- Well, here we are, the book of Genesis, the foundation book of the Bible, and if you're following
along in your Bibles, and those who are watching this on DVD, if you're following along
with your own Bible, then open them to chapter 2, verse 21, this is the 13th lesson
in this particular series. And for those of you in
the class, of course, I'll be throwing up the Scripture
references on the monitor. Well, in our last lesson, we had the more details
concerning the creation of man. I always like to review a little bit, get us back into the picture
of what we're discussing, because there's so much material. First of all, we said that
God initiates, or in Genesis, we see that God initiates man's ability to use his intelligence in relating to God through moral choices. The idea is that, in
choosing right from wrong, man demonstrates several things. First of all, his
superiority over animals. Animals don't have a sense of morality, but man does. Man has a sense of something
that he ought to do, or ought not to do, it's
naturally wired into him. Secondly, we see his ability to perceive and relate to a Higher Being. You know, if there weren't a Higher Being, why would all people, no
matter where they are, feel need to relate to a Higher Being. So, God has created him in that way, with that particular ability. And also, his freedom to
affect his own destiny. In other words, God
creates man in such a way that man can choose what
his destiny will be. He can choose to obey
God, and live with God, and have the life that God promises that goes with that choice, or he can reject, and suffer
the consequences of that. Also, we see that God instructs man concerning his environment,
especially the animal kingdom. You know, in the Bible,
very, very succinct. There's not a lot of long,
drawn out descriptions, it merely says that Adam
was naming the animals, and the sense there,
that word naming meaning he named them according to knowledge. He knows what they are, what they do, how they fit into the creation. And so we see that particular
activity taking place. And then, God leads man to
the knowledge of his aloneness and need for fellowship with a like being. He sees that this is not possible through his rulership over the creation. You know, he rules over the
creation, and he senses, he sees that he is above the animals, but within the animals, among the animals, he doesn't see any creature with whom he can have a relationship with, and in coming to that conclusion, he also comes to the
knowledge of his aloneness. So, this prepares man for
God's final act of creation, which is the creation of woman. So, the creation of woman
begins in chapter 2, verse 21 and 22, so let's read those verses. It says, "So the Lord
God caused a deep sleep "to fall upon the man, and he slept; "then He took one of his ribs "and closed up the flesh at that place. "The Lord God fashioned into a woman "the rib which he had taken from the man, "and brought her to the man." Now, you know, throughout history, and especially in the modern age, we've seen this idea, you know, Adam's rib, this idea come
out in all kinds of contexts. People make jokes about
it, and so on and so forth, but this is a very serious
event that takes place. I want you to see some of
the things to note carefully regarding the creation of woman in this short couple of verses, these short couple of
verses that describe that. First of all, the sleep of Adam, and the new life that eventually
proceeded after his sleep, was actually, also has a
kind of a metaphysical, or a spiritual idea, if you wish. It is the first prefigurement of the death and the
resurrection of Jesus, as well as a prefigurement of the death and resurrection
of man as a new creature, because Adam goes into a deep
sleep, and then he awakes, and when he awakens, things have changed. You know, he himself becomes different, because he'll be joined to woman. So, that's kind of a preview,
you know, prefigurement, it's like a preview of what will come much further in the future. The prefigurement of Christ's
death and resurrection, and the prefigurement of
Adam, or mankind's death, and ultimate resurrection. And it's also a wonderful
metaphor for the marriage, or for marriage rather, where one dies to self in order to create a new identity of the couple in marriage. Another interesting thing
to note about this passage is that the word rib, you know, it says he took a rib from Adam, the word rib is not the most accurate of translations into English, and the reason for that,
it fails to convey fully the idea that God is
accomplishing in this action. You know, when we think of a rib, we think of a rib, just a bone. A more accurate word is a side, and translated side, 20 of the 35 times that it's used in the Old Testament. So, the point is that God
removed not just a bone, but He removed a part of man's side that included both the
bone, and the flesh, as well as the blood. So, the idea is that God did not remove, from the head, or from the feet to signify superiority or inferiority, but He took from the side,
which signified equality. And He did so to provide
a help, someone to assist. She was, woman that is, was to aid Adam to eliminate his loneliness. Last week, I told you that helpmeet, it's not a helpmeet, but
it's a help meet for Adam, and the idea here is that she helps, that word means to surround,
to assist, to save, and so she was created to assist and to save Adam from his loneliness, and of course, her own loneliness. Also, she would assist
him in managing the garden and the greater creation
given to man by God. All right, another interesting thing I want to look at concerning this passage, is that God could've
formed her from the ground, but He didn't. I mean, He could've
formed her from the dirt, and He chose not to. He chose to form her
from the side of Adam, in order for her to be able
to share the nature of man. However, her likeliness to
God was given to her by God. She wasn't taught to be like God by man. You know, it says, "So God
created man in His own image," and then he says, "Male
and female created he him," if you go back to Genesis
chapter 1 verse 27. So, woman's spiritual
character, spiritual image is there because God has
created her in this way. Her form, her essence,
her function, her psyche, God created all these things. So, God knows women because He created them in the way that they are. A woman might be a
mystery to man many times, but she's never a mystery to God. Another interesting
point on these two verses is that God brought women to man. His original design is
for woman, one woman to be with one man. And you know, the old joke, "It's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve," one man, one woman, this
is the original design. So, if someone says to you, you know, "Where is it in the Bible that says "that two men can't be married, "or two women can't be married, "or three men and one woman, "or five women and one ... "Where does it say that?" Well, it says it right
at the very beginning, and it's significant that it
says it right at the beginning, because right at the beginning
is the essential imagery, the essential formation of human beings, and human beings in the basic
relationship of marriage, one man, one woman. So, it's significant. If God would've wanted, if God designed us to live in some other kind of construct, some other kind of
organization, if you will, this would've been the
time to set that in motion. But we see, as we read
throughout the Bible, that the disintegration
of society through sin, in the disintegration
of society through sin, we see that men and women
go away from this model. So, going away from this
model of one man and one woman is always portrayed in
the Bible as sinful, or as a failure, or as a disintegration, or you know, a devolution if you wish of the original model. Okay, so now we're gonna
go on to the family. So, He's created one man, one woman, we're gonna talk about the family in the next couple of verses here. So, the first social unit creation, created rather, not evolved,
but created, is the family. It's such a basic inherent
unit that, in any society, at any point in history, when the family unit disintegrates,
so does that society. And that's the great
danger in American society. I don't want to get the politics here, but the great danger
in our society is that, as the family disintegrates,
as the family is fractured, so is the society. You know, the Roman Empire ruled for a lot longer than the United States. You know, the United
States is a superpower, still to this day, but it hasn't been a
superpower for like a century. Rome was ruler of the world for centuries, and yet, it caved in because of divorce and sexual perversion. These things became rampant to
weaken the Empire from within so that it became vulnerable from without. Now, what evolves from the family unit are social structures, like tribes, and nations, and governments. Even the church is
modeled after the family, and much of the imagery
of the family is used in the Bible to describe the church. We call the church, among other
things, the Bride of Christ, and Christians within the
church, we call each other, you know, Brothers, and Sisters in Christ. And so, there's the imagery of the family used to describe the church. So, in the following verses
in Genesis chapter 2, the structure and the attitude that create and sustain
healthy families are put forth. So, let's read verse 23. It says, "The man 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.'" Now, when Adam named the animals, he knew from observation
that they were alive, but they were not like
himself because of their form, and because of their limitations, they couldn't talk for example. When God brings Eve to Adam, he recognizes that, although
her form is different, she is similar to him in nature, and she is, even more importantly, suitable for fellowship, for intimacy, something that the animals
were not capable of. And so, Adam acknowledges
not only that she is human, but in doing so, acknowledges her status alongside of himself as one
who is in the image of God. He knows he's in the image of God, and now he recognizes that Eve is also, this woman that God brings him, she also is in the image of God. And so, just as he named the animals, described where they fit
into the scheme of things, he now also names the one
brought to him by God, and he calls her Woman. Now, in the Hebrew, the
Hebrew for man is 'ish,' and the Hebrew for woman 'ishah.' So, woman is not a separate identity, but she derives her identity from man, because she was formed from
man, and not separate materials. God did not form woman from the earth, from the, you know, other
elements of the earth. He formed her from man, that's
why she shares in his form, and so on, and so forth. And God did not create her from nothing, he made her from man. That's why men and women, you know, they fit together so well,
physically, and emotionally, and spiritually, because
God intended that. Different, but the same
in their spiritual, and physical, and emotional nature. Then, we go on to verse 24, it says, "For this reason a man "shall leave his father and his mother, "and be joined to his wife; "and they shall become one flesh." Now, in one verse, a
summary of the elements of what a family is, how it is formed, and how to guarantee its health, it's amazing, you know, again, the Bible is so compact and
giving so much information in so few sentences. So, let's look at Genesis 2:24, let's take a look at some
of the things that it says. First of all, it talks
about the basic family. A family is made up of a man, and a woman, and their children. Now, there are variations of this today. You know, on TV, two dads and one child, or single parents, we see single parents for a variety of reasons
today in our society, or we see children raising other children, or couples who have no
interest in children, or groups that are living
together, you know, sharing the child raising,
child rearing responsibilities, and having various, you know, relationships with each
other in the group. So, there's all kinds of formats, all kinds of ways to put
together a, quote, family. And I'm not saying that these others can't develop family characteristics, and they can't share the warmth of family, but we have to remember that the original, and ideal combination,
is a man and a woman, and their children. And again, as I say,
there are a lot of reasons why this can't happen, someone passes away, there's
a divorce, a child dies, you know, we blend two families together. Of course, you know,
things happen in life. What we're saying simply, is
that according to the Bible, it at least articulates for us what the ideal is, so we know
what we're shooting for here. Secondly, we see that families are formed when children leave existing families and form new families through marriage. When this happens, a new
family unit is formed, and the dynamics begin to change. You know, the loyalty
of the children change to include their spouse as
the priority relationship. And parents, of course,
need to be able to let go. That's why it says, a man leaves his mother and father,
cleaves to his wife. You know, there are more
problems in marriages caused by children who put their parents ahead of their partners, and conversely, parents
who refuse to recognize the new roles that their
children play in their marriages. You know, the male child
leaves home, takes on a wife, he is now the head of that family. Not his dad, his dad is not
the head of that family. His dad is the head of his family, and the sun is the head of his family, and that needs to be
recognized, and supported. And the same way, the female
child has a new priority, and the in-laws need to recognize that. All right, another idea
that comes out of this is that in order for the marriage to work, it needs these, you know,
it needs basic ingredients, a couple of them anyways, that are alluded to in this passage. First of all, it needs intimacy. You know, the husband cleaves to his wife. The term cleave, in
the old versions there, was a term that meant to be glued to, or to hang on to one's wife, and the point is that marriage
must produce a closeness between the couple, that is not available in any other relationship,
and in any other situation. You can have a best friend, and you can have a hunting buddy, or you can have a girl talk, shopping, that's all good, that's all
wonderful, part of life, but in the end, it's your marriage, it's your partner in marriage. It's with that person that you will cultivate the greatest intimacy. In a practical sense, this means that we are closer to our partners,
we cherish our partners more than any other
person, any other activity, any other pursuit. Because marriage is a commitment to make the other person the priority over whatever else was our
priority before we were married. You know, the single woman
lives with her widowed mother, and they live together for a long time, and then the single woman
finds a mate and gets married, the priority is her husband. He becomes the priority. Even though she has strong
ties with her mother, her husband becomes the priority. And if that doesn't happen,
that marriage is undermined. And you know, it works the other way, too. Take the same scenario, the widowed mom and the
daughter live together, so-and-so, oh, and mom
now finds a partner, and she marries, in the same way, her husband now becomes the priority. It doesn't mean that she rejects her child or her daughter, of course not, but her priority is her new husband. Otherwise, that marriage
will be seriously undermined. I mean, just look at successful marriages, just look around you, where
people are not just together, but where they are thankful, and they're happy being together. They'd rather be together than be apart. And what do you see? You'll see the difference
in their marriage is that their partners are
their number one priority. Not work, not hobbies, not best friends, not the Internet, and all
that goes on in the Internet. And then, another thing that
is required is exclusivity. They will be one flesh. One flesh includes the idea of exclusive, faithful sexual partners,
but it goes beyond this. Not just includes that,
but more than that. They are bonded together
physically and emotionally, spiritually and socially. Couples, you know, are
sometimes united legally, and sexually, but they're not bonded together in any other way. You know, they don't
share the same religion, they don't share money. I mean, you know, the
attitude about money, there's his money, there's her money. They don't share dreams. They don't share dreams and hopes. They don't share activities, he has his things that
he does with his people, she has things that she
does with her people, and the most that they
do is they come back and they kind of report to
each other what they did. This may work for a while, but it doesn't build the relationship. Relationship building requires that they share activities as well. Nothing new, I'm not
saying anything new to you, I'm simply saying that
the Bible, you know, assumes this idea, again, in a few words, "They become one flesh." And that idea, I'm simply kind
of parsing it out for you, and how that works, how that works out in an everyday relationship. Also, successful marriages, you know, they have intimacy, they have exclusivity, and they also have longevity, and longevity is, you
know, what the Bible here, again, points to in that verse. It's not specified, but the
intention of God with the family is that it is to be a permanent unit. This is the ideal
established in the garden, and it is this ideal that Jesus refers to in Matthew Chapter, you know, 19, 18. Jesus is saying, "Whatever
God puts together, "man should not tear apart, take apart." It didn't say you can't do it, didn't say that doesn't happen, he saying it shouldn't happen. When it happens, it's wrong. Throughout history, you know, God has made provision for
man's failure in this area, as well as forgiveness and
restoration through the gospel. God understands that we don't
always live up to that ideal, and He makes provisions for that, through His mercy, and through His grace. But, the original ideal and
pattern for what a marriage is and ought to be has never changed. It's always a man and a woman, it's always they're bonded
together in one flesh. It's always, and they're
going to be together for life, the commitment is for life. Do we always succeed at that? No, but at least let's
recognize that that's the ideal. I tell that to people who
are going into, you know, subsequent marriages,
in other words this is the second time they're getting
married for whatever reason. I always hold up to them the ideal. Just because you may not have succeeded in the first attempt, just because your spouse passed away, or left you, or whatever, it doesn't mean that
the ideal has changed. Your situation has changed,
but the ideal hasn't changed. The ideal is always the same. All right, finally, let's
close out the chapter. Let's take a look at, a glimpse
into the first relationship before sin and death entered the world. So, in the previous verses,
we're talking about the ideal, what marriage should be. In the last verse, a
kind of reverse its focus back to Adam and Eve. And it says, "And the man and his wife "were both naked and were not ashamed." So now, you know, the focus of the writing goes back to look at Adam and
Eve, and their relationship. And what does it say? Well first, it says they were both naked because the weather, you know, obviously did not require clothing, and the law did not
require clothing as well, and their consciences did not require them to wear clothing either, they were without shame. Secondly, it refers to them
now as the man and his wife, not just Adam and the woman. Now it says the man and his wife, and the question is, there is an acknowledgment here
of marriage and family. But some people say,
"Well, how did they marry?" Well, there are three
steps in any marriage, and Adam is no different. First of all, there's knowledge. So, man recognizes woman
as one who is like him, he knows this. He honors her, he accepts her
place alongside of himself, in her role in the scheme of things. So, there's knowledge, the
first step is knowledge. He knows who Eve is. Well, in the same way, today, you know, that's the first step, isn't it? Knowledge? We do it differently, God just doesn't bring some woman to us and introduce us, but we do find a partner, right? A potential one. And how do we get to know them, knowledge? Well, there's courtship, and dating, and we get engaged,
and so on and so forth. Variations of these type
of things in every society. You meet someone, and then
you begin to get to know them, and you begin to find out about them, and your affection for
them begins to grow, you know, and so on and so forth, that's the first step. Well, this is the first
step in the garden as well, Adam began to know Eve. Second step is the covenant, man acknowledges her before a witness. "She is bone of my bone,
flesh of my flesh." You know, he acknowledges who she is, and there was only one
witness, and who's the witness? Well, God is the witness,
and the Angels I guess. He acknowledges that she belongs to him. "She is bone of my bone," you know, "She belongs to
me, and I belong to her." That's the covenant. Well, fast forward to
today, what is the covenant? We acknowledge that that
person is going to be partnered with us in
marriage, and we with them. We have, of course today,
the marriage ceremony, and the white dress, and the tuxedos, but those are just Western traditions. You don't think that 1000
years ago men were tuxedos. These are just European traditions that kind of came down to us,
generation after generation, but the concept is the same. We have a covenant moment with our partner in the same way that Adam had
a covenant moment with Eve, accepting her as the
partner that God gave her, before a witness. We do the same thing, before a witness. As a matter of fact,
we have two witnesses, and usually there's the
clergyman, the preacher, the minister, the priest,
the Rabbi, whatever. It's the same idea. And, we do it in a legal way. You know, we take a vow in a legal way, we enter into a contract. Well here, in Adam and Eve, they enter into a commitment together. They belong together, they
recognize that they do, they acknowledge this publicly before God. And then the third step
is the confirmation, they confirm their unity
through sexual intimacy, and isn't that what we do today as well? Once the covenant is made and signed, don't the couple go off,
and they live together, you know, they usually go off on a honeymoon or something like that, but after the covenant,
comes the confirmation, comes the intimacy. So, every ancient and modern society recognizes and practices, in some way, the principle of monogamous
marriage and family. And I'll tell you something, you know, these three steps, knowledge, covenant, confirmation, when we get these three
steps out of whack, when we put three instead of
two, and put two at the bottom, or one at the bottom and three at the top, and in our society, if
you look at Hollywood, if you look at the images and the messages that we get through our entertainment, usually it's the other way around, right? I mean, there's hardly any
knowledge of the individual. They meet on a date, and
two days later, you know, there's a scene where everybody's
ripping their clothes off. In other words, they put
the confirmation first, and then they put knowledge second, and then they put covenant third. We sleep together, then we live together, get to know each other,
and then we get married. And the problem is, when you survey people who have done this, the divorce rate is much, much higher. The opportunity, well, I
won't call it an opportunity, but the chance for failure
of that relationship grows exponentially as they get this order here out of whack. So, it was the order in the garden, knowledge, covenant,
confirmation, intimacy, and it should be the order
today, we get to know someone, and then we make a commitment to them based on that knowledge. I tell young people, they say, "Well, how will you get to know someone "if you don't sleep with them?" and I tell them, "If you sleep with them "before you get to know them, "you probably will have a much harder time "getting to know them, "because that sexual intimacy
gets in the way all the time." So, there are a lot of ways
to get to know someone, and to get to know them quite deeply, without sexual intimacy. At least enough knowledge
about that person to bring you to the next step,
which would be the covenant. You know, this was the
way things were done for many, many, many centuries, before we got to our modern society, and marriages had a much
longer longevity if you wish, longevity rate than they do today. But of course, many people
think that they know better, and they know better than God's way. So as I said, every
ancient and modern society recognizes and practices,
in some form or another, the principle of monogamous
marriage and family. There are some polygamous societies, but these are always aberrations, and they don't usually survive. And then it says, at
the very end, you know, "They were not ashamed, there was no sin." The reason they were not ashamed is that there was no knowledge
of evil in any form to cause guilt or shame, especially evil connected
with personal sin. There was none of that,
so there was no shame. Their nakedness was natural, and it was a symbol of
their open, and transparent, and trusting relationship. You know, in a marriage here, I don't want to get too detailed, but in a marriage, after
certain amount of time, we become comfortable with one another in various stages of undress. You know, while you're taking a shower, you're waiting for her to
come out of the shower, so on and so forth, you know, we are comfortable with each other, you know, being naked, but it takes time to get to that point. And why do we get to that point? Well, we get to that point because at some point
we trust our partner. You know, we've been
intimate with our partner, so on and so forth. Well, Adam and Eve, you
know, they were not ashamed, because they had that
trust, and that openness, and so on and so forth, right off the bat, right at the beginning,
because there was no sin. Okay, so there's some insights if you wish from the verses that
describe the creation of Eve, and then subsequently, the
marriage and family relationship. So, next week, we're gonna get
into a whole new topic now, and that is, or next time we get together, that is the temptation and the fall. So, I thank you for being
with us in this class, and those of you who
watch this lesson on DVD or online, please know
that you can download the notes that the students in the class are using during the class, just go to bibletalk.tv, go to the Genesis class, or Genesis book, and you'll have an opportunity
to download the notes. That's it, thank you very much.
