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.… God does nothing without a purpose: and therefore "the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made He a woman." We can readily understand that, had Eve been builded of the earth as Adam was, there would have been a relationship between them which was never intended. They might have been regarded as bearing towards each other in some degree the tie of a brother and sister, springing from the earth as the parent of both. But the love that was to exist between them was not designed to be the love of relationship, not the love of consanguinity, not the love of a brother and sister. Adam was to love Eve as being essentially a part of himself, as a friend that sticketh closer than a brother, as one that originated in himself, and actually derived her existence from his own body. And the great purpose which the Almighty had in view in this formation of woman was the institution of marriage. So that you are not to regard the formation of Eve simply as a creation of the woman, just as the formation of Adam was the creation of the man; but you must consider it as the production of Adam's wife, and as having involved in it the Divine purpose of the institution of marriage. And then you see at once why the peculiar process of creation was employed in taking the rib of Adam. And all this shows us and teaches us that marriage is a Divine institution of no ordinary import, and that its vows and obligations are to be regarded as in a high degree sacred. It should never be entered upon inconsiderately, nor should its festivity ever go on to such extent as to blot out its sacred character. If we fail to recognize its Divine appointment, and give it not the reverence which it claims by virtue of its Divinity, how shall we look for the Divine blessing? It should be all love — love from the beginning to the close of the compact; like the ring, which belongs to our ceremony, having no end, emblematic of eternal love. And this is a mystical love: it is not the love which nature plants and nourishes wherever she has established kinsmanship, or where she has joined soul to soul in the bonds of friendship. It is a mystic love, which takes its stand upon Divine institution, and can be traced only to the recorded circumstance of creation — "The rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made He a woman." And it strikes us as a wonderful thing, that this institution should be found so early and so prominently placed among the brief records of creation. We should, perhaps, have rather expected that it would have had its position among the Levitical appointments. It behoves us, then, to inquire whether there was any special purpose of the Almighty, whether there was any hidden mystery involved in the institution. There appears to be something so remarkable in the creation of the woman, and there is something so expressive in Adam's remark: "This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh"; and the appointment is altogether so wonderful, that there must be some meaning in the history beyond that which appears upon the surface, and beyond that which our remarks have hitherto included. Now, we know that in many particulars Adam was a type of Christ our Redeemer. "Husbands," says the apostle, "love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for it." And, after speaking and exhorting concerning marriage, he quotes the very words employed by Adam at its first institution, and adds, "This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church." If, then, Adam was the type of Christ, and Christ is the spouse of the Church, it follows as a logical deduction that Eve was a type of the Church. And our conclusion therefore is this, that the marriage of Adam and Eve, and the marriage institute altogether, is typical and emblematical of the union between Christ and His Church. And thus, in the very first page almost of the Bible (and there is hardly a page or a letter that has not reference to the same wonderful subject), we find redemption hinted at, and a Redeemer pointed out, and a Church suggested. Here is the gospel, here is the glad tidings of mediation in the very alpha of Divine revelation, and it is never lost sight of, even to the omega. And here, then, we arrive at the deep mystery of the marriage institute: here we learn why its appointment is such a prominent feature in the concise history of creation. If, then, we have reasoned correctly, and Eve be thus a type of the Church, then it would prove a matter of profitable investigation to observe how the position and the directions of Adam and Eve apply in their fulfilment to Christ and the Church. But we can only hint at these things, and leave this wonderful subject for private meditation. There can be no question but that the opening of Adam's side for the formation of Eve had had reference to that opening of the side of the second Adam for the formation of His Church, which took place upon the cross at Calvary; for the Church, the ransomed of Sion, owes all its existence and all its salvation to the water and the blood which issued upon the spear stroke of the soldier, and without which, we are told, there could have been no remission. And this opening of the side also was effected during a deep sleep; for, when the soldiers came to Him, they found that He was dead already: it was a deep sleep, the deep sleep of death. Let us, then, be true to ourselves and to our profession; so that, after having taken upon us the vows of marriage to Christ, we may never be spoken of as a wicked and adulterous generation. (T. W. Richards, M. A.) 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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