Is the command to be fruitful and multiply still binding on Christians today?
A viewer relays an apologist's claim that be fruitful and multiply was in force only until the Messiah came, and asks whether that is true or an excuse to limit one's children.
Answer
You have to look at the motive for why people say things, and yes, that is a very popular motive, to start pooh-poohing multiply and fill the earth because you do not want to do it. That could have been Eve's problem from the beginning. God told them to be fruitful and multiply and fill the face of the earth, and that is a lot of work; the temptation Satan set before her was, do you want to be God's slave and produce children, going through the pain and the work, or do you want to float on a cloud and be a god and snap your fingers? Apparently it was very tempting, because she chose what the devil offered, and that is why the punishment was based on childbearing: I will greatly increase the pain of your childbirth, which implies the reason she did not want to do what she was supposed to do is that she did not want children, she wanted to be a god. And it is still in force. Paul says in 1 Timothy 2:15 that the woman will be saved through childbearing, if she continues in love and holiness, which again implies Eve's objection was that she did not want to bear children. The childbearing sets her on the stage, and then she cultivates her salvation through the virtues; but if she refuses childbearing, she is not even on the stage. So yes, it is still in force.