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The principal meaning of this passage therefore is to cause us to understand that the devil was the author of all this calamity; just as when any one commits murder, it may rightly be said of the sword of the murdered, "This sword killed the man." Whereas in truth, it was not the sword alone nor of itself that killed the man, but the murderer who used the sword. Indeed it is quite a common use of the figure synecdoche, the conveyance of two ideas by one expression, to understand the author of the act under the mention of the instrument made use of. Wherefore we explode this Jewish cavil utterly.

Secondly, it is also true that contraries are not necessarily consistent contrarieties in every respect. For the form of contrarieties is multiplex, as logicians teach. Some things are opposed to others relatively, others privatively, and others by contradiction. Thus the natural father by whom we are begotten and the father of lies are opposed to each other. Although we should grant the Jews their interpretation of this passage that Moses is here speaking of the natural serpent, yet the text itself evidently contains a synecdoche when we compare it with the words of Christ. The words of Moses are, "And Jehovah God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle." What then did the serpent do? He deceived Eve and thus murdered her.

So the words of Moses therefore only hold up the light of the Gospel, "The devil was a murderer from the beginning," John 8:44. Is it not by this light at once manifest that God so speaks with the natural serpent as recorded by Moses, that his words are intended to apply to the devil, concealed under the form of the natural serpent, who having assumed that form under it hurled man into sin and death, and laid him under the wrath of God? Wherefore by the seed of the serpent in this passage is not to be understood the natural seed of the natural serpent, but the seed of the devil; as Christ also represents the same in the Gospel, using the same appellation of "seed," where he says, "An enemy came and sowed among the wheat evil seed," Math. 13:25. This evil seed is contrary to the spiritual seed, even as flesh and spirit are wholly contrary to each other.

But it is not necessary as we have said, that contraries should contain that contrariety to each other throughout in all respects; just in the same manner as similarities do not respond to each other in every particular. Thus for instance, Adam is a figure of Christ; which similarity consists in the great truth that as sin hath abounded towards all men by Adam, so the righteousness of Christ also abounds towards all those who believe in him. These particulars of Adam and of Christ agree with each other. In all other respects Adam and Christ do not agree. Wherefore let this their error be left to the Jews, to content themselves with it. We believers in Christ know that the serpent, to whom God speaks in this text, is the devil. And this we know from the interpretation of Christ himself.

PART VI. NAME ADAM GAVE HIS WIFE. GOD REMINDS MAN OF THE FALL. THE CHERUBIM

I. V. 20. And the man called his wife's name Eve; because she is the mother of all living.

We have heard above that it was inflicted as a punishment upon the woman, that she should be under the power of the man. That power to which she is thus made subject is here described anew. It is not God who here gives to Eve her name, but Adam, her lord; just in the same manner as before he gave to all the animals their names, as creatures put under his dominion. No animal devised its name for itself. Every one received its appellation, and the dignity and glory of its name, from its lord, Adam. So to this day, when a woman marries a man, she loses the name of her own family and is called after the name of her husband. On the other hand it would be a thing quite monstrous, if the husband should wish to be called by the name of his wife. This therefore is a sign and further confirmation of that punishment of subjection which the woman procured by her sin. In the same manner also, if the husband changes his place of residence the woman is compelled to follow him as her lord. So various are the traces in nature which put us in mind of original sin and of our numerous calamities on its account.

And the name which Adam gave to his wife is a name full of joy and delight. For what is better, or more precious, or more delightful, than life? There is a well-known poetic line—

 
Num tu bona cuncta
Ut redimas vitam recuses?
To save thy life, what wouldst thou not resign?
The world, with all its wealth, if they were thine!
 

For neither gold, nor gems nor the glory of the whole world can be compared with the preciousness of life. This Christ intimates, Math. 6:25; 16:26. Hence the Jews generally give their children names taken from roses, flowers, jewels, etc. The name of Eve however was not taken from the preciousness of anything worldly, but from life itself, which in value exceeds all things. But Adam adds also his reason for giving this name to his wife. "Because she is the mother of all living." It is evident therefore from this passage that Adam, by receiving the Holy Spirit, was wonderfully enlightened; and that he believed and understood the word spoken by God concerning the Seed of the woman, which should bruise the head of the serpent; and that he therefore wished to signalize his faith, and to adorn it by the name which he gave his wife, the name the like of which he had not given to any other creature. It is equally evident also that he moreover wished, by this name given to his wife, to cherish his own hope of a future Seed, to confirm his own faith and to comfort himself by the belief of a future and eternal life, even at the very time when all nature had been rendered subject to death.

For if Adam had not apprehended all this by the faith of the life to come, his mind could not have been raised to such an assurance of it, as to give his wife a name so full of joy. As therefore he did give such a name to his wife, it is perfectly evident that his mind was lifted up by the Holy Ghost to this confidence in the remission of sins by the Seed of Eve, whom he therefore named Eve, in order that the name might be a memorial of that divine promise by which he himself was raised anew unto life and by which he left the hope of an eternal life to his posterity. This hope and this faith he imprinted as it were on the forehead of his wife in the brightest colors by the name Eve which he gave her; just in the same manner as those who are delivered from their enemies erect trophies and other glad memorials to commemorate the victory which they have gained.

But perhaps you will inquire, how Adam called Eve the mother of all living, when she was as yet a virgin and had never borne a child. Adam, we here again see, did this to testify his faith in the divine promise; because he believed that the human race would not be cast away nor destroyed, but would be saved. This same name Eve therefore embraces also a prophecy of the grace that should come; and it indicates that consolation, which is necessary under the perpetual trials of this human life and against all the temptations of Satan. It is very possible also that the joyful giving of this name to Eve, which as we have said is a most beautiful proof of the faith of Adam and of the recreation of his spirit unto a new life, formed a reason why the holy fathers in after ages held that day, on which their children were circumcised and received their names as a more glad and joyful festival than the day they were born; to the intent that such festival might forever commemorate this giving of the first name by Adam, when he called his wife Eve. But now follows another kind of memorial quite the contrary to this; a memorial of sorrow, not of joy.

V. 21. And Jehovah God made for Adam and for his wife coats of skins, and clothed them.

This is by no means so joyful and delightful information as was that of Adam giving to his wife the name of Eve. For, although the Lord had said, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die;" yet Adam consoled himself by this name which he gave to his wife that the life which he had lost should be restored by the promised Seed of the woman, which should bruise the serpent's head and destroy the destroyer.

II. Here Adam and Eve are clothed with garments by the Lord God himself, in order that, being perpetually reminded by this clothing as a lasting memorial, they might reflect, as often as they looked at their garments, upon their awful and miserable fall from the highest felicity into the extremest calamity and wretchedness; to the intent that they might ever afterwards fear to sin and exercise continual repentance; yet looking for the remission of sins by the promised Seed. And this is the reason no doubt the Lord God did not cover them with leaves nor with that wool which grows on trees, but clothed them with the skins of slaughtered animals to remind them that they were now mortal and subject to certain death.

As therefore the name Eve contained in it the joyful hope of life, even of eternal life; so these skins were a memorial of sin passed and sin to come; but a memorial also of all those calamities present and future, which that sin deserved. And indeed our nature has need of such memorials and perpetual admonitions. For we easily forget both past evils and past blessings. Hence it is that Peter says, "For he that lacketh these things is blind, seeing only what is near, having forgotten the cleansing from his old sins. Wherefore I shall be ready always to put you in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and are established in the truth which is with you," 2 Pet. 1:9, 12. For it is truly an awful expression of the apostle when he here intimates that some forget the remission of their sins, and after they have well believed draw back from their faith, and adorn not themselves with the most beautiful chain of Christian virtues which he enumerates, but indulge in covetousness, pride, envy, lust, etc. We in our day also have great need of this admonition, who experience all these burdens of these calamities under the papacy, lest we become ungrateful to our merciful God, as, alas! the greater part of the world do.

As a remedy therefore against this forgetfulness these skins were added as clothings for Adam and Eve, that they might be forever a sure sign, or memorial or admonition, whereby both they and all their posterity might be reminded of their most wretched condition. But in after ages, marvelous to say, the world began to grow mad in the matter of this very memorial of their calamity! For who can possibly describe the amount of study and expense men and women give to dress! Indeed it is so great that it can no longer be properly termed pleasure nor luxury, but madness; because, like asses created for bearing burdens of gold they seem rather to consider with how much gold they can load themselves, than with how much they can best adorn themselves. A superior kind of dress may be justly commended in certain cases; especially in more illustrious persons. But that rage for dress in all classes, which now prevails, cannot but offend the eyes of all good men. And if Adam himself could rise from his grave and behold this madness for raiment in all circles of society, I believe he would stand petrified with astonishment at the sight. For the clothing of skins, which Adam daily wore, daily reminded him of his sin and his lost felicity. Whereas we, on the contrary, clothe ourselves with splendid garments and indulge in luxury of dress, that we may testify to all men that we have not only forgotten the evils of the fall, from which we have been saved by the Seed of the woman, but the blessings also which we have received through him. We next find that the admonition which the Lord had given by the sign of the garments, he gave also in word.

V. 22. And Jehovah God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever:

These words contain sarcasm and most bitter derision. Some inquire therefore why it is that God here deals so harshly with miserable Adam? How it is that, after he had been robbed of all his glory and had fallen into sin and death, he is goaded in addition to all this by his Maker with this most bitter reflection passed upon him. Was it not enough, they ask, that he should wear this visible sign which should perpetually remind him of his lost glory and his present calamity, but he must hear also in addition this audible word of the Lord God?

To this I reply, Adam had the promise of mercy given him, and with that he ought to have lived content. But in order that he might more deeply fear, and more carefully guard against all future sin, there is spoken to him this bitter memorial word also. For God foresaw what kind of men Adam's posterity would be; and therefore he puts this word into his mouth that he might preach it to his posterity, and might teach them as a warning that by wishing to become like God, he became like unto the devil; in order that they also, being thus warned, might not add to that sin of their first parents their own sins, and so depart still farther from God.

As before, by the clothing of skins, so now, by his word itself, God reminds our first parents both concerning their past and their future calamities. Not that God is delighted with Adam's sad case, for had it been so he would have given him no such admonition at all; but would have remained silent. But God willed that man should sigh after the restoration of that "image of God" which he had lost; and should therefore the more hate sin, which had been the cause of this awful calamity; and that Adam should admonish his posterity of what had been the consequence of his sin; that when, having been plundered of his reason by Satan, he thought he should become like God, he became like Satan himself.

On this passage also that great question is raised, why God, who is one, here speaks in the plural number? And whether there are more gods than one? And Nicholas of Lyra, with others, considers that these words are either spoken in the person of an angel or addressed to angels, "Is become as one of us;" that is, "Is become an angel." But this comment is too cold. For God does not here call himself an angel. Nor does the force of the expression lie in the word "one;" but rather in the pronoun "us." Wherefore we repudiate altogether this cold comment. For if these words are spoken in the person of an angel, it is certain that God did not speak them; but God did speak them. For the assertion of the text is, "And Jehovah God said."

Wherefore here again let us have recourse to the light of the Gospel. For this light as I have above observed illumines all these obscure passages of the Old Testament. And indeed if you will explain these words as having reference to the angels, such interpretations will not accord with that portion of the sacred narrative which precedes. For Satan above said, verse 5, "And ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." From this it is manifest that Adam and Eve really endeavored to become like God, not like an angel. Wherefore this passage cannot rightly be understood in any other way than as meaning equality with God!

This error of the Jews therefore concerning the reference of the present passage to angels, which Lyra also follows in his interpretation, is exploded; and from this text, according to the letter, the doctrine is established that there is a plurality in the Godhead, which doctrine was also determined above, Gen. 1:26, where God said, "Let us make man in our image." All these passages argue, in the first place, for the unity of the divine essence. For the uniform expression in them all is, "And God said." And in the next place, they argue also for the plurality, or according to the general term used, a Trinity of persons in the Godhead. All these mysteries however are more fully revealed in the New Testament. As for instance, when Christ commands believers to be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. The Three Divine Persons in the Godhead therefore were thus at once shadowed forth at the very beginning of the world, and were afterwards clearly understood by the prophets, and at length fully revealed in the Gospel.

The meaning of this passage therefore stands perfectly plain, that the intent of Adam and Eve was to become like God or to secure his image. Now the image of the invisible God is the Son, "by whom all things consist," Col. 1:17. Wherefore Adam by his sin dashed against the very person of Christ, who is the true image of God. These great things are but briefly and obscurely set before us in this divine narrative. There is no doubt however that Adam himself drew from them numberless sermons for his family and posterity; in the same way as the prophets after him evidently contain various allusions to these mysteries and wrap them up in marvelous indications, which the Gospel finally reveals in open and bright manifestation.

It makes also for our interpretation of the present passage that the name of God used is Jehovah, which cannot signify any creature, being a name which is applied absolutely and only to the Creator himself. And what does the Creator here say? "Adam is become as one of us." Now here most assuredly neither our profession nor our faith will tolerate receiving these words as being spoken or as having reference to angels. For who will dare to say that God is one of the angels, or that an angel is one of the us, the ELOHIM? The glorious God is above all angels and over all creatures! How therefore can God make himself only equal to the angels!

We receive this passage therefore as a sure testimony of that article of our faith concerning the holy Trinity; that there is One God, and Three Divine Persons in the Godhead. Moses indeed seems here obscurely, but plainly and purposely, to intimate concerning the sin of Adam that his aim was to become like, not unto angels, but unto God. For if he had sinned against angels only, he would not have been condemned to death for such a sin. But because his sin was directly against the majesty of the Creator, by aiming to become like unto him and to do as that divine majesty did, therefore it was that so awful a punishment followed so awful a sin.

And as when a man is delivered from crucifixion every one will naturally remind him of the danger in which he was placed and will exhort him to guard against a like danger ever afterward; so, after Adam is restored to the hope of life through the divine promise, God admonishes him by the bitter irony contained in the text, not to forget his horrible fall nor ever again to attempt to equal God, in which he so awfully failed; but to humble himself before the divine Majesty and ever afterwards to guard with all his posterity against such a sin. For these things were not spoken to Adam only; they apply to us also, who, after being baptized and renewed by grace, ought to take heed with all watchfulness that we fall not back into our former ungodliness.

In like manner there is equally bitter sarcasm in the words, when God says, "And now, lest he put forth his hand, and take of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever." As if God could not by one mere nod prohibit Adam from touching the tree and also prevent him ever doing so! Moses next adds those terrible and terrifying words,

Vs. 23, 24. Therefore Jehovah God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden the Cherubim, and the flame of a sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

The contents of this text are intended also for our rebuke and admonition; as Paul says, Rom. 15:4, "For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our sakes also." For there is great peril, lest forgetting our former sins we should be plunged into them again; as Christ also gives us warning, when he says, "Behold, thou art made whole; sin no more, lest a worse thing befall thee," John 5:14. Peter also speaks in the spirit of warning, when he says, "It has happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog turning to his own vomit again, and the sow that had washed to wallowing in the mire," 2 Pet. 2:22. The same admonition and warning are given by the same apostle elsewhere, when he says, "Having forgotten the cleansing from his old sins," 2 Pet. 1:9.

These and other passages of Scripture are all admonitions concerning guarding against future sin; because, as in diseases so in sins, the relapse is more difficult of cure than the original. Hence therefore Adam and his whole posterity are warned in so many various forms by the present portion of the sacred record of Moses! All is written in order that, after they have received the hope of eternal life by means of the promise given through the Seed of the woman, they might beware that they lose not that hope by sinning again; according to that remarkable parable of the house which was swept and garnished after Satan was cast out, which Satan again occupied, taking with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself.

It is to this end that the Lord uses so much bitterness in his address to our first parents. It is as if, in explaining himself, he should say, "I before forbade Adam and Eve to touch the tree of death;" but such was their impudent self-will, that they would not abstain from doing so even to their own destruction. Now, therefore, I must take all care that they approach not the "tree of life" also; for it may be they will not refrain from putting forth their hand on that also. Therefore I will so effectually prevent them from eating of this tree, that I will prohibit them from the use of any of the trees of paradise whatsoever. Wherefore I say unto them, "Go ye forth from the garden altogether, and eat the herb of the field, and whatsoever else of the kind the earth produceth. Ye shall hereafter not only eat no more of the tree of life, but ye shall not taste any other tree of paradise," etc.

This passage further shows that the trees of paradise were in no manner like those which the other part of the earth brought forth. Wherefore, even the food which Adam and Eve ate, after their ejection from paradise, reminded them, and still reminds their posterity, of their sin and of their most miserable condition, into which they have been hurled by their sin. In so many and various ways are our calamities depicted before our very eyes that even our clothing, independently of our destitution by nature of those spiritual gifts, the knowledge and worship of God, etc., perpetually remind us of those great calamities.

Here a question presents itself, whether, if God had permitted Adam to eat of the tree of life, Adam would by this food have overcome death in the same manner as by eating of the tree of death, he became subject to death; for the reasoning in each case seems to be parallel. The tree of death killed; and that by the Word, which said, "In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." The tree of life, therefore, by the power also of the same Word, gave life and preserved from death.

Lyra and others in their reply to this question say that this tree of life had indeed the power of preserving life for a length of time, but not forever; and therefore it could not have restored that life which was lost by sin. For Adam was not created with the design of his remaining in this corporal life forever; but he was designed to be translated from this corporal life and from this corporal nourishing of it into that spiritual life, for which he was ultimately designed and into which he would have been translated, if he had not sinned. Just in the same way as when a man is created a consul from his former private life, no death is taken into consideration in his being created to that office, but his glory and dignity alone are increased; so Adam, had not death intervened by his sin, would have changed his mortality for an immortality without any death at all; being translated from the life corporal to the life spiritual and eternal. This "tree of life" however, according to the view of Lyra, served only for the preservation of the corporal life. And therefore he interprets the present text, "Lest he should live an age;" that is, a life of long duration. Such is Lyra's opinion.

My understanding of the text however is different. My belief is, that if Adam had been admitted to eat of the tree of life he would have been restored to that life which he lost; so that he would not have afterwards died, but would have been simply translated from the life corporal to the life spiritual and eternal; for the text contains both these statements most clearly; that Adam was prohibited from eating of "the tree of life," that he might not be restored to the life which he had lost; and also, that if he had eaten of that tree he would have lived LEOLAM; that is, for an age or a length of time.

My rejection of the opinion of Lyra, however, is especially on the ground that he attributes the power of giving life to the nature of the tree itself simply; whereas it is quite certain that the tree possessed not this property of its own nature, but from the power of the Word absolutely. Just in the same manner as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil had its peculiar property from the same Word. It did not kill, because its fruits themselves were deadly, poisonous or pestiferous; but because the Word, as a certain paper, was added to it; on which paper God had written, "In the day that thou eatest of this tree, thou shalt surely die," Gen. 2:17.

Wherefore, in the first place, to this tree of death there was attached spiritual death or the death of the soul; that is, disobedience. For after Adam and Eve had violated this commandment of God by sin, which commandment had continued effectual in them up to that time, they began to think thus, "Behold, God has forbidden us to eat of this tree; but what is that to us?" This contempt of the commandment was that poisoned hook, by which being firmly fixed in their throats Adam and Eve were utterly destroyed. For since the divine threatening was added to the commandment, therefore after eating it the fruit wrought in them death on account of their disobedience. The tree of death itself was not poisoned; but, as I have copiously explained before under the second chapter, it was the tree of divine worship, where man might testify, by his obedience in that worship, that he acknowledged, reverenced and feared his God. For God saw everything which he had made, and behold it was very good, Gen. 1:31. Wherefore, I have no doubt that this tree of life in the present passage derived its efficacy, as did the tree of death, from the Word. Therefore, since the Word rested in its power on that tree, if Adam had eaten of it, he would have been restored to the life which he possessed before his fall.

It was just thus also with the serpent, which Moses raised in the desert. It did not give or cause life by its own nature; for it was made of brass, as any other serpent might be made of the same metal to this day. But it was the Word, added to that serpent, which made it effectual to give life; because God commanded that serpent to be lifted up, and because he added this Word to it when lifted up, "Every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live," Num. 21:8. Now, if thou shouldst make a serpent of brass at his day, thou couldst not have this Word to add to it. Moreover, the cause of the healing did not lie in the act of the looking, but that cause was contained in the Word, by which God had commanded that those who were bitten should look to the serpent, to which commandment was also added the promise of healing to those who should look. But because the Rabbins understand not the nature of the Word, therefore they shamefully err and fail in their interpretation and declare the meaning to be, that the nature itself of these trees was death-giving or life-giving. For they understand not that all things therefore take place, because God by his Word either promises or threatens that they shall so take place.

Our sophistic human reasoners trifle in the same way, when they argue upon the manner in which baptism justifies. For Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventura consider that there is a certain power of effecting justification infused by God into the water when the infant is baptized; so that the water of the baptism, by its own virtue thus communicated, creates justification. We, on the contrary, affirm that the water of baptism is water, nothing else or better than that water which the cow drinks. But we affirm, that to this water, natural and simple in itself, is added the Word, "He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved," Mark 16:16. And again, "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God," John 3:5. Now, if any one is inclined to call this Word, or this Promise, the power communicated to the water of baptism, I will not resist such a view of the sacred matter. But the mind of our sophists is quite different from this; for they will not assign this power to the Word; they argue concerning the element only; and they affirm that the water itself contains a peculiar power communicated to it of God. Scotus has expressed the matter more correctly in his definition of it, when he says that baptism is "a divine compact or covenant, resting on the element."

The Word therefore is in every case to be regarded and honored, that Word by which God holds and endues his creatures with efficacy; and a difference is ever to be made between the creature and the Word. In the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper there are bread and wine; in baptism there is water. These are the mere creatures. But they are held in God's hand by the Word, and as long as the creature is thus apprehended by the Word, so long also doth it effect that which the Word promises.