076. A Sermon On Ephesians 5:30-32
A SERMON ONEphesians 5:30-32 For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. The doctrine of the gospel hath been the subject which I have designed to handle; and, in the first place, to shew that it was God’s intention that the story of Adam—which you read of in the beginning of his book, in the volume of his book, as he saith, Hebrews 3, in the beginning of Genesis—should hold forth a shadow and type of the most fundamental truths of the gospel: so that, as it was said of old that the whole creation was but Deus explanatus, so we may truly say that the story of Adam is nothing else but Christus explanatus, Christ explained.
First, I might shew that in Adam’s creation, in the union of his soul to his body, the dwelling of a reasonable soul in a body of clay, there was a shadow of the dwelling of the divine nature in the human nature of Christ, out of 1 Corinthians 15:45, where the Apostle quotes the very words, when Adam was made and created, to be a type or a forerunning prophecy of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It is true, saith he, ‘the first man Adam was made a living soul;’ ‘the last Adam,’ typified out hereby, ‘is a quickening Spirit.’
Secondly, Take the condition of Adam’s soul as it had the image of God in it, either for knowledge or else for holiness, it fell infinitely short of the state of believers under the gospel, if their holiness were made complete as his was. The image of God and the knowledge of God in Adam was natural; it was but in a natural way, suited to the nature of man as he is reasonable and as he is man; it was merely but what was due to such a creature, if God would make him such. But the knowledge of God, and the image of God that follows thereupon under the gospel, is every way supernatural, so as eye hath not seen, nor hath ear heard, as the Apostle speaks in 1 Corinthians 2:9; nor, as it is quoted out of Isaiah 64, man from the beginning of the world, no, not even Adam himself, hath known ‘the things that thou hast prepared,’ under the gospel, ‘for them that love thee.’ How it fell short, I cannot now stand to declare.
Adam was made according to the image of God; the image of God in him was but a shadow of that image of God which shines in Christ the second Adam, and which he stampeth upon the hearts of believers, they being translated and transformed into his image. As Adam in his creation was a type of Christ and his church, so when God said, Genesis 1:26, ‘Let us make man after our image, after our likeness,’—and he speaks this of male and female when he said it,—he intended it of Christ and his church, whom then he had in his eye, and had set up as the pattern of all. So as indeed our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was the great pattern which God had set up, and man made at first was but as a little picture taken thereby. Therefore you shall find, in Hebrews 1, that as Adam was the image of God, so our Lord and Saviour Christ is said to be the express image of his person, Hebrews 1:3, and the brightness of his glory. So that look now how the image of a king in his son, or how the image of a man in a statue of brass, from head to foot, doth differ from his image in a little tablet which you carry upon your breast; so doth the image of God in Christ differ from that image which he stamped upon the heart of man even in innocency.
There was a threefold image of God in the person of Jesus Christ, which exceeded that image of God in the heart of Adam:—
There was, first, that essential image, as he is the second Person in the Trinity, which is as invisible as God himself. But then, secondly, in Christ, as he is God-man, in whom the fulness of the Godhead dwells, there is an image of God exceeds all the image of God in the angels, or in man at first; and why doth it exceed it? Do but you consider with your selves, if you were to draw the picture, the image of a man, is there not more in the face, in the head, than there is in all the body? So there is more in our head, Christ, than there is in all saints and angels, than there is in the church itself, much more than was in Adam. If Jesus Christ, as I there said, had but only been set up in heaven, for us to gaze upon his person, and upon all the excellences of God that do shine in him, then is yet such a brightness of glory shines therein as doth not in all the creatures, nor could do, though God had made never so many. You shall see what David saith, in Psalms 17:15, foretelling of his seeing Christ after the resurrection. ‘As for me,’ saith he, ‘I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thine image.’ His meaning is this, I comfort myself that when I shall awake, that is, when I shall rise again,—for you know that death is compared to a sleep, and therefore he expresseth rising again by being awakened,—I shall be satisfied with thine image, that is, with thy Son Christ.
Thirdly, Besides the image of God which shines in the person of Christ, which we shall see in heaven when we awake, as David shall do, there is an image of God which shines in the works of Jesus Christ, which he did here below; there is an image of all the attributes of God which breaks forth in the works of Christ’s mediation, and in all his offices. As there is the glory of the sun, and the glory of the beams of the sun, so there is the glory that is in the person of Christ, and the image of God that is there; and there is the image of God that shines in his beams, in the works of mediation which he hath done, and the fruits and benefits of it, in the truths that have been told of him in the gospel. And as Jesus Christ is a middle person between God and us, so the story of his works of mediation put together presents us with a middle image of God, between that in his person, and what is in the creatures besides. So as indeed God did set him up as an image by which he made the little picture of Adam. ‘Let us make man,’ saith he, ‘according to our image;’ and so Adam was but a shadow and type of what was in Christ. There is a new edition of all the attributes of God which ariseth out of the story of Christ. And though as God’s person is more excellent than his works, so the image of God in Christ’s person is more excellent than that image of God which shines in his works; yet even in the works of Christ there is such an image of God as excels the image of God in angels or in all the creatures besides. Go, take a holy man, there is the image of God in his heart, and there is the image of God in his works of righteousness, which he doth according to the principles in his heart, and of God’s law written there. Therefore the new man, which is created after the image of God, is not only said to consist in an inward renewing of the Spirit, but in putting on works of holiness, and putting away lying and the like sins. For the image of God lies in works, as well as in a man’s heart. Answerably now, there is the image of God shining in the works of Christ: and therefore when you read that Christ is called the wisdom of God, there is one attribute, and the power of God, there is another, it is not spoken simply of what is inherent in his person, but of what appeareth in his works, what appeareth in what he hath done and the fruits of it; and he is called the wisdom of God and the power of God in the abstract. Adam might be said to be wise, and he might be said to be holy, but he could not be called the wisdom of God, nor could he be called the holiness of God, but so Jesus Christ is. And he is not so called either in respect of that essential image,—that is, as he is second Person,—or of that image of God which shines in his person as he is God-man, but of what shines in the works that he hath done; as he is made unto us righteousness and sanctification and redemption, as it follows there in 1 Corinthians 1:30. So he is called the wisdom of God and the power of God, &c. So as now if you take the infinite wisdom of God, that ariseth out of the story of the life and death of Christ, out of his resurrection, ascension into heaven, &c., and the fruits and ends of all these, there is a higher wisdom of God appears even in these works of Christ, than appears in all the creation besides. And so of the power of God too. It is not only that he, being God and man, hath power to do what he will,—that is proper to his person,—but go take the works that he hath done, that he hath overcome sin, and hell, and death, and the wrath of God, that he was manifested to be the Son of God with power in rising again, as Romans 1:4; in this respect he is called the power of God. And so likewise, in the third place, as he hath ratified and made good all the truths of God, as all the promises of God are yea and amen in him, so he may in that respect be called the truth of God. And so also he may be called the justice of God, because God in him hath manifested such a righteousness as never else would have been manifested. He hath not only manifested in his person that he is righteous, but in his works, in that he hath satisfied the wrath of his Father. And so likewise he may be called the love of God; for the highest manifestation of love that ever God shewed lies in what Christ hath done for us, in that God gave his Son, and his Son gave himself. Herein lies the height, and depth, and length, and breadth of the love of God, which passeth knowledge, as the Apostle speaks, Ephesians 3:18-19.
And, lastly, to instance in no more, by the same reason that he is called the wisdom and the power of God, he may also be called the patience and the long-suffering of God; for by reason of the blood of Christ, and by an overplus of it into the bargain, as it were, it is that he is patient with all wicked men, suffers them to live, lets the world stand to this day.
Now go, take this image of God that thus shines in Jesus Christ, not in his person only, but in his works, which is yet a lower image than what is in his person, and that is a lower thing too than what is in him as he is second Person; and, I say, Adam was but a mere empty shadow in comparison of this substance which God had in his eye when he said, ‘Let us make man according to our image.’
Having thus shewn you that Adam in all these respects was but an empty image in comparison of the man to come; having spoken somewhat of his creation, and likewise somewhat of the image of God in him, I will now come to speak concerning his marriage: for all that I have now said is but an introduction to what the text which I have read holds forth; it is but to connect what I have formerly delivered with what I shall now do. In these words, then, the Holy Ghost doth make Adam to be a type and a shadow of Jesus Christ, in his marriage with Eve. As he was held forth his type in his creation at first, as he was held forth his type in that he was a shadow of the image of God in him; so take his marriage with Eve his wife, and the Apostle tells us that therein he was also but a shadow. ‘For this cause,’ saith he, ‘shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.’ Where are these words? Look in Genesis 2:23, and there you shall find them. ‘Adam said, This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.’ The Apostle, you see, takes the same expressions, and tells us this is a great mystery: there was in these words of Adam, saith he, a mystery held forth, which I interpret of Christ and the church.
Now, then, for the making this good, will you consider what the Apostle exhorts to in the words before? He exhorts husbands to love their wives, and wives to be subject to their husbands, as Christ hath loved his church, and as the church is subject unto Christ; and to enforce this argument, he brings this pattern. For, saith he, will you know what was the mystery of marriage at the first, in the state of innocency? The marriage of Adam and his wife Eve was intended as a type and shadow of Christ and his church; and from the example of Christ’s love to the church he enforceth the duty of the love of the husband to the wife; and from the example of the subjection of the church to Christ, enforceth the duty of subjection of wives to their husbands. He boldly quoteth what is said in Genesis 2 of the marriage of Adam and Eve. There saith Adam, She is bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh; saith Paul here, We are of his flesh, and of his bone. For this cause, saith Adam, shall a man leave father and mother. For this cause, saith the Apostle also, shall a man leave father and mother. And this is a great mystery, saith he: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
There are some that say that this is only spoken by way of allusion, as when it is said in 2 Corinthians 4:6, that God created light out of darkness, the Apostle there in the new creation alludeth to the old. But, my brethren, it is not only by way of allusion, but by way of type, and a prophecy intended by God therein. And the reasons are clearly these:—
1. Because the Apostle doth found his argument of the duties of husbands and wives upon it; now allusions may illustrate, but they do not afford arguments to duty. Mark how the Apostle speaks: ‘Wives,’ saith he, Ephesians 5:22, ‘submit yourselves to your own husbands, as unto the Lord.’ And, Ephesians 5:25, ‘Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church;’ and why? Because, saith he, that in marriage, and marriage at the first, the marriage of Christ and the church was intended as the great example. It was not therefore a bare similitude, but a pattern; and unless the marriage of Christ had been intended as a pattern in the marriage of Adam, this had been a weak argument.
2. Therefore, in the close of all, he gives us an account why he had produced the example of Christ and his church; and his account is this. Because, saith he, this was the mystery that was intended by it, even in the marriage of Adam. To that end consider how, first of all, he calls this interpretation of his of the story of Adam’s marriage, applying it to Christ and his church, a mystery. Now what is a mystery? A mystery is that which hath one thing signifying, and another thing signified; as in Revelation 1:20, ‘The mystery of the seven stars, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches; and the seven candlesticks are the seven churches.’ Mark how he explaineth what a mystery is; it is a thing signifying, and a thing signified. So when the Apostle here had quoted the words of Adam’s marriage in Genesis 2, as you have heard, and said of it, ‘This is a great mystery;’ he adds, ‘I speak concerning Christ and his church:’ which is all one with that John saith in the Revelation, as if the Apostle should have said, The mystery of Adam’s marriage is the marriage of Christ and the church; that is, this is that which is intended by it, and which God had in his eye. A parable is called a mystery in the Scripture, as in Luke 8:10. Why? Because it holds forth a similitude, and a thing signified thereby. So in Daniel 2:28, Nebuchadnezzar’s dream is called a mystery. ‘There is a God in heaven,’ saith Daniel there, ‘which revealeth mysteries;’ so it is in the original; because he dreamed one thing, and another thing was intended by it. So Adam’s marriage is called a mystery. Why? Because the story of it is one thing, it is the story of the marriage of the first man and his wife; but the secret, the thing intended by it, is another. I speak, saith he, concerning Christ and his church. And so now the meaning of the words which the Apostle useth is briefly this. I say, saith he,—that is, I make this interpretation of it, and he was the first that did open the mystery of it;—I tell you a mystery, as elsewhere he saith, that which you have not known, I now hold forth to you. You read the story of Genesis merely of Adam and Eve, but there was a further mystery in it. This that I have said of leaving father and mother, of being bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh,—so you read the wife is of the husband, in Genesis 2—this, I say, saith he, belongeth
There is a great question among interpreters, whether every marriage, as well as that of Adam’s, was intended as a type of Christ. I will not stand to decide that, I will only handle and shew how Adam’s marriage was; that ‘this is a great mystery’ pointeth to him, to that marriage of his. Adam did not understand it, when he said, ‘This is bone of my bone,’ &c., ‘and for this cause,’ &c.; as Caiaphas, in John 11:51, did not understand when he prophesied that Christ should be put to death. Those words in Genesis 2, ‘For this cause shall a man leave father and mother,’ &c., are made the words of God, and not of Adam; for God intended Jesus Christ by it, as the Apostle here doth. But to come to the particulars wherein the type holds, I shall resolve it into four heads:—
I. Let us consider the counsel that God had about Adam’s marriage with Eve, and it was the type of the counsel of God about Christ’s marriage with his church; and this is a great mystery, even the counsel that God held in his eternal decrees concerning Christ and his church, shadowed out by what he here speaks of the marrying of Eve to Adam.
1. The Lord made Adam before he thought of a wife for him; and so in order of God’s decrees, Christ was set up first, who therefore is called the ‘first-born of every creature,’ Colossians 1:15, and the ‘first-born among many brethren,’ Romans 8:29; who is called the head, and therefore was set up first. Now when God had made Adam, and made him first, what is the counsel of God about him? Read Genesis 2:18, ‘And the Lord said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an helpmeet for him.’ So did God say of the man Christ Jesus, when he had ordained him in his eternal purpose, It is not good for him to be alone; he shall have fellows, as the saints are called in Psalms 45:7. God intended, and said with himself, he shall not be in heaven alone. You have the Scripture speaking in the very same language in John 12:24, ‘Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground, and die,’—Christ there speaks this of himself,—‘it abideth alone.’ I must not be alone, saith he, I must have company with me. And though he speaks this in relation to his death, yet it was God’s primitive decree that Christ should not be alone: and because it was so, therefore because man fell, and could not otherwise be saved and brought to heaven but by Christ’s death,—therefore, saith he, I must die, that I may not be in heaven alone; otherwise I must be reduced to what Adam was at first reduced to; that was to be alone, and that is not meet.
2. The next counsel God held about Adam was this. He went and viewed all the creatures that he had made, and amongst them all, saith Genesis 2:20, ‘there was not found an helpmeet for him.’ So when God was in consultation who should be the wife and spouse of Jesus Christ, he views the angels first, but he refuseth them; he in no wise took on him the nature of angels, Hebrews 2:16. Why? Because he would not be a husband to them, and he is nowhere called so. There was none else, none was found to be a match fit for him, but the sons of men, whose nature he meant to assume; and not all of them neither, he viewed all the sons of men, and he took but to remnant out of them, ‘The election hath obtained it, and the rest were hardened,’ saith he, Romans 11:7. He viewed all that he could have made, that is more, and out of all he chose those whom he hath elected. Herein God did but act his own eternal purposes and counsels concerning his church, pitching upon a few creatures whom he chose out of all those whom he either had or could have made, to be a meet help for his Son Jesus Christ.
You will say, Is the church a helper to Jesus Christ? Wherein is the woman a helper to the man? She is pleasant to him; she is a companion for him. The like is said of the church; she is a helper to him in two respects. First, she is his glory, as in 2 Corinthians 8:23; they are, saith he, ‘the glory of Christ;’ even as the wife is said to be the glory of the husband, in 1 Corinthians 11:7. And then, secondly, she is a comfort to him. You will wonder that the church should be so to Christ; but you shall see it in Psalms 45, where, speaking of the church and Christ, saith he, Psalms 45:10, ‘Forget thine own people, and thy father’s house,’—he speaks in the same language that he doth here,—‘so shall the king greatly delight in thy beauty.’ Therefore in this very chapter, Ephesians 5:27, he saith that Jesus Christ is to present to himself a glorious church; that, as Zanchy well says, in heaven he will set her up full of beauty and glory,—Behold, here is she that I have made to delight in,—and the glory he will put upon her he continually presents to himself to delight in. Therefore you shall find, in John 15, that his joy is said to be in his church: Keep my commandments, saith he, so shall my joy be in you. And in Ephesians 1:23, the church is called his fulness; ‘which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.’ He ascribes as much to Christ as can be; he saith he filleth her and all things else, and yet in a sense she is his fulness too. She is a helper to him.
3. When Adam was alone, before God made the woman, he blessed Adam, and in him blessed her afterwards to be made. This you may find in Genesis 2. He gave all the world unto Adam, and in giving it to him he gave it to his wife, and to his seed that should come of her. So was it here, when Jesus Christ and God were alone in heaven before the world was, he undertaking to be a husband, God considering the church in him, he did ‘bless us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in him.’ He gave all to Christ, and in Christ gave all to her, and to all her seed, and to all that should come of her. All is yours, saith the Apostle because you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s, 1 Corinthians 3:22. Here you see the counsel that God held concerning Adam and Eve in their marriage, it holds with God’s eternal counsel concerning the marriage of Christ and his church.
II. Let us come to the creation of the woman out of the man, and you shall see still that the mystery runs on.
1. Eve was made out of Adam, so was the church out of Christ. God could have raised up seed to Abraham out of stones, out of nothing. No, but as he did take something out of Adam and made the woman of it, so he took of Christ, and made the church; as you have it, John 16:14. Therefore it is mightily observable in the text that we are not said to be os ossis, in the genitive case, but ex ossibus ejus, as noting out the subject-matter out of which we were taken. All were made out of one, so saith the Apostle, speaking of Adam; and all are made out of one, so saith the Apostle also, speaking of Christ and his church, Hebrews 2:11. We are all seminally in Jesus Christ, and we are os ex ossibus ejus, bone out of his bone, and flesh out of his flesh. If you read Genesis 2:23, you shall see the reason given why the woman is said to be bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. The text tells us it is because she was taken out of man. The Holy Ghost in the Greek follows the same emphasis. We are, saith he, ex ossibus, bone out of his bone, taken out of him. Which is true in two respects.
For, first, consider the church mystically, as she is a church, as she is holy, and as she is glorious; and whatsoever she hath, as she is such, it is wholly out of Christ, she is bone out of his bones in that respect. ‘Of him ye are in Christ Jesus,’ saith the Apostle, 1 Corinthians 1:30. And, ‘We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus,’ and out of Christ Jesus, Ephesians 2:10. That look what bones Adam had, the same bones the woman had when she was made; look what flesh he had, she had likewise. So it is true of Jesus Christ and his church by way of analogy, in a spiritual and mystical sense: as Eve received bone for bone, and flesh for flesh, and eye for eye, and hand for hand; so look what graces Christ hath, the church—take her qua church, as she is beautified with graces and glory in heaven—has ‘grace for grace.’ There is nothing that Christ hath but she hath also, and so we are bone of his bones, and we have it out of him too, that is, from him. And therefore in the 26th verse of this chapter it is said that he ‘sanctifieth and cleanseth the church, that he might present it to himself a glorious church.’ Look what holiness and what glory she hath, it is all from him. But I think, secondly, that when he saith we are bone out of his bones, and flesh out of his flesh, there is a further thing meant. The church is not so only, if you take her in respect of her graces, and qualifications of glory and grace, having the same graces that Christ hath, making an allusion to bones and to flesh, members of the body, and graces, members of the mind. That is not alll the Apostle’s scope; but I take it further the meaning is this, that Jesus Christ having a human nature, ordained first to be his, we, taking the substance of that nature, have also the same. There is one scripture that seems to contradict it, that is Hebrews 2:14, where it is said, ‘Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same.’ It is easily answered; for flesh and blood there, is meant the frailties of man’s nature: and so the Apostle’s meaning is this, that whereas we, through sin, had subjected ourselves to the frailties of flesh and blood, he took part of the same. It is clearly his scope there. But yet, because Jesus Christ was ordained to the substance of a human nature, therefore were we so too; and we are chosen in him, and so we are
2. Out of what part of Adam was she taken? The text saith, in Genesis 2:21. that the Lord cast him into a deep sleep, and then opened his side, and took Eve out of it. It was indeed, in the letter of it, to shew the equality of the wife to the husband; she was not taken out of his foot, but out of his side, because she is to be a companion to him. In this also was Adam a type of Christ, the church was taken out of his side; and the apostle John, John 19:34, you shall see, makes a great matter of it. ‘One of the soldiers,’ saith he, ‘with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. And he that saw it bear record, and his record is true: and he knows that he says true, that ye might believe.’ It is a strange thing that in the midst of a story the Apostle should come and put such an emphasis upon this passage. This, saith he, I observed above all else, and this I bear record of. Why? It was not in respect of the miracle of it; for in the pericardium, the purse that a man’s heart lies in, there is water for the cooling of the heart, and if you pierce that, water will presently issue out. It was not therefore, I say, in respect of the miracle of it that he takes such special notice of this passage,—that upon the opening of his side there came forth blood and water,—but in respect of the mystery of it. Therefore the same John, and only he of all the apostles, in 1 John 5:6, saith, ‘This is he that came by water and by blood, even Jesus Christ’ He makes that the evidence that he was the Messiah, because out of his side came water and blood,—water to sanctify his church; so saith Paul here in this Ephesians 5:26, ‘He sanctifieth and cleanseth his church by the washing of water.’ She is taken out of his side, and water cometh out of his side to cleanse her; and blood also. Water to sanctify and purify her; and blood to justify her, and to make her, and to ‘present her, a glorious church to himself,’ as the text hath it also.
3. When was all this done to Adam? It was when Adam was asleep. When was it that Christ’s aide was opened? It was when he was asleep, when he was dead: 1 Corinthians 15:20, ‘He is the first-fruits of them that sleep,’ for so death is often called in the Scriptures. Isaiah 53:10, ‘He shall see his seed,’ because he died, and offered up his soul for sin; and ‘he shall see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied.’
4. If you look the story in Genesis, the text saith that of the rib that the Lord had taken from the man, he made the woman. Read your margin, ‘He builded the woman,’—for she is a more curious frame than the man,—he built her, shewed a great deal of art in making her. Now you shall find in the Scripture that Jesus Christ is called the foundation; and what is his church? It is his building, built up for him with a great deal of art and architect. In Ephesians 2:20, the Apostle useth the very same expression, ‘Ye are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; in whom all the building fitly framed’—or, as the word is, artificially framed, harmoniously, with all the art and curiosity that can be—‘groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: in whom ye also are built together for an habitation of God.’
5. When he had taken the woman out of the man, what doth God do? He closeth up the flesh again; here is no hurt done, the man is as sound, lived as long, yea, would have lived to eternity, if he had not sinned, for all his loss. And what hath Jesus Christ lost by his death? Nothing; he hath got a church by the means. ‘He was made,’ saith the Apostle, Hebrews 2:9, ‘a little lower,’ or, for a little while lower, ‘than the angels,’ that he might bring many sons unto glory. He endured pain upon the cross, he endured to have his side pierced, and his soul wounded, to have his church taken out; all is closed up again, and the man Christ Jesus is in heaven for ever, and his church shall be for ever with him. This is all that is lost. And so much now for the second head wherein this type holdeth. The first I told you was God’s eternal counsel about Christ and the church, which answereth to the counsel that was about Adam and Eve, when she was made; the second was about the creating of her out of him.
III. The marriage itself. And concerning that the text saith—
1. That God did bring the woman unto Adam, Genesis 2:22. So God, when he had chosen his elect, did present them unto Jesus Christ. He did this in his eternal purposes; and he doth do it when he calls them home unto him. He did it in his everlasting purposes; he shewed Jesus Christ what a glorious church he would give him for him to delight in for ever; and Jesus Christ was so taken with her beauty that he never leaves till he hath made her as glorious as she first rose up to him in God’s eternal presentation of her to him. Therefore saith the text here, in Ephesians 5, ‘he presenteth to himself a glorious church;’ it is an allusion unto that in Genesis 2:22. A disease was befallen her, but Christ doth never leave till he hath restored her to her primitive beauty in which she was presented to him. So that Jesus Christ did not choose his church, she was brought unto him. ‘Thine they were, and thou gavest them to me.’ As in God’s everlasting purposes he brought them first to Christ, so when Christ hath died, when he hath shed the water and blood out of his side, who is it that still brings every soul unto Christ? It is the Father, John 6:44-45, ‘No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him. It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.’ God speaks to the heart of every soul who cometh unto Christ; he speaks as a father-in-law doth to a daughter whom he would have to marry his son, speaks to her heart, puts an instinct into it. ‘Daughter,’ saith he, Psalms 45, ‘forget thy people and thy father’s house.’ He speaks in Adam’s language in this second of Genesis, giveth that counsel to his church, and so she cometh to Christ.
2. When she was brought unto Adam, he consenteth and owneth her. So doth Christ; those whom his Father hath given him, and whom he hath brought unto him, he owneth; insomuch as he will not pray for a soul but them: ‘I pray not for the world, but for them whom thou hast given me.’ None other comes to him but whom God thus bringeth; and when they are brought he owns them, he knows them all by their names; so the expression is, John 10. Therefore, in John 6:37, ‘All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.’ For when a poor soul that God from everlasting hath given him comes to him, he instantly owneth that soul, as Adam did Eve. This is that soul I died for; this is the soul that water and blood came out of my side for, with an intention to wash. This is the soul I took a view of among all the rest, and this soul pleased me, and there was a beauty put upon it then; therefore I will sanctify and cleanse her by the washing of water, till I have presented it glorious to myself, that I may delight in her for ever. And so much for the third head. The last that I shall mention is—
IV. The consequent of Adam’s marriage; which was—
1. A union; and the story of Adam’s marriage affords us such a union as no marriage else besides. Both became one flesh; and not only so, she was not only one flesh with him because of her relation of wife, and as man and wife afterwards were, and now are; but she was one flesh with him too, because she came out of him. She was both caro una, and she was also de carne, or ex carne, she was both one flesh with him, and she was out of his flesh also. Our children, they are out of our flesh; but they are not caro nostra, as wives are, they are not our flesh. And wives, they are our flesh; but they are not ex carne, and ex osse, out of our flesh, and out of our bone. But so it is here in Adam’s marriage, Eve, she is united to him in both the nearest and dearest relation; Adam is both a husband to her, and a father.
2. ‘For this cause,’ saith Genesis 2, ‘shall a man leave father and mother.’ Did not Christ do so? John 16:28, ‘I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world.’ Christ was ‘in the bosom of his Father,’ John 1:17-18, and he left his Father, and ‘took upon him the form of a servant,’ Php 2:6, came and dwelt amongst us, served for his church as Jacob did for Rachel. Christ was a lover, he did it out of love to his church, left his Father. Nay, not only so, but his Father forsook him; ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ And he left his mother too, when he was here below. When those came to him that lie was to die for, and his mother sent for him, saith he, Who is my mother, and my brethren, but those that hear the word of God, and keep it? And when his mother sought him, and was careful about him, being found of her, saith he, Dost thou not know that I was about my Father’s business? And when he hung upon the cross, he left her, a poor woman, (to die for his church,) to be taken care of by John. When he was thirty-three years old, he left her in the world, and went to heaven to take care of his church. And thus he left father, and he left mother also, for his church.
And, my brethren, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, as he is married thus to his church, he will shew himself the most fond and perfect lover that ever was. As he is the Saviour of his church, which is his body, so he will come and fetch her at the last unto himself.
I might be very large in this, but I have confined myself, not only to what riseth from the state of every man’s marriage, but what was proper and peculiar to Adam’s, held forth in Genesis 2, to which the Apostle here alludeth when he saith, ‘This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and his church.’ And so I have done with the allusion and with this text, and have in some measure shewn that in the story of Adam is contained a typo and shadow of the story of Christ and of the gospel.