The following message, the facts, importance, and the reach of the creation order was given by Bill Eimwechter at the Regional Uniting Church and Family Conference in Wake Forest, North Carolina in 2008. Well, good morning to you. It's good to be with you. I'm traveling down from the state of Pennsylvania with my one son and two daughters. It's a great joy to have a part in the work that is taking place here in North Carolina and to the work of Scott Brown and his elders, the National Center for Family and Great Churches.

My subject today is Men and Women in Creation Order and there is an outline that is going to be passed out to you now by three of the gentlemen here. I'm going to be covering a lot of material And I thought it would be very helpful if you could have this printed outline before you as we go down through these points and these sections. And furthermore, if you forget everything I say, you'll have the scriptures that you can study on your own afterwards and you can compare those scriptures with the basic points that are being stated there within the outline. We have quite a few of these outlines. There should be enough for most there in your family.

And so, I'm sure you'll get one of those. I'm going to begin now. And if you don't get one, just raise your hand and they will bring that to you. The discussion and the debate in the church over the relationship between men and women and their roles in the family, church and society was recently renewed and energized when John McCain chose Sarah Palin, a married woman and mother of five children, to be his running mate and candidate for the office of the Vice President of the United States. This surprising choice was praised by, and large, by evangelical leaders who saw in her a strong conservative politician who would defend and promote the social values and political issues most important to evangelical Christians.

But there was something amiss in the enthusiastic conservative evangelical support of Sarah Palin. The world saw it. Feminists saw it. Christian egalitarians saw it. A few conservative Christians saw it.

But apparently, the majority of conservative evangelicals who were known for promoting the traditional family, for speaking out against feminism, and for teaching that men and women have separate and distinct roles by divine design did not see it. Three questions need to be asked here in this regard. How is it that these leaders who said they believe that homemaking and motherhood are high callings from God and must have priority for wives and mothers, could give enthusiastic support to a wife and mother of five, one being a baby, who makes the pursuit of high political office her priority. Number two, How is it that these leaders who have stood often courageously against the feminist movement and its destructive influence on the family, the church, and society could give enthusiastic support to a woman who embodied the goals, demeanor, and lifestyle promoted by feminism? Number three, how is it that these leaders who have said that they believe that male headship is part of the creation order and have taught that a woman is under the authority of her husband in the home and is not permitted to teach or rule in the church, how is it that they could say that a wife and mother is permitted and qualified to rule over men and nations in the political sphere?

The inconsistency of conservative Christian support of Sarah Palin was pointed out by various writers and national columnists, both non-Christian and Christian. In view of these critiques, in view of these articles that showed this inconsistency, How did the conservative evangelicals respond? How did they defend their endorsement of a wife and mother of five for the office of the Vice Presidency of the United States? How did they turn away the charge of inconsistency? First of all, they did so by arguing that while the New Testament teaches that the husband is the head of the wife and that women are not to serve as leaders in the church, they said the New Testament is silent on the issue of women's civil rulers.

Therefore, it's OK. Must be OK. Secondly, they argued that the Bible limits the complementarian relationship between men and women to only two spheres of life, family and church. But in the civil and social spheres, egalitarianism is the standard. And so women ruling over men is biblically acceptable.

Perhaps I should pause here for a moment though before I go any further and I use these terms complementarianism and egalitarianism. I ought to define them. When we speak of complementarianism, we talk of the view that God has granted man authority or headship over the woman and that men and women have separate and distinct roles to fulfill by divine calling. And in carrying out their God-given roles and responsibilities, men and women complement one another. Egalitarianism is the view that affirms the equality of men and women in terms of leadership potential and role fulfillment.

Thus this view denies that God has granted man authority over the woman, and it denies that there are separate, distinct, God-given roles for men and women, and the distinctions that we see in the Bible are merely cultural. It is widely recognized that the Bible has established, the Word of God establishes three spheres of government. Spheres wherein God exercises or delegates his authority to men for the ordering of human life. There's the family government, church government, and civil government. And I don't think any of those who were involved in this debate over the biblical acceptability of Sarah Palin would deny that.

But it appears the complementarians who supported, or perhaps at least did not oppose, Mrs. Palin, only applied their complementarianism, that is as we just defined it, to two spheres, family and church. And this is why they could support her for the vice presidency. And it comes down to this, though I doubt they'd be comfortable in stating it this way. They believe, these complementarians believe, that in the civil sphere of life, egalitarianism is the biblical standard.

Now, Wayne Grudem, in his very well-researched and written book, a good book, Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth, calls this position two-point, I'm quoting him, two-point complementarianism. And his intent in labeling his view two-point complementarianism is to contrast with the view that he calls one point complementarianism. That is that complementarianism only applies in the family and it does not apply in the church. But there is another position that Mr. Grudem ignores.

This is the historic position of the Reformed Church. And that is the complementarianism applies to all three governments established by God. And if we would use then Grudem's designations as a model, we could call this historic view three-point complementarianism. It is essential for us to understand that the complementarianism of men like Grudem, Albert Mohler, Richard Land, and David Cotter, to name a few good brothers. We thank God for them.

However, we need to understand that their view of complementarianism must be called semi-complementarianism or partial complementarianism in view of the relationship of men and women. Because in terms of the three spheres of life, family, church, and society, family, church, and state, they are, in their own words, two-point complementarians, and by implication, one-point egalitarians. Again, we're still discussing how they defended their position. That was by limiting the complementarian roles to two areas. The third way in which they defended their position is they denied, if not explicitly, at least by implication.

They denied that the creation order of male headship applies to the social sphere of life. That it applies to, it does not apply, you should say, to civil government. They contend, so it seems, that the creation order, which is the subject of this lecture, that the creation order is limited in its application to the spheres of church and family. And so, their position is essentially this. The creation order does not apply to all spheres of creation.

Now, evangelical egalitarianism is rigorously consistent in its application of its view of men and women to all spheres of life. And there are no internal contradictions within their system. They believe that the creation order establishes full equality, both essential and functional, between men and women in every area of life and every sphere of government. Semi-complementarianism is not consistent in its application of its position and it denies that the creation order applies to all areas of life, all spheres of government. And it leads to internal contradictions in the system, and to some I would call absurdities.

That God approves, for example, that God approves a woman like Sarah Palin to be, at least potentially, the President of the United States, ruling over men and nations, the leader of the free world, as we call our president, and in leading the nation and free world, she would be leading pastors and husbands. But God approves of this, but He does not permit her to lead her own household or to rule in a church. The purpose of this lecture is to present the biblical teaching on the creation order as it relates to man and woman and to seek to demonstrate its application to all spheres of life and to the three governments established by God, family, church, and state. We begin by looking at the definition of the creation order. What do we mean when we speak of the creation order?

See, Stephen Evans defines the creation order in this way. Law-like structure or order that is rooted in God's intentions at creation. End of quote from Mr. Evans. J.M.

Speer, in his book An Introduction to Christian Philosophy says this, as the creator, God is a sovereign ruler. All creation is absolutely dependent upon Him. He has placed it under law. When we say that God has placed His entire creation under law, we include under the term law all divine ordinances and norms which have their origin in the sovereign will of the creator and apply to all creation. The entire cosmos is subject to divine law.

All creation must obey its maker. Law is the expression of his will. He is the lawgiver." The creation order then is a comprehensive idea that indicates that all of the creation is determined by and subject to the sovereign will of God. All things have their origin in the mind of God and take their place in the cosmos according to the all wise plan of God. Nothing is arbitrary, undetermined, or the expression of chaos.

Instead everything is meaningful, is expressive of divine purpose, and is perfectly coherent with all other aspects of creation. The place, meaning and purpose of everything is determined by God. This is what we mean by the creation order. Now this means there are no brute facts in the universe. The word brute facts in this sentence means a meaningless fact such as the moon in the sky.

It's just a brute fact. It is just there. It has no meaning. To use an example, because God is the creator and he's determined all things, there is absolutely no meaningless facts in the universe and every fact, everything has meaning according to the plan of God. He assigns the meaning and the place, not man.

Therefore, if man is to know anything truly, he must submit himself to God's interpretation of the facts of creation. And God has given that interpretation to the level and degree in which we need to know that interpretation in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. Materialism and atheistic evolution maintain that all the facts of the universe are brute facts. They're all meaningless. They have no inherent purpose.

They came out of chaos, and they will return to chaos. They just are. And that includes man himself. And even though man is in rebellion to God, the majority of men have not been willing to accept this premise of their own meaninglessness or the meaningless of the world they live in or of the history they experience. But instead of submitting to God's interpretation of themselves and the world and finding true meaning therein, rebellious men have set themselves up as the ultimate interpreters of reality and the ones who determine the meaning of themselves and the particular meaning of any fact of science, history, or experience.

A term that is often used by theologians to express the notion of the creation order and the fact that the creation order reflects the will of God and imposes obligation on mankind is the term creation ordinance. Creation ordinance. Walter Kaiser in his book Towards Old Testament Ethics says that the creation ordinances reflect the work of God in creation and depict the constitution of things as they were intended to be from the Creator's hand. They cover and regulate the whole gamut of life." End of quote. The creation ordinances are revealed in Genesis chapter 1 and 2 and include man's duty to take dominion over the earth, to care for it, to rule over it and all the creatures therein, and to find fulfillment in productive labor, to rest on the Sabbath, and to join his husband and wife in marriage and in that relationship to be fruitful and multiply.

The creation ordinances established the pattern for man's life in the world, all aspects of his life in the world. It speaks of his dominion calling, of his worship, of his work, of his rest, and his differentiation as male and female. The creation ordinances have never been repealed. And they bind all men in all places and in all aspects of life. The fall did not destroy these ordinances.

It destroyed man's willing submission to them and his rebellion against them. But they did not destroy God's will for his creation. And so reviewing the creation order is a comprehensive idea that indicates that all of the creation is determined by and subject to the sovereign will of God. And that all things have their origin in the mind of God and take their place in the cosmos according to the all wise plan of God. Nothing is arbitrary, undetermined, or the expression of chaos.

Instead everything is meaningful, is expressive of divine purpose, and is perfectly coherent with all other aspects of creation. The place, the meaning, and the purpose of everything is determined by the Creator, the sovereign God of heaven and earth. Now, how does the idea of the creation order apply to man and woman? Well, man and woman, speaking in the singular or we could speak in the plural, men and women are part of the creation order. Hence, men and women have their origin in the mind of God And their place in the creation has been determined by God.

And they also sustain a relationship to one another, both material and social, and to the rest of creation according to the sovereign all wise will of God. And their individual roles are expressive of the plan of God. The plan of God. The plan of God. The plan of the Creator for them.

Man and woman, the male and female genders are not brute facts. And man is not at liberty to interpret or assign meaning to the fact that humanity exists in two distinct genders, according to his own reason or on the basis of his own experience. The only infallible standard for understanding the meaning, purpose, and roles of man and woman is the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. Everything else is speculation, opinion. It is not knowledge.

The fundamental presupposition in regard to human knowledge that is derived from the doctrine that God created all things in the space of six days and all very good is that man cannot truly know anything unless he submits himself to God's own interpretation of the creation given in his inerrant and infallible word. Thus, the questions we face in regard to the relationship of men and women to one another and their roles in family, church, and society can only be answered by a grammatical historical interpretation of the scriptures. The English word order proves helpful for us in organizing our study this morning. The study on the biblical teaching of the creation order in regard to men and women. There are three senses in which the English word order is used.

Number one, a fixed or definite plan, system, or law of arrangement. Number two, the sequence of arrangement of events or things. And number three, social position or rank in the community. All three aspects of this definition apply to the creation order in regard to men and women. And points A, B, C under number two express these three senses.

First of all, men and women are part of a fixed and definite plan or law of arrangement established by God. Number two, men and women were created according to a divinely determined time sequence. And that is a significant factor. It's not arbitrary. It's not a brute fact.

There is a meaning to the sequence. How do we know the meaning? The Bible tells us the meaning of that sequence. And number three, they've been assigned a definite social position and rank in family, church, and society by their creator. And so let us look now at the revelation of the creation order for men and women.

And I'd like you to turn your Bibles to Genesis chapter 1. I'm going to read these verses and then I will only be referring to them from that point on. You'd be wise to keep your Bible open. You can look at them as I refer to them as we go through this. Because of time, I'll only read some selected portions.

Genesis chapter 1 verse 26. We're in the sixth day and God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God created he him, male and female created he them. Genesis chapter two, verse seven, or verse four, excuse me, verse four.

These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. And every plant of the field before it was in the earth and every herb of the field before it grew, for the Lord God did not cause the terrain upon the earth and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And man became a living soul.

And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the garden, made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life also in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Verse 15, and the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden, thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it.

For in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." And the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him and help me for him. And out of the ground, the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them. And whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle and to the fowls of the air and to every beast of the field.

But for Adam, there was not found and help meet for him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept, and he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.

Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave unto his wife and they shall be one flesh. Here we have the revelation of the creation order for men and women according to the inspired text of Holy Scripture. I would like you to know with me first of all as we look at this revelation that the creation of the man and the woman on the sixth day fulfills the good and wise plan of God. According to his good pleasure, according to his own sovereign and immutable will, God determined to create mankind in his own image and to make mankind both male and female. There was nothing necessitating that God would do the creation in this way.

It's hard for us to think outside of the facts revealed in the Scripture, but God did not have to make man in His own image. But because of the perfection of His plan and the wisdom of His will for the fulfillment of his own glory, he made man in his own image. In Genesis 1 and 2, we have the divine record of the fulfillment of God's will with the creation of man and woman on the sixth day. The creative activity of the first six and a half days leads up to man who is the crown of creation, the highest of the wonderful works of God. And God has created the world and made it the perfect home for man and now he makes the man, puts him in the garden and gives him dominion over it.

I want you to know with me three things here concerning the creation of man. And we are moving in a survey fashion here. Each one of these points could be developed. We do not have time to do that today. But first of all, man is made in the image and likeness of God.

The reference there in your Bible to Genesis 5, 1, if you just turn there quickly, we have a restatement of the facts of the creation of man. This is the book of the generation of Adam in the day that God created him. In the likeness of God made he him. Male and female created He them and blessed them and called their name Adam in the day when they were created. Man is made in the image and likeness of God.

According to the account of scripture, only man is said to have been made in the image of God. In fact, nowhere else in scripture is that description given. It's not given of the archangels, it's not given of the angels, it is only given of man in the word of God. He is unique of all the works of God. The image of God in man consists in a moral and spiritual likeness to God.

It is not a physical likeness. God is spirit. When we say man is made in the image of God, we refer to the fact that God has made him as a rational, self-conscious being, able to exercise his will in deliberate choices. He is also a moral being with a sense of right and wrong, of justice and injustice. He is a person capable of love and of hate.

He is God's representative and invested with authority to govern the earth. Number two, we see that man is created male and female. Mankind exists as male and female. Hence we say there are two kinds of humanity, male humanity and female humanity. Both are equally human beings, But one has the distinct God-designed characteristics of what he calls maleness, and the other has the distinct God-designed characteristics that he calls femaleness.

And when we speak of male and female, we're talking about more than mere physical differentiation for the sake of biological reproduction. If you read the Genesis account of creation, we see that God made the fish, the birds, and the land animals, and he gave them the dominion mandate of this one very limited sense to be fruitful and to multiply, to physically reproduce. Biological reproduction and its characteristics were placed within the animal kingdom. But the text does not say that God made them male and female. And that is significant.

Male and female goes deeper than bodily differences. It includes certain aspects of their souls or the inner man, their inner makeup or disposition is different. Both men and women are self-conscious persons sharing in the rational, emotional, and volitional aspects of mankind. They're both in the image of God. But they exercise these elements of the image of God on the basis of a distinct inner disposition given them to God, by God, a male nature and a female nature.

And anyone who's married knows the truth of that statement. Men and women are different, not just biologically. They think different. They approach problems differently. Their emotions operate differently, and we speak generally here.

Why? Because God made them male and female. The creation order establishes mankind as male and female in accord with the will and purpose of God. The man is given the nature and temperament necessary to fulfill his calling. Everything is orderly.

Everything has a purpose. God gives a role to the man. He gives him the nature and disposition to fulfill that role. God in his wisdom makes the female and gives her specific roles, he gives her the nature and the disposition to fulfill that role. He doesn't give the man the disposition of the woman.

He doesn't give the woman the disposition of the man. There's no confusion. It's all perfectly orderly and perfectly wise. The scripture, this is the point that we are trying to continually hammer home here. The scripture interprets, and when I speak interpret, we use the word interpret, I mean gives the reason for, the scripture interprets the plan of God for making mankind and male and female in the many passages, in the many passages in scripture that teach on their role relationships to one another, in terms of two things, authority and roles.

The Bible interprets for us why there are men and women. It's not up to you to interpret that. It's not up to you on the basis of your own reason, of your own experience to assign significance to this fact. You may do so contrary or in disregard to the word of God, but you do so without God's sanction. And you do so to your own detriment.

Man is created male and female. Number three, man is charged to take dominion over the world. Man is God's representative. He is placed as ruler over the earth. He takes dominion.

He fulfills his calling when he obeys the commands to be fruitful, to fill the earth, and to subdue it. The dominion mandate instructs man to develop the natural resources of the earth so that the full potential of the creation can be realized to the glory of God. It places all things under man's feet and charges him to utilize these things in the development of the world and of human culture that is marked by righteousness. Notice that the dominion mandate is given to both the man and the woman in the biblical text. Therefore we can conclude it can only be fulfilled if they work together.

And They also work together in accord with God's interpretation of their role and their place in terms of authority. These are very important points and I want to summarize these before we move on to point B. What are the implications of what we've just said here? First of all, both the man and the woman are made in the image of God. Both are bearers of his image.

In their essential nature as human beings they are equal, but in their basic constitution, excuse me, I shouldn't say but, I mean just continue that phrase, in their essential nature they're equal, in their basic constitution they possess, both of them, all the elements of human personality, intellect, emotion and will. But the man and the woman are different in that God has created them as male and female. Humanity is not unisexual, but bisexual. There are two dimensions to humanity, And these differences extend beyond the physical. These differences refer to their inner nature, disposition, and temperament.

And these differences are not arbitrary, but are part of the created order. According to the word of God, he made them male and female. They're part of the all wise plan of God for mankind and prepare both the man and the woman to fulfill their own unique roles in that plan. Maybe we could do a very simple illustration and analogy here. The basic physique of the human body and its outward appendages was designed by God for two legs, two arms, two hands, and even that important faculties of hearing and seeing, two ears and two eyes.

They perfectly balance one another. They work together. Physically, man is bi-dimensional. So is man bi-dimensional in terms of his inner disposition and make up as male and female. To ignore that is to like tie one hand behind your back as you go forward in life as a married couple for example.

Or to hop along on one leg. It's when they work together, the full beauty, power of the human body reaches its potential. And I believe the full beauty and power of humanity reaches its potential in the mystery and the glory of marriage when God brings together male and female in marriage and they blend together now as one person to function together according to their unique perspectives and gifts in life to make, as it were, a whole man. And I'm using man there in the generic sense, not the sense of male or female. That mankind is made in the image of God, is made male and female, that we're responsible to take dominion in the world are all part of the creation order.

And these truths necessarily, in my opinion, I'd like to see arguments to the contrary, they necessarily apply to all areas of life. The maleness and the femaleness of mankind does not stop when you move from one sphere to the next. The woman does not become a man in disposition and calling and character because she's running for the vice presidency of the United States. The creator has established the order. We are called upon to understand it and respect it and to live it.

But this is not just a logical deduction that we're making. As we will show in our survey that's coming up, the remainder of our time, particularly when we look at the third main point of the confirmation of the creation order for men and women in the rest of the Bible, the scripture is filled with teaching and explicit interpretation that tells us that the creation order has this significance. But even if we didn't have those scriptures, these deductions would be necessary and good and inescapable. But we're not just left to the proper biblical hermeneutic of good and necessary consequence. We're actually given explicit statements to tell us these things.

Point number B, under the revelation of the creation of men and women, the manner and sequence of the creation of the first man and the first woman on the sixth day is based on the plan of God and establishes the positional priority, not the essential priority. They are equal in essence in terms of they both bear the image of God, but in their position in terms of headship, it establishes the positional priority of the man over the woman. First of all, we see that man is created first in a manner that is distinct from the woman. This order of creation that man was created first is expressive of the creation order itself. It's a manifestation of God's plan for man and for woman.

This is not an arbitrary thing. Oh, I think I'll create the man first. No significance to it. No meaning. I'm just going to do it that way.

God does nothing that way. And the fact that the man was created first is loaded with significance because God did it. What is the significance? Well, again, we're not left to deductions. We will see in a moment that Paul gives an inspired interpretation of that order for us.

Now Genesis chapter two begins in verse four. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth. What we have in chapter two are further details of the creation of man and woman that was stated in chapter one. Really this begins with what we call the first history of Genesis. And King James is translated by the word generations.

The Hebrew word toledoth probably means something like this. This is what became of. And then it takes the point of origin and then moves through the history of a particular phase or particular person. What became of the heavens and the earth that God made? Well, let's take a close look at this is what the writer says.

And the first thing he's going to explain to us is give us more detail about the creation of the man and the woman, their order of creation, the distinction of their creation, because that is important to understanding what becomes of mankind. So he's going to give us the interpretation and further details here. Man is created first and in a manner that's distinct from the woman. As we saw in Genesis 1, it merely states that God created man in the image of God. Male and female created he them.

From the text, one could deduce that they were made in the same way at the very same instance or instant. However, Genesis 2 shows us they were made at different times and get this, in a different manner. Man was made first and from the dust of the ground. Verse 7. We're told that God formed him from the earth.

The Hebrew word, Adamah. And he made Adam from Adamah. He made him from the ground. And it says he breathed into him the breath of life. Thus he became a living being, a man with a body and a soul.

Significantly, the creation of the woman does not follow directly after the creation of the man. Not only were they created simultaneously, there was a gap between the creation of the man and the woman, and certain things happened. Certain instructions are given to the man before the woman is even on the scene. Just brute fact, meaningless. I hope you're seeing my point.

Nothing is of that nature. The challenge is to understand what is the significance of this. What we do see here, the text tells us that the man was first placed in the Garden of Eden alone before the womb was created. He himself was given a charge to keep the garden, to dress it, to bestow labor on it, keep it in good order, to practice the arts of husbandry. The second thing we see is that he is instructed concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and commanded not to eat of it.

He's given his labor responsibilities and he's given his moral responsibilities under the law of God to obey God, the very fundamental duty of man, to obey the commandments of the living God, and not to question why, wherefore, but to obey. The third thing we see in the gap between the creation of the man and the woman is he's given the task of naming the animals in the garden. This is significant because if you study the biblical text, you will see that the power to name is indicative of authority over the one named, at least positional priority. This demonstrates Adam's positional priority over the animals. The second thing that we note in chapter 2 is The woman is created after the man and from the man.

The fact that the woman was not created at the same time and that she was created in an entirely different manner than the man, I think is one of the most striking elements in the entire creation account. Have you thought on it? Have you noted this? There's a reason for it, and that reason's recorded in the word of God. The reason is this is indicative of a difference between the roles of responsibility, between the headship of men and women, and it's by God's design.

A woman does not occupy the position of a man, never has in God's order, and never will in God's order. The man does not occupy the position of the woman. He never has in God's order and he never will in God's order. Now men might turn that order upside down. They might trash it.

They might ignore it. But they will to their own sorrow. What we see here at the creation of the man and the woman, at the fundamental point of origin, the man and the woman are clearly distinguished. And this is not an issue of merely biological reproduction, but of their essential function and position, even their own being. Note the following concerning the creation here of the woman.

The woman is not created directly from the ground like Adam. Isn't that striking? He doesn't take the ground and make her. Instead, she is made from a part of Adam's own body, from one of his ribs. What this tells us is she derives, womankind at the very beginning derives her physical being from the man.

Her origin is literally from the man. Man's origin is not literally from her. His origin is literally from the ground where God created him. Here's something else that's very significant you may have never thought of and I don't know how far we can go in discussing or even fully understanding this one. But the text does not say this.

And God caused this deep sleep to fall upon Adam. He slept. He took one of the ribs, closed up the flesh thereof and the rib which the Lord God had taken, he made the woman and then breathed into her nostrils the breath of life. Not in there. By saying that, we're not denying that she didn't have life at all.

Of course she did. What does that indicate? If the fact that she was made from man's body, the fact that the text does not say that God then breathed into her nostrils the breath of life, may, and I say may, indicate that she has also derived the immaterial aspect of her life in a way that would be obviously mysterious to us, but we shouldn't be stumbled by that. Do you understand how your children get their souls? I don't.

In fact, there's a big debate in the church about this throughout church history. There's two basic views. One, I believe, is called traducianism, which says that the children actually derive their souls, their immaterial being, from their parents. The other view is what we call creationism, and that is that God creates the individual soul of each child after physical conception, or at the same time, whatever the timing is there. I lean toward traditionism because of the idea of the inheritance of sin.

But this is all mystery. It is beyond me. It is too wonderful for me to even understand how these things happen. But I don't need to fully understand. I need to take doctrine where it leads me.

In other words, if you believe in traducianism, you could also believe that Eve derived the immaterial part of her being, also in some mysterious way, that the creator worked from the man himself. Now why did God create woman in this way? Two things, to establish the unity of the human race through common descent from Adam, This is very essential. Adam is the father of us all, even of Eve, the first woman. All of us derive our origin from him.

But importantly, in terms of sin and redemption, Adam is the federal head, the representative of all mankind. And his actions in the garden in regard to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he acts for every one of us. His guilt becomes ours. Wow, that's not fair. Well, I guess it's not fair then for Christ's righteousness to become yours by something he did when he gave his life on the cross.

It's imputed to us for the grace of God without any works on our part. See, the Bible in God's world, there's such a thing as federal representation. And certain ones put in certain positions act to the blessing or cursing of those under them. And by the way, that applies to parents. Read the Ten Commandments.

God promises, God threatens, He warns He will curse to the third and fourth generation, our children in terms of our sins. We don't, I bring that up, I probably am again, that rabbit that Brother Pollard saw, I just saw, and I need to stop because I can't go there right now. We got to keep on our subject here. But God has given to us a redeemer. And He is our federal head.

He's the second Adam. As all men die in Adam, all men, which is defined by scripture further on, all men who believe in Him will live. The second reason why He created the woman from the man was to establish the proper relationship between the man and the woman. In other words, this whole scenario of the timing and manner of her creation is indicating the positional priority of the man over the woman. And this one may be hard for some.

Not only the positional priority, but the essential dependence of the woman on the man. Number three, the mannered sequence. The woman was created for the purpose of being man's helper. This is a very important revelation concerning the creation order. The text is explicit.

It tells us exactly why God made the woman, in terms of the man, to serve as his helper. In anticipation of the woman's creation, as we read there, God declares that it is not good for man to be alone. He then brings all these animals to Adam to name and through that whole process, Adam begins to realize something. You know, the horse has his companion, there's two of these, two of that. Hey, there's no other man, no other person.

And God then creates the woman, and He specifically declares that she is to be a helper. The word help means one who aids, supports, or assists another. The word means an assistant. Now, the word itself does not necessarily imply subordination. This word help is used repeatedly in the Bible of God being the help of man.

But as always, context determines the meaning of a word. Context must determine the relationship between the helper and the one being assisted. And in the context of Genesis 1 and 2, it can only imply subordination. A leader and an assistant. Man was created first, given charge to keep the garden first, given instruction on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil first.

He has exercised his authority already in naming the animals. And the woman comes into a situation where the man has already been made head over the garden and given the responsibility to keep it. Therefore, in that context, helper means an assistant under the headship of a leader. And this word suggests the positional priority of the man. It teaches this positional priority to the man.

Now the next word meet, M-E-E-T, means corresponding to or comparable to and expresses the notion of one thing being suitable for another. In this context, it suggests that there is a complementarian relationship between the man and the woman, she will not be exactly like the man in all respects, but will be completely suitable to serve as his companion and helper. Now what are the implications of this point, point B, for understanding man and woman in the creation order. And I'm reviewing here. I don't want you to miss this.

Number one, the fact that the man was created from the dust of the ground and the woman was created after the man and from the man establishes the positional priority of the man over the woman in the creation order. The order of creation is a manifestation of the creation order. Sequence of creation is a manifestation of the creation order, which itself is a manifestation of God's sovereign will and plan. Number two, the fact that the woman was created to be the man's helper and assistant establishes the positional priority of the man over the woman. Number three, this positional priority is based on the creation order of male headship.

Number four, the deduction of male headship from the order of creation, man first, and the purpose of woman's creation, to be a helper of man, is confirmed in the rest of Scripture where man is placed in positions of leadership and authority in the family, the church, and the state. And this deduction, or these deductions of male headship from the order of creation is confirmed by the explicit teaching of the apostle Paul. Turn to 1 Timothy 2.13. In the context of discussing the relationship of men and women within the leadership structure of the local church, Paul teaches that the woman is to be in submission And that she is to learn in silence, for God has given to the men the responsibility of teaching and governing. Paul, how could you make such a requirement?

Notice the word for. He's given the reason. For Adam was first formed, and then Eve. According to Paul, the fact that the man was created first is proof that only men are qualified, because God has made that qualification. They're qualified to teach and hold positions of leadership in the church.

Paul appeals to the creation order here to show the doctrine of male headship and its application to the local church. The creation order, though, by the way, doesn't just apply to the church. Not just apply, but it does apply and Paul applies it. And it does apply because it applies to every area of life. In 1 Corinthians Chapter 11 verses 8 and 9, Paul goes to Genesis 1 and 2 and establishes the fact that the woman was created from the man and for the man, that is to be his helper, to prove his doctrine that a woman should cover her head in the meetings of the church as a sign of her submission to God's appointed order of male headship.

And in 1 Corinthians 14, 34, the women are taught to be silent in the meetings of the church and be in submission because this is the teaching of the law. Law here could refer to specific statutes in the Mosaic Covenant law, but more likely, it is a reference to the implications of the creation order in Genesis 1 and 2. All the five books of Moses and the things contained therein, the history, the law, And the application of that law in the more detailed statutes all refer to the five books of Moses, this term law. The Jews referred to the Old Testament which of course not the Old Testament to them, to believing Jews it is today, but the law, the writings and the prophets, they're the three divisions of the Hebrew Bible. And the law refers to the whole revelation of the first five books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

And I think what Paul says here, this law teaches, he's referring to the creation order, which is part of that portion of the Word of God called the law. Point number C, the headship of the man over the woman, and here we're referring to the idea of rank or social position, as we saw in the English word, social, or order. It's indicated by numerous factors in the creation account and the account of man's fall. We have demonstrated, I believe, under points A and B that the creation order places man in a position of headship. In Genesis chapter 3, there's also some further teaching that may be helpful to us in this regard.

And what I'm doing under this point is bringing together all the evidence, some things I've already referred to in passing, some things I've discussed already in some detail, but in this point we're bringing together all the evidence for male headship that's given in Genesis chapter 1, 2, and 3. The man has a position of priority in terms of authority and government over the woman, male over the female. And that expresses itself in the family, in the church, and in the state and in wider society. We've already discussed number one, man is first in the order of creation. Number two, we've discussed this as well.

Man is charged with the duty of keeping the garden and not eating the tree of the knowledge of good and evil before the woman is created. Number three, we've discussed this already. Woman is made from the man and for the man to be his helper. Here's one we haven't discussed. Number four, a man names the first woman.

As we have already seen, one of the first responsibilities of Adam was to name every beast of the field and every fowl of the air. This was an exercise of his grant of dominion, and it showed his authority over the animal kingdom. Now after the woman is created, he also names her and right in the context where he's just named the animals and of course there's absolutely no suggestion that the woman is on that level. She's on an entirely different level according to the Scriptures. She's made the image of God.

She's not an animal. She shares the image with Adam. But it's significant here that he names the woman. And if his action of naming the birds and the beast indicates his authority over them, we conclude that his action of naming the woman indicates his headship over her. In the Bible, the right to name belongs to those who have positional priority over the person's name.

Look back to Genesis 5, 2 that we read there. Who names man? The one who stands in positional priority directly over him, the living God. Male and female created He then, blessed them and He called their name Adam in the day when He was created. We also see throughout Scripture parents giving the name to their children.

The authority to name shows positional priority. In the text of Genesis 1 through 3, the man gives the woman her generic name in chapter 123 to show her origin for man and her distinction for man. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of the man. In Hebrew, it says she shall be called Isha because she was taken out of Ish. And those are the gender-specific terms.

Ish means male, Isha, female. They are one. They share the image of God, but one is Ish, and the other is Isha, and Adam recognized it, and he named her accordingly. In Genesis 3.20, he gives the personal name to Eve. And Adam called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.

Number five, man is charged with taking the initiative for establishing a marriage in a new household. That is given to us in Genesis chapter 2 and verse 24. Now there's some debate over whether or not these words were spoken to the man originally in the Garden of Eden or whether or not they are commentary on the significance of the creation of the woman from the man that was later revealed through Moses. I lean to the latter interpretation. Regardless, the headship of man is further revealed by this fact that he is charged with the responsibility of establishing a marriage and a new household.

He takes the initiative. He takes the lead. Number six, mankind is designated by the name of the first man, Adam. Genesis 5, 2. The Hebrew word Adam is always used in the singular number in the Old Testament.

It's never used in the plural. It never means men. It means man. It's used in three ways. It's used of mankind.

It's a collective term to refer to the whole human race. It's sometimes used of a man, that is a male, but always in the individual designation. And it's also used as the name of the first man, of Adam, as we call him. Man's unique position as the head of the race and his headship over the woman is seen by the fact that God names mankind by the name of Adam. Doesn't name mankind by the name of Eve.

Number seven, man's fall into sin took place in a context where the role relationship established in Genesis one and two was reversed. It is significant that the serpent chooses to approach the woman rather than the man with his temptation to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Most likely, he thought that he stood a better chance of success by seducing man's assistant. Through her, he hoped to bring man down and he was fully successful. In the Genesis account, and we didn't take the time to read that today, I'm assuming you're all familiar with it, the woman falls, The woman sins first.

But in the account we see that she fails in that she acts independently of Adam. She does not submit herself to his leadership. And we see that the man fails in this account in that he heeds the voice of his wife and submits to her decision rather than obeying the word of God. Now the apostle Paul appeals to the account of the fall to support his doctrine of male headship in the church. First Timothy 2.14 says Adam was, or the man was created first And the man was not deceived, but the woman was deceived, falling to the deception of the serpent.

Now Paul does not give an extensive explanation of how the account of the fall supports the order of male headship, but it is clear that he teaches that very fact. And he bases his view on the fact, on the significance of this thing, that she was deceived. What can we deduce from that? I'm going to suggest a deduction. Paul's point is the woman's nature, the divinely appointed female disposition, and her natural dependence on man, which again was also in accord with the creation order, was not dreamed up by some patriarchal zealots who wanted to push women into their place.

It's a divine interpretation of that relationship. Her disposition makes her more susceptible to deception. She wasn't created to be the one to take the role in teaching and leading and was to defer to the man. It doesn't mean women don't have a conscience. It doesn't mean they do not have to judge the word of God.

They're not to be put in positions of leadership in the teaching of the word in family, in church, or in the state as the magistrate would apply the law of God. When the creation order is ignored and men and women act contrary to their appointed places and roles, we give place to the devil. Using Paul's term in another text, that is we give him a beach head of operation. We give him an opening. We give place to the devil and provide the optimum setting for the corruption of the word of God.

Finally, and here we are only going to note these scriptures. Our time is just about up. I believe I have until 12. As I said to Scott, I'll take every minute of it. There's so much here, but points B, C, D, and, oh, not another C, E.

That should be an E. I'm sorry about that. Please correct that. Are there for your consideration to look up those scriptures and to see the distinction there. I just want to talk about yet 1st Corinthians 11.3 and then I'll be done.

But we need to understand that this creation order that we see in Genesis 1 and 2, and the events also that surrounded the fall, the teaching here that establishes the positional priority of the man is confirmed and explicitly applied to all spheres of life in Scripture. Again, this is not just a simple deduction, oh it's a creation order, it should apply to all creation. That's a valid deduction. It's a good and necessary deduction. But the Bible helps us there and goes beyond that and applies it directly to all spheres, all of them.

In the inspired word of God, Genesis through Revelation, and I don't want... I shudder to think of Christians who say, well, I just follow the New Testament. Well, if you're just going to follow the New Testament in your consideration of the authority of Scripture over your life, please begin with 2 Timothy 3 in verse 16. All Scripture. And in the context when the New Testament itself had not been yet completely formed or brought together into a canon of scripture, when Paul speaks of all scripture, all the inspired writings, he means all of the Old Testament passages, all of the scriptures, all of the verses, every one of them.

He says all scripture, old in New Testament, as we now have the New Testament in its completion and Paul knew it was being written and he would have had that under his thinking as well. But I think contextually his primary references is to the Old Testament scripture because even in verse 15 when he talks of Timothy knowing from the Holy Scriptures, wise unto salvation from the teaching of his mother and grandmother, the New Testament had been written when that was taught to Timothy. He's referring to all scripture. It's given by inspiration of God. It's the very word of the living God.

And it's profitable for who? For Christians. For doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, in other words, for everything you need in your life. You need Genesis through revelation. All of it.

That the man of God may be perfect or mature or literally fully equipped. You will not be a fully equipped Christian if you believe authoritative revelation for you begins with Matthew. Fully equipped unto all good works. In other words, what is a good work? It's doing the will of God.

To do all good works is to understand the will of God for all areas of your life. And so when we say that the rest of the Bible confirms this, we mean all scripture confirms it. Walter Kaiser makes this very important observation on the fact that Scripture upholds the creation order. I'm giving this quotation from a section where he's discussing the ethics and ethos of Proverbs, wisdom literature, the book of Proverbs. He says, quote, the motivational clauses also reveal the ethos for the admonition in Proverbs.

That ethos is Yahweh's created order and the knowledge of God that is directed by the fear of the Lord. The object of right living is to live in harmony with the created order and the knowledge of God. Only then will fullness, wholeness, success, and avoidance of tragedy be ours, both physically, materially, psychologically, and spiritually. For Proverbs to name one aspect, such as the material success, is to invite success in every other area as well, since life may not be fractured and neatly partitioned as is currently fashionable to do in the West. Now listen to what Kaiser says.

The law promotes the same order that creation initiated and wisdom illuminated. Thus, the ethos of the orders of creation is the ethos of the law, and both form the ethos of wisdom, " end of quote, from toward Old Testament ethics. Kaiser's point is very important. The ethos, and what we mean by that word, is the universal objective characteristics and standards that guide the life of man. The ethos of the creation order is promoted by the law of God and illuminated by the wisdom literature of the Bible.

We can safely say that all of Scripture is engaged in either the promotion of the creation order or the illumination of the creation order. And of course there's another order that comes into play, the redemptive order because of man's sin. This is entirely true of the creation order, that is that scripture either promotes or illuminates this part of the creation order that we're talking about this morning, the positional priority of the man and the submission of the woman to him as his appointed helper. I submit to you that all of scripture promotes and illuminates that created order. And it applies it to all areas of life.

Although the current evangelical definition of complementarianism limits the created order to the spheres of the family and the church, The Bible consistently applies it to all spheres of life. Now, here's the essence. If you don't, again, if you don't remember a lot of what I've said, remember this. The creation order of male and female applies to all of the creation, every area. The first point is the creation order for men and women applies to all aspects of life and in the medatorial kingdom of Christ, 1 Corinthians 11, three, please turn there.

It's the last passage we're going to look at today. Very patient and attentive and I thank you for that. One of the most important confirmations that the creation order applies to all spheres of life as found in 1 Corinthians 11.3. Now, this text could constitute the material for an entire discussion, address, sermon, or lecture. I'm just going to make a few passing comments relevant to our discussion.

In the context, Paul is seeking to correct the abuse of good order in the Corinthian congregation. By the failure, the disorder was by the failure of certain women to observe the apostolic ordinance regarding the woman's need to cover her head in the assembly as a visible sign of her subjection to the divine law of male headship. By the way, 1 Corinthians 11 has two focal points, areas of abuse, and they are the teaching concerning the covering of the head in public worship and the Lord's Supper. Both of these problems in this chapter involve the abuse of visible signs that are intended to cause the church to remember the two main works of God. What are the two main works of God?

Creation and redemption. The ordinance concerning head covering is a symbol of the Creator's sovereignty and divine order for all of life in that it teaches, and you read 1 Corinthians 11, it's talking about the covering of the head, and Paul says it's expressive of the creation order. The Lord's Supper is a visible sign involving bread and wine of the redemption of the elect to the substitutionary death of Christ. No, I'm not saying that head coverings is a third sacrament. Okay, so put that away.

All I'm saying is it's a visible sign that points to the creation order. And therefore it's pretty important. In my opinion, I'm going to say this because you may be wondering, in my opinion, the only position that can be exegetically defended from the 1 Corinthians 11 is that the head covering is head gear, a physical covering in addition to the woman's hair. We'll let that rabbit run by us again. But 1 Corinthians 11, besides all of that, is laying the theological foundation for the practice of this sign of the creation order.

And it's setting forth the divine order of government, the hierarchy of authority for all aspects of man's life in the world. Paul is appealing then to God's appointed order to establish proper decorum in the meetings of the church. The word head that is used here in 1 Corinthians 11 and I guess I ought to read the text, but I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ and the head of the woman is the man and the head of Christ is God. The word head is based on the Hebrew word for head, rosh, which means a chief or a leader, one in position of authority over others. The divine order of authority is thus deduced from the passage here, God, Christ, man, woman, as God is the head of Christ in all areas of the divine government of the world.

So Christ is the head of every man in all aspects of the man's life. Christ is not just the head of the man in the church. He's not just the head of the man in the family. He's the head of the man in society. He is Lord of all.

Christ's headship is absolute. It is significant to note, excuse me, after making those deductions, it's only logical to conclude that it is the man who is in headship over the woman in every aspect of life as well. If you limit his headship to some areas, and you've got to do the same on the other parts of 1 Corinthians 11, 3. Christ's headship is limited. The man's headship is therefore limited.

But if Christ is not, neither is the man's, in terms of whom he has been placed over. That is the spheres over which he governs. But what we ought to also note is that this passage is upholding the same order as the creation order. God, man, woman. But there's a new addition here because of the coming of Christ.

Jesus Christ, the God-man, has taken a position of the Medatorial King. Christ is the divine title for the Messiah. He is the seed of Abraham and the son of David, who has come in fulfillment of the promises of the Abrahamic covenants. Christ is now the appointed mediator between God and man. He stands as a mediator in regard to both the redemption of sinners and the rule of God over the world, which is really the two aspects of the promised covenants, the Abrahamic and the Davidic.

What this means for our subject is that the creation order of man's headship over woman is reaffirmed as the divine order for the mediatorial kingdom of Christ, which is a kingdom that governs all of life. You can look up under my point C on this number four and all of those scriptures that teach the absolute authority of Christ in this era. The faulty claim of the evangelical feminists that Galatians 3.28 is neither male nor female in Christ, this claim that removes the idea of male headship from the Kingdom of Christ is here definitively refuted. In its context, Galatians 3.28 is simply stating the spiritual equality of men and women, the equality of spiritual privilege and the covenantal standing they all share, that all share who believe in Christ, irrespective of ethnic, social, or sexual differences. 1 Corinthians 11, 3 teaches us that the creation order continues in the meteor to a kingdom of Christ.

We see the creation order for men and women applying in marriage and family throughout the Scriptures. There they are. We see that the creation order for men and women applies in the church. There they are. We see that the creation order for men and women apply in the state.

Specifically, just to mention these, we're gonna talk about this in my next talk in the breakout section. It's gonna be developing this next point. But in Exodus 18 21 and Deuteronomy 113, the creation order is applied to God's covenant people in the institution within the unique setting of Old Testament Israel, but that order is upheld in that men are placed in authority. And only men are qualified to serve in God's created order. The creation order, point E, also applies in society.

I think male headship is affirmed in 1 Corinthians 11 and 3 in the Isaiah 3 passage shows what happens when God removes that authority and the staff and stay of male leadership, stable leadership in a society. But furthermore, just by deduction, society is based on the institutions of family, church, and state, is it not? And if all of them have the creation order applied to them, it is necessary to see that society itself is under it. Society is under the creation order and it's under the medatorial kingdom of Christ. Just note two things.

We live in a society that's almost entirely rejected the creation order. Therefore, every aspect of life and every area of government is pretty much out of order today. And you and I seeking to apply the creation order in such a society will find some difficulties and problems and challenges. Sin complicates, righteousness simplifies. We live in a sinful culture and applying these principles can be quite complex at times.

Furthermore, we cannot impose the creation order by force of will upon other people. We cannot impose it on an unwilling society. But here's the point. We can get our own lives in order. We can have our own houses, churches, in order, in obedience to God as a witness to the truth that then can spread throughout the society and bring the blessing and change that is necessary.

In conclusion, I'd like to read these six points that are at the bottom of your page. Read this for the sake of our audio. The creation order reflects the plan of God and establishes the lawful arrangement of all things in the creation. The creation order is universal in terms of time, place, and culture. Number two, male headship is part of the creation order, and thus it applies to all of man's life and all spheres of government, family, church, state, and by extension to society.

Male headship remains in the post-fall world and is affirmed in the Old Testament and is specifically affirmed in the New Testament as part of the order of Christ's mediatorial kingdom. Number three, egalitarianism is false and stands in direct contradiction to the revelation of the creation order in scripture and to the many individual texts that apply, affirm, and uphold the creation order in family, church, and state. Number four, semi-complementarianism or two-point complementarianism is correct in applying the creation order to the family and the church, and I thank God that they've done that. But it is wrong in denying the application of the creation order to civil government in society. Semi-complementarianism is really semi-creation orderism, because it denies that the creation order applies to all spheres of life.

And it also introduces conflict between the various spheres. Where a wife is to be in submission to her husband in the family, rules over him in the civil sphere. Number five, full complementarianism is the biblical model for mankind. Number six, the successful integration of family, church, and society, family, church, and state is based on the fateful application of the creation order to all of these spheres. Walter C.

Kaiser said, and we quoted him earlier, the object of right living is to live in harmony with the created order and the knowledge of God. I'd like to insert the words into his quotation for men and women and read it this way. This is my final thought to you. The object of right living is to live in harmony with the created order for men and women. Only then will fullness, wholeness, success, and avoidance of tragedy be ours, both physically, materially, psychologically, and spiritually.

May God be pleased to bless his word and lead us all into truth as we search the scriptures daily to see if these things be so. Thank you. God bless you.