists to say that Adam was Eve’s head not because he was her source, but because he had an authority over her. While the teaching that Adam was Eve’s ruler before the fall of man is unsubstantiated, the fact that Adam was the source of Eve is foundational to the doctrine of the kinsman redeemer.
Let’s see if we can draw out the important connection regarding Adam’s headship and the new head of the church, the Lord Jesus Christ. Adam was the first human creation and from his body Eve was created.
The fact that Eve was created from Adam’s body and that he was the source of her flesh and bone body is highly important because of what happened next. Although Eve was deceived and she sinned, Adam sinned willfully without being deceived and he, by his rebellion, was charged with bringing sin into the world. The following diagram shows how Adam’s blood line was tainted with sin.
God however prophesied that the redeemer, the Messiah would come from the woman. It is vital that the seed of the woman alone would produce the Messiah because of the inherited sin nature that comes through the man. The diagram below shows that the Messiah is produced from a virgin woman.
Each one of us has inherited the sin nature because each one of us has our blood line through Adam after his fall. This sin nature included every one born with a natural father, including the virgin Mary because she too had a human father.
Adam as head of the human race was the source of our human sin nature. Jesus as the second Adam was the source of our salvation. But Jesus’ human nature had to be sin-free in two ways. He had to have committed no sin himself, plus he had to be born without the fallen human sin nature. By being born from a virgin, and by living a sinless life, he qualified to be the sin bearer for us all. Jesus as the second Adam also had to be a direct descendant of Adam. Jesus was the seed of the woman back to Eve.
Since Eve was created from the side of Adam, Jesus line of humanity came through the woman back to Adam from before the time that Adam sinned. Because Eve was taken from Adam before Adam sinned, the Messiah can now be traced back to the first Adam before sin entered the world. In this way Jesus was a descendant of Adam but without the stain of original sin.
This is why it is so important that Eve was taken from the man. Think of it this way. If Eve had been created at the same time as Adam and had been created from the dirt as Adam was, then she would not be a descendant of Adam because she would not have been created from his body. She would be a completely different origin - a separate humanity. Jesus’ humanity would then end with Eve and there would be no physical connection to Adam before Adam sinned. 
But because Adam was Eve’s source, Jesus line of human descendants went back to the original condition of the sinless Adam. Adam was the head of the human race because all humans came through him and all humans from his sinful line are in need of salvation. Jesus is the second Adam and all born-again humans who have come to saving faith through Jesus have their source in Jesus.
Adam’s headship has everything to do with the source of sin, the source of our sinful humanity. Jesus’ headship is also about his being the source. Jesus is the source of our salvation. Adam’s headship is not his authority over others. What authority does he have? Headship is not about authority but about source. Adam is the source of all of humanity. Jesus the God-man is the ultimate source of salvation.
When we deny that head means source, and say it means authority, we are hiding the importance of the source of humanity coming through the man. Adam as our source of our humanity brings us separation from God because of inherited sin. Jesus as the second Adam is our source of eternal life and a restored fellowship with God.
Very well done and effective! Your diagrams really helped to make the connections clear. Though all decendents of Adam and Eve inherited Adam’s sin nature, by only coming from Eve’s line and the woman (Mary), this is how Jesus did not inherit Adam’s sin. I also liked how you drew our spiritual geneology from Jesus’ line as a branch off the woman.
Ryan
Oooooh, charts…
Very good. The diagrams are the clincher. I had never heard the rationale for the virgin birth stated in that manner. It also shows the importance of kephale meaning source. Thanks muchly.
Rusty
[...] I would like to diagram the effects of what happened when Adam sinned. It would be helpful to get the full idea of what I am talking about by reading my previous post “Adam as Head of the familyâ€. [...]
Thanks Rusty. Yes I think the diagrams do help to show how important the Greek word for head - kephale - is for expressing the meaning of source. In my mind there can be no other meaning for Adam as head of the human race other than source.
I appreciated your insight as to the importance for humanity that Eve had to come from Adam, otherwise there would be two humanities. Of course, it raises issues about hierarchy and equality as well. Would your understanding of two humanities be that one would be male and the other female?
Interesting idea.
Hi Diane,
When I say two humanities I mean two separate creations with no DNA connection. When sin entered the world, the man took his sinful rule over the woman and this developed to such an extent that women were placed into the category of animals and property. The Talmud which is the Jewish oral law has followed this misogynistic way of looking at women by placing great restrictions on their activities even forbidding men to talk to women in public and giving women little to no rights as human beings. Think about how the woman would have been treated if she had not been formed from the side of Adam. I believe that she would not have been thought of as having the same humanity as Adam. She would have been thought of as so different from him that she would have had very little worth regarding even her life and death and who knows how far the abuse would have gone.
However when God chose to make Eve from the flesh and bone of Adam, he guaranteed that there was a DNA match between the two and Eve’s descendent (the Messiah) would be able to be traced directly back to Adam before sin tainted Adam’s blood line. You can see more about this reasoning in my blog post here called Could the Messiah have been a woman? It is vital that the Messiah was able to trace his ancestry back to Adam, yet it is also vital that he was born without original sin. This is only possible because Eve was not charged with bringing sin into the world and her bloodline was not contaminated with inherited sin.
[...] Good site, and I like to one post, to be aware of: Cheryl Schatz. [...]
Great post, I too like the diagrams.
Also I noticed the parallel that Eve was created from the body of Adam. Like we Christians are made (bornagain) by the Holy Spirit and made the body (church) of Jesus Christ.
So our spirit is born again, we are new creatures (created once again).
So I guess we all have two heads, Adams head and Christ head (two sources, a natural birth and a spiritual birth), but well ultimately we have only one head, everything origins from God, God is the ultimate source of everything.
In Christ
Martin, you are right. God is the ultimate source. He has created us in the physical realm and also given us our new birth through Jesus our Savior.
[...] To understand more about the necessity of a kinsman redeemer who was born without inherited sin, click here to read the post called Adam as head of the family. [...]
Interesting theory, but I have a question. Eve sinned as well. She was also given the law. The serpent deceived her and then gave some to her husband. Why in your opinion would Eve and her children not also have a sin nature? Eve was exiled from the garden with Adam and she was punished with Adam. I look forward to your answer as I am writing an article on Jesus’ blood.
Ron,
All of Eve’s children have the sin nature except for Jesus because all of Eve’s offspring (except again for Jesus) have a human father. Eve did not deliberately sin but scripture says she “fell into transgression†1 Timothy 2:14. Adam did not fall into transgression because of being deceived but he disobeyed God by his own free will with his eyes wide open to the truth. God distinguishes between the two motives for sin and this is clear even from Genesis as only Adam is kicked out of the garden. Genesis 3:22-24 says:
Why was only Adam kicked out? Because he was the only one who sinned in a deliberate manner. God knew that Adam would also be tempted to disobey God again in eating from the tree of life which would now be forbidden to them in their fallen state. God never questions whether the woman would disobey him because her original disobedience in the garden was caused by deception not deliberate disobedience. God kicked out the disobedient one – the man – and barred his way to the tree of life. The woman left the garden but not because she was driven out by God. She left because she desired the man and he took his sinful rule over her. (Genesis 3:16) God had predicted that she would want to be with the man and that came true as she left her garden home to be with her husband.
Adam’s deliberate rebellion brought the sin nature with him to all of mankind. Eve fell into transgression not through her own desire for rebellion, but because she was fully and completely deceived. This deception of Satan against the woman allowed God to turn the tables on the deceiver himself and God brought His grace through the woman and on her blood line and it was to be through her seed that the deceiver would be destroyed.
For a more complete explanation please see my reasoning in Why was Adam’s sin more serious than the sin of Eve? part 2 and also part one.
Wonderful.This is also what I believe, and am convicted is truth. Thanks so much. I’ve bookmark your site.
to God be the glory,
Karen
Hi Cheryl
you sure do post ‘food for thought’! just trying to get my head round this stuff…
can i clarify… cos i think i might be misunderstanding you… so forgive me if that is the case…
are you saying that “men” carry a different sin nature to “women”? ie it is through our “fathers” and not “mothers” we inherit our sin nature? even though all men (after Adam) are born of women…and all men and women since the Fall have been born as the result of the union b/w Adam and Eve?
Rom 3:23 says All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Pretty clear that we all have inherited a sin nature i think. How does “eve’s” trangression through deception help ‘us’ when we still have Adam as our ‘father’? Like you say, Mary was born of a sinful nature, yet jesus was her son?
I don’t believe that Adam is representative of “men” but of humankind… because he was the first HUMAN (ie - irrelevant that he was male). Note: Paul’s deliberate use of anthropos, not aner in passages such as 1 Cor 15 regarding Adam as humanity’s representative.
i must have missed something in your explanation i think… work with me here!
question - i haven’t done hebrew as much as greek… is the “you” plural or singular in Gen 3:17 when God says to Adam i “commanded you…”? if it’s singular it might add to the case for God only giving Adam the command not to eat of the tree directly. (forgive me if it’s something you have already noted in another time and place before i began reading your blog!)
in Christ
(-:
k
Hello K,
Men do not carry a different sin nature than women do. We are all born in sin and all of us have inherited the sin nature. This sin nature comes from Adam through the father’s seed. Since all of us have human fathers, we are all in the same boat in that we are all sinners and all of us have been tainted with that spirit of rebellion. Eve fell into sin through deception and because she did not deliberately rebel against God on her own, the Messiah was able to be brought into the world through her seed. The Bible clearly says that the Messiah comes through the woman, and the sin nature comes through the line of Adam. Only one person has ever been born without the aid of a human father, so only one human can claim to have been born without the inherited rebellious sin nature and that is our Savior Jesus Christ.
Now this doesn’t mean that Eve did not sin. She did sin and she suffered the consequence for her sin. God said that she would die and she did. However God also judges the motives of the heart. Proverbs 16:2 says:
Because Eve was completely and utterly deceived, her motive was not to rebel against God but to receive what she was led to believe God was keeping from her. When God judged her sin, he also judged her motives. Her motive was very different from the motive of Adam who sinned with his eyes wide open to the truth.
Eve’s transgression because of deception helps us in that it was the vehicle that God used to bring the Messiah into the world and the Messiah paid the penalty for our sin. You see God sovereignly used what Satan had planned as the destruction of mankind and God Himself was able to use Eve’s deception by Satan to bring about the redemption of mankind. Satan’s plan was to deceive, kill and destroy and he did catch the woman with his deception and then through her, the man stepped into deliberate and willful sin. Yet because Eve was deceived and did not willfully sin against God on her own, God “turned the tables†on Satan by bringing the Messiah through the seed of the very one whom Satan destroyed through deception.
Romans 3:23 says that all have sinned. That “all†does not include Jesus because he was the only one born without the sin nature and he also had no sin on his own. If he was born with the sin nature then he would not have qualified as the sinless Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. If he had the stain of inherited sin, he could not be the perfect sacrifice.
Mary was born with a sinful nature because she too had a human father. Jesus alone was born without inherited sin. Jesus alone was virgin born. Mary needed the Savior just like all of us need the Lord Jesus to pay the price for our sin.
You are right regarding Adam. He was the human who brought sin into the world and therefore represented all of humanity in sin. He did not merely represent males. He represented all humans, men and women alike, because all of us were in the seed of Adam when he sinned. Physically Adam took us all with him in his rebellion. Adam was the source of the sin nature for all of us. He was the father of all the dying. We all are born to die because all of us have inherited Adam’s sin nature. But Eve was not the mother of the dying. She was the mother of the living. In Genesis 3:20, it says
Yet that seed of life in the woman, could not produce life on her own. When her seed was mixed with the man’s seed, the result was always death because Adam was the father of the dying. This is why the virgin birth is so important. Jesus absolutely could not have had a human father. If Jesus had a human father, Jesus would have been born with the sentence of death. But because he had no human father, because God caused the egg to become fertile without the seed of the man, Jesus came from the seed of the woman alone without the death sentence imposed upon him from Adam. This is the miracle of the virgin birth and this virgin birth is as important to our faith as the resurrection is. You also asked:
Genesis 3:17 is singular in using “you†but it cannot be used to prove that God only gave the prohibition to Adam directly. It only proves that God calls each person individually to account for their actions. God also asked Eve what she had done. God did not ask Adam what Eve had done.
If you haven’t listened to my audio talk that deals with the faulty traditions that the church (as well as the cults) have brought into the Genesis account, I recommend that you listen to the audio file linked at this blog topic: http://strivetoenter.com/wim/2006/10/26/audio-talk-now-available-online/
I also recommend that you scroll up to the diagrams directly above and go through them again. The diagrams have been the biggest help for people to understand the concept of original sin and how we inherit it and the importance of the virgin birth of Jesus. I hope this has helped. Let me know if you still have problems in understanding my reasoning process.
Gidday Cheryl,
I am really chewing over the info in this section of your blog. Thanks for the diagrams etc. very helpful.
I have spent more time in the Word than in any science books… so tell me what you think …
Getting specifically ‘biological’ … is it true that sperm carry ‘life’ where as the female egg is not ‘alive’ until joined with the sperm at the point of conception? (Hey forgive me, i did english lit and german, not biol and science at school!) If this is true, (i am not sure?!) then is this also a ‘literal’ connection with the spiritual principle of the ‘male’ passing on the ‘death’ seed. And Jesus, NOT having an earthly father, therefore being exempt from sin nature?
Perhaps you have already sort of said this above but not been so ‘biological’ or literal in your explanation:
“Yet that seed of life in the woman, could not produce life on her own. When her seed was mixed with the man’s seed, the result was always death because Adam was the father of the dying…”
Am i on track here?
have a great weekend!
(-:
K
Gen 2:24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.
Although we interpret this as: for this reason a man and woman shall leave their father and mother, and be joined to one another…….
That is not what scripture says. It specifically says the man should leave his parents and be joined to his wife.
Why is this important? Because when God gave the promise of the seed of the woman, it was to be traced through the female lineage. The man leaves his “tribe” and joins himself to the woman’s “tribe.”
Man turned this upside down when early in Genesis men began to take women “whomever they chose” as spoils of war and removed her from her family. As the The mother of Sisera said in Judges:
Jdg 5:30 ‘Are they not finding, are they not dividing the spoil? A maiden, two maidens for every warrior……..
But God fulfilled His plan as we see several women in the genealogy of Jesus; Rahab and Ruth and ultimately Jesus being the “seed of the woman” as prophesied by God in the garden.
That the man was originally intended to “leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife” is fulfilled in the mystery of Christ and the church.
Eph 5:32 This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.
Jesus left His Father and came to earth (the tribe of the woman) to cleave to His bride (the church.)
Amen! Good points, Victorious.
HI Cheryl,
This seems really complex for something i have found never to be an issue. The tension i find with your position is like all ‘theories’ you can set them up to mean what you intend the outcome to be.
I support and believe in 100% equality between men and woman and see neither as having the God ordained right pver each other. At this point i feel the bible is very cultually biased in what is expoected from ‘male’ and ‘female’. However, just because i disagree with the way you have approached this issue does not mean what you are trying to assertain is not valid and important. Keep fighting the fight.
Some views:
I fundamentally think both sinned in the garden and trying to draw huge conclusions about the trinity and Jesus leaving heaven to join his bride etc can be a little scary to say the least…i am not sure about these views.
I think this is primarily a matter of what your definition of sin is.
I think it also is matter of how you view orginal sin and the way inherited sin works.
If we start at different places we end up in different places.
Anyay, just some thoughts.
CP,
Thanks for your comments. You may need to read the post again if you found it complex. It actually is very straightforward and plain.
I do agree with you that both sinned in the garden. After all God said not to do something and both of them did. I don’t think that anyone is saying that Eve didn’t sin and I certainly am not saying that. What I am saying is that scripture tells us unequivocally that Adam is the one blamed for bringing sin into the world and not Eve. The Bible also tells us that we inherit our sin from Adam. We also see that the Messiah had to come from the woman and not the man. We also see the bible telling us about the motives of Eve and of Adam. What does this all mean? We must draw our conclusions from what the Bible actually says and not how we feel about sin.
The “puzzle” so to speak is that the Messiah had to come from Adam as the kinsman redeemer yet through Adam sin comes. So how does the Messiah come from Adam and not come from the sin line of Adam? God tells us in Genesis 3. The Messiah will come from the woman and we know that the woman came from the man before the man sinned. The man’s sin of rebellion was not passed on to Eve.
The whole matter of sin also comes down to judging motive along with the sin. Eve died for her own sin but her motive was not rebellion. She sinned because of deception so it was impossible for her to pass on the inherited sin of rebellion. Now you and I? We have the inherited sin of rebellion and we struggle with it every day. I praise God that he found a way out for us so that we could have a sinless Messiah who could take away the sin of the world.
You may need to sleep on this one and come back to it and see if it makes more sense another day.
As far as the Trinity, I am not sure what you mean. What conclusion did I try to draw about the Trinity from my diagrams?
The whole matter of sin also comes down to judging motive along with the sin. Eve died for her own sin but her motive was not rebellion. She sinned because of deception so it was impossible for her to pass on the inherited sin of rebellion.
That’s true, the word that she (EVE) used was “Beguilded” which is commonly tranlated “deceived”. The word “beguilded” in hebrew means fishermans bait to catch fish or something! The woman said to God “The Sepent Beguilded me and I did it!” She told the truth, the sepent used me, deceived me,then as fishermans bait or as bait to get to Adam! If we just let the bible speak for itself, it becomes clear. look up those herbrew words etc gives you the full deep meaning!
I think the reason why people are trying to see Hiarchy because there just looking at bits an pieces of scriptures and smashing then together instead of looking at it as a whole…The Whole Scope of Scripture….The Whole Scope of Salvation/Redemption. Then the Bible will flow like living water!
“Misspelled”
The woman said to God “The Sepent Beguilded me and I did EAT!”
Hi, Cheryl. Firstly, I am 100% egalitarian. I believe with all my being that women and men have the same rights to rulership on God’s earth. On that note, I never thought I’d say this to another egalitarian, but I think you’re making a huge stretch here (dang, did I never think I’d say that!) While you don’t say it and you don’t seem to believe it, I think you are greatly implying that Adam and the male seed through him have fallen lower than woman has. You said that men don’t have a different sin nature than women, yet what I see throughout your post and especially one of your responses is that sin is through the male line and we are cursed through our father, rather than our mother. It’s my understanding that both parents give us the mark of sin, not just our fathers. I understand and agree with the fascinating idea of Jesus only coming through woman’s seed because of the bloodline, but this does not, to me, follow with the line of thinking that we, in turn, are cursed only by our father’s line and not our mother’s. This almost sounds like a bigger wallop to men than certain secular people have made.
The biggest clincher by far, for me, was when you said Eve was not banished from the garden but only went to follow her husband. Um, Eve sinned; thus, she was no longer fit to be in the garden, regardless of whether her motive for sin was more severe than Adam’s. Furthermore, don’t you think God would want her to be with her husband? How would humankind progress if man went alone without woman? Besides, again, woman was no longer fit to be in the garden either. The idea that God would bansih man, but leave woman free to enjoy the garden if she chose, is WAY too out there for me.
Hi Jennifer,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! You are going to want to watch for the next post when I will be discussing the issue of the Abrahamic covenant and why only males needed to be circumcised. I think you will find it very interesting and it may open up some things that have been used by God as symbols and their symbolic meaning. I am out of the country right now just checking my mail and I won’t be able to get the new post up for at least a week, but watch for it. I would be interested to see what you think
As far as the type of sin that Adam committed and whether Eve was kicked out of the garden or not, it is important not to try to understand these issues with our thinking of what is right or not. We need to check out God’s word to see what it says. There have been many faulty traditions regarding the creation of mankind that need to be dispelled. If you haven’t already, check out the posts on Adam and Eve to read more. If you still have questions, email me (see the contact page at the top) and I can help.
“why only males needed to be circumcised”
Excuse me for being blunt, but I always thought the reason for this was that only males have the male organ?
I mean, there’s no such thing as female circumcision (shudder) Only female genital mutilation. Men have foreskins, whereas women have no such expendable parts.
Jennifer,
I edited your comment so that programs that block x rated sites will not block mine.
Women too have a piece of skin that can be cut and removed. We will talk about that shortly in the next post. I think you will see some things that you may not have thought about before. Expect a few thought-provoking thoughts