We’re launching a new Text-Driven Podcast and article series looking at significant passages of Scripture concerning God's design for marriage and the family. The first passage that we will look at is Genesis 2. We believe that this passage is the foundation for the family and is essential to a text-driven believer knowing and understanding God's purpose for the family.
Note: The terms family and marriage will be used interchangeably as the passage shows that a family starts at marriage, not at childbearing. Thus, a married couple with no children is as much of a family as a married couple with many children.
The Setting
Preceding God's creation of the family, Genesis 2 describes God's perfect creation of Eden. Eden was beautiful and perfect in every way. Four beautiful rivers flowed out of the garden. Riches of gold, myrrh, and onyx were plentiful. God planted the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil there. God created a garden of great beauty specifically to place the peak of His creation in it: Man. God placed man in the garden and firmly commanded the man that he must not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Up until this point, everything is good.
The Problem
Six times in Genesis 1, God saw that His creation was good. Upon the creation of man, God saw that it was very good. Throughout Genesis 2, God did everything He purposed in creation, and while the text does not explicitly say it, everything in His creation is good. After every good thing, God says something is "not good." From a narrative standpoint, this is a fascinating turn of events. Typically, in a narrative, the protagonist would create something beautiful, and then the antagonist could come along to criticize it. In a typical narrative, you'd expect a statement of something not being good to be an insult! Yet, it is God who finds issue with His creation. God observes that it is not good for man to be alone. What God observed not to be good was not something He created; it was something He had yet to create.
Take a moment to think about this statement. Before God's creation of the family, God was spurred to action by noticing that what was lacking was the family. Before man could ever say that he felt lonely, God knew that he would be. No theologian would ever dare say that man being alone with God is a problem, yet God Himself acknowledged that it is a problem. God did not see this problem after sin but before it. No other piece of creation is spurred on by something. God created land, sea, sky, fish, and animals without a reason given. The only thing created with a reason given is the family.
The Solution
Upon God's statement, He resolves to make a helper comparable to man. God then brings every animal to Adam so that Adam can name them. As Adam names each animal, the narrative recognizes again that there was no helper for Adam comparable to him. The narrative makes it appear that both God and Adam have recognized that it was not good for Adam to be alone. Therefore, God puts Adam to sleep, takes a rib from his side, and makes a helper for Adam. The language used in the text communicates that God takes the rib of Adam and specifically designs woman to be ideal for him. After God's perfect design of woman, God brings the woman to Adam, almost as a gift. God gave a solution to a problem that only God recognized. The solution to man's loneliness could only be given by God. God specially fashioned woman as that solution and gave woman to Adam.
Since marriage is God's solution to man being alone, that means friendship, intimacy, and love between man and woman are gifts from God. Every beauty that comes from marriage is a gift. Proverbs 18:22 certainly comes to mind. A man who finds a wife has found a good thing and obtains favor of the LORD because that man has discovered God's gift. Desiring marriage and family isn't a selfish outcome of man lacking contentment with God but is the outcome of how God created the soul. Marriage and family is a good gift from God.
The Relationship of Man and Woman
After Adam received God's gift, he gave a poetic response: “Bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man” (Genesis 2:23). Adam's statement communicates what woman is. Woman is not a different being than man but is the same being. She is distinct from man but is the same substance. There is closeness in the statement. Adam saw the woman as an extension of himself. It's been said that God did not take from Adam's head so that woman would be above man to rule him nor from Adam's feet so that woman would be below man to be trampled by him but took from Adam's side so that woman would be equal with him and under man's arm of protection.
The relationship between husband and wife is then cemented in verse 24. A man must leave his father and mother and become one flesh with his wife. Marriage takes two people and makes them one. Neither the husband nor the wife joins another family, but together, they create a new family structure. They are one and knitted closer together than any being.
God's intention in marriage is for two equals to come together and become one. The man is to work, provide, and protect, and the woman is to help him. Together, as a unit, they are to do what God commanded.
The Safety of the Relationship
The last half of the verse describes what God meant for the relationship between a man and his wife: unashamed. While the aspect of Adam and his wife being naked speaks to their innocence from the knowledge of good and evil, it also speaks to the marriage relationship being one of safety. There is no need to hide. There is no shame of being thought less of. There is safety.
Takeaways on Marriage
While Genesis 2 is a descriptive narrative of God's creation of the family, it does tell us much about marriage.
First, the ideal situation for most people is found in marriage. Paul speaks of times when singleness is proper, but God's acknowledgment that man should not be lonely means that every heart seeks intimacy and safety. While that can be found in other relationships, God's primary answer to loneliness is marriage. To elevate any relationship to the place of marriage is to degrade God's solution to loneliness.
Second, marriage should always be spoken of as a good gift of God. Few things are more infuriating than hearing a married person complain about their spouse. Your spouse is God's gift to you. To disparage him or her is to say God gave a bad gift.
Third, marriage brings together two equals to become one flesh for both to serve each other in distinct ways. The husband leads, provides, and protects, and the wife helps, not because one is greater but because that is how God knitted them together. The husband and the wife complement each other.
Lastly, marriage is supposed to be a place of safety. Loneliness and shame should have no place in a marriage.
Written by Klayton Carson
The "Text-Driven Family" series is also on the Text-Driven Podcast. You can listen to the Text-Driven Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or at www.textdriven.org/podcasts. New episodes are released every Monday, just in time for your morning commute.
