God’s design for marriage
In Genesis we read:
And the Lord God said, "It
is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for
him." . . . So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and
while he was sleeping, He took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place
with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib (side) he had taken out
of the man, and he brought her to the man. (Gen 2:18, 21 22)
Why did God do it that way?
Why
create one being and then take a part of that being and create a second,
differentiated yet complementary being who is "bone of his bones and flesh
of his flesh," a being who is sexually, emotionally and in other ways
different, yet of his own substance? Upon seeing her, Adam could have observed,
"It's me . . . but not me." Well, if you think about it, it does sound
like the kind of thing you might expect a Trinity to do.
Why did God do it that way?
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| Happy couples |
The Trinity (Father, Son, Holy
Spirit) is a family, and thus man in God's image must be made a family as well.
Therefore, a man cannot completely realize the essence of his existence until he learns to exist with someone and for someone. Both relationship and communion are crucial to this process.
Therefore, a man cannot completely realize the essence of his existence until he learns to exist with someone and for someone. Both relationship and communion are crucial to this process.
And so we see from Genesis 1 and
2 that God created woman from the side of man so that the man would not be
alone. From the teaching of the New Testament, saints have since discovered
that He also created the Church from the side of the second Adam—Christ—for the
same reason—for intimate fellowship.
Back in the Genesis account, we
note that the newly created Eve was Adam — his very flesh and bone, and for
that reason, the Bible says, Adam called her woman, and, for that reason a man
is to leave mother and father and be united to his wife to become one flesh
(v24).
For what reason is man to marry a
wife? Because woman was originally a constituent part of man, she must return to
become one with him again, so that the full expression and design of God's
image in human beings can be revealed.
Here we have another parallel
between the Old Testament type and the New Testament fulfilment. Eve was to
reunite with her source and become one with him—just as we are with Christ, as
He prayed in John 17. Sexuality, therefore, is a prefigurement of the intimate
relationship that God desires to have with man. In fact, the marital union and
covenant, in all its dimensions, is meant to gloriously reveal the very image
of God in ways that we can only begin to understand.
Ah, but there's more to this
mystery than can be seen on the surface. The union of a man and a woman in Holy
Matrimony is not literally the permanent recombining of two bodies into one.
This is mystery that reaches depths of meaning beyond what our present
intellectual capacity can grasp.
Clearly however, what woman is as
a part of man is not tied to individuated pieces of flesh and bone, but is far
broader and more profound than that. She is the necessary compliment to him
that together reveals the glory of the image of God in humanity. Her parts and
his parts each have their own order and function. Together and rightly ordered,
their united differences ignite the power and glory of creation itself, which
is the consummate activity of God from the beginning.
So God does a two stage creation
of man. First he makes the full orbed being (Adam, which in the Hebrew means,
mankind). Then in phase two, God removes woman from Adam's side and makes Eve a
separate being, though of Adam's substance, designed to ultimately reunite to
her source through the mystery of Holy Matrimony.
And the spark, the power of that
union is meant to gloriously reveal the very image of God to angels and
archangels and all the company of heaven and earth. That is why Satan fights
tooth and nail to pervert and distort rightly ordered human sexuality, holy
matrimony, the family, and fatherhood in particular.
In fact, the amount of time and
effort that Satan expends to destroy the image of God reflected in marriage,
fatherhood and human sexuality is a barometer of just how incredibly important
it is to God's plan and the expression of His glory.
Beloved, there is a profound and awesome
reason for the way God ordered the creation of man—one that is commented on
throughout Scripture, and one that we must observe if we are to find the fulfillment
of our very being as humans. It is ordered as the union of a man and a woman in
marriage—heterosexual and monogamous—an order that Jesus unambiguously
reaffirmed in Matthew.
By Focus on The Family.
By Focus on The Family.
