25-1123a - Detailed Summary

The Preacher Scott, begins by reading the main sermon text, Genesis 2:18-25. The passage recounts God declaring that it is not good for the man to be alone and promising to make a helper fit for him. God forms every beast and bird from the ground and brings them to Adam to name, yet no suitable helper is found among them. God then causes a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, takes one of his ribs, closes the flesh, and from the rib builds a woman, whom He brings to the man. Adam responds with joy and poetry: “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.” The text establishes the foundational principle of marriage: a man shall leave his father and mother, hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

Scott introduces the sermon titled “Beginnings: Man, Woman, and Marriage,” noting that the series has been working through Genesis 1–11 and has now reached the close of chapter 2. He explains that after the broad panorama of Genesis 1, chapter 2 zooms in on the sixth day to give a close-up of the crown of God’s creation — humanity — and the first institution God ever established: marriage. Everything thus far has been declared “good,” yet suddenly God says it is “not good” that the man should be alone. Scott stresses that this is not a contradiction or a divine mistake but deliberate divine intentionality occurring before the final “very good” pronouncement at the end of day six.

A Deliberate Teaching Moment
Scott emphasizes that God is not surprised by Adam’s aloneness; rather, this is a planned teaching moment for Adam, for the watching angels, and now for the church through Scripture. He cites multiple passages showing that angels are spectators of God’s redemptive drama: they shouted for joy at the earth’s foundation (Job 38), God has never spoken in secret (Isaiah), and angels observe marriage and headship in the church (1 Corinthians 11). The angels learn that the natural (physical) realm differs profoundly from the spiritual realm: unlike angels who neither marry nor reproduce (Matthew 22:30), humans are embodied, sexual beings created for relationship, generations, and marriage.

Adam himself learns his unique aloneness through experience. God parades the animals before him — possibly in male-female pairs — for naming, and in the process Adam realizes that no creature is a suitable helper for him. Only after Adam fully feels this need does God act, performing divine surgery under “the first biblical anesthesia.” God takes a rib from Adam’s side and literally “builds” (not just “makes”) the woman, then presents her to Adam as a father would present a bride. Adam awakens and erupts into humanity’s first recorded poetry, expressing profound relief and recognition: “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” Scott highlights that woman alone shares man’s substance; she is not formed from the dust like Adam and the animals, nor does any animal share ancestry with another kind. Woman is created instantly and miraculously from man — the closest the Bible ever comes to something resembling macroevolution, yet performed perfectly by direct divine act.

Natural and Spiritual Purposes of Sexuality Verses 24-25 give what Jesus and Paul call the “law of marriage”: a man shall leave father and mother, hold fast (cleave) to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh; they were naked and not ashamed. The “therefore” ties marriage directly to the fact that woman was built from man’s rib — sexuality itself is the reason marriage was instituted. Jesus quotes this exact pattern in Matthew 19:4-6 while answering a question about divorce, concluding, “What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

God made humans male and female for two great covenantal purposes. First, the natural purpose: procreation — “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” Even before sin brought death, reproduction was woven into human nature (unlike angels). Malachi 2:15 explains that God makes husband and wife “one in flesh and spirit” because “He seeks godly offspring.” Every married couple, regardless of their beliefs, belongs to God, and through the marriage covenant God intends the raising of children in covenant homes “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). Marriage is God’s authorized, joyful, and glorious means of bringing new image-bearers into the world.

Second, the spiritual purpose: marriage is a profound mystery (mysterion) symbolizing Christ and the church (Ephesians 5). Leaving father and mother pictures the believer leaving the old life of sin; cleaving to the spouse pictures cleaving to Christ; the one-flesh union pictures the believer’s mystical union with Christ and the indwelling of the Triune God; the husband’s sacrificial headship pictures Christ’s headship over the church; and the wife’s submission pictures the church’s glad submission to Christ. Thus the angels watch and learn profound truths about redemption through the drama of human marriage.

Application and Closing Exhortation
Scott concludes by stressing that from the very beginning, God deliberately placed marriage on public display before the courts of heaven. Human beings are not angels; we are embodied, sexual, relational creatures designed from the start to model in miniature the covenant love between Christ and His bride, the church. The angels observe this drama of redemption played out in every Christian home, making marriage a sacred stage and a profound responsibility.

He directly applies the truth to the congregation. To married couples he declares: live out this great mystery with joy and reverence. Husbands are commanded to love their wives as Christ loved the church — a deliberate decision of the will, not a feeling dependent on whims or circumstances. Wives are commanded to respect and submit to their husbands as the church submits to Christ — likewise a decision of the will, not contingent on emotions or the husband’s performance at any given moment. These commands stand because the angels are watching, the world is watching, and children are watching. Even the world’s smallest deviation distorts the picture of Christ and His bride.

Scott briefly references Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 11:8-10, where the apostle uses the exact creation order of Genesis 2 (woman taken from man, woman created for man) as part of his reasoning for a symbol of authority on the wife’s head, concluding with the striking phrase “because of the angels.” Though the specific practice of head-covering is beyond the scope of the sermon, Paul’s incidental point reinforces the central truth: the watching angels make it imperative that God’s people guard their conduct in marriage and family life so that the gospel is clearly and faithfully displayed.

To the unmarried, Scott offers gospel comfort and warning. Every believer’s ultimate marriage is still future — the marriage supper of the Lamb. Until then, the church is their family. If it is not good to be alone, the God-ordained cure is not a string of sinful relationships that bring shame to the name of Christ, but an authorized, covenantal marriage that glorifies the relationship between Christ and His bride. All sexual relationships outside of this divinely instituted pattern are sinful precisely because they misrepresent and distort the picture of Christ’s faithful, exclusive, self-sacrificial love for the church.

For struggling marriages, Scott points them back to the One who first built woman from man’s side and who later allowed His own sinless side to be pierced on the cross in order to build His church. True healing and restoration are found only in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Finally, Scott calls every hearer — married or single — to fall on their knees in worship of the God who refused to leave Adam alone, who refuses to leave us alone, and who gave His Son to become bone of our bones and flesh of our flesh so that we might be united to Him forever. To this God belongs all glory in the church, in Christ Jesus, and in every marriage that displays His covenant love throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

The sermon closes with the extension of the invitation and the congregation standing to sing.