Chap. 3:20, 21.
These verses bring before us two facts of high and pregnant significance, stated with that simple dignified brevity which characterizes all we have had thus far before us: what the man called his wife at this critical time, and the reason why; what Jehovah Elohim did for Adam and his wife, and the effect.
“And the man called the name of his wife Eve (Chavvah), because she was the mother of all living. And Jehovah Elohim made for Adam and for his wife coats of skin, and clothed them” (vers. 20, 21).
In chap. 2. the man gave his wife a name from himself. He was Ish; her he called Isshah. This was in due place and season; for the Holy Spirit there laid down the divinely formed relationship. But here sin had brought in disorder and ruin: our first parents were fallen. Nothing however is too far gone for grace, the grace of God, Who, as He will effectuate by indisputable power in the great day that is coming, revealed enough even from the fall to instruct and comfort faith. So it was with Adam now. He looked not at the things that were seen, temporal as they are but at the unseen and durable intervention of the woman's Seed.
Even when a revelation is clear and full, faith may fall short, as every believer knows too well in himself day by day, and as is plain in the Gospels which make known without disguise how far even the Twelve were from entering into the depths of our Lord's communications, till He died and rose and power from on high was given. But Adam did not hear in vain what Jehovah Elohim had intimated in His sentence on the enemy: a conflict, and not merely a successful temptation, from the enmity set between the old serpent and the woman and above all her Seed in some exceptional way specialized; and that conflict issuing in the final and irretrievable destruction of the foe, but not without previous anguish to the victorious Seed in achieving it. Hence in the depths of shame and wretchedness because of his transgression, with the woman's special penalty ringing in his ears, with his own doom to the ground cursed for his sake—to toil all his days ending in death, and to return to the dust whence his body was taken—, he calls her not Death but Life, or Living! The divine assurance that the woman's Seed should bruise the serpent's head (can we doubt?) led him to the new name. It was faith, and founded on the word he had heard; faith real, if not explicit. He confessed that which was before no created eye, what rested simply on the divine word, that she was “mother of all living.” Mother of all dying would have been the natural sentiment. But a hope founded on revelation glimmered through the darkness of sin, and Adam's mouth confessed what his heart believed. This he knew without a question that future blessing turned wholly and solely on the woman's Seed; and that woman, actually Satan's means of the mischief, would in due time give birth to Satan's Vanquisher.
It may be objected that scripture, in its roll of the worthies of faith, does not enumerate Adam. Good reason there surely was, in his introduction of sin and death into the world and the race of which he was head, to abstain from singling him out for honorable mention. But not less surely would it be an error to conceive that none believed of old save those that are expressly so designated. And why, in the noble but short account of primeval facts, should Adam's calling his wife by this name be inserted, unless there were something of extraordinary interest, left (as so much in scripture is) to exercise our faith and spiritual intelligence, or to the corrupt speculations of unbelief? For the Bible is a moral book; and the judgments we utter on its sayings betray our own state, whether we reverently learn of Him Who inspired it, or set up ourselves for a very little while to judge Him and it in ignorance of our sinful folly.
Adam then looked above the just forfeits of sin, trusted not to his own strength, wisdom, or virtue, spoke of no seed of his to regain the lost paradise, but took occasion, by faith of God's gracious holding out the suffering but triumphant Seed of the woman, to call her Life, even then because she was mother of all living; an expectation most unsuitable and unwarranted, unless by the faith however dim of Him Who was coming (and now come), Who brought to light life and incorruption through the gospel, he, like those who followed in the growingly bright path of faith, knew little compared with what is now revealed. But they all looked to God for a Deliverer born of woman, yet in some mysterious way to defeat and destroy the evil one; a hope more than realized in Him Who became man that through death He might annul him that has the might of death, that is, the devil, and might deliver all those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
But in immediate subsequence let us note what scripture adds. “And Jehovah Elohim made for Adam and for his wife coats of skin, and clothed them.” It may suit an infidel to see nothing in this but letter and perhaps triviality. A believer is entitled to find and enjoy what is worthy of the only true God. Yet faith does not make haste but waits on God and His word. Imagination which adds to scripture is no more of God than the free-thinking which stumbles at the word, being disobedient. As every word of God is pure or tried, and He is a shield to those that put their trust in Him, so let none add to His words, “lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.” Our wisdom is to draw from scripture what God put into it.
Now here the force is the greater, because till after the deluge no moving thing that lived was given to be food for man. “Thou shalt eat the herb of the field” Adam had just heard once more. This has induced crowds of theologians to suppose that sacrifice was now enjoined by God and offered by Adam. But we are not at liberty to supplement the word of God with the tradition of man. Sacrifice has its own proper record in chap. iv., and scripture, hath Old Testament and New, attests the all-importance of its antitype for man and its acceptance with God; but we cannot go beyond the inspired word. Before the work of Christ which gave its meaning; faith in Him was the essential, as it still is. The action here revealed was on the part of Jehovah Elohim; not a word is said of what the fallen pair did. Jehovah Elohim made for each (for this is carefully noted), coats of skins and clothed them. More he does not say nor are we called to believe, as to the matter of fact.
Is there then nothing implied beyond a strong garb which efficiently covered their persons, in contrast with the poor aprons of fig-leaves they had made for themselves? There is a truth most impressively taught, that He Who clothed them made for each of them coats which had their necessary origin in skins of animals slain for the purpose. That solemn word, death, was now brought before them as a fact for the first time. Man fallen may vainly essay to hide his shame by some device of nature; Jehovah Elohim bases the clothing He provides on death, the penalty of sin.
Thus whether it be life in ver. 20, or death in ver. 21, both point to Christ, and have no adequate meaning for a spiritual mind short of Christ. The natural man looks anywhere else; or if he does think of Christ, it is only to degrade Him, even when he offers a kiss or a crown. But as the Holy Spirit is come down from heaven to glorify Him, so did He in scripture point onward to Him in things great or small. Christ is secretly or openly the object of the written word. His life and His death were alike essential, and alike blessed, as alike they brought glory to His God and Father. But while we could not live to God without His life, it is only through His death that we could, when clothed, as the apostle says, be found not naked. Christ alone, by His suffering death, removes our nakedness. Those who reject Him, even when in their resurrection bodies for judgment, will be found naked (2 Cor. 5). Clothed or unclothed, present in the body or absent from it, the believer is never naked; he has on always the best robe.