Albert Barnes Commentary 1 Timothy 2:15

"but she shall be saved through her child-bearing, if they continue in faith and love and sanctification with sobriety." — 1 Timothy 2:15 (ASV)

Notwithstanding she shall be saved (1 Timothy 2:15). The promise in this verse is designed to alleviate the apparent severity of the remarks just made about the condition of woman, and of the allusion to the painful facts of her early history.

What the apostle had just said would carry the mind back to the period in which woman introduced sin into the world, and by an obvious and easy association, to the sentence which had been passed on her in consequence of her transgression, and to the burden of sorrows she was doomed to bear.

By the remark in this verse, however, Paul shows that it was not his intention to overwhelm her with anguish. He did not design to deeply distress her feelings by an unkind allusion to a melancholy fact in her history.

It was necessary for him to state, and for her to know, that her place was secondary and subordinate, and he wished this truth always to be kept in memory among Christians.

It was not unkind or improper, also, to state the reasons for this opinion, and to show that her own history had demonstrated that she was not designed for headship. But she was not to be regarded as degraded and abandoned. She was not to be overwhelmed by the recollection of what "the mother of all living" had done.

There were consolations in her case. There was a special Divine intervention which she might look for, showing tender care on the part of God in those deep sorrows which had come upon her in consequence of her transgression. Instead of being crushed and broken-hearted on account of her condition, she should remember that the everlasting arms of God would sustain her in her condition of sorrow and pain.

Paul, then, would speak to her the language of consolation. While he would have her occupy her proper place, he would also have her feel that God was her Friend.

Regarding the nature of the consolation referred to here, there has been a considerable variety of opinion. Some have held that by the expression "she shall be saved in child-bearing" (1 Timothy 2:15), the apostle means to include all the duties of the maternal relation, meaning that she should be saved through the faithful performance of her duties as a mother.

Robinson, Lexicon. Rosenmuller regards the word rendered "child-bearing" (teknogonia) as synonymous with education. He supposes that the meaning is that a woman, by the proper training of her children, can obtain salvation as well as her husband, and that her appropriate duty is not public teaching but the training of her family.

Wetstein supposes that it means, "she shall be saved from the arts of impostors, and from the luxury and vice of the age, if, instead of wandering about, she remains at home, cultivates modesty, is subject to her husband, and engages carefully in the training of her children." This sense agrees well with the connection.

Calvin supposes that the apostle intends to console the woman by the assurance that if she bears the trials of her condition of sorrow with a proper spirit, abiding in faith and holiness, she will be saved. She is not to regard herself as cut off from the hope of heaven.

Doddridge, Macknight, Clarke, and others suppose that it refers to the promise in Genesis 3:15 and means that the woman shall be saved through, or by means of bearing a child, namely, the Messiah. They believe that the apostle means to sustain the woman in her sorrows, and in her state of subordination and inferiority, by referring to the honor that has been put upon her by the fact that a woman gave birth to the Messiah.

It is also supposed that he means to say that special honor is thus conferred on her over the man, since the Messiah had no human father (Doddridge). However, the objections to this interpretation, though it is sustained by most respectable names, seem to me to be insuperable. They are as follows:

1. The interpretation is too refined and abstruse. It is not that which is obvious. It depends for its point on the fact that the Messiah had no human father, and if the apostle had intended to refer to that and to build an argument on it, it is doubtful whether he would have done it in so obscure a manner. But it may reasonably be questioned whether he would have made that fact a point on which his argument would turn. There would be a kind of refinement about such an argument that we would not expect in the writings of Paul.
2. It is not the obvious meaning of the word "child-bearing." There is nothing in the word that requires it to have any reference to the birth of the Messiah. The word is of a general character and properly refers to child-bearing in general.
3. It is not true that woman would be "saved" merely by having given birth to the Messiah. She will be saved, as man will be, as a consequence of His having been born; but there is no evidence that the mere fact that woman gave birth to Him, and that He had no human father, did anything to save Mary herself, or anyone else of her sex. If, therefore, the word refers to the "bearing" of the Messiah, or to the fact that He was born, it would be no more proper to say that this was connected with the salvation of woman than that of man.

The true meaning, it seems to me, has been suggested by Calvin and may be seen by the following remarks:

1. The apostle intended to comfort woman, or to alleviate the sadness of the picture he had drawn respecting her condition.
2. He had referred, incidentally, as a proof of the subordinate character of her station, to the first apostasy. This naturally suggested the sentence that was passed on her and the condition of sorrow to which she was doomed, particularly in childbirth. That was the standing demonstration of her guilt; that the condition in which she suffered most; that the situation in which she was in greatest peril.
3. Paul assures her, therefore, that though she must thus suffer, she ought not to regard herself in her deep sorrows and dangers, though on account of sin, as necessarily under the Divine displeasure or as excluded from the hope of heaven. The way of salvation was open to her as well as to men and was to be entered in the same manner.

If she had faith and holiness, even in her condition of sorrow brought on by guilt, she could equally hope for eternal life as man. The object of the apostle seems to be to guard against a possible interpretation of his words: that he did not regard the woman as in circumstances as favorable for salvation as those of man, or as if he taught that salvation for her was more difficult, or perhaps that she could not be saved at all.

The general sentiments of the Jews regarding the salvation of the female sex and their exclusion from the religious privileges that men enjoy; the views of the Mohammedans in reference to the inferiority of the sex; and the prevalent feelings in the heathen world, degrading the sex and making their condition regarding salvation far inferior to that of man—these show the propriety of what the apostle here says. They also show the fitness that he should so guard himself that his language could not possibly be interpreted as lending support to such a sentiment.

According to the interpretation of the passage proposed here, the apostle does not mean to teach that a Christian female would be certainly saved from death in childbirth—for this would not be true, and the correct interpretation of the passage does not require us to understand him as affirming this.

Religion is not designed to make any immediate and direct change in the laws of our physical being. It does not of itself guard us from pestilence; it does not arrest the progress of disease; it does not save us from death. As a matter of fact, a woman, by the highest degree of piety, is not necessarily saved from the perils of that condition to which she has been subjected in consequence of the apostasy.

The apostle means to show this: that in all her pain and sorrow, amidst all the evidence of apostasy, and all that reminds her that she was "first" in the transgression, she may look up to God as her Friend and Strength and may hope for acceptance and salvation.

If they continue (1 Timothy 2:15). This means if woman continues—as it is not uncommon to change the singular form to the plural, especially if the subject spoken of has the character of a collective noun. Many have understood this to refer to children, as teaching that if the mother were faithful, so that her children continued in faith, she would be saved.

But this is not a necessary or probable interpretation. The apostle says nothing of children, and it is not reasonable to suppose that he would make the prospect of her salvation depend on their being pious. This would be to add a hard condition of salvation, and one nowhere else suggested in the New Testament.

The object of the apostle evidently is to show that woman must continue in the faithful service of God if she would be saved—a doctrine insisted on everywhere in the New Testament in reference to all persons. She must not imitate the example of the mother of mankind, but she must faithfully yield obedience to the laws of God until death.

Faith. This means faith in the Redeemer and in Divine truth, or a life of fidelity in the service of God.

Charity. This means love to all.

See Barnes on 1 Corinthians 13.

Holiness. This means she must be truly religious.

With sobriety. All these things must be united with a becoming soberness or seriousness of deportment. (See Barnes on 1 Timothy 2:9).

In such a life, woman may look to a world where she will be forever free from all the sadnesses and sorrows of her condition here; where, by unequalled pain, she will no more be reminded of the time when—

"her rash hand in evil hour
Forth reaching to the fruit, she pluck'd, she ate;"

and when before the throne she shall be admitted to full equality with all the redeemed of the Lord.

Religion meets all the sadnesses of her condition here; it pours consolation into the cup of her many woes; it speaks kindly to her in her distresses; it utters the language of forgiveness to her heart when crushed with the remembrance of sin—for "she loves much" (Luke 7:37–48); and it conducts her to immortal glory in that world where all sorrow shall be unknown.

The phrase "in childbearing" may also be rendered "through"; the word "sobriety" may also be rendered "sober-mindedness."