Women are saved how?

1 Timothy 2:1–15
“For Adam was formed first, then Eve.  And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.  Nevertheless she will be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control.”

Say what?  Oh no Paul didn’t!  Obviously he’s just thinking with his archaic 1st century sensibilities.  Women saved through childbirth, that’s just preposterous.  We’ve progressed past such archaic ways of thinking.  But Paul isn’t speaking about what he knows about his culture, or what will be with our culture.  He speaks about what he knows from Scripture.

There was Adam and Eve—man and his woman.  There was a tree.  And there was a problem.  The serpent came and made them both eat of the tree which God had commanded them not to.  Suddenly there was sin, shame, and death.  Man was supposed to stick his neck out for his wife, to save her from the dragon, and he didn’t—woman deceived, man deceived, humanity falls.  Yet, “she will be saved in THE childbirth” as Paul puts it, or “I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.”

Paul precisely proclaims the promise, how all men are saved.  As he says, “For which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle—I am speaking the truth in Christ and not lying—a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.”  Jesus Christ is the mediator between God and men.  All woman are saved, just as men are saved by Him who was promised to THE woman—first spoken to Eve and then fulfilled in Mary.  Jesus’ death and resurrection save humanity.  All are saved “if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control” not just women, but men too.

Set free in Christ each can pray and rejoice in their own particular way.  Woman humble.  Men sticking their necks out.  But all pray that they “we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.”  For if that takes place Christians may gather to pray, of course, but come together to continually receive Him who came and died and rose for them, the one who baptized them, who gives them His body and blood to eat and drink all for the forgiveness of their sins.  They can come together to sing with Paul: “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.”  In the Name + of Jesus.  Amen.