1 Timothy 2:15 – saved through the child bearing

Yet she shall be saved through the child bearing, if ever they should be remaining in faith and love and holiness with sanity.

1 Timothy 2:15 is generally regarded as one of the most difficult verses in Paul’s personal letters. Especially because of the strange suggestion that the woman would be saved by “childbearing”. Does motherhood then earn woman salvation?!? Isn’t that idea completely foreign to Paul’s preaching in particular? To answer this question we must turn to the same chapter where the first transgression is described: Genesis 3.

When God visits Adam and Eve in the garden after their transgression, they receive the (so-called) ‘mother of promises’ (Gen. 3:15). Also called ’the proto-gospel’, because in these Divine words the foundation of all messianic promises is laid. God tells the serpent that “the seed of the woman” will crush his head once and for all. This means that God guarantees her salvation “by bearing children.” And not only her salvation but that of the whole world! “Bearing children” would indeed be extremely difficult from now on (“with sorrow you will bear children”), but without that path there will be no salvation.

Delen: