#DailyDevotion When You Think Your Firstborn Is God
Gen. 4:1-15 The man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and had a child by the name of Cain; and she said, “I have gotten a man, the LORD.” 2Then she had another child, Abel, Cain’s brother. Abel grew up to be the shepherd of a flock, but Cain became a man who worked the ground.
I don’t know why the firstborn always gets all the glory. The second or middle child is always superior (middle child humor). Well it appears to play out in this case with the first children of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve, fallen creatures that they were nevertheless had the blessing of God to be fruitful and multiply got busy with it after they are expelled from the Garden Eve conceived and had a firstborn by the name of Cain. Few translations take note of verse one in the Hebrew. They follow the tradition of translating it with “I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD.” There is no “help” in the Hebrew. A couple of translations translate the verse literally, like the above, “I have gotten a man, the LORD.” There’s a Jewish joke that every Jewish woman thinks her son is the son of God. Well Eve was the first one to think so. The LORD had promised that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. Eve believed this promise. She thought the LORD fulfilled this promise through her. Her child would be her savior. God himself had become man to redeem them. Well, so she thought.
So when her second child, another boy was born, she named him Abel. This meant vanity, a waste, a breath. She didn’t think much of her second son. Now she could have named him that because she was expecting a girl. In a world with a population of four it would have been good for the second to be a girl to help populate the world. She could have named him that though, and I think it is so, that once her savior is born, what need is this child?
Yet, despite all the foibles of parenthood, Eve believed the Word of the LORD. The LORD would fulfill his promise. Eve’s understanding that the LORD would become flesh and become one of us was spot on. So we see in Luke 1, “35“The Holy Spirit will come over you,” the angel answered her, “and a power of the Most High God will overshadow you. And for that reason the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God.” God fulfills his promise to become man through the seed of the woman, namely Mary. Paul picks up on that in Galatians 4, “4But when the right time came, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, 5to free those under the Law and make us His sons.” So the LORD fulfills his promise of salvation. He becomes flesh, joining himself to the seed of the woman, namely Mary, and fulfills the Law demands, suffers the penalty of breaking the law, namely death, and is resurrected from the dead to make us God’s sons.
This our LORD did for you. The LORD Jesus redeemed you from sin and death and gives you his life freely so you may live as sons of God. He promises to raise you to eternal life and inherit the new heavens and new earth where righteousness reigns. He calling you to turn from your sin and trust him to fulfill this for you. You can trust him. He fulfills his promises.
Heavenly Father, you fulfilled your promise to have your son be born of a woman to crush the head of the serpent and redeem us. Give us faith to believe this promise and receive your reward, eternal life. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.