“I labor in birth until Christ be formed in you“

In Christian marriage as God intends, wouldn’t a wife be respected as a “co-heir”, valued and appreciated as “bone of my bone” and “help MEET”… as Adam must have felt toward Eve prior to the Fall (see link)?

“I labor in birth until Christ be formed in you“- Paul to the Galatians

I had assumed that “the childbirth” in 1 Tim 2:15- ““she shall be saved through the child-bearing” (YLT) referred to Christ being formed in herself and the “restoration” is of garden intimacy with the LORD. But Paul speaks of himself laboring in birth on behalf of another! Suppose the passage refers to her travail/pain in a difficult marriage until Christ is formed in her husband? … whereupon they can experience garden of Eden intimacy with each other?

The latter possibility “fits” with the conditionality of the fulfllment of 1 Tim 2:15 upon the actions of “they“…
“she shall be restored in the childbirth if they continue in faith, love, holiness, with sobriety”. This possibility gives a whole different dimension to the wifely calling of “help MEET” making her quite instrumental in her husband’s sanctification via her travail on his behalf.

I think any woman who allows Jesus to be formed in her and “continues in…” is restored to the garden state of intimacy with the LORD (as Eve enjoyed before the transgression). I know that by experience, I FEEL intimate with my LORD. And I HOPE that draws my “Adam” back toward the garden- for intimacy with the Lord, and with his “eve”- as Bushnell poses had Eve not followed Adam out…

Had Eve remained steadfast with God, Adam might through the double influence of God and Eve, have returned to God. Marriage might have been consummated by Adam, the husband, forsaking the devil, his father, and cleaving to his wife, thus returning, like the prodigal he was, to the heavenly Father’s home.

The passage can be taken as a PROMISE for the marriage of ANY CHRISTIAN WOMAN- that she will be saved/restored/made whole in a reversal of the fall’s consequences She can be restored through “the child-bearing”!

–>restored to her position beside Adam in dominion over creation per Genesis 1:26-28
–>restored to her inheritance as a joint heir with Christ
–>restored to intimacy with the LORD which was severed by Eve when she left the Garden.

I think the “she” in 1 Timothy 2:15 refers to “Eve” as representative of “everywoman” who is living under the consequences of Eve’s action. And the “saved” is not Christian salvation but restoration. Click here for Blue Letter Bible lexicon definition of- “she shall be saved” It can’t be salvation through Jesus because it is conditional upon the actions of whoever “they” are. “IF THEY continue in ….”
Some of the meanings of saved are – made well, healed, restored
She shall be saved(made well, healed, restored- future) if they continue in fidelity, holiness, love

Paul’s use of “Eve” as representative of in not unique to 1 Timothy. He says “For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity[a] that is in Christ.” 2 Cor 11:2-3

Katharine Bushnell writes

it seems God’s design that the “new woman” in Christ Jesus, shall no more “turn away,” as did Eve, to her husband, but remaining loyal to God alone, and true to her destiny as the mother of that Seed,- both the literal, Jesus, and the mystical Christ, the Church, – shall lead man about,- out of the wilderness of the inefficiency of egotism into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For, who shall specially conquer Satan, if not the sex to whom God gave the honor from the beginning of being in eternal enmity against Satan, in the promise, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman?” But woman must be truly meek to fulfill this her promised destiny

Though this is written about another passage, I find it consistent with and supportive of a similar perspective on 1 Timothy 2:11-15.