03.04. THE INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE - Genesis 2:18-24
THE INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE - Genesis 2:18-24 THE CREATION OF MAN AND WOMAN AND THE INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE The Marriage Form traces the institution of marriage back to Genesis 2:18-24. These verses read as follows: And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.” Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to 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 a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
Momentarily, we’ll come to a detailed discussion of these verses. First, though, we need to consider the wider context in which these verses appear. As will become apparent later on, these words need to be read and understood in the context of the sixth day of creation. We need first, then, to look briefly at the sixth day.
Sixth Day Overview In Genesis 1:1-31 we read of God’s creative deeds on the six consecutive days of creation. Concerning the sixth day we read:
Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind”; and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to, its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. “... Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day” (Genesis 1:24-31).
Here we have a bird’s-eye view of what God did on the sixth day: He created animals plus man and woman. Concerning the creation of man and woman, we learn the following from Genesis 1:1-31 Man and Woman created as equals before God Having created both the man and the woman, we read in Genesis 1:28 : “Then God blessed them…..”
God did not bless just the man or just the woman, but both the man and the woman. The Bible allows no room here for the false perception of a hierarchy with God at the top, the man in the middle and the woman at the bottom. Scripture gives no grounds for believing that the man is more important than the woman. On the contrary, the Bible begins with outlining that man and woman are equals before God; before Him they are on an equal footing. God blessed them, man and woman, simultaneously and with the same words.
Man and Woman created in the image of God Of both male and female it is written that they were created in the image of God. That means that God endowed both the man and the woman with special qualities to image God. Both, when they went about their God-given task of exercising dominion over God’s created earth, were equipped to reflect what God was like. God commanded both male and female, “...Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:28). God mandated both male and female to “have dominion.”
Sixth Day Detailed
Genesis 1:24-31 gave a bird’s-eye view of God’s work of creation on the sixth day. However, the details of how God went about making man and woman, and the sequence of events on that day, are given in Genesis 2:1-25.
Genesis 2:4 is the start of new section in the book of Genesis. I say that because of what Genesis 2:4 says. “This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.” The Hebrew word for the term ‘history’ is ‘toledoth’ (repeated nine times in the book of Genesis). These ‘toledoths’ form the skeleton upon which the whole book of Genesis is built. The word ‘toledoth’ means “what became of…..” Hence Genesis 2:4 begins with telling what became of the heavens and the earth. That is: the section (Genesis 2:4-25; Genesis 3:1-24; Genesis 4:1-26) give further details about the heavens and the earth God made.
Concerning the creation of the man God formed to walk on this earth, Genesis 2:7 gives more detail than Genesis 1:1-31 gave. We read that initially God created but one human being, namely, the male, Adam. He did so by forming a man out of clay and breathing into his nostrils the breath of life. God then made a home for Adam (the garden of Eden), and placed him in that garden (Genesis 2:8) with the instruction to “tend and keep it” (Genesis 2:15). For food God granted Adam permission to eat of any tree in the garden, except the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:16-17). The passage, then, pictures Adam for us on the sixth day of creation, a man on his own, tending the garden. God observed His handiwork so far, and evaluated Adam’s situation with these words: “It is not good that man should be alone.” Hence His decision: “I will make him a helper comparable to him” (Genesis 2:18). Before God went on to make a helper for Adam He gathered all the animals to parade before’ Adam so that he could name them. In so doing God instilled in Adam a sense of aloneness. “Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him” (Genesis 2:19-20).
We are not told whether Adam felt alone before this, nor do we read that Adam complained about his aloneness to God. Rather, God determined that the man was alone, and so He made Adam realise that for him there was no helper. Adam was made to sense that he was alone; that he was by himself. That Adam was alone does not mean necessarily mean that Adam was lonely, that a cloud of loneliness swept over him. This is still the perfection of Paradise, with emotions we fallen creatures cannot grasp.
After Adam became aware of his ‘aloneness’ “…. the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place” (Genesis 2:21). From the material God took from the man, He created again, this time a woman: “Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man” (Genesis 2:22). God’s act of bringing His latest creation to the man constitutes the very first wedding ceremony in human history. When God brought to Adam the wife he created for him - the helper comparable to him - Adam was rapt with what he saw, and burst out in a song of praise to his Creator. The Holy Spirit caused Moses to record in Genesis 2:23 Adam’s psalm of thanksgiving, his marriage song: This is now bone of my bones And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.
God’s assessment of His creative handiwork of the sixth day was as positive as Adam’s appreciation of the gift of a woman: “Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day” (Genesis 1:31). After Almighty finished the labours of the sixth day, He rested on the seventh, and enjoyed what His hands had made - including His creation of man and woman, and the institution of marriage. When society around us says that marriage has had its day and that there are other legitimate alternative ways of living together, society diametrically opposes what God has said. God said from the beginning that “indeed it was very good” that a man and a woman should be united in marriage as instituted by Him on the sixth day of creation. To seek and practise alternatives to God’s only way for marriage can only have negative consequences, for God’s blessing can only be expected when God is obeyed. Man, a creature, and sinful at that, cannot possibly improve on that which His Creator made and pronounced to be VERY GOOD.