Is Mary the Second Eve?

If Jesus is the second Adam, is Mary the second Eve? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity.

Well, hi there and happy Friday. I'm Bill Meyer, along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. You can call us right now with your question. Here's our phone number.

That's 1-833-843-2673. You can also post your question on one of our social media sites. And of course, you can always email us at questions at corechristianity.com. We're open to questions about the Bible theology doctrine, how your Christian faith interacts with what's going on in today's world. We'd love to hear from you. So give us a call right now, 833-THE-CORE. First up today, let's go to Ryan calling in from St. Louis, Missouri. Ryan, what's your question for Adriel?

This is a difficult question to address. I'm a born-again Christian. I've friended two ladies that are both born-again Christians, probably a little over a year ago, and the three of us hung around for a while. And then they finally started kind of approaching me about six months ago about this subject of dating. So I said, how am I supposed to choose between the two of you because you've been best friends for so long? And they agreed to allow me to date both of them at the same time.

Now, I'm not a ladies man, so don't get the wrong idea. But just around the holidays, they actually started bringing up the subject of marriage. So because I know polygamy is wrong in the Bible, how am I supposed to know which one I should choose? Because I don't want to destroy their friendship or the friendship that the three of us developed all this time. Because I got a feeling that if I do make a decision on one of them, all three of us are going to be hurt somehow. And I just kind of need some godly wisdom to figure out what I should do.

Wow, Ryan, thank you for giving us a call. It does sound like you're in a difficult situation. I'm glad to hear that you're a born-again Christian, that these two women are professing faith in Christ, and so there's some common ground there.

But it sounds to me like there are some issues here. I think you want to be with someone and pursue someone in a relationship for marriage who values the Word of God, what the Bible says about relationships and marriage and what that is supposed to look like. Now, I might have missed it, but were you saying they were suggesting marriage with the two of them or that they were saying, like, hey, date us both and then determine who you—that kind of a thing? Basically what they're saying is that because I get along so well with both of them, we have so much in common between, you know, I do with both of them, even though they're both different, I basically fall in love with both women and they mostly fall in love with me. And I don't want to have to be put in a position that I got to choose between one of the two because, like I said, I'm afraid I'm going to destroy their friendship, somebody's going to get hurt, and it's going to put a huge wedge between our friendship and everything else. And I just want, you know, have an idea how God would want me to pursue a decision based upon all this.

Okay. Well, according to scripture, you know, Christians are free to marry in the Lord. That is, an individual who is a believer in Jesus Christ.

The apostle Paul talks about not being unequally yoked when he writes to the Corinthians. I think there it's a reference to not joining yourself with someone who is a non-Christian, but I think even more than that, you know, I think it's someone who is mature in their faith, who wants to honor the Lord, and that's the priority. And so I don't know these two women that you're talking about, but what I do know is you want to be with someone who prioritizes the word of God, being a part of a good church, and it sounds to me like maybe there's some pressure that's being put on you. I don't think you should feel that pressure, and I think if you think that maybe pursuing one of these women, because you shouldn't be pursuing two women at the same time, if you think pursuing one of these women is going to ruin the friendships and create this big old problem, well, right there, that in my mind raises several red flags, and so I might even recommend, look, maybe just continuing to be friends and take out the sort of romantic dynamic, because again, I don't think, you said it, you're not a ladies' man. You're not trying to pursue these two women in that way, and if God has given you a good friendship, a godly friendship, one that honors him, is lived out in the context of the life of the local church, community, those kinds of things, I think that that's wonderful.

You can have really good friends, but when you're taking the next step in terms of pursuing someone in a romantic relationship, that's where you need to exercise wisdom, and if that's creating an issue here, it does kind of seem strange to me that both of them are kind of suggesting that, hey, it's okay for you to pursue us and that kind of thing, that raises some red flags for me, so that should be a question in your mind as well. You want to, again, be with someone who prioritizes what Jesus taught related to marriage and relationships with the Bible says. Just to bring in some scripture, I mean, I think of Jesus' teaching, this is in the context of divorce in Matthew chapter 19, when the Pharisees come to him saying, Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any case? And Jesus answered, Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother, and hold fast to his wife, cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let not man separate. And they asked him, Well, how come Moses commanded one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away? And Jesus said, Because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. In the very beginning, Ryan, God intended us in these romantic relationships to pursue one individual to be joined to them in holy marriage as a picture of the relationship that exists between Christ and the church. You read about this in the book of Ephesians.

And so it sounds like there's a lot of unclear, like the situation here is just unclear, and I would say not pursuing both of them in any romantic way at all. And if in time, you know, as you continue to mature in your walk with the Lord, and as they do as well, there's a sense of, boy, this one is the one that I want to leave and cleave to and pursue in marriage. Then maybe the Lord will make that clear, you know, and open up those doors, and it won't create, hopefully, you know, more issues. But I just think you have to be really wise here and ultimately focus on making a decision that you know is pleasing to the Lord. And that has to be the priority, not their feelings per se.

The priority has to be what has God said, and what decision is going to be pleasing to Him. And so thank you for giving us a call, and may the Lord grant you wisdom, Ryan, and God bless. Some great counsel, Adriel, and the only thing I would add is that maybe talk to the pastor. I don't know if they go to the same church or different churches, but maybe bring in some pastoral counsel on this issue because it's pretty different. I mean, there's no doubt about that. Yeah, you need people close by who are able to speak into your life, and certainly if Ryan doesn't have a pastor and elders and he's not a part of a church, that would be the priority. I mean, that's what you need. And also for these two women, you know, the hope would be that they're in the local church and they're encouraged by people there and walking in the light and so on and so forth.

And so, Ryan, if that's not the case, well, then that needs to be the priority. God bless. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. We'd love to hear from you. If you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life, our phone lines are open right now. 833-843-2673.

If you want to spell it out on your phone, it's 833-THE-CORE. By the way, we have a group of people that we want to say thank you to today. We call them our inner core. These are people that listen to this program on a regular basis, and they believe so strongly in what we do that they actually make regular donations to this ministry.

Yeah. If you've been blessed by Core Christianity, would you consider joining the inner core? We are so grateful for the partnership that we have with so many of you, being able to talk about the Bible, open up the scriptures, you know, hear from people who are calling in with difficult questions, difficult pastoral questions, and wanting to apply God's word and encourage people to walk with Jesus and to be faithful to him in the decisions that they make, in the way that they live their lives. And so if you've been encouraged, if you've been blessed, consider joining the inner core.

It's a $25 monthly donation. And for all of our inner core members, we send you a book, Core Christianity, written by Dr. Michael Horton, a wonderful sort of introduction to the core doctrines of the Christian faith. And so you can look forward to that. And there's also some great benefits that go along with being a member of the inner core, including some regular video devotionals from Adriel. So just go to our website to find out more. It's corechristianity.com forward slash inner core, just all one word corechristianity.com forward slash inner core.

Well, let's go to a voicemail. This is from one of our listeners named Rhonda. I was just asking, I know Jesus is the second Adam.

And I've heard that Mary is the second Eve. So could you address that? Thank you.

Bye bye. Hey, Rhonda, thank you for that question. And I'm not sure what your church background is. Typically in Protestant churches, for example, we don't oftentimes use the language of second Eve in reference to the Virgin Mary. You do see that more in other traditions like the Roman Catholic Church.

I think you have that language used more frequently there in those contexts. But so first, Jesus is the second Adam. We see this really clearly articulated in places like Romans chapter five, in First Corinthians chapter 15. He's the last Adam who came to reverse, if you will, what the first Adam had done. Adam, by his disobedience, plunged us all into sin. Paul makes this clear in Romans 512 through 18. And so we're all born in Adam, born in sin. This is the doctrine of original sin.

Jesus came so that we might be under a new representative, a new head, and so that in him we might have righteousness and life, salvation. Jesus is the second Adam, the last Adam who restores humanity. Now, what about Eve and the relationship that she has to the Virgin Mary? Is she to be, Mary to be viewed as a second Eve or a last Eve? Well, there are, I think in scripture, these sort of biblical theological parallels that we can draw between Eve there in the early chapters of Genesis and the Virgin Mary.

The first one that I think of is just the promise that's given to us in Genesis chapter three, verse 15, that the seed of the woman is going to crush the head of the serpent. That is Eve's offspring, if you will, is going to crush Satan, the deceiver, the one who helped to plunge humanity into destruction. And of course, in terms of the story of the Bible, that's the strand, the theme that runs throughout the whole thing, looking for that great redemption, that gospel that was promised way back in Genesis chapter three, verse 15. And of course, we know that the woman, the seed of the woman is Jesus Christ. And we might say specifically, the mother of our Lord, the mother of God, as she was called historically in some of the discussions that the church had related to the identity of the Virgin Mary, is Mary.

She is the God bearer, we say, not that God became through her or came to be through her, but that the Son of God, the second person of the Holy Trinity, took humanity from her womb and was born for us and for our salvation. So you do see parallels, I think, in the Bible. Another place where you see parallels is in the book of Revelation. In Revelation chapter 12, you have this discussion, this vision of a woman and a dragon. We read in Revelation 12 four, and a great sign appeared in heaven. A woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and on her head, a crown of 12 stars.

She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. And another sign appeared in heaven. Behold, a great red dragon with seven heads and 10 horns.

And on his head seven diadems. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child, he might devour it. She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. But her child was caught up to God and his throne.

The child there is the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ. Is it sort of an echo of Psalm chapter 2, ruling all the nations with a rod of iron? And the woman there has been taken a couple of different ways by Bible interpreters. One, as a picture of the church, the faithful, the godly people throughout history. But two, in another sense, you also see echoes here of Mary. And so in that sense, we can draw these sort of biblical theological parallels and see echoes, if you will, in Eve, or echoes back in Genesis of the Virgin Mary. But the thing is, the big question I would want to ask is, to what degree are we putting stock in, or are we saying, does this lead individual to say Mary is somehow like a co-redeemer with Jesus, that kind of a thing? And that's my concern, because I think biblically we can see some parallels, but we want to embrace those and make sure that we're not making more of them than we need to.

The Savior of the world is God the Son, Jesus. And while we do see these sort of biblical theological parallels, I don't think they're meant to cause us to worship the Virgin Mary, for example. I think they're meant to direct our eyes onto Jesus, to focus on him. And so I don't know that the language of Mary as a new Eve is the most obvious. You see some of these parallels, but you don't have that language clearly in the New Testament, like you do in Romans 5 and in 1 Corinthians 15 with regard to Jesus.

But I think that we can see some themes there. And so I hope that that helps you as you're thinking about this, and again, wanting to think about it primarily through what the Scriptures teach. God bless. Rhonda, thanks so much for your call. By the way, you can leave us a voicemail 24 hours a day. We try to review our voicemails each day and use a lot of them on the air. So feel free to give us a call at 833-THE-CORE.

That's 833-843-2673. Let's go to Melanie. Melanie, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? Hi there. Thanks for taking my call.

I really love your show. And my question is about eternal life before Jesus. My husband believes that Jesus is a great example of how to live and not our Savior, but just one way to God out of many ways to God and not needed for eternal life. One of his arguments is that Abraham's faith was counted to him as righteousness, and so he says, you know, before Jesus, if faith was counted to someone as righteousness, that must mean they had eternal life. So my question is, what was the offering for people before Jesus regarding eternal life?

That's an excellent question. And of course, the Bible makes it absolutely clear, Melanie, that there is only one way. Jesus himself said in John 14, 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. In the book of Acts, right, the disciples say there is no other name given under heaven by which men must be saved.

It's the name of Jesus Christ. And it sounds to me like your husband recognizes, okay, Abraham believed, it was credited to him as righteousness, is what the apostle Paul says very clearly in Romans chapter 4, and that was prior to the coming of Jesus. And so it seems like he was saved a different way. And this is a question a lot of people have, were people in the Old Testament saved in a different way from how we're saved?

And I would say absolutely not. They were saved looking forward to the promise of the gospel and embracing it by faith. But it was still the promise of the gospel. In fact, the apostle Paul says that very clearly when he's writing to the Galatians with regard to the faith of Abraham, if you will, he says in Galatians chapter 3 verse 7, Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham, and the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying, In you shall all the nations be blessed. So then those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. And that is under the old covenant, people were saved by looking forward to the promise of the gospel that was given to them through these promises, through the types and shadows of the sacrificial system in the Old Testament, the sacrifices that took place there in the temple that pointed forward to the once and for all sacrifice of Jesus. You can read about it in the book of Hebrews. But they were saved the same way we are, by faith in the gospel, by faith in the promise of God.

They were just looking forward to it. And we look at it, we look back upon it on what God has accomplished for us in Jesus Christ. But it's not that they were saved by rules and laws and even animal sacrifices and were saved by grace and faith.

No, they were saved by grace through faith the same way we are then looking forward to the promise that would be fulfilled. And so a couple of passages, Melanie, again, is Galatians chapter 3 and Romans chapter 4. Those are some good ones for you guys to camp out at and hopefully those are encouraging to your husband as well. God bless.

Melanie, thanks so much for your call. We'll be praying for you and those conversations with your husband about eternal life. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Just a reminder, you have an open invitation to join our inner core, a very special group of people who make a monthly donation to our ministry. And as a result, we send you a copy of the book Core Christianity by Dr. Michael Horton and some special resources.

You can learn more about that by going to corechristianity.com forward slash inner core. Also want to mention, here it is Friday, we're going to actually record a second program after our live program today. So when we go off the air here in just a few minutes, you can continue to call and Adriel will be happy to answer your questions for another 30 minutes or so. Here's the phone number. It's 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. Let's go to Adam. Adam, what's your question for Adriel? Hey Adam, are you there? Yes, I'm here. How are you doing?

Doing well. What's your question, brother? Okay, if you would give me just one second. Hold on, please. All right.

Sorry about that. My question is this. I am a born again believer in the Lord Jesus Christ who has saved me and redeemed me by his precious blood. Do you as a pastor believe in deliverance as today as Jesus walked in a big majority of his ministry was deliverance of unclean spirits?

What are your thoughts on that? Do I believe in deliverance today as it was in Jesus' ministry? And so you're thinking about Jesus walking around there in the gospels and casting out demons, really binding Satan, binding the strong man. He talks about binding the strong man in places like Matthew chapter 12. And I think that there is something unique, Adam, that's taking place in the ministry of Jesus that's not repeatable. Now that's not to say that today there aren't people who are oppressed and even possessed by demonic spirits.

I think that that is the case and we need to pray for those people. But Jesus is distinct in what he's doing in his ministry is this great act, if you will, in the history of redemption whereby he is binding the strong man, Satan binding him. I think this is what John talks about in Revelation chapter 20, for example, where he talks about the binding of Satan. And the goal is so that the gospel can go out, so that no longer will the nations be deceived as they once were, living in darkness.

You think about under the old covenant, you had Israel called to be a light to the world and then you had all these nations that didn't receive the light, they didn't have the light. And then you have Jesus come, bind the strong man, and ever since that time, the gospel has been spreading throughout the whole world, throughout all the nations of the world. And I think that's because Jesus has done something definitive, distinct, something that we don't repeat. And so I don't view myself or other Christians today as sort of walking around like Jesus trying to deliver, having deliverance ministries or healing ministries in the same way that he did. That's not to say that I don't think that God isn't healing people today or delivering people from demons.

No, I think he is. Primarily, and when we're talking about deliverance, primarily through the preaching of the gospel, through the salvation of sinners and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. That's what drives out demons. It's the holy gospel of Jesus Christ. And so if by deliverance you mean, you know, do you believe in that kind of deliverance?

People say, yeah, absolutely, all day long. I preach the gospel, you know, all the time. And I'm calling people to believe and to repent and to embrace Jesus and to experience his grace and the filling of the Holy Spirit. And what you find in that situation is that people are delivered from Satan and from their sins. And so I think that there is something distinct there, brother, that's taking place. And one of the concerns that I have is I think too many Christians, they're sort of trying to mimic if you relive the life of Jesus.

You know, man, I want to go and cast out demons and perform all of these mighty miracles and do these things. And we're focused on that, the sort of miraculous. We're not focused on the teaching of Jesus, obeying his word, his law, embracing his gospel. The main thing Jesus Christ came to do was not heal the sick. Yes, he did that. But that was to highlight his authority to forgive sins. That's the main miracle, and that's the one that I'm most concerned with and preach and share with others. God bless. And be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's word together.