Paul is saying to women: there is salvation in Christ for you. Trust Christ and continue in that faith. Persevere in godly living, and bear the fruit of holiness and love. In Christ you have been saved, you are being saved, and you will be saved. Don’t rebel against God’s design for you. Embrace life as a godly woman. In a culture that says, “Look inside yourself,” look to Christ instead. 

Peter once wrote that there are “some things” in Paul’s letters “that are hard to understand” (2 Pet. 3:16), and 1 Timothy 2:15 would surely be among “some things.” Paul’s words in 1 Timothy 2:15 comprise one of the most difficult verses in the whole New Testament.

Paul said, “Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control” (1 Tim. 2:15).

Can we make some sense of what Paul is saying? Let’s look at the verse carefully, in parts.

She

Who is the “she”? In the previous verse, Paul said “the woman was deceived and became a transgressor” (1 Tim. 2:14), and this was his summary of what happened to Eve in Genesis 3 when the serpent tempted her. There is no independent Greek pronoun at the beginning of 1 Timothy 2:15, so the subject must be implied.

Given the content of the previous verse, the subject at the beginning of 1 Timothy 2:15 is probably “She” or “The/A woman.” But Eve alone is not in view, because later in the verse the plural “they continue” denotes women. Apparently the implied “she” (or “woman”) is representative of women, and the plurality is confirmed by the “they continue” later in the verse.

Will Be Saved

The Greek word for “saved” here can mean rescue from danger, healing from disease, or deliverance from sin. So what does “saved” mean in 1 Timothy 2:15?

• One view is that a woman can be “saved” from deception. If 1 Timothy 2:14 says that Eve was deceived, maybe 2:15 is telling us that there is deliverance from deception.
• Another view is that a woman will be physically safe through childbearing.
• A third possibility is that Paul means spiritual salvation (from sin and judgment).

Which view should we prefer? Most of the time in his letters, Paul uses this word “saved” to mean salvation from sin and judgment. More specifically, in the Pastoral Epistles of 1–2 Timothy and Titus, Paul uses this word “saved” consistently for deliverance from sin and judgment (see 1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Tim. 1:9; 4:18; Titus 3:5).

Even in the very chapter where 1 Timothy 2:15 is found, Paul spoke of God’s desire for all people “to be saved,” and this salvation is from sin and judgment. While the first view (being “saved” from deception) is possible, the pattern of Paul’s use of “saved” is against the idea of being saved from mere deception. Regarding the second view, we know that there are women—even Christian women—who have died in the act of childbearing, so the second view is unlikely.

The language of “will be saved” denotes salvation from sin and judgment.

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