Genesis 2:18-25 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.… I. EXPLANATION OF THE PASSAGE. 1. A Divine parable. 2. Panorama of emergent woman. It is the golden hour for Divine instruction; for it is in dreams, in visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, that God openeth their ear, and sealeth up their instruction (Job 33:15, 16). Wrapped in his deep sleep, Eden's dreamer beholds the vision of his second self. He sees his Maker taking from out of him one of his own ribs, forming it into a woman, and presenting her in all her glorious beauty to himself, to be to him henceforth that blessed mate for whom he has unconsciously sighed. And so his God has in very truth given to His beloved in his sleep (Psalm 127:2). Nor is it altogether a dream. Awaking from his sleep, he beholds still standing by him the fair blissful vision. Instinctively recognizing the community of nature, he joyously exclaims; "This, now, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this shall be called woman, Isha because from man, Ish, was she taken." II. MORAL MEANING. 1. Woman's formal inferiority to man. Woman, in the matter of outward, formal, scenic authority, is to yield to man. For every kind of organization, whatever it may be, political, military, financial, ecclesiastical, domestic, must have some kind of nominal head, or index finger — e.g., king, president, general, chairman, bishop, pastor, husband. Look at grand old fatherland. According to her theory of Government, England must have a monarch. And who sits on England's throne today? A woman — a pure, noble, true-hearted woman. But, because Victoria wears a crown as her nation's emblazoned figurehead, does it necessarily follow that she is intellectually superior to the Disraeli who holds her helm of state; or morally superior to the Spurgeon who preaches that there is another Sovereign, even one Jesus? Quite so is it with woman in her relation to man. According to Holy Scripture, she is subordinate to him. But this subordination implies in no sense whatever any essential inferiority. Woman is man's peer in all essential capacities — in capacities of sensibility, intellect, moral worth, humanhood. Woman is man's inferior simply in the matter of scenic, symbolic, formal authority. 2. Woman's essential equality. Man and woman, considered in their essence, are a unity. But, observe, unity implies complexity; that is to say, unity implies likeness and unlikeness, sameness and difference, community and diversity. (1) Community of man and woman. Woman is man's essential peer, his Alter Ego, his second self. There is nothing, then, in the essential nature of woman which should exclude her from the rights, privileges, activities, or duties, which inherently belong to the genus Homo. Whatever is legitimately open to man, not indeed as a man, but as a human being, is equally open to woman: for both are equally human. Woman as well as man can feel, think, reason, imagine, observe, classify, generalize, deduce. Woman as well as man can sell goods, plan buildings, make statues, resolve nebulae, discover elements, diagnosticate diseases, construct philosophies, write epics. There is nothing in the nature of woman as woman which should forbid her having a specific employment or vocation as distinctively as the brother brought up by her side. True, there are some things which woman cannot do as well as man: not because she is inferior in any of the essential attributes of humanity, but simply because she is inferior in the accidental element of physical strength. (2) Diversity of man and woman. Woman is something more than a supplement or appendix to man; woman is man's complement. Man and woman are the two poles of the sphere of humanity, opposite and complemental, complemental because opposite. And the one pole implies the other. Legislate as much as you please, you cannot abolish the fact of the sexes. Constituently, elementally the same, man and woman are organized on different bases. Like the stars, they differ in their glory (1 Corinthians 15:41). Each has certain excellences which are peculiar to each, and distinctive of each. Man's excellences are virtues; woman's excellences are graces; and I suspect that, in the judgment of Him who seeth in secret, the graces are diviner than the virtues. 3. Marriage a Divine institution. 4. The earthly marriage a type of the heavenly. (G. D. Boardman.) Parallel Verses KJV: And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. |
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