Creation was designed for fruitfulness. It’s a sign of God’s created order functioning as it ought and a signal of his continued grace toward all he made. We witness the budding of God’s creation in the first chapters of Genesis while the roots of revelation mature and its flowers bloom throughout the entirety of Scripture. As we will see, fruitfulness is a theme developed all along the way. In similar terms, Geerhardus Vos wrote, “although the development of the root may be slow and the stem and leaves may grow almost imperceptibly, there comes a time when the bud emerges in a day and the flower expands in an hour to our wondering sight. Such epochs of quickened revelation were the times of Abraham, of Moses, of David, and especially the days of the Son of Man.”¹ The purpose of this paper is to trace fruitfulness as a redemptive theme starting in the Garden, carrying through the Fall, continuing among Israel, and ultimately being satisfied in the person of Christ. 

One clear marker of perfection in the Garden of Eden’s is its fruitfulness: every creature and form doing and being exactly as it was designed to do and be. In God’s words, everything was “good”. Imagine how a morning in Eden would have felt. Beams of sunlight breaking through the mist, sweetness wafting through the milieu of flowering plants and fruit bearing trees. Birds flitting and insects buzzing, their persistent hum punctuated by the rustling of waking wildlife. Adam and Eve would have been found somewhere among the bustle, gladly performing their roles in the chorus of unblemished order. All creation, flourishing in God-designed fruitfulness.

It was in this setting that God blessed Adam and Eve with their Creation Mandate, “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.”² This mandate was to be fulfilled by Adam and Eve in two ways: as our first parents they would populate the earth, and as the earth’s gentle subduers, their work would bring forth physical fruit (food) from the land. The former mode of fruitfulness (childbearing) is amplified by the parallel account in Genesis chapter two which draws explicit attention to their one-flesh union in marriage and its ensuing consummation.

As we know, when Adam and Eve deviated from their mandated fruit-bearing and ate of the forbidden fruit, they brought upon themselves the curse that distorted their ability to bring forth fruit as God designed³. It’s worth noting their brazen rebellion: the couple who God called to bring forth fruit by his blessing would instead choose to take the only fruit which was forbidden to them. Rhodes describes it well, “In Eden, humankind was able to sin, but also able not to sin. They had power to choose either way, and they chose foolishly.” He continues, “they allied with Satan to declare war on God. The action itself might have seemed small—just picking a fruit—but the intent was evil to the core: treason.”⁴ The punishment for treason is the curse. How would the curse affect their call to be fruitful? As Goldsworthy notes, “God’s judgement on the man was most comprehensive” and while he had been given dominion over all creation, his dominion would be “challenged on every hand by the earth itself.”⁵ The judgement on the woman, Goldsworthy writes, “introduces pain as a reality of the fallen world. It is not simply that physical pain becomes our lot, but there is also a disruption of the most intimate human relationship; that of a man and a woman in marriage.”⁶ The curse of sin forever changed the nature of fruitfulness for man, woman, and creation itself, but instead of an immediate death sentence, they are given hope for redemption. 

While sentencing the serpent, God delivers the first gospel, or the protoevangelium: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”⁷ While sin broke mankind’s ability to be fruitful in the same way, God promised a Savior who would take the curse upon himself and restore man’s relationship with him. Even this early after the Fall, we already see God’s grace at work in redeeming the sin-tainted fruitfulness of his people in order to restore perfect communion through a Savior—in this case after generations of childbearing. Edmund P. Clowney notes a monumental truth, “What God promised in the Garden he prepared for in the unfolding history of his redemption.“⁸ Though the final fulfillment of the promise wouldn’t be seen for thousands of years, we can see the theme of fruitfulness point to God’s continued grace over his chosen people throughout the Old Testament.

The effects of the sin on the “fruit” of the woman are shown immediately as the story Cain and Abel unfolds. They both bring offerings of the fruits of their labor, but Cain’s is not regarded and his anger toward Abel grows. Dr. Duguid notes, “Abel brought the very best that he had… while Cain only brought some of the fruits of the soil. There was a difference in heart-attitude between Cain and Abel.”⁹ Instead of fulfilling the first gospel by striking down the serpent—as Eve had likely hoped—her first son kills her second. Already all seems lost. How could God’s promise of a deliverer be true when her sons—her first seed, or fruit—are either dead or murderous? The story is just beginning. Soon after Cain’s exile, Eve bears another son, Seth (a name which sounds the Hebrew word for appointed) through whom the promise will be fulfilled.

Generations pass as mankind multiplies and cultivates the earth. The theme of fruitfulness is restated to Noah and his sons after the flood and again to Abraham at the age of ninety-nine. In Abraham’s advanced age we witness God’s continued grace and covenantal nature. His wife Sarah, who was barren to that point, had lived a dejected and fruitless life until God intervenes, reminding them both of his promise to make them into a great nation. It’s with God’s words to Abraham that the theme of fruitfulness—bearing children and subduing a designated land—is further interwoven into the covenant of grace and the redemption promised in the garden.

The redemptive theme of fruitfulness intensifies as God graciously uses the fruitfulness of his people—regardless of their sin—to fulfill his promise through Isaac, Jacob, and the Hebrews in Egypt. As one author observes, “what’s at stake here is the numerical growth of the people, but this gets bound up with God’s covenant with them, for the sake of blessing all nations.”¹⁰ As we continue to witness, God will fulfill his promise to save humanity, and his fulfillment is inextricably tied to his perfect covenant of grace throughout generations of an imperfect people. 

As Israel wanders through the desert after the Exodus, God instructs his people regarding the law and the tabernacle. In the details of the Levitical Law we see continued evidence for the theme of fruitfulness in the redemption of God’s people. It is from the best and first “fruit” of their labor that God requires the offerings and sacrifices of his people. Observing the Sabbath is a constant reminder of the need for Israel to relent from fruit-producing work and to rest in God’s gracious provision as evidenced in the manna. Feasts and festivals commenced at God’s command in order to commemorate his continued grace over their survival, fruitfulness, and future redemption. Even certain ceremonial laws barring “unclean flows” are exclusively related to the human capacity for creating life. On this point, Dr. Duguid notes, “It’s not simply any loss of blood that will make you unclean… It is specifically flows associated with the reproductive process.” He lists menstrual blood, semen, or blood associated with childbirth as examples before continuing, “those emissions of life move one closer to the realm of death and therefore make a person unfit to appear in the presence of the living God.”¹¹ Even within the framework for the law, we see God graciously and persistently reminding his people of his promise to redeem their tainted fruitfulness for their ultimate salvation. Eventually, through another covenant made with King David and affirmed through the prophets, Israel receives assurance that God would establish an ultimate king from the fruit of his chosen people.¹²

As promised, many generations and multiple exiles later, the Son of God condescends as a son of David and takes on flesh through the grace-enabled fruitfulness—the seed—of his chosen people.¹³ As the author of Hebrews writes, Christ himself “partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil.”¹⁴ The offspring of the woman, being bruised himself on the cross, has defeated the offspring of the serpent.¹⁵ Not only is Jesus Christ the fulfillment of God’s redemptive promise through the fruitfulness of his people, he commissions his followers into a new type of fruitfulness as enabled through the power of the Holy Spirit. Redemption has been fulfilled through the seed of God’s chosen people, but the story is not yet complete!

While all Christians may participate in the original Creation Mandate through God’s continued grace (bearing children and participating in fruitful work), fruitfulness in the redemptive sense has been completely satisfied in Christ on the cross. Now, Jesus’ disciples are called to a new form of multiplication and cultivation that are an outworking of the Gospel: making disciples¹⁶ and cultivating the soil of our own hearts, or, being sanctified. Moreover, even as Christ ascended into Heaven, he sent the Helper as a sign of God’s continued work.¹⁷ This notion is clear in the New Testament, as language throughout maintains the fruit-bearing theme, but now in terms of the Christian life and witness. Examples include “abiding in the vine”, bearing fruit of the Spirit, planting and watering seeds of the Gospel, reaping a harvest after diligent spiritual labor, and many others.¹⁸ 

Even in full light of Christ’s finished work on the cross, the theme of fruitfulness for the Christian life is far from exhausted. In fact, we must find our comfort and grace for fruit-bearing faith from the fruit-giver himself, the Holy Spirit. As Goldsworthy notes, “Our restoration is not complete until we are transformed through our resurrection on the last day. During this life there is tension between the new life within us and the old life of rebellion against God.”¹⁹ It is this tension between flesh and spirit that reminds us of our need of God’s continued grace. The fruits born of the Holy Spirit —love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control—are not only for ourselves but are also for the edification of Christ’s bride and the evangelization of the nations. 

With the entirety of biblical revelation in view, we now see the DNA of New Testament fruitfulness encoded into the seed of God’s Edenic mandate to Adam and Eve: “be fruitful and multiply”. Yes, sin disrupted the perfect fruitfulness found in the Garden, but through God’s gracious covenantal faithfulness in Christ, his chosen people will once again do and be all they were originally designed to do and be: glorify God and enjoy perfect communion with Him forever.

1. Geerhardus Vos, “The Idea of Biblical Theology as a Science and as a Theological Discipline,” [back]
2. Genesis 1:28 [back]
3. Genesis 3:16–27 [back]
4. Jonty Rhodes, Covenants Made Simple: Understanding God’s Unfolding Promises to His People (P&R Publishing, 2015), Kindle Edition. [back]
5. Graeme Goldsworthy, According to Plan: The Unfolding Revelation of God in the Bible (IVP Academic, 2013), Kindle locations 1097-1098, Kindle. [back]
6. Ibid, locations 1094-1096 [back]
7. Genesis 3:15 [back]
8. Edmund P. Clowney, “The Glory of the Coming Lord,” Monergism, accessed September 28, 2020, https://www.monergism.com/glory-coming-lord. [back]
9. Iain Duguid, “Lecture 10: Genesis 4-11” (lecture, Westminster Theological Seminary, Glenside, PA, September 26, 2020). [back]
10. Antony Billington and Neil Hudson, “Reflections on Fruitfulness in the Bible,” Fruitfulness on the Frontlines, accessed September 28, 2020, https://www.licc.org.uk/app/uploads/2018/08/Fruitfulness-in-t he-Bible-Sermon-Outlines-Fruitfulness-on-the-Frontline.pdf.  [back]
11. Iain Duguid, “Lecture 16: Leviticus (Part 2)” (lecture, Westminster Theological Seminary, Glenside, PA, September 26, 2020). [back]
12. 1 Samuel 7:12; Psalm 132:11; Isaiah 11:1; Jeremiah 23:5. [back]
13. Matthew 1:1 [back]
14. Hebrews 2:14 [back]
15. Genesis 3:15; Romans 16:20; Revelation 20:1–3, 20 [back]
16. Matthew 28:19 [back]
17. John 14:16 [back]
18. John 15:1–17; Galatians 5:13–26; 1 Corinthians 3:1–9; Galatians 6:9 [back]
19. Graeme Goldsworthy, According to Plan: The Unfolding Revelation of God in the Bible (IVP Academic, 2013), Kindle location 379, Kindle. [back]