What are the implications that flow from God establishing marriage as the first human institution? How should we understand the importance of “leaving,” “cleaving,” and “oneness” in matrimony? Joel Beeke will answer these questions in light of Genesis 2:18-24: (1) the woman made as a helpmeet for the man; (2) the woman made by God as His special handiwork; and (3) the woman made to be one with the man.
Genesis 2, Genesis 2, 18 through 24, the creation of the woman. That's the topic given to me. And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone, I will make him and help meet 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, to the fowl of the air, 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 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, woman, because she was taken out of man.
Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife and they shall be one flesh." Let's pray. Great God of heaven, bless us now as we consider the creation of the woman and provide for us lessons from this part of Thy Word that will stand us in good stead in our marriages and in understanding what we just heard in the last address about the tenderness of the woman and how we are to treat our wives in such a very special way. Help us now, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen. I want to look at three things with you this morning under the theme of the creation of the woman.
First, the woman made as an help, meat for the man, fitting for the man. Second, the woman made by God as his special handiwork. And third, the woman made to be one, to be one with the man. So the woman as a helpmeet, the woman as a special handiwork of God, and the woman to be one with the man. The passage before us is really a remarkable statement.
It's not good that man should be alone. The negative not good in Hebrew is emphatic. You see, until now, Everything God had done was very good. He's pronounced his own benediction at the end of Genesis 1 on all creation. But here for the first time, it seems that there's something lacking, something not good, not evil in itself, but something missing.
Without female companionship and a partner in reproduction, the man could not fully realize his humanity. So out of this need comes a creation of a woman to be Adam's wife and companion. And after man and woman are completed, then we read that all was very exceedingly good. So the creation of this woman has far reaching consequences. It sets the foundation for the relationship of a husband-wife within marriage.
Also the relationship of Jesus Christ, the husband of his church, and the church as his bride, think Ephesians 5, as well as, which Jeff Johnson's going to look at this afternoon, the function of a man and woman within the church. So I'm going to stay in my lane in this address and just consider with you this text and a few of its ramifications for marriage and spiritual marriage with Jesus Christ. So God's creation of Eve is set in the context of the creation story. The first part of that story is the preparation of the man for the woman's arrival. Adam had been made in God's image.
He was filled with God's pristine glory. And yet God showed Adam that in all the created order, with all of its variety, there was still at this time no creature suited to be his companion. And God chose to teach Adam that in a fascinating way. He brought all the animals to Adam, from the ant to the zebra, and he asked Adam to name them all, to name them in the very essence of what they were. And Adam did that, he had insight to do that.
Verse 20 says that Adam gave names to all cattle to the fowl of the air, to every beast of the field. And then we read these astonishing words, that when Adam was all done, naming the thousands of animals that paraded before him, but, but for Adam, There was not found in hell meat for him. Boys and girls, do you have a dog? How many of you have a dog? How many of you have a cat?
Oh, too many. I get allergic to cats. I've slept in many a bedroom with my wife with a lot of cat hair around and it was not good. But you can get pretty close cancer to your pet right and you love your dog you love your cat but it's not like Will you love your mother? Or your dad or Your brother and sister even though you fight a little bit.
You see, you love your dog because your dog loves you and you feed your dog and you play with your dog and you run with your dog, but you can only reach a certain level with your dog. You can only reach a dog's level. A dog does not have a soul. You cannot talk with your dog about the deepest things of life. And so what happened to Adam was he went through all these animals, but he was still alone.
He needed someone that was more than all the animals, someone prepared to be with him, someone to be his ideal counterpart in this world, someone who like him was made in the very image of God, someone who had a soul. That was Eve. God made Eve as a perfect woman. What a striking woman she must have been. I love Martin Luther's comments.
You know, Luther said just about everything. And he pointed out that Adam must have been an extraordinarily handsome man. He thought that Adam must have excelled the animals even in those points where the animals were strong. Power greater than a lion's, he said, and eyesight sharper than an eagle's. I don't know where he got that in the Bible, but he said it.
But if that was true of Adam, Luther said, what shall we say of Eve? Luther thought Eve must have been as strong and fast and clear sighted and brilliant as Adam. And in addition, he said, she must have had such a beauty and grace that excelled him that you would almost be prone to bow before her. Well, what he was trying to do, of course, was he was just trying to say that pre-fall, both Adam and Eve were in their pristine glory. Sin had not impacted anything about them, or in them, or of them.
And yet, in spite of Eve's physical, mental, and moral excellence, far surpassing a sinful woman's excellence. Verse 18 says, she was made for the man, to be a helpmate, that is to be one suitable to be one who complements, P-L-E, the man. So in this perfect, isn't that something, pre-fall condition, every woman already has a clue to her unique God-given position in marriage. She is to be a help corresponding to the needs of her husband. Now that, or of her need to be obedient to the man in marriage is anathema today.
So many women and even men think these ideas are just simply old-fashioned, unjust, prejudiced against the woman. And one reason we think that is because our fallen nature never likes to surrender its desired independency. And a lady come to me with her husband the first year of their marriage, saying I want to divorce my husband. And I said, why has he been unfaithful to you? She said, no, he doesn't meet all my needs.
And when I said to her that there's no man on earth that can meet all the needs of a woman and no woman on earth that can meet all the needs of a man, she looked very confused. And her husband looked very relieved. But the point was this, you see. Post fall, there is no way that one sinner can meet all the needs of another sinner because we're both sinners and we all need the perfect bridegroom, the Lord Jesus Christ. So it's just impossible to meet all of each other's needs.
But the Bible says we are to be a help to each other. And the woman's role particularly is to deny this inward sinful desire for independency and to be a help to her husband. Now help is not a derogatory term in the Bible. God created us to serve him and to help our neighbor, scripture says. It is an honor, women, to help your husband.
In fact, the word help is a word used for God himself. Did you know that? 10 times in the Psalms alone. If God is not ashamed to be the help of fallen sinners, why should the woman look askance on Eve being the help of her unfallen husband? This is not a degrading position.
The verb form basically means to aid or supply that which the individual cannot supply for himself. The Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, translates it, boethos, which is a word the New Testament uses in the sense of physician, physician. It conveys the idea of aiding someone in need, such as the oppressed. So a godly wife delights to meet the needs of her husband. And the root of the very word to meet in the Hebrew language means the opposite.
In other words, she's according to the opposite of him in certain qualities, meaning that she will compliment him and correspond to him so that what he is lacking, she fills, and vice versa. And that is the idea of marriage pre-fall, meaning that she will correspond to her husband. She's to be equal to her husband, to be adequate for the man, meeting needs he finds difficult to meet or even impossible to meet without her. So exactly though, in what ways are they equal and what way are Adam and Eve not equal? Well, they were certainly both equal and being created in the image of God.
They were both placed under the moral command of God, thus given moral responsibility with all of creation. They were both guilty of disobeying the command of God, Genesis 3, and were therefore judged by God for their disobedience. Paul tells us in Galatians 3 that both men and women are equally object of God's gracious redemption in Jesus. As husband and as wife, a man and a woman are equally called to leave father and mother, to cleave to each other, to love each other as one flesh. And yet, this whole context of Eve's creation shows that there's an inequality in another area.
Because the woman was created for the man, they were not equal, created equal in authority. God has a different authority structure laid out for husbands than he does for wives. And the inequality of that structure doesn't mean, however, that the husband has the advantage over his wife. No, no, He has a greater responsibility in the area of authority than his wife It's not that his position is better than another or his wife's position Actually, my wife says sometimes to me She says, you know, I got the better end of the deal. All I have to do is be submissive to a man who really loves me, like crazy, but you have all the responsibility of leadership.
That's huge. I got the lighter end of the stick. Well, that's wonderful when your wife says that to you. But you see, the point is this. God created man and woman, as we've been hearing all conference long, differently to fit his design and his purpose, And there's a higher view, and we'll get to that in a little while, that resembles a spiritual relationship between Christ and the church.
So what God had in mind with man and woman from the beginning is that a husband and wife are to mutually submit to Christ. That's why in Ephesians five, where we're told the man must love his wife, husband must love his wife as Christ loves the church, and she must show submission and respect to her husband, we must not forget that in verse 20, prior to these graphic, deep theological instructions, it says that both man and woman are to be submissive to Christ. So God has an authority structure in all of life, doesn't he? First, God the Father hands all authority to his Son in heaven and on earth. His Son works out that authority through the word of God, the Bible, and the premier author of that, which is the spirit of the Son, the Holy Spirit.
And then in the Bible, we find chains of authority in every area of life. The husband leading his wife, the employer leading the employees, the teachers leading the students, government leading the citizens, office bearers leading church members. Every area of life is structured by authority. You can't have, in other words, two heads in one home. And so there's both glory and humility in the man's position and in Eve's position, the woman's position as well.
The man's glory is that he's the head. His humility is that he's not complete without the woman. The woman's glory is that only she can give the man fulfillment. The woman's humility is that she is made of man. So post fall, these complementary roles come out even stronger, especially in Ephesians 5, when we are called to model our marriages as two sinful people in Christ according to God's directions.
And what Paul is saying to husbands is you're to love your wife in four different ways. You see that in Ephesians 5, don't you? Clearly, four different ways. You're to love them, first of all, Absolutely. Turn with me a moment there to Ephesians 5.
Ephesians 5, husbands, 25, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. It's not a 50-50 deal. You're to give your whole self to your wife. Second, you're also to love your wives purposely. Look at verse 26, that you might sanctify and cleanse your bride with the washing of water by the word so that you may present her to Christ on the great day, a glorious church without spot or wrinkle.
Is that why you married your wife? How many men here married their wife for this purpose, that on the day of judgment, you could present her to Christ, flawless in the perfect righteousness of Christ, but also because all through life, God blessed the means you used to lead her to wash her with the water of the word every single day in family worship and through your daily conversation so that on the day of judgment she could look at Jesus and say because of that man, because I was married to this man, I was made more holy, more godly in life, more prepared in sanctification. Of course in Christ alone is justification, but this husband helped me in my sanctification so that I can stand here before the Lord and tell you that because I was married to this man, I was made more godly in this life and more prepared for glory. That's what I want my wife to be able to say on the judgment day. And I hope you too.
So we're to love our wives absolutely. We're to love our wives purposely. We're to love them realistically. We just heard that for 40 minutes from Brian Borgman. Remembering who they are and remembering they too, like us, are sinners.
Hence the words, without spot or wrinkle. That's on the judgment day. Here, we all have our spots, we all have our wrinkles, and it's not our business to try to make our wives flawless. We need to accept those flaws that are not connected with sin. We need to remember that fundamentally we don't change our spouse.
We need to love them so much that those minor flaws that are not sinful, we actually learn to love those as well because it's part of who she is and we love her. So stop nitpicking your wife and you women, stop nitpicking your husbands. It's never worth it And it's not God-honoring. Either way, we had a man in our church, he was a very godly man, but he was a little eccentric in some ways, and his wife was just very, very open and just said what, it was like a seamless, whatever came to his mind he said. That's a little dangerous.
And his wife was very pristine, every hair was in place, Every word had to be perfect. She was constantly nitpicking her husband. So one day, she calls him down from the upstairs for supper, and he doesn't respond. She walks up, and Lo and behold, he's on his knees at the bedside. His head is in his hands.
He died praying. And she was horrified. And she called me right away. We went over there right away. And it was so sad.
It was so sad. She said to me, to my wife, she said, if only, if only I could have him back for one day, I wouldn't nitpick him for anything anymore. You see, treasure your spouse, men. Treasure your spouse, women. They have spots and wrinkles, accept that, embrace it, You have them as well.
And then love your wife, not only realistically, but love your wife sacrificially as your own body. Now, if you get something in your eye, you get it out right away, don't you? You try to at least. If your wife is hurting, you give her attention right away. You treat her like your own body.
But then in reverse, you see, submission in Ephesians 5 is not a degrading concept. You know, submission is found even between the incarnate Son of God in his humanity and God the Father. In fact, the submission of wives to their husbands parallels the submission of the human Christ to his father. He says, my will is to do my father's will. Now in the Trinity, in its deity of course, there's no submission.
They're the same, all three in one, in substance, in power, and in glory, as the Westminster Shorter Catechism says. However, when God the Son became a man in the purposes of his mediatorial work, he subjected himself to the humanity, in his humanity, to the Father's divine will. Even coming under the law, Paul says in Galatians 4. So the son who is the Lord becomes the servant of the Lord. Isaiah 42, forward.
Having become a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross. So Paul points to the parallel between Christ's human submission and marital submission of the wife when he says the head of every man is Christ and the head of the woman is the man and the head of Christ is God. 1 Corinthians 11. So our submissiveness to proper authority in the home and in every sphere of life is a manifestation of the beauty of Jesus Christ's relationship to his father. Now some Feminists respond to these kinds of arguments and say that submission is part of the curse, now abrogated by Christ's atonement.
Their argument, however, doesn't reckon with the fact that the subordinate relationship of wife to husband is found first in Genesis 2 before the fall and before the curse. It's not something ugly, it's not something demeaning, it's something beautiful. It's bringing man and woman in their peculiar design to fit together as one whole. And therefore, if a woman cannot be a loving, submissive helper to the man who proposes to her, she should not marry him any more than a man should propose marriage to a woman to whom he does not intend to show loving, self-denying servant leadership. These things are fundamental because this is the way God made us And this is the way we are to live.
Now that leads me then to my second thought, the woman made by God as his special handiwork. Think of this. This woman is made by a special act of God, bringing Adam to a deep sleep, a deep sleep, sort of like anesthesia, it seems. An operation takes place on him. God takes out this rib and builds and constructs a woman miraculously for the man, designed for him so that he could love her, and they could be one flesh.
And then God brings her to the man, a special Hebrew word here that means presented or conducted her to the man, a formal, solemn giving of her in the bonds of the marriage covenant to the man as the woman's creator and father, or as the Puritans used to say, as his second self to be a help fitting for him. I love the way Matthew Henry put it. It's a famous statement he made. The woman was not made out of the man's head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected by him, and near his heart to be loved by him. That's the way to treat your precious help meat.
All other human institutions in the entire world trace their origin back to the marriage institution. And from the marriage came the home, the family, and ultimately every other organization in society. And this is the foundation of the whole. Adam, Adam and Eve are made as perfectly fitting companions. They're naked and unashamed.
They have the perfect fit for the longing that has been awakened in Adam. And so Adam breaks out in a kind of wedding song celebrating his similarity and his union with a woman. In verse 23, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called, wo man, ish ish, coming out of ish, taken out of ish, the man. Can you imagine better harmony than that?
But of course we know what happened, the fall. But it didn't change God's plans for marriage and what marriage is to be. And so Adam finally finds that which corresponds to him. The very words in Hebrew have a connection, a close connection. Isha and ish, woman and man.
It's almost like saying lion and lioness, tiger and tigress. God brings a beautiful partner to Adam and Adam breaks forth in poetic praise for his beautiful, sacred wife who becomes his love. And God provides the blueprint for their marriage. They are to love one another in Christ, and they are to serve one another in Christ, and they are to leave and cleave and join themselves in oneness in a beautiful way. The woman is made, that's my third thought, to be one with the man.
Leaving, cleaving, oneness, that's the beauty of marriage. And that's symbolized at a wedding, is it not? When the bride and the groom walk down the aisle, they walk down as two different people. They never walk down together. When they're pronounced husband and wife, they're stated to be one flesh, and when they walk out of the wedding, how do they walk?
It just doesn't happen by chance that they're holding each other's hand, walking down as one. Because they've now entered this state of marriage, and they're called to be one. But it takes a lifetime to truly become one and for two Christians who are married that oneness is not reaching its idealistic perfection until heaven, when together they can stand side by side and gaze upon the perfect lamb of glory, the perfect bridegroom, in a spiritual utopian marriage with him forever. But all our lifetime, you see, we are seeking to approximate more and more that oneness, to think alike, to have our hearts be alike, to both love Christ, to both love his word, to both love our children and our grandchildren and great-grandchildren. It's so beautiful when you see a couple grow old together in Christ, isn't it?
The condition of oneness grows more and more. In fact, they can even finish each other's sentences. And they know what each other is thinking. It's beautiful. It's beautiful to become more and more one.
But what is that a picture of? It's a picture of Jesus Christ with his father. He left his father willingly, left the crown and throne and courts of glory to come into this world to seek out his bride. He also on Calvary's cross joined himself to his bride. Just as Eve was formed out of the side of Adam, mystically the bride of Christ is formed out of the side of Christ who got the sword in his side and out came blood and water symbolizing justification and sanctification.
This is a great mystery, Paul says, but I speak as he completes his theology of marriage, it's a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. It's all about Christ and the church. As Christ and the church become one. So we are called to reflect that oneness and cleave to one another in marriage in an unbreakable union. And so Paul is constantly talking about this marriage with Christ, isn't he?
As a marriage of oneness. Again and again he says things like this, I am co-crucified with Christ, Galatians 2.20. That is when Christ died, in a sense I also died. In Romans 6.4, he speaks of being buried with Christ. He speaks of being resurrected with Christ, of sitting in heavenly places with Christ, of the believer's union with Christ that is so great, so one that when he was died, we died.
When he was buried, we were buried. When he was raised from the dead, we are raised. When he ascends, it's a promise of our ascension. Who can comprehend this mystical union? And we're to strive to let our marriages be a picture of this beautiful, profound union.
You see, then there's no room for nitpicking or trivial stuff or expecting our spouse to be perfect. No, no, we aim for this union. As the poet said, one in the tomb, one when he arose, one when he triumphed over his foes, One when in heaven he took his seat, while Seraph sang all hell's defeat. With him our head, we stand or fall, our life, our security, our surety, our all. This is the dignity of marriage.
Dignity in Eve's creation as a woman, one with her husband, equal in dignity with him, sharing that dignity with him. And post fall, looking to Christ for the capstone of that dignity, despite their sin. And now through faith, there is dignity in the recreation of Christ's bride, in regeneration, to be one with the bridegroom, to share in his dignity, to share in his glory, to be loved by God with some of that very same love Jesus says, John 17, 24, with which God the Father loves his only begotten son. Truly, There is no dignity like the dignity of recreation and when husband and wife are both made new creations in Christ, the love they have for one another should be beyond all human vocabulary. You see, that love in Christ is what can give you a straight A marriage.
If you both don't love Christ, maybe God's common grace, I don't know, maybe you can get a C plus marriage, you know, can be kind to each other, which is great, but only in Christ can you have an excellent marriage. Only in Christ. And so let me close by just saying this. We need desperately to understand the Christological essence of marriage in Ephesians five over against the beautiful spotless marriage of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2. Because we've fallen.
Now marriage is stained by sin. But you see, we aim for that day when we will be united with Christ forever as the perfect bridegroom. And so what that means for you young people is that you never, never, never marry an unbeliever because you will be unequally old. You will not have the same view of marriage, 2 Corinthians 6.14. So, as Thomas Matanapyrton said, do you want to be married?
First of all, clear up your right and your title to Jesus Christ and make sure you are in him before you look for a spouse. Make your own calling and election sure. And if you and your partner are God fearing, your marriage will greatly profit because you will have someone to assist you in striving to live to God's glory, and you will correct one another. When you sin, you will correct one another in tender love, with knowledge and with understanding, and in striving to live a holy life, you will encourage each other to take up the cross, to deny yourself, and to follow the Lord Jesus Christ. So may I ask you and myself in closing the biggest question of all are you married now?
To Jesus Christ Adam and Eve were not ashamed because they were clothed with God-given original righteousness Are you too now by grace not ashamed because you are clothed with a God-given righteousness of Jesus Christ. What do you think of your perfect bridegroom? Are you married to him or are you married to another Lord, the prince of this world, then you are not fit for earthly marriage nor the heavenly marriage. Satan's promises are lies. His dowry is anguish.
His embrace is death. His chamber is darkness. His bed is flames of fire. So whatever the case may be, your spiritual condition, fly to the perfect bridegroom for the first time, but also daily. Flee with all your shortcomings, also in your natural married life and in your spiritual marriage to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Flee, whether married or single, to Jesus Christ by faith to find the perfect Adam, the second Adam, the only perfect bridegroom. Amen. Let's pray. Gracious God, we ask thy benediction upon this short message and pray that the glorious creation of Eve and the fall of Adam and Eve may point us to the beauty and the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ and that he may be our model for our earthly marriage but also that he may be our perfect spiritual bridegroom forever and forever. Lord, please go with us now and bless us and let thy kingdom come.
In Jesus' name we pray also for the noon meal. Bless it to our bodies and bless the conclusion of this conference in the sessions afterward. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Well let me say I had four books up here to recommend to you in two minutes, but someone took them away.
But, so I won't be holding them up. But let me just say this. Meet the Puritans if you really want to grow in a godly marriage. They've got lots of good books on marriage. Living in a Godly Marriage is a great book.
But also Meet the Puritans is a fat new volume, greatly expanded, gives you the life story of all 200 Puritans. And references, summaries of all 1000 books they've written, They will grow you. And also there are some piles of those 20 or so Puritan paperbacks for that very special price of $106. Buy that for your family. It will feed your soul immensely.
Get the whole pack. Read them, share them. It will grow your family in holiness. God bless you, and may you Have a wonderful day.