Works of John Bunyan Volume II Part 100

"Hast thou eaten of the tree?" That is, If thou hast been shewed thy nakedness, thou hast indeed sinned; for the voice of the Lord G.o.d will not charge guilt, but where and when a law hath been transgressed. G.o.d therefore, by these words, driveth Adam to the point, either to confess or deny the truth of the case. If he confess, then he concludes himself under judgment; if he deny, then he addeth to his sin: Therefore he neither denieth nor confesseth, but so as he may lessen and extenuate his sin.

Ver. 12. "And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat."

He had endeavoured with fig-leaves to hide his transgressions before, but that being found too scanty and short, he now trieth what he can do with arguments. Indeed he acknowledgeth that he did eat of the tree of which he was forbidden; but mark where he layeth the reason: Not in any infection which was centred in him by reason of his listening to the discourse which was between the woman and the serpent; but because G.o.d had given him a woman to be with him: "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree." The woman was given for an help, not an hindrance; but Satan often maketh that to become our snare, which G.o.d hath given us as a blessing. Adam therefore here mixeth truth with falsehood. It is true, he was beguiled by the woman; but she was not intended of G.o.d, as he would insinuate, to the end she might be a trap unto him. Here therefore Adam sought to lessen and palliate his offence, as man by nature is p.r.o.ne to do; for if G.o.d will needs charge them with the guilt of sin for the breach of the law, they will lay the fault upon anything, even upon G.o.d's ordinance, as Adam here doth, rather than they will honestly fall under the guilt, and so the judgment of the law for guilt. It is a rare thing, and it argueth great knowledge of G.o.d, and also hope in his mercy, when men shall heartily acknowledge their iniquities, as is evident in the case of David: "Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me" (Psa 51:2,3). But his knowledge is not at first in young converts; therefore when G.o.d begins to awaken, they begin, as sleepy men, to creep further under their carnal covering; which yet is too short to hide them, and too narrow to cover their shame (Isa 28:20).

"The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree." Although, as I said, this sinner seeks to hide, or at least to lessen his sin, by laying the cause upon the woman, the gift of G.o.d; yet it argueth that his heart was now filled with shame and confusion of face, for that he had broken G.o.d's command; for indeed it is the nature of guilt, however men may in appearance ruffle under it, and set the best leg before, for their vindication; yet inwardly to make them blush and fail before their accuser.

Indeed their inward shame is the cause of their excuse; even as Aaron, when he had made the golden calf, could not for shame of heart confess in plainness of speech the truth of the fact to his brother Moses, but faulteringly: They gave me their gold, saith he, and "I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf"

(Exo 32:24). "And there came out this calf"; a pitiful fumbling speech: The Holy Ghost saith, Aaron had made them naked; "had made them naked unto their shame," for he, as also Adam, should, being chief and lord in their place, have stoutly resisted the folly and sin which was to them propounded; and not as persons of a womanish spirit, have listened to wicked proposals.[13]

Ver. 13. "And the Lord G.o.d said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done?" &c.,

Forasmuch as Adam did acknowledge his sin, though with much weakness and infirmity, G.o.d accepts thereof; and now applieth himself to the woman, whom Satan had used as his engine to undo the world.

Hence observe, That when G.o.d sets to search out sin, he will follow it from the seduced to the seducer, even till he comes to the rise and first author thereof, as in the following words may more clearly appear. Not that he excuseth or acquitteth the seduced, because the seducer was the first cause, as some do vainly imagine; but to lay all under guilt who are concerned therein: the woman was concerned as a princ.i.p.al, therefore he taketh her to examination.

"And the Lord G.o.d said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done?" What is this? G.o.d seems to speak as if he were astonished at the inundation of evil which the woman by her sin had overflowed the world withal: "What is this that thou hast done!" Thou hast undone thyself, thou hast undone thy husband, thou hast undone all the world; yea, thou hast brought a curse upon the whole creation, with an overplus of evils, plagues, and distresses.

"What is this that thou hast done!" Thou hast defiled thy body and soul, thou hast disabled the whole world from serving G.o.d; yea, moreover, thou hast let in the devil at the door of thy heart, and hast also made him the prince of the world. "What is this that thou hast done!" Ah! little, little do sinners know what they have done, when they have transgressed the law of the Lord. I say, they little know what death, what plagues, what curse, yea, what h.e.l.l they, by so doing, have prepared for themselves.

"What is this that thou hast done!" G.o.d therefore, by these words, would fasten upon the woman's heart a deep sense of the evil of her doings. And indeed, for the soul to be brought into a deep sense of its sin, to cry out before G.o.d, Ah! what have I done! it is with them the first step towards conversion: "Acknowledge thy iniquity [saith G.o.d] that thou hast transgressed against me" (Jer 3:13).

And again, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness"

(1 John 1:9). The want of this is the cause of that obdurate and lasting hardness that continueth to possess so many thousands of sinners, they cry not out before G.o.d, What have I done? but foolishly they rush into, and continue in sin, "till their iniquity be found to be hateful," yea, their persons, because of their sin.

"What is this that thou hast done?" By this interrogatory the Lord also implieth an admonition to the woman, to plead for herself, as he also did to her husband. He also makes way for the working of his bowels towards her, which (as will be shewn anon) he flatly denies to the serpent, the devil: I say he made way for the woman to plead for, or bemoan herself; an evident token that he was unwilling to cast her away for her sin: "I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself;--I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord" (Jer 31:18-20). Again, by these words, he made way for the working or yearning of his own bowels over her; for when we begin to cry out of our miscarriages, and to bewail and bemoan our condition because of sin, forthwith the bowels of G.o.d begin to sound, and to move towards his distressed creature, as by the place before alleged appears. "I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself;--therefore my bowels are troubled for him: I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord." See also the 11th and 14th chapters of Hosea.

"And the woman said, the serpent beguiled me and I did eat." A poor excuse, but an heart affecting one; for many times want of wit and cunning to defend ourselves, doth affect and turn the heart of a stander-by to pity us. And thus, as I think, it was with the woman; she had to do with one that was too cunning for her, with one that snapt her by his subtilty or wiles; which also the woman most simply confesses, even to the provoking of G.o.d to take vengeance for her.

Ver. 14. "And the Lord G.o.d said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field."

The serpent was the author of the evil; therefore the thunder rolls till it comes over him, the hot burning thunder-bolt falls upon him.

The Lord, you see, doth not with the serpent as with the man and his wife; to wit, minister occasion to commune with him, but directly p.r.o.nounceth him cursed above all, "above every beast of the field." This sheweth us, that as concerning the angels that fell, with them G.o.d is at eternal enmity, reserving them in everlasting chains under darkness. Cursed art thou: By these words, I say, they are prevented of a plea for ever, and also excluded a share in the fruits of the Messiah which should afterwards be born into the world (Heb 2:2).

"Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou." "Because thou hast done this": Not as though he was blessed before; for had he not before been wicked, he had not attempted so wicked a design. The meaning then is, That either by this deed the devil did aggravate his misery, and make himself the faster to hang in the everlasting chains under darkness; or else by this he is manifested to us to be indeed a cursed creature.

Further, "Because thou hast done this," may also signify how great complacency and content G.o.d took in Adam and his wife while they continued without transgression; But how much against his mind and workmans.h.i.+p this wicked work was. 1. Against his mind; for sin so sets itself against the nature of G.o.d, that, if possible, it would annihilate and turn him into nothing, it being in its nature point blank against him. 2. It is against his workmans.h.i.+p; for had not the power of the Messias stept in, all had again been brought to confusion, and worse than nothing: as Christ himself expresses it: "The earth, and all the inhabitants thereof, are dissolved: I bear up the pillars of it" (Psa 75:3). And again, "He upholdeth all things by the word of his power" (Heb 1:3).

Besides, this being done, man, notwithstanding the grace of G.o.d, and the merits of Jesus Christ, doth yet live a miserable life in this world; for albeit that Christ hath most certainly secured the elect and chosen of G.o.d from peris.h.i.+ng by what Satan hath done; yet the very elect themselves are, by reason of the first transgression, so infested and annoyed with inward filth, and so a.s.saulted still by the devil, and his va.s.sals the proper children of h.e.l.l, that they groan unutterably under their burthen; yea, all creatures, "the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now" (Rom 8:22). And that most princ.i.p.ally upon the very account of this first sin of Adam; it must needs be therefore, this being so high an affront to the divine majesty, and so directly destructive to the work of his hands; and the aim of the devil most princ.i.p.ally also at the most excellent of his creation (for man was created in G.o.d's own image) that he should hereat be so highly offended, had they not sinned at all before, to bind them over for this very fact to the pains of the eternal judgment of G.o.d.

Ver. 15. "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."

The woman may, in this place, be taken either really or figuratively; if really and naturally, then the threatening is also true, as to the very natures of the creatures here under consideration, to wit, the serpent and the woman, and so all that come of human race; for we find that so great an antipathy is between all such deadly beasts, as serpents and human creatures, that they abiding in their own natures, it is not possible they should ever be reconciled: "I will put enmity": I will put it. This enmity then was not infused in creation, but afterwards; and that as a punishment for the abuse of the subtlety of the serpent; for before the fall, and before the serpent was a.s.sumed by the fallen angels, they were, being G.o.d's creatures, "good," as the rest in their kind; neither was there any jarring or violence put between them; but after the serpent was become the devil's vizor, then was an enmity begot between them.

"I will put enmity between thee and the serpent." If by woman, we here understand the church, (but then we must understand the devil, not the natural serpent simply,) then also the threatening is most true; for between the church of G.o.d, and the devil, from the beginning of the world, hath been maintained most mighty wars and conflicts, to which there is not a like in all the blood shed on the earth. Yea, here there cannot be a reconciliation, (the enmity is still maintained by G.o.d): The reason is, because their natural dispositions and inclinations, together with their ends and purposes, are most repugnant each to other, even full as much as good and evil, righteousness and sin, G.o.d's glory, and an endeavour after his utter extirpation.

Indeed, Satan hath tried many ways to be at amity with the church; not because he loves her holiness, but because he hates her welfare, (wherefore such amity must only be dissembled,) and that he might bring about his enterprise, he sometimes hath allured with the dainty delicates of this world, the l.u.s.ts of the flesh, of the eyes, and the pride of life: This being fruitless, he hath attempted to entangle and bewitch her with his glorious appearance, as an angel of light; and to that end hath made his ministers as the ministers of righteousness, preaching up righteousness, and contending for a divine and holy wors.h.i.+p (2 Cor 11:12-15): but this failing also, he hath taken in hand at length to fright her into friends.h.i.+p with him, by stirring up the h.e.l.lish rage of tyrants to threaten and molest her; by finding out strange inventions to torment and afflict her children; by making many b.l.o.o.d.y examples of her own bowels, before her eyes, if by that means he might at last obtain his purpose: But behold! all hath been in vain, there can be no reconciliation. And why, but because G.o.d himself maintains the enmity?

And this is the reason why the endeavours of all the princes and potentates of the earth, that have through ignorance or malice managed his design against the church, have fallen to the ground, and been of none effect.

G.o.d hath maintained the enmity: doubtless the mighty wonder, that their laws cannot be obeyed;[14] I mean their laws and statutes, which by the suggestion of the prince of this world they have made against the church: But if they understood but this one sentence, they might a little perceive the reason. G.o.d hath put enmity between the devil and the woman; between that old serpent called, The Devil and Satan, and the holy, and beloved, and espoused wife of Christ.

"I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed." The seeds here are the children of both, but that of the woman, especially Christ (Gal 3:16). "G.o.d sent forth his Son made of a woman" (Gal 4:4). Whether you take it literally or figuratively; for in a mystery the church is the mother of Jesus Christ, though naturally, or according to His flesh, He was born of the virgin Mary, and proceeded from her womb: But take it either way, the enmity hath been maintained, and most mightily did shew itself against the whole kingdom of the devil, and death, and h.e.l.l; by the undertaking, engaging, and war which the Son of G.o.d did maintain against them, from his conception, to his death and exaltation to the right hand of the Father, as is prophesied of, and promised in the text, "It shall bruise thy head."

"It shall bruise thy head." By head, we are to understand the whole power, subtilty, and destroying nature of the devil; for as in the head of the serpent lieth his power, subtilty, and poisonous nature; so in sin, death, h.e.l.l, and the wisdom of the flesh, lieth the very strength of the devil himself. Take away sin then, and death is not hurtful: "The sting of death is sin": And take away the condemning power of the law, and sin doth cease to be charged, or to have any more hurt in it, so as to destroy the soul: "The strength of sin is the law" (1 Cor 15:56). Wherefore, the seed, Jesus Christ, in his bruising the head of the serpent, must take away sin, abolish death, and conquer the power of the grave. But how must this be done? Why, he must remove the curse, which makes sin intolerable, and death destructive. But how must he take away the curse? Why, by taking upon Him "flesh," as we (John 1:14); by being made "under the law," as we (Gal 4:4); by being made "to be sin for us" (2 Cor 5:21), and by being "made a curse for us" (Gal 3:10-13). He standing therefore in our room, under the law and the justice of G.o.d, did both bear, and overcome the curse, and so did bruise the power of the devil.

"It shall bruise thy head." To bruise is more than to break; he shall quash thy head to death; so he also quashed the heel of Christ; which would, had not his eternal power and G.o.dhead sustained, have caused that he had perished for ever.

"And thou shalt bruise his heel." By these words, a necessity was laid upon Jesus Christ to a.s.sume our flesh, to engage the devil therein; and also because of the curse that was due to us for sin, that he might indeed deliver us therefore; even for awhile to fall before this curse, and to die that death that the curse inflicteth: "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." Thus therefore did Satan, that is, by the fruits and effects of sin, bruise, or kill, the flesh of Christ: But he being G.o.d, as the Father, it was not possible he should be overcome.

Therefore his head remaineth untouched. A man's life lieth not in his heel, but in his head and heart; but the G.o.dhead being the head and heart of the manhood, it was not possible Satan should meddle with that; he only could bruise his heel; which yet by the power of the G.o.dhead of this eternal Son of the Father, was raised up again from the dead: "He was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification" (Rom 4:25).

In these words therefore the Lord G.o.d gave Adam a promise, That notwithstanding Satan had so far brought his design to pa.s.s, as to cause them by falling from the command, to lay themselves open to the justice and wrath of G.o.d; yet his enterprise by grace, should be made of none effect. As if the Lord had said, "Adam, thou seest how the devil hath overcome thee; how he, by thy consenting to his temptation, hath made thee a subject of death and h.e.l.l: but though he hath by this means made thee a spectacle of misery, even an heir of death and d.a.m.nation: yet I am G.o.d, and thy sins have been against me. Now because I have grace and mercy, I will therefore design thy recovery. But how shall I bring it to pa.s.s? Why I will give my Son out of my bosom, who shall in your room, and in your nature encounter this adversary, and overcome him. But how? Why, by fulfilling my law, and by answering the penalties thereof.

He shall bring in a righteousness which shall be "everlasting,"

by which I will justify you from sin, and the curse of G.o.d due thereto: But this work will make him smart, he must be made "a man of sorrows," for upon him will I lay your iniquities (Isa 53:6); Satan shall bruise his heel."

Ver. 16. "Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow[15] shalt thou bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."

"I will greatly multiply thy sorrow," &c. This is true, whether you respect the woman according to the letter of the text, or as she was a figure of the church; for in both senses their sorrows for sin are great, and multiplied upon them: The whole heap of the female s.e.x know the first,[16] the church only knows the second.

"In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children." The more fruitful, the more afflicted is the church in this world; because the rage of h.e.l.l, and the enmity of the world, are by her righteousness set on fire so much the more.

But again: Forasmuch as the promise is made before this judgment of G.o.d for sin is threatened, we must count these afflictions not as coming from the hand of G.o.d in a way of vengeance, for want of satisfaction for the breach of the law; but to shew and keep us in mind of his holiness, that henceforth we should not, as at first through ignorance, so now from notions of grace and mercy, presume to continue in sin.

I might add, That by these words it is manifest, that a promise of mercy and forgiveness of sin, and great afflictions and rebukes for the same, may and shall attend the same soul: "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow," comes after the promise of grace.

"And thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." Doubtless the woman was, in her first creation, made in subordination to her husband, and ought to have been under obedience to him: Wherefore, still that had remained a duty, had they never transgressed the commandment of G.o.d; but observe, the duty is here again not only enjoined, and imposed, but that as the fruit of the woman's sin; wherefore, that duty that before she might do as her natural right by creation, she must now do as the fruits of her disobedience to G.o.d. Women therefore, whenever they would perk it and lord it over their husbands, ought to remember, that both by creation and transgression they are made to be in subjection to their own husbands. This conclusion makes Paul himself: "Let [saith he] the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence; for Adam was first formed, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, was in the transgression" (1 Tim 2:11-14).

Ver. 17. "And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake, in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life."

G.o.d having laid his censure upon the woman, he now proceedeth and cometh to her husband, and also layeth his judgment on him: The judgment is, "Cursed is the ground for thy sake," and in sorrow thou shalt eat thereof. The causes of this judgment are, First, For that "he hearkened to his wife": And also, "For that he had eaten of the tree."

"Because thou hast hearkened to thy wife." Why? Because therein he left his station and heads.h.i.+p, the condition which G.o.d had appointed him, and gave way to his wife to a.s.sume it, contrary to the order of creation, of her relation, and of her s.e.x; for G.o.d had made Adam lord and chief, who ought to have taught his wife, and not to have become her scholar.

Hence note, That the man that suffereth his wife to take his place, hath already transgressed the order of G.o.d.[17]

"Because thou hast hearkened to the voice," &c. Wicked women, such as Eve was now, if hearkened unto, are "the snares of death" to their husbands; for, because they are weaker built, and because the devil doth easier fasten with them than with men, therefore they are more p.r.o.ne to vanity and all mis-orders in the matters of G.o.d, than they; [the men] and so, if hearkened unto, more dangerous upon many accounts: "Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? yet among many nations was there no king like him, who was beloved of his G.o.d, nevertheless even him did outlandish [wicked]

women cause to sin" (Neh 13:26). "But there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up" (1 Kings 21:25).

Hence note further, That if it be thus dangerous for a man to hearken to a wicked wife, how dangerous is it for any to hearken unto wicked wh.o.r.es, who will seldom yield up themselves to the l.u.s.ts of beastly men, but on condition they will answer their unG.o.dly purposes! What mischief by these things hath come upon souls, countries and kingdoms, will here be too tedious to relate.

"Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree." That is, From the hand of thy wife; for it was she that gave him to eat: "Therefore," &c. Although the scripture doth lay a great blot upon women, and cautioneth man to beware of these fantastical and unstable spirits, yet it limiteth man in his censure: She is only then to be rejected and rebuked, when she doth things unworthy her place and calling. Such a thing may happen, as that the woman, not the man, may be in the right, (I mean, when both are G.o.dly,) but ordinarily it is otherwise (Gen 21:12).

Therefore the conclusion is, Let G.o.d's word judge between the man and his wife, as it ought to have done between Adam and his, and neither of both will do amiss; but contrariwise, they will walk in all the commandments of G.o.d without fault (Luke 1:6).

"Therefore cursed be the ground for thy sake." Behold what arguments are thrust into every corner, thereby to make man remember his sin; for all the toil of man, all the barrenness of the ground, and all the fruitlessness after all; What is it but the fruits of sin? Let not us then find fault with the weed, with the hotness, coldness, or barrenness of the soil; but by seeing these things, remember our sin, Cursed be the ground "for thy sake"; for this G.o.d makes our "heaven as iron," and our "earth as bra.s.s" (Exo 26:19).

"The Lord shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust; from heaven shall it come down upon thee, until thou be destroyed" (Deu 28:20-24).

"In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life." He then is much deceived, who thinks to fill his body with the delicates of this world, and not therewith to drink the cruel venom of asps: Yea, "He shall suck the poison of asps, the viper's tongue shall slay him" (Job 20:16). The reason is, because he that shall give up himself to the l.u.s.ts and pleasures of this life, he contracts guilt, because he hath sinned; which guilt will curdle all his pleasures, and make the sweetest of them deadly as poison.

"In sorrow shalt thou eat." Even thou that hast received the promise of forgiveness: How then can they do it with pleasure, who eat, and forget the Lord? (Pro 30:9; 31:5).