July 9, 2017 PM Service - Back To Eden by Pastor Josh Sheldon

The Context of 1 Timothy 2 and the Preaching Text

1 Timothy, and once again to chapter two in 1 Timothy. Well, I will again read beginning at verse eight and down to verse 15, though 13 through 15 will be the preaching text for this afternoon. But in order to remind ourselves of the context and what has just come before, we'll begin at verse eight.

I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling. Likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness, with good works.

Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man. Rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve, and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.

Yet she will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control. So once again, I will repeat somewhat the point that I made this morning, and I believe it holds true and I believe the principle that helps us to understand these verses, verses 13 through 15, will help us once again to realize Paul's point and apply it to ourselves both at the church and in our lives in general.

Edenic Order and the Church as the Temple of God

As men and women maintain proper order in the church, and this proper order being defined previously in what we preached this morning from verses eight through 12 meaning being in the proper roles, roles that God has ordained, roles that were given to us in creation, therefore impervious and transcendent over cultural developments, over time, over history, over place.

As we maintain proper order in church, we are entering into a restoration of Edenic order. This is what we do here in church. To reflect God's purposes, to reflect God's will, his goodness, his beauty, his glory, and his ways and his intentions for us.

Now order in the church is not simply a liturgy or procedures or something that works, though liturgy is fine and procedures are good if they all maintain decency and orderliness, but roles in the church, more importantly, far more importantly than any of that, bring us into a restoration of what was there at Eden when God first created.

Verses 13 through 15 are really the basis for the teaching that we had this morning in verses eight through 12. Men are to pray when the church assembles for worship, and it's men, not women, who are to do this.

Women are to learn with a quiet, submissive spirit. They are not to teach. They are not to have spiritual authority over men. That's why men are to be the teachers of the church. Not all men are teachers, of course, but all teachers of the church are men.

Paul takes us to the Garden of Eden. This is what he does in verse 13, Adam being formed first. Adam, not deceived, a woman was deceived, became a transgressor, we mentioned this morning. Yes, she was the one deceived.

Adam was not deceived, and therefore, seems to be even the more accountable. But here we are in the Garden of Eden, and I want us to think about that for a moment. We read fairly extensively this morning from Genesis two and three.

Put your mind, if you will, your thoughts, even your imagination, to Eden. Just ponder for a moment what that must have been like. Think for a moment, what was Eden? Now, we call it the Garden of Eden because the Bible calls it the Garden of Eden.

Sometimes it's called Eden, but we know it was a garden, the most lovely place in all creation. What was the garden? Well, we know from Genesis three, after sin, God was walking in the cool of the morning and expecting to see the man and the woman there, which is presented to us as though it was a regular practice of the Lord.

Is it not shown to us this way in Genesis, that the Lord is walking through the garden, and he says, where are you? Not that he needs to know, not that he needs to find out. God knows all things. The question was a conviction to Adam after his sin, after his transgression.

But the point I'm trying to draw out here is I want you to consider, what does this mean that the Lord walked in the garden in the cool of the morning? What was Eden? Oh, it was a garden, yes. It was a place where man could sustain himself, yes.

It was a place where man would begin to take upon himself that mantle of stewardship and subdue the earth, begin to populate the earth with the woman that God had given him. Yes, it was all those things.

If we think a little bit more about it, we may ask the question in a slightly different way. What do we call the place where God meets with men? Or to ask just the opposite way, starting with man, where man encounters God?

What do we call that place? What does the Bible call that place? Well, it's the temple. The temple is the place where God and man come in to encounter one another. To say it more theologically correctly, correctly was a place where man comes to meet with God and God condescends to meet with man.

But yet, remember that God does choose of his own free will to meet with man. He does so in the temple. I would present to you, I would suggest to you that the Garden of Eden was a temple. That God walked through the cool of the morning expecting to find his creation there, his man and his woman who he had made because that was his regular practice.

That is where they communed together. Think centuries and centuries of biblical history forward from that time. The Israelites built a tabernacle, did they not? And the glory of God fell on it as the Lord communed there with Moses.

It was in the tabernacle that offerings were made, peace offering, goodwill and freewill offerings, burnt offerings, grain offerings, and all the rest. Then sin offerings were made there and those were teaching of something, teaching of the coming one, teaching of Jesus Christ and the sacrifice that he would ultimately make.

Songs of praise were raised at the temple. Worshippers came there to encounter the living God. After that, Solomon built the temple for the same purpose. You remember after Solomon built the temple and he blessed the temple, the glory of the Lord fell on the temple just as they had the tabernacle.

And so much so that as it happened at the tabernacle, the priests could no longer minister there until God was done showing his glory and his pleasure upon that. And the glory of the Lord, I would suggest to you, fell upon the temple of Eden.

But not in the fire that came down showing his glory, not the pillar that was a cloud by day or fire by night because God was there in his person walking through the garden. And yet the same God who fell upon the tabernacle later upon Solomon's temple is the same God who's walking in the garden expecting to encounter the man and the woman just as he encounters in the tabernacle according to more ritual, according to more requirements, but yet the same God still meeting with man.

That's what the temple does. Hebrews 9, verse 23 says that everything in the temple was but a symbol of a heavenly reality. And so there is in Paul's demand for orderliness in the church, a larger issue than we sometimes realize.

Look at these verses. It's a bigger issue than often we get if we just read through it quickly. You see, you do no damage to the text if you save the temple of Eden. Now that's not what it says in the Bible.

As it says the garden, so when we read it, we must say garden. But when we teach it, we do no harm before we say the temple of Eden. The temple that was the tabernacle, the one that could move with the Israelites.

And then the temple that was built of stone by Solomon. And what is the temple today? Do you not know that you are the temple of the living God? That the spirit of God dwells in you? And as we teach that and as I often pray, alluding to that verse, the spirit of God making us together the temple, the temple of the living God, he dwells in us individually.

If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, the promise of the indwelling spirit is yours. And I say severally amongst us, binding us together in brotherly love and unity. You, the individual believer in whom the spirit of God dwells.

You, the church at large wearing Christ's promise to dwell by his spirit. You are that medium, you are that interface through whom God meets with his people. There was a temple in Eden, there was a temple in the wilderness, there was a temple in Jerusalem, there was a temple here.

And in every place where people gather around the word of God and the gospel of his son, Jesus Christ, the temple. The importance of this can hardly be overstated. I mean, once Eden was off limits because of sin, God's dealing with men were generally limited to one man at a time.

And primarily that was Abraham until the tabernacle was made. This really didn't change until then, until the tabernacle. And that was replaced by Solomon's work and that lasted almost a thousand years until it was sacked by Babylon.

And almost 700 years after that one is totally destroyed by Rome. Solomon's question in his dedicatory prayer was but this. He said, but will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less this house that I've built.

So the temple's gone. The tabernacle ended many, many years ago, long before Solomon's temple. And then Solomon's temple in 70 AD was destroyed. And if Solomon asked that, will God indeed dwell on the earth?

In other words, where will men meet with God? Where will men encounter the living God? Where is it and how is it that God will deign to meet with men? Still by the temple. There's a temple at Eden, there's a temple in the wilderness, there's a temple in Jerusalem, there's a temple here.

And by the Spirit of God, in exactly the same way, I shouldn't say exactly the same way, on a whole different basis, excuse me, we meet with the same God. In both 1 Corinthians 3 .16 and 6 .19 is where Paul says that you are that temple.

And according to the last three verses of our passage, Adam was formed first, then Eve. Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. This is Eden, we recognize that. And then yet she will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control.

According to these verses, our conduct here in the church is a revival of what it is that Paul's alluding to, but just before the woman being deceived and Adam falling into sin. Edenic order. God's will for his creation.

As much as the implements and ceremonies of the temple corresponded to heavenly realities, so also does our conduct here point to a greater and ultimate truth. First Peter 2 .9 says, "'But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, "'a holy nation, a people for his own possession, "'that you may proclaim the excellencies of him.'".

Pardon me. "'Who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.'". In short, the temple stands. The temple stands again, we could say. And the temple is inhabited by priests. Men and women alike, all whose faith is in the Lord Jesus Christ.

He who's 13, 15 calls us as priests to continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. That is the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. And what is that? But what the Levites did in the old temple under David's administration, when he laid out the duties of the priests and those who would help the priests and those who would assist, the sacrifice of praise was given over to a certain cadre of the Levites who were trained in singing and trained in the musical instruments.

And what do we do? What they did in the temple, offering the sacrifice of praise as priests, because there's none between us and God. We go through the mediator of the Lord Jesus Christ. We claim his blood because of our faith in his sacrifice.

And so we stand before God as that people. Jesus would say, we are those who the Father seeks, who worship him in spirit and truth. In every way, we are the temple of God. More than Solomon's world-renowned wonder, we are the temple God intended because we come in on a better sacrifice than all the sacrifices combined that went through Solomon's temple.

And add to that all the sacrifices combined that went through the tabernacle. And we stand on more sure promises and better blood. So this short digression in the temples is intended to make a point about 1 Timothy 2 8 -15.

The tabernacle and then Solomon's temple were nothing but replacements for what was lost at Eden, that temple. And Eden is where Paul goes to support his instructions regarding church order. As we willingly submit to God's will for church order and personal holiness, we are restoring the order of creation established at Eden.

That's what the tabernacle is for. That's what the temple is for. And that's how we fulfill the apostles' commands, by mimicking, by restoring, by coming back to Eden. So with that behind us, we can sort out some of the more difficult verses in scripture.

Creation Order, Church Authority, and the Role of Women

Verses that have caused controversy, compromise, abuse, all sorts of confusion. Now, I'm not saying that what I'm going to present to you to sort out these last couple of verses is something that all Christendom is waiting with bated breath and saying, I wonder what Pastor Sheldon at Providence Bible Church of Sunnyvale is going to say about this and sort it all out for us.

That is nowhere near what I'm saying. That is nowhere near what I'm suggesting. But I do think if we stay with Eden, if we look to creation ordinances, if we think about God's will as he had it for mankind, when he initially made everything, I think it helps us to sort it out a little bit.

I think it helps us to avoid some of the confusion and some of the compromise. Verse 13 is about the order of things. We keep coming back to this idea, Adam was formed first, then Eve. Adam stood alone before God.

Before Eve was made for him, he had taken the mantle of authority by naming the animals. You mentioned earlier this morning, he even named Eve, Genesis chapter three, verse 20. And that was after sin.

It seems to be his first attempt to undo what he had done in abdicating his authority to her when the temptation came. Remember that, when the serpent came and the discourse was with Eve and Eve offered to the husband, this is that role reversal that is corrected here in the church.

And perhaps in Genesis chapter three, verse 20, when Adam takes the authority back by naming Eve, naming being a sign of authority, maybe he was trying to reverse what he had done. Just a thought. Adam came first from the ground, then Eve from him.

She was to compliment him, filling what he lacked as his helpmate. Now sin turned this upside down, at least it tried. She took over headship, he willingly gave it up. I wonder if Satan went to her first, not because she was somehow more susceptible to trickery than Adam was, but because if he could get her to take charge, then not only would there be sin, but along with sin, a complete toppling of the significance of the created order.

So why is corporate prayer the domain of men? Why must women in the church be quiet and submissive? Because of God's order of creation. Why are women barred from having authority over men? Because in the garden, the woman took charge where the man should have held his ground.

Because the church is the temple of the living God and is the restoration of Eden. Verse 14 seems to blame Eve for sin more than Adam. Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.

I don't wanna spend a lot of time on this one, except to say that our author, who is the apostle Paul, in Romans 5, he places the introduction of sin squarely on Adam. Whether he means us to see any significance between being deceived and becoming a transgressor, I'm not really sure.

Perhaps Paul is just recounting the historical record. Eve was deceived. Genesis 3 makes that plain. And Genesis 3, 6 tells us that she did eat first. She became the transgressor. Adam followed, so he became a transgressor as well.

And maybe all Paul means there is to relate to us the historical sequence of events. But if that is the case, then the reason for the divisions between men and women in the temple of the Holy Spirit is simply to restore Eden.

To have a people of God once more living under the auspices of his creation ordinance. So verse 15, and I'll admit, this is the tough one. This is the hard one. And as I said, I don't think everybody's waiting to see how we figured it out here, or how I figured this out.

But I do think staying with the creation as the basis for this is helpful. She will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control. Some say childbirth refers to Eve's continuance of the race.

In other words, by bringing forth Seth, by whom the promised seed was maintained and propagated, and ultimately came to be Jesus Christ. And this has some basis because the noun that is used here, she will be saved, is singular.

And it seems that Eve is the correct antecedent. Eve would be the one being referred to. Eve shall be saved with the rest of us by the childbearing that ultimately brings forth Jesus Christ. John Calvin says it has to do with childbearing as submission to the rules of Genesis.

William Hendrickson says the joy of motherhood is every mother's salvation. That doesn't help very much if you look at the next pronoun, which is they, which is plural, if they continue. It's all very confusing.

Matthew Henry, a favorite among many Puritan lovers, he wrote this, through the difficulties and dangers of childbearing, though the difficulties and dangers of childbearing are many and great, yet here is much for her support and encouragement.

Though in sorrow yet she shall bring forth and be a living mother of living children with this proviso, that they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety, and women under this circumstance of childbearing should by faith lay hold of this promise for their support in the needful time.

Now I'll just give you this short survey to show you how varied the opinions are and how many different ways men take these. Matthew Henry's a great expositor of God's truth, but I think he fumbles here, and he, with most others, forgets to acknowledge that faith, charity, holiness, and sobriety are required of the rest of us, too.

And finally, a man named Gordon Hugenberger in the New Bible Commentary, he just says, you know, every interpretation has its weakness. When we go back to Eden, go back to Eden with this, which is where Paul goes, and the point he makes with creation ordinances, and keep all that in view while we're looking at the church in Ephesus 2 ,000 years ago, I think we can come up with a cogent conclusion here.

Salvation, Childbearing, and the Proto-Evangelium

As we willingly submit to God's will for church order and personal holiness, we are restoring the order of creation established at Eden. First in line is submission to our God-ordained rules. In Christ, there is neither male nor female, but all are one in him, and that speaks of our qualitative standing.

Anyone who comes to God by faith and repentance for their sins is equally saved by the same Savior, Jesus Christ. That does not mean that we're no longer men or women, or that there's no gender-specific roles to play.

We can say that by going back to Eden, Paul reminds us of the disaster that took place there. We can't say that had the role of leadership not been taken and surrendered, the result would have been different.

We can say that roles seem important to Paul's thought, and that their misuse is something to be corrected here, in the church, the temple of the living God. I think we can say that Eve was, in a sense, saved through childbearing.

She did give birth to Seth, the one who kept the promised seed alive. It was through Seth who, ultimately, Genesis 3 .15, the Proto-Evangelium, was fulfilled, where God said, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring.

He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. My opinion of this is that it simply follows on what Paul was saying earlier in chapter two, the importance that men and women alike, in mutual submission to one another, but more importantly, in submission to God and his will, fulfill our God-given roles.

And as we do that, what do we do? What are we ultimately doing? We're restoring Eden. We're restoring God's will as it was first given at creation. Hebrews 9 says that everything in the temple reflected something of heaven, and I would say that that's true even now.

He was referring there to the physical temple, to the tabernacle, and to Solomon's temple. I think the principle applies here. Everything we do reflects something of God. And here is the roles that we play, and the importance of them.

And she shall be saved through childbearing. We all know saints who have no children, who we believe to be as saved as anyone we've ever known. So it can't be simply through the act of childbearing that anyone's going to be saved.

But if we stay with the roles, the idea of men and women taking their proper place in accordance with God's will, then I think it makes pretty good sense. One thing I do like about the idea that she shall be saved through childbearing having to do specifically with Eve bringing forth Seth, bringing forth Jesus Christ, is that the history in the Bible does say that's what happened.

That ultimately Jesus Christ did come and did bruise the head of him who bruised his heel. Of course, that takes us to the cross, does it not? Genesis 3 .15, we know from looking from the New Testament back to the Old, was speaking of that, speaking of the cross, speaking of the suffering that the Messiah, the one who would do that bruising to our enemy, would undergo.

It is what we remember here this afternoon in the elements. It is the broken bread for his broken body. It is the wine and the grape juice representing his blood spilled out. So in that sense, I'm very warm to this interpretation of she shall be saved through childbearing, meaning Eve bringing that one forth.

As we partake this afternoon, I pray that that would be what is on our hearts and on our minds, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and what he has done to bring us to this place. What he has done for sinners like us to bring us redemption.

As we fulfill our roles, as we act as the men and the women that God meant us to be or means us to be. I believe that we are part of that redemptive process. Process. Now all redemption was accomplished by Jesus Christ at the cross, we know this.

But our submission to our roles as men and as women, I believe is part of that. Part of redeeming, if you will, Edenic order. And may the church of God be that place where that is reflected. Amen.