25-1123a Transcript

(2:40) It is my turn out of the six of us to speak to everyone today. We’ve been going through a study (2:51) when I’ve been preaching of Genesis chapters 1 through 11. We’re into chapter 2. We’re going (2:58) to be closing out chapter 2 today, picking up with Genesis 2, verses 18 through 25. (3:08) So then the Lord God said, but it’s not good that the man should be alone.

I will make him a helper (3:15) fit for him. Now out of the ground, the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird (3:21) of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man (3:27) called every living creature, that was its name.

The man gave names to all the livestock and to the (3:34) birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam, it was not found a helper (3:41) fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man.

And while he slept, (3:50) he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had (3:57) taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, (4:06) this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.

She shall be called woman because she was (4:14) taken out of man. Therefore, the man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his (4:22) wife and they should become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not (4:30) ashamed.

I’ve been titled this one, the creation of man, woman and marriage. After the sweeping (4:39) panorama of Genesis one, Moses now zooms in on the sixth day and gives us a close up of the crown of (4:48) God’s creation, humanity and the very first institution that God ever established, marriage. (5:01) Everything up to this point has been declared good, yet suddenly we hear a surprising word (5:08) from the Lord.

The Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a (5:16) helper suitable for him. Genesis 2.18, not good.

How can anything be not good in a creation (5:27) that will soon be called very good? Some critics rushed to say, see, two contradictory creation (5:35) accounts. But that objection melts away when we remember the timeline. These words are spoken (5:42) before the end of day six, before a woman is created, before God steps back and pronounces (5:51) his finished work, very good.

There is no contradiction here, only divine intentionality. (6:01) The Lord says, it is not good that the man should be alone. He’s not taken by surprise.

(6:08) This is no divine, oops, moment. God is teaching. This is a teaching moment for Adam (6:20) and, as we’ve noted before, the angels are watching.

It’s a teaching moment for the angels. (6:28) And through his word today, he’s teaching us. The Bible repeatedly tells us that the host of heaven, (6:36) the angels, are spectators of God’s great drama of redemption.

Job 38 says, (6:44) the morning star sang and the sons of God shouted for joy when the foundations of the earth were (6:51) laid. Isaiah declares that God has never spoken in secret. Everything has been on display.

And (6:58) Paul even tells us in 1 Corinthians chapter 11 that the angels are watching the drama (7:05) of marriage and headship unfold in the church. They are learning something profound. (7:14) What are they learning here? First, they are learning that the natural realm is different (7:22) from the spiritual realm.

Angels do not marry, Jesus tells us in Matthew 22, 30, (7:29) nor are they given in marriage. They do not reproduce. They are spiritual beings who exist (7:36) eternally once created.

But in the natural realm, humanity is different. We are embodied souls, (7:46) sexual beings made for relationship, made for generations, and made for marriage. (7:55) So then, what is Adam learning here? He’s learning that he is alone (8:10) among all of God’s creation.

And God lets Adam feel this through this experience, his aloneness, (8:20) before he cures it. And God brings the animals to Adam to name them, and perhaps (8:27) in pairs, male and female, marching by. Adam names them all.

And in the process, the truth sets in. (8:39) There was not found a helper suitable for him. Verse 20, no eagle, no lion, no dolphin, (8:48) no creature is like him.

Adam is alone in a way the animals are not. And only then, (8:59) when Adam knows his need, does God act, making a woman a marvelous miracle. (9:11) God causes a deep sleep to fall upon the man, our first biblical picture of anesthesia, (9:20) and performs divine surgery.

He takes from Adam’s side, literally, his rib, and builds, (9:29) literally, that’s the word, builds a woman. Then he brings her to the man like a father, (9:38) walking his daughter down the aisle. Adam wakes up and bursts into the first recorded poetry (9:49) in human history.

This, he says, at last, can you hear, can you hear the emotion (10:02) Adam expresses in his poem? This, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. (10:14) And she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. And notice, Eve is not created (10:22) from the dust like the animals and Adam.

She’s taken out of man. She is the only creature who (10:30) shares his very substance. Cats do not come from dogs.

Creatures do not have common ancestors. (10:38) And women, or woman, comes from man by divine surgery and divine decree in a moment. (10:49) This is as close as God ever gets to macroevolution.

And he does it instantly, perfectly, (10:57) and miraculously. The first wedding and the law of marriage. And then in verses 24 and 25, (11:04) Moses, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, gives us the law of marriage.

(11:10) The principle that Jesus himself will quote and Paul will expound. Therefore, a man shall leave (11:20) his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh. And that’s (11:27) identified by Jesus as the law of marriage.

The man and his wife were both naked and they were (11:34) not ashamed. So notice the word, therefore. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and (11:41) mother.

It signifies that the words following, which in this case is known as the law of marriage, (11:47) is the consequence or the reason for the words that came before it. And in our context in chapter (11:54) two, it immediately follows the building of woman from a rib of the man. In other words, (12:03) building a woman from a man is the reason why marriage was instituted.

Jesus is more explicit (12:12) in Matthew 19, four through six, quoting from Genesis 127 and then our text in Genesis 224. (12:22) He says, have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female? (12:32) And he said, therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife (12:38) and the two shall become one flesh. Then he adds a comment.

So he says, (12:46) they are no longer two, but one flesh. And as an aside, the context that Jesus was addressing (12:54) was a question about divorce. So he adds another comment saying, what therefore God has joined (13:05) together, let not man separate.

So why was marriage instituted? Because God made us male (13:13) and female. He made us sexual beings. Unlike the angels who are watching God’s work here, (13:20) sexuality itself is the reason for marriage.

So that naturally brings up the question then, (13:28) why did God make us male and female? And the Bible gives us two great reasons (13:35) not to think of the word. Anyway, the Bible gives us two great reasons for our sexuality (13:45) within the marriage covenant, one natural and one spiritual. The natural purpose is (13:53) be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.

Death will soon enter because of sin, but even before (14:00) sin, reproduction is built into the fabric of the natural realm. This command shows that God (14:07) intended from the beginning for humans to reproduce. As we mentioned earlier, that’s (14:14) unlike the angels who do not reproduce.

And I don’t believe this new difference at creation (14:20) between the natural and spiritual realms went unnoticed by the watching angels. (14:28) So in making us male and female, what is God seeking? Malachi gives us the answer in Malachi (14:37) 2.15, where speaking of the marriage covenant, the prophet says, has not the Lord made them one (14:45) in flesh and spirit? They are his. And why one? He says, because he was seeking godly offspring.

(14:55) God intends for his creation to be fruitful and multiply in the manner he designed, (15:03) that is through the marriage covenant. Why? To produce godly offspring, his offspring. (15:13) And it said the Lord made them one in flesh and in spirit.

They are his. Every male and (15:21) female married couple, whether they’re Christians, religious, atheist, agnostic, whatever (15:28) they are, they are his and they belong to God. And through them, he bears godly offspring.

(15:40) He wants godly offspring. He wants families, generations, covenant homes where children (15:46) are raised in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, Ephesians 6.4. Marriage is God’s (15:54) authorized, joyful, glorious way to bring new image bearers into the world. (16:02) The spiritual purpose for sexuality within the marriage covenant, (16:07) Paul tells us in Ephesians chapter 5, that marriage is a mystery, (16:14) a profound symbol that refers to Christ and the church.

The leaving father and mother in the (16:23) physical realm shows our leaving the world of sin, our former relationship, spiritually speaking. (16:30) The cleaving husband to wife in the physical realm shows our cleaving to Christ. (16:38) The one flesh union is fleshly in the physical realm and shows the spiritual (16:46) mystica that we’ve discussed previously.

The mysterious union Paul talks about in Ephesians (16:54) and elsewhere, the indwelling of the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in our bodies, (17:02) his temple. The husband’s role of sacrificial headship shows Jesus' sacrificial headship (17:11) of the church. And the wife’s submission to her husband shows the church’s submission to Christ.

(17:18) All the perfect representation of Christ and his church. A stage on which the angels watch the (17:27) drama of redemption played out in miniature in us. So what do you see God doing here? (17:38) From the very beginning, he’s putting marriage on display before the courts of heaven.

He’s (17:45) showing that human beings are not angels. We are embodied sexual relational creatures (17:53) made to model the covenant love of Christ and his bride. So if you are married, live out this (18:03) mystery with joy and reverence.

Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church. (18:11) This is a command. Husbands, we need to intentionally make the decision to love our (18:20) wives.

It’s not something left to our whimsical feelings. It’s a decision. Wives, respect your (18:28) husbands like the church submits to Christ.

Ephesians 5.23 again. Notice that it doesn’t say (18:38) wives, love your husbands here. It says that elsewhere.

But here it says, respect your (18:44) husbands. And this too is a command not left to our feelings. It’s a decision wives must make (18:53) regardless of how you feel at any particular time about your husband.

Why angels are watching. (19:05) On this point of angels watching, I want to bring up the teaching of Paul’s where he uses our (19:12) context of Genesis 1 and 2 as a supporting argument for his teaching. And understand this (19:19) particular topic, Paul’s teaching is beyond the scope of our lesson today, so we’re not going to (19:24) get into it.

So his teaching, which is not the point here, and that’s the point, it’s not the (19:35) point. However, he incidentally mentions that angels in his argument that I want us to see here (19:43) in our context, and I didn’t think to put the scripture on the thing. We can find it in 1 (19:51) Corinthians 11 verses 8-10.

For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. And neither was (20:02) man created for woman, but woman for man. This is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on (20:12) her head.

And why is that, Paul? Because of the angels. And in our context, what is our point? (20:21) Because the angels are watching. And Paul thought that was sufficient enough that we should (20:30) guard our behavior.

We should take note that the angels are watching, (20:37) and we have a responsibility to glorify God. And the world is watching, and your children (20:48) are watching. If you’re single, know that your ultimate marriage is still ahead, the marriage (20:55) supper of the Lamb.

And until then, the church is your family. And if it is not good for you to be (21:03) alone, then the solution is not a series of blundering sinful failures that just happens, (21:11) that bring shame and disgrace to the image of Christ and His bride. But the cure is an (21:19) authorized marriage relationship that honors and glorifies the image of Christ’s covenant (21:25) relationship with His bride.

That is why all other sexual relationships are sinful. (21:35) They fail to show faithfully Christ and His bride. If your marriage is struggling, (21:44) look again to the one who built woman from man’s side, and who gave his own pure side (21:52) on the cross to build the church.

There is healing in the gospel to him. (22:02) And all of us, married or single, let us fall on our knees and worship the God (22:08) who did not leave Adam alone, who did not leave us alone, and who gave His Son to be (22:16) bone of our bones and flesh of our flesh, that we might be one with Him forever. (22:26) To Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus, and in every marriage that displays His love (22:33) throughout all generations, forever and ever.

Amen? And that’s the lesson. (22:42) The invitation is being extended for all those who are subject to it, that we stand and sing.