What Adam and Eve Can Really Teach Us About Love
We can learn a lot about love from them.

While we don’t know the exact period of time Adam and Eve enjoyed their relationship with God without sin as it is unspecified, we know for a time, they walked with God in perfection, uninhibited, freely communicating with Him, free of fear, no sin, no sickness, no evil and no distractions. In a reference in Isaiah 51:3, foretelling the future of the city of God, Zion, it says that God will make “…her desert like the garden of the Lord; Joy and gladness will be found in it, thanksgiving and the voice of melody.” From that scene, we can imagine a sunny day, soft clouds, vibrant flowers, pristine pools of cool blue water, birds twittering and the sweet sound of a woman’s voice singing happily and melodiously. It’s the kind of stuff that we envision when we think of dreams and fairy tales, but it did happen, once upon a time, and it is promised to be a reality again in the future. Here are five things Adam and Eve can really teach us about love.

Love Should Not Destroy Us
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Adam and Eve offer an incredible blueprint for love. Before the fall, we can see an example of what human love should look like. We see through their example that love originally led to happiness. Contrary to what we see in so many relationships today, love did not lead to misery but joy; not selfishness but selflessness. Not secrecy, but transparency and nakedness without shame (Genesis 2:25). The first experience of love among man and woman is “original solitude.” In this, man realized that he is unique before God. He is unlike anything in the created order and thus has a unique dignity. Through their relationship, we see that love should always uphold our individuality, not degrade or destroy it.

The Enemy Will Try to Destroy Your Relationship
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Satan constantly tries to persuade us to disobey God. If we aren’t careful, the devil’s subtle ways can be our downfall. Satan strives daily to undue everything that God has accomplished, including healthy relationships. He is crafty and sly and will tell us whatever it is he thinks we want to hear in order to get us to disobey God. It is important that we are conscious of this in our relationships. We also learn that we can’t hide from our mistakes. When Adam and Eve partook of the fruit, they tried to hide themselves from God with little success. Thy still had to face him, and answer for their mistakes. No matter what we do in our relationships, we will one day have to face God and answer for them.

Love Requires Sacrifice
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In the phrase “Christ has given Himself,” from Ephesians 2, it also contains a seed of the reason why love is so difficult. Love requires sacrifice and it’s painful. But through sacrifice, man and woman complete and build each other up. Eve was taken from the rib of Adam. In ancient times, the rib represented the entire person, so by “giving a rib,” Scripture tells us man must give himself for the woman he loves. Woman will be built up by man laying down his life for her and in return, she will complete and help man become who God made him to be. Love completes us.

We Are Made for Love
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Scripture tells us, “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him” (Genesis 2:18). In these verses, we see an example of “original unity.” Through this experience, man realized since he was unique, he must also be a gift. Before this, everything that God made was good. From this, we know that man is not to be alone or isolated because we are made for love and love happens between persons. This unity included a unity of body and soul, the unity of man and woman in humanity and unity between God and man. Love should not only fulfill us physically, but also penetrate our souls. It should also deepen our relationship with God.

Love Fulfills
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We learn from Adam and Eve that love fulfills. In the beginning, Adam could look at Eve’s body and see she was made to receive something and Eve could look at Adam’s body and see he was meant to give something. That “something” was love, but not just any love: God’s love. God’s love was the only love that existed in the beginning and the only love worthy of a person. We see through Adam and Eve the giving and receiving of God’s love. Love is meant to fulfill our nature and that is why we all seek it.

Adam and Eve Peter Paul Rubens/Wikimedia Commons
Adam and Eve ultimately teach us that love is sacrificial and the more both people in a relationship are willing to sacrifice for each other, the more the two can build each other up. We should always give and receive God’s love in our relationships, because that is our nature.