Our sinful world has made a complete hash out of marriage. In this age of divorce on demand, more and more people are skipping out on family life altogether, showering their affections on pets instead of spouses and children. But however much we may love our dogs and cats (and lots of other wonderful creatures from ferrets to potbellied pigs), Adam found that none of them could be that special helper perfectly suited for him. God intended something much more meaningful for him – a woman.
But many modern people who uphold the importance of marriage mess things up in other ways. They twist some Biblical passages around to claim that men are supposed to dominate their wives, controlling them the way Adam asserted his dominion over the animals when he gave them names. But Adam didn’t give Eve a name until after they both fell into sin (Genesis 3:20) – the struggle for control in marriage was never part of God’s original plan.
Instead, Genesis 1:27 makes it plain that man and woman were equally made in God’s image, and thus of equal worth and dignity. And the way Eve was created highlights this – she was formed from part of Adam’s body, so that when they came together that which was incomplete could be made whole.
Yes, that was God’s intention for marriage as verse 24 makes plain – a man and a woman coming together to form not just a new family group but a new, more complete unit. So of course there is no room for self-centered domination in such a relationship, just as it would make no sense for such a union to be dissolved while either spouse is still alive – after all, Jesus Himself said, “What God has joined together let no man separate” (Mark 10:9).
And what did God intend to be the result of two incomplete people completing each other? Verse 25 tells us – an amazing level of honesty and intimacy. This kind of unity is only possible when a man and a woman make a lifelong commitment to one another, for it is only safe to let your guard down, to open yourself up and to allow yourself to be truly vulnerable with someone you know will never leave you.
No, marriage only works if all the pieces are in place: a man and a women coming together to form a permanent, exclusive and intimate bond, based on mutual love, respect and honor. And in our increasingly broken, self-centered, fearful, lonely world, such marriages are needed more than ever before.
Genesis 2:18-25 (ESV)
18 Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”
19 Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.
20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.
21 So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.
22 And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.
23 Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”
24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
