Not in the same way as after. God appointed him head, but before sin there was no disharmony that would have caused conflict. Though Adam was king in Eden, Eve was not his slave but his queen. He held her in the highest regard, and it was spontaneous and natural for her to be in harmony with him and with the will of God as revealed through him. She never conceived of this structure as involving subjection or self-denial, for there was no rebellious “self” to deny. Nor did she think of Adam as “ruling over” her, but as one through whom God had revealed to her her greatest privilege and pleasure, to glorify God through and with her husband, to whom she had been given as a helper. Law and authority remain virtually unrecognized when there is perfect and natural harmony of wills.
But with the entry of sin, lawlessness and a spirit of rebellion became a part of man's nature, and all of this changed. Before the Fall the authority structure had been natural and even unrecognized. The woman's will was in harmony with the man's and both were fully under the lordship of the Creator. So it had been with the angels: “When Satan rebelled against the law of Jehovah, the thought that there was a law came to the angels almost as an awakening to something unthought of. In their ministry the angels are not as servants, but as sons. There is perfect unity between them and their Creator. Obedience is to them no drudgery. Love for God makes their service a joy” ( Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing , p. 109).
Sin in the heart makes the law of God evident to us, because it is no longer natural for us to obey that law. Submission to God-ordained authority was a nonissue to woman prior to the Fall and the consequent rebellion it created in her heart. But after the Fall she became conscious of the law and its necessary new application to her in a sinful condition. “The law of God existed before the creation of man or else Adam could not have sinned. After the transgression of Adam the principles of the law were not changed, but were definitely arranged and expressed to meet man in his fallen condition” ( Selected Messages , book 1, p. 230).
- Adventist Affirm, Answers to Questions about Women's Ordination - Ordination of Women and the Old Testament |