MARTIN CAREY
Writing about the nature of man has been a very humbling venture, and especially with this topic today—relationships between men and women. There is no subject more badly distorted in modern culture than the identities and roles of the sexes, a culture where any notion of God’s original design is rejected. Modern secular culture places the sexes in competition with each other, where our differences in psychology and biology are suppressed. Our relationships are often portrayed under the Marxist framework of oppressed vs. oppressor.
Even basic biological differences are held in contempt as personal obstacles to fulfillment, and children, both born and unborn, are seen as disposable. One sad result of all this distortion is an epidemic of confusion and depression among our adolescent boys and girls. Boys and girls may try to be superheroes, or villains, or some powerful ideal that no one can possibly be. When they realize they cannot reach the impossible standard, they often despair.
Finding our way is difficult and hazardous, and as a believing Christian, I must freely admit that I have much to learn. As Christians, we can’t avoid Jesus’ command to be salt and light in dark places. We sorely need to remember God’s original design for us. So, come with me into Genesis 2, and let us wonder at man’s first encounter with woman.
Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him”.
Genesis 2:18
When God created Adam, He did not create the woman out of dust, as He did with the man. He had a very different plan of origin for her, with significant consequences. Adam was created first and made to experience being alone and incomplete. God placed Adam in the garden of Eden and instructed him about the trees in the garden. He put the man to work by bringing all the animals to him to name. Notice here that the naming of the animals has an important context. Adam doesn’t just name animals to establish his dominion over them—which he does. God had said that Adam’s being alone was not good, that he needed a suitable helper. So God brought the animals to Adam to study their natures and to name them. As he looked at them, he wondered if any of them might be helpful companions for him.
“But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him”.
Gen. 2:20
He found that none of the animals were “suitable” helpers. This realization is far more important than Adam’s learning the animals’ physical and sexual incompatibility to reproduce with man. Rather, studying and naming animals accomplished God’s purpose of showing Adam how alone, unique, and needy he was. He became aware that he was incomplete.
Then, in one of the most mysterious passages in Scripture, God put Adam into a deep sleep and performed radical surgery on him. God’s putting Adam to sleep reminds us of Genesis 15, when He made a covenant with Abram, putting him into a deep sleep, taking away his control. The everlasting covenant and the marriage covenant have profound parallels, pointing us to God’s sovereign design and control over our relationships among ourselves and with Him.
Eve was not formed from the dust of the ground as Adam and the animals were. She was formed from Adam’s body, from his side. She was to be related to him in ways that connected them physically and spiritually. Matthew Henry’s comment is apt:
“Woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; not made out of his head to top him, not 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, and near his heart to be beloved.”
Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible
Without woman, man is not complete. As Thabiti Anyabwile writes,
As a “suitable” helper, she is equal and adequate. Her contribution is essential, and without her, Adam is incompetent to perform God’s call on his life. It is not good for him to be alone.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/thabiti-anyabwile/some-basic-thoughts-on-manhood-women/
Eve’s creation completed the creation of mankind. As Adam’s equal, she shared with Adam the capacity to fulfill God’s great mandate to multiply and fill the earth, to rule and subdue it.
And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 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”.
Gen. 2:22-23
Adam reacts with joy when he sees Eve. “This at last!” he exclaims. After all that searching and frustration, here is the person that God designed for him. He names the woman “Ishah,” meaning, taken from man. Adam perceives that Eve, as his kind, shares his nature and soul. And yet, she is different in profoundly complementary ways. Adam didn’t need a duplicate of himself. He didn’t need a good worker, a horse, or a strong ox to command. None of those would have been helpful or suitable. Man needed another human, a real person to share souls with, a helper. This physical, spiritual, and psychological unity are necessary for a healthy marriage:
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh”.
Gen. 2:24
Male and female complementarity, as taught in Scripture, has much to teach us about to how men and women relate to each other in other relationships outside of marriage. We’ll look at that further in a future blog. My prayer to our Father is that He will grant us humility and wisdom, that we will not emulate the destructive “power-over” dynamics of the world, but emulate the Lord Jesus, who “came not to be served, but to serve, and give His life as a ransom for many.” †
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