As we return this morning to the Garden of Eden, please turn with me in the book of Genesis, chapter 2. We'll be looking this morning at the account of the creation of Eve in Genesis chapter two, verses 18 through 25. When you found your place, please stand with me for the reading of God's word this morning. Let us pray. And now Lord from heaven be pleased to bless your church on earth, to sanctify God this time as we lay hold of your word in scripture. to read it and by preaching to hear and to receive it. And we pray, Lord God, that your spirit would be at work in the hearts of all those who call upon your name. To strengthen us, Lord God, I resolve to continue to take up our cross and follow Jesus each day in the ways of your appointment. We thank you, God, for this better life that you've given to us and the great promise that it holds for eternity. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So our sermon text today, again, is Genesis chapter 2, beginning in verse 18. Listen now to the Word of God. The Lord God said, It is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper comparable to him. Out of the ground, the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept. And he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in its place. And then the rib which the Lord God had taken from men, he made into a woman, and he brought her to the man. And Adam said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. So this morning we're looking at the creation of Eve here in the Genesis account. Eve, the first woman, wife of Adam, and the mother of mankind. The first thing I want you to notice is how long this passage is, the emphasis it receives from Moses. Back in chapter one, Moses describes the creation of the sun, the moon, and all the stars in six verses. Now here in chapter two, he devotes eight verses to the creation of this one woman. Kenneth Matthews, who is an expert on the literature of the ancient Near East, says that a description like this of the creation of the woman is really unique. here in the Hebrew scriptures among the ancient cosmologies. Nobody seems to care about this the way Moses cared about it. And so the question I ask is why? Why would the creation of the woman have been particularly important to Moses as he is preparing the Israelites to cross the Jordan into the promised land? Well, let's consider the important role of women throughout the Pentateuch, the five books of the Bible that together constitute the book of Moses, all that Moses would say about this subject. Think here about the story of Noah and the flood, and how it was not just Noah and his sons, but their wives who were secured in the ark and survived the great flood. The story of Abraham, God's promise to Abraham hinges on Sarah and her ability to conceive a son. In the story of Isaac, Abraham's servant, remember, goes to great lengths to find a suitable wife for his master's son. The story of Jacob is very much the story of a man and his two wives and two concubines, women through which this one man came to have 12 sons who would become the 12 patriarchs of Israel. In the book of Exodus, the pharaoh of Egypt attempts to weaken the Hebrews by preventing their women from raising the little Hebrew boys to be men. And in the laws that Moses received from the Lord that we read about in the books of Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy, there are many that are clearly intended not just to protect the lives of women, but also to protect their dignity as the daughters of Zion. Later in the book of Numbers, chapter 25, we read the cautionary tale of Israel's harlotry with the women of Moab and the near disastrous consequences of that episode. And then finally, in the last book, the Book of Deuteronomy, we read a stern warning from the Lord, from Moses to the Israelites, that they are not to give their daughters to Canaanite men or receive their daughters for their sons, that such intermarriage would draw the whole nation into the worship of Canaanite gods, which would be disastrous. So from that brief survey, this is what I conclude. And when God says of Adam in Genesis chapter 2 verse 18 here, it is not good that man should be alone. God is not primarily saying something about Adam as a person. Grant, there are lots of ways in which we might see that it is not good for a man like me to be without a wife. You might say, thank God. He has Amy. Without her, who knows how eccentric and useless he might become. And I'll grant it, but there's a bigger idea here, is my point. That God has this great plan, not just for Adam, but for the people of Israel, and that's part of a greater plan for the whole world. But God sees here in the beginning that it can't happen without women. and particularly wives. So when God sees Adam among the animals here in verse 18, and he says it is not good that the man should be alone, he doesn't just mean it's not good for this man. He really means it's not good for the world. And that, I think, is why Moses, the prophet of the Lord in Israel, has his readers here pay careful attention to this truly critical moment in our history. And that is God's creation of Eve. As you probably know, this passage has become something of a battlefield in modern times. Various people, various social agendas, all attempting to bend Genesis 2, 18-25 to support their particular ideas about women and marriage. Let's just say at this point, It is not reasonable to expect this one passage to say all the important things about these subjects and to summon it forth to take a stand on every conceivable controversy between feminists and complementarians and patriarchs. There are many other passages in the Bible on women and wives, feminine dignity and virtue, motherhood and marriage, etc. and many of our questions are really better answered in those places in the Bible. So what I'm going to do is try to maintain our focus in this sermon on those important points that are most clearly made and emphasized in this account of God's creation of Eve. And that means we're going to be talking today about the blessing of God, the bond of marriage, and the basis of male headship. The blessing of God, the bond of marriage, and the basis of male headship. What does the creation of Eve have to say about these things? First, creation of Eve and the blessing of God. You notice here that God makes Eve to help Adam, and ultimately the world, to obtain God's promised blessing. God makes Eve to help Adam and ultimately the world to obtain God's promised blessing. So one thing that's particularly clear here, everybody can see it in Genesis 2, 18 through 25, is that Adam needs a helper. God sees that, we see that, and at this point Adam needs to see that too. So God orders this parade of animals. To help Adam see not only that he needs a helper, but to develop some sense of the sort of helper that he needs. Among the animals, verse 20, there is not found a helper comparable or suitable for Adam. God is here considering what he wants Adam to do. And he sees that in order for him to do it, he's going to need the help of another human being, and particularly of a female gender. So what Adam needs is not just help pulling the plow. An ox could do that. It's not just help picking the apples. I guess monkeys could be trained for that. It's not just a little companionship by the fireside in the evening. Adam might be satisfied with a spaniel. But God wants Adam to start a family. And there's no way for Adam to do that without the help of a wife. So I'm going to say something here. I know it's offensive to feminists. I don't see why it should be offensive to women at all, which is this. When you look at what we know about the female body and the maternal instincts of women, along with this biblical account of God's creation of Eve, It shouldn't be surprising or offensive to suggest that there is nothing more natural and fulfilling to a woman than getting married and having children. This is not to say that a woman cannot do and enjoy a lot of other things in life, including artistic things, intellectual things, athletic things. These are all human pursuits. As we'll see, the woman is every bit as human as her male counterpart. I think the Victorian era got this wrong. But, ladies, your femininity in particular longs for and can only find its true fulfillment in the role of wife and mother. And not because I say so, but because that's how God made you. And anyone who would tell you otherwise, whether a man or a woman, doesn't understand you and would deprive you of some really important part of your happiness in this life, whether that's what they intend or not. A lot of young women these days don't want to have a husband and children. They want to have a boyfriend and a labradoodle. And they're not entirely to be blamed for this way of thinking. A lot of them have never seen anything but bad marriages and bratty children in this world. And who wants that for themselves? But just because a lot of people today do marriage and parenting poorly, doesn't erase the essential fact of a woman's being. That when God made you, he made you to be a wife and a mother. Again, I'm talking not about your humanity, but your femininity. It's your femininity that is all about that. These are the facts of life. A child is formed in his mother's womb, brought into the world through his mother's labor, nurtured in his tender years by his mother, body and soul, and continues to be educated throughout childhood through his mother's example and teaching. You say to me, motherhood is hard, it's painful, it's costly. I can agree with all that. But that motherhood is an obstacle to the really important work that you were made to do as a woman, with that I cannot agree. Rather, I agree with Robert Dabner. There's no feminist, but writing as a theologian of the Bible in the 1800s, argued that between men and women, God actually assigned the more important role to women. And that they have such an important role in the education of their children in the home. Here's what Dabney said, quote, the education of children for God is the most important business done on earth. It is the one business for which the earth exists. To it, all politics, all war, all literature, all money-making ought to be subordinated, and every parent especially ought to feel every hour of the day that next to making his own calling and election sure, this is the end for which he is kept alive by God. This is his task on the earth. In Genesis 1 at 28, God commissioned mankind with his blessing. And remember, this was the blessing. Be fruitful and multiply, God said to Adam and to Eve. Fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. And in this way, then, mankind was intended to flourish as the image bearers of God, adorned with crown of honor and glory and find their ultimate happiness. Genesis chapter 2 now, verse 20, God looks at Adam among the animals with this blessing in mind and says, Houston, we have a problem. He needs a helper, someone comparable to him, a feminine counterpart with whom to start a family. So God makes Eve to help Adam obtain God's promised blessing. The grand vision and the full experience of God's grace can't become a reality without her. And that's how important she is, as Moses sees, not only to Adam, but also to the world. Secondly, we want to look here at creation of Eve and what it says to us about the bond of marriage. We know here that God means for Eve to help Adam and thus for a woman to help man to obtain this blessing through the union of the marriage bond. God means for Eve to help Adam, for a woman to help man obtain this blessing through the union of the marriage bond. He brings Eve to Adam to become his wife. Obviously, the manner of God's making Eve is unique and interesting. God made Adam out of the dust of the ground back in verse 7. Likewise, now in verse 19, He makes all the animals the same way. But now with Eve, He puts Adam under anesthesia, performs the world's first surgery, and makes Eve out of her future husband's rib. So what's the significance of that? two things I'd have us consider. First, God's making Eve of Adam's rib shows that the man and the woman are the same as to their humanity. Eve is not some lesser sort of being, in other words. And Adam particularly needs to understand this. Eve is not a pretty animal. His wife is intelligent, has feelings and desires of her own. So this woman that God now brings to Adam is to be appreciated and respected as a fellow human being. We hear echoes of this point in the letters of Christ's apostles. For example, 1 Peter 3.7 says, Husbands, dwell or live with your wives with understanding giving honor to the wife as to the weaker vessel, as being heirs together of the grace of life. So Peter, who was a married man, teaches other married Christian men both respect for and sensitivity toward their female counterpart in marriage. If you respect her, you won't treat her like a servant whose feelings don't matter. If you understand her, You won't treat her like a fraternity brother. She's a lady. So that's the first point. Secondly, God's making Eve of Adam's rib, in addition to showing that their humanity is one, further shows that the union then of man and woman in marriage is natural and desirable. Same as to their humanity, different genders, But their being reunited in marriage is natural and desirable. So when God brings Eve to Adam to be his wife, and that's what happens at the end here. This is what we hear Adam saying in verse 23. He says, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. So Adam sees what God is saying in all this. Adam is saying here, this woman Eve, I get it, it's truly a part of me. And so I now gladly receive her back to myself in marriage. Adam needs Eve, and particularly he needs her to marry him and become his wife. We understand here, if we can get outside of our modern way of thinking to the ancient Israelites in Moses' day, these words, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, didn't just mean go have babies. It meant get married, start a family, and then together you and your wife raise your children in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. That was God's plan for humanity, and it was a good one. Sadly, marriage has fallen on hard times these days. I'm sure you've noticed, especially if you spend a lot of time with the younger generation. A lot of young people just can't see any reason that they should get married anymore. And even the nuclear family. He's under attack in our society, which I find kind of shocking. I remember when people first became aware of Black Lives Matter, they were shocked to discover on the official website of this organization a statement denouncing the nuclear family as an evil. Like mom and dad and the kids in the station wagon going to Disney World. Evil must be destroyed. And that's where we learned that Black Lives Matter was part of something bigger than Black Lives Matter. It's just one manifestation of a larger cultural war against Western civilization and all of its traditional values and institutions, including, it seems, the family. There's a lot of reasons that should bother you. One to note here is that an attack on marriage and the family is an attack on the very institutions through which God means to bless mankind and the world. Of course, young men and women who are attracted to each other can move in together without getting married and sleep together without having children if they so choose. Nobody's going to stop you, especially in today's society where this is quickly becoming the norm. But I would say, young people, if you could just get outside of your own selfishness and short-sightedness for a second, surely you would see it. that this is no good for humanity. It may be working for you right now, I don't know, but it's not working for the rest of us, and it won't be working for any of us before long. Your new way is not good. It's not good for men, who never assume the responsibilities of manhood, and so who never grow up. It's not good, your new way, for women, who are never secure in a relationship with a man, and so perpetually insecure. And your new way is definitely not good for children, who if they are deprived, if they're not deprived of their very existence, are often deprived of one or both of their parents. And not too far down the road, this foolish experiment of the TikTok generation is going to wreak havoc on our society. For this reason, mom's third boyfriend is not a dad. It's a big difference. In Matthew 19, 5, Jesus not only cites Genesis 2, 24 as normative, but he also attributes what is said in Genesis 2, 24 to God himself. And what has God said, Christians? He said that a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh. That's called marriage. And that commitment to a monogamous relationship between a man and his wife is the foundation of a healthy family, which is the foundation of healthy children, which is the foundation of a healthy society. It's not that hard. So no, it's not okay if you or your children or your grandchildren are just living with their boyfriend or their girlfriend right now. It's never been okay. It's not okay now. And maybe it's the serious Christians that God has put in this society today who ought to be speaking up and saying so. That brings us to the final consideration. As we look at the relationship between Eve and the basis of male headship, the making of Eve and the basis of male headship, we know here that God's making of Eve actually establishes male headship in marriage. It happens right here in Genesis chapter 2. What's important to see here is not what your eyes see in this moment in Eve's creation, but what's the Apostle Paul saw in it. Paul looked at this text. His observations were definitely insightful. Two things. First, the Apostle Paul saw that in marriage, as he looked at this passage, the husband is head of his wife and the wife to submit to the authority of her husband in marriage. Paul saw that in marriage, the husband is head of his wife and the wife to submit to the authority of her husband. There was a theory advanced by feminists in the church in the 20th century that a woman's being made subject to her husband's authority was part of the curse in Genesis chapter 3. Therefore, in the name of Jesus Christ, the liberator, we should now declare the curse lifted and set women free from this unfortunate bondage to their husbands. That was the feminist theory, but it's demonstrably false. are hard to demonstrate. How so? In that the Apostle Paul defends his teaching on male headship in marriage by an appeal not to Genesis 3, but an appeal to Genesis 2 and the creation of Eve before the fall. Paul, where does male headship begin? He goes to Genesis 2. The passage is 1 Corinthians 11.8 where Paul is speaking on this subject and makes this observation. He says, For man is not from woman, but woman from man. Nor was man created for the woman, but woman for the man. So clearly he's referring to this passage that we're looking back in Genesis 2. Paul sees two things in Genesis 2, 18-24 as indicating God ordained male headship in marriage from the very beginning as the norm. First, he notes the derivation of woman from man. He points out Eve is made from Adam's rib, not Adam from Eve's rib. Paul thinks that's significant. And secondly, he notes here as well, the making of woman for man. Eve is made to be Adam's helper, not Adam to be Eve's helper. Paul also sees that as significant. So Paul's conclusion from Genesis 2 is that this traditional arrangement is of divine authority, part of the original order of God's creation, and therefore good, and to be accepted as such. Paul's exhortation and explanation in Ephesians 5.22 is simply this. Wives, submit to your own husbands, ask to the Lord, for the husband is head of the wife. Paul's not talking about some husbands, and not others, but he's saying that every husband is the head of his wife in marriage. That's how it works. We ask here, why? Is that because every husband is smarter than his wife? I might be tempted to say so, if not for the SAT. And the fact that in the 90s they made boys and girls both take the SAT at Heritage High School, And that Amy and I both know that she scored slightly higher on the SAT than I did. So I won't say that God made me the head in our marriage because I'm smarter than she is. It's only because I'm a man. And as a woman, she's my wife. If you think about it, it's not surprising that God would want to appoint one person to have final authority in a marriage between two people. Otherwise, a power struggle between equals inevitably will occur. And what do power struggles do to relationships? They destroy them. Civil war, divorce. It's not good for a relationship, not good for a marriage or a family. So that's not surprising. What is perhaps surprising is that God's appointment of headship would be based entirely on gender. Male headship, that's the rule. And my part today is not to defend that as if you were free to reject it if you found it indefensible, but rather to say it's just the way it is, and clearly so in the Bible. And so If a married man of modern sensibilities, thinking himself to be magnanimous, were to say, oh, but I'm not going to claim any authority over my wife. I respect her too much for that. We'll be working things out some way or another. But never by any appeal to male headship. I would say to that man, you don't have that authority to lay aside authority over your wife in marriage. That authority is not something that you claim for yourself. It is a role that God assigns you in the presence of your wife when you are married. And your job then, before God, is to exercise that authority so lovingly and wisely that your wife sees it not as a curse, but as a blessing to be under the authority of a man like you. The other thing that the Apostle Paul sees here. is that in marriage a man is to love his wife even as his own body. When Paul looks at Genesis 2 and God's creating Eve, he sees male headship, but he also sees that the man is to love his wife as his own body. Again, we hear in this the appeal to Genesis 2.24, this is Ephesians 5.28-31, Paul says, so husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it and cherishes it. And then he says it for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. Where do we hear that? Genesis 2. So again, think about it. All of us submit to the authority of other human beings. Why do we do that? For the sake of peace, for the sake of order. Because it's just chaos. If everybody is making their own suggestion, everybody is giving other people commands and nobody has to listen to anybody if they don't want to. So there are recognized authorities and peaceful submission to those authorities in civil government, law enforcement, schools, churches, the workplace. This is perfectly normal. And only anarchists don't see the necessity for this. But if you're going to willingly submit to someone's authority for the sake of peace and for the sake of order, if at all possible, you want it to be somebody who really loves you. who will respect you, your rights, and genuinely seek your well-being as he would respect and seek his own personal well-being. And so naturally, that's what a woman wants in her husband, somebody who loves her like that and will love her like that. And God brought home that reality really vividly to Adam by the manner in which he created Eve. And I would say that Adam got it. I think he forgets it later in Genesis 3, 12, when he tries to throw Eve under the bus. But in verse 23, he gets it. For he says there of Eve, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. In other words, Adam is saying, Lord, as he's receiving Eve as his wife, I will love her as myself, but truly I see that she is one now with me. And it's Jesus who also cites this passage in teaching that there's to be no divorce, except in the case of sexual immorality. You marry, you are one, and you're in it together. For better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and health, till death do us part. Where do we get such a high ideal for marriage as is expressed in those vows? We got it from the Bible. There's, of course, a lot more that might be said of all this. And again, my purpose this morning is not to preach a comprehensive sermon on all things related to women and marriage. This is the main point. That the very marriage relationship which God ordained in the Garden of Eden is the marriage relationship commended to us and commanded of us by Christ and the apostles. And that now, as then, is for our good. It's a beautiful thing, like the relationship between Christ and the Church, and it still works. And wonderfully, it is this relationship that is the foundation of the God-fearing family and through which God has long signaled that he means to bless the human race and the world. It's that important. Let me conclude this sermon. What of the nakedness of Adam and Eve in verse 25? I'll speak to that when they become aware of it in Genesis chapter 3 verse 7. So I'm passing over that for now. But I just want to close by considering, as we have repeatedly in this sermon series, the greater symbolic significance here, and particularly now the significance of Eve as we look from creation to new creation. The story of the first Adam to the gospel story of the last Adam. Who is Eve in the story of Jesus Christ, the last Adam? The answer is pretty plain in scripture. The church is Eve, the woman, the bride that God gives to his son. We might ask here as we reflect upon the details of this account then, Was it not good that Jesus Christ should be alone? If it was not good for the first Adam to be alone, and a bride was made for him, we also say that it is not good for the last Adam to be alone, and that's why the church was given unto him. I answer a qualified yes, as God Jesus has no need of man or anything else in creation. He's perfectly sufficient, perfectly happy in the eternal Godhead with the Father and the Spirit. But when God the Son came into the world through the virgin birth, then as a man, I would say, yes, Jesus did need a bride. Because like the first Adam, he couldn't do what he was in the world to do without The blessing of God promised to him was bound up in her life. And so the last Adam coming into the world undertook to take for himself a bride, that is, his people, which he gathers to himself from all the peoples of the world, all those who would believe in him. And so the church is truly, I would also say, in a sense, made to be a helper to Christ. Though He is our Lord and our Savior, yet He is a family man, and He desires children of His own, sons and daughters, with which to fill the new heavens and the new earth. And so it is through the Spirit-empowered gospel ministry of this church that Jesus seeks these spiritual children. The children of the new creation include those little ones whom we raise unto Christian faith in our homes, but no less those little ones who are brought into the household of Christian faith by our gospel outreach to the world. But as this account from the Garden of Eden reminds us, our being Christ's and our doing any good in his name is all by marriage. The last Adam, bringing us to faith, brings us into this covenant union with himself, and in doing so unto his side where we are his rib. This union, covenantal union, is called in scripture the new covenant in his blood. That's the marriage that I speak of, and more deeply still, it's a union forged and sustained by the husband's unfailing love for his wife, Christ's love for us. Christ the Son is, as in all godly marriages, the head of His church, and we are His body. And in this, our marriage to Him, He loves us as Himself. That's why at Calvary, He didn't run away from us in our sins, and He didn't throw us under the bus, but rather He bore our sins in Himself on the cross, and ought to save us from them. And again, I would say, as a man, the Son of God couldn't be happy. He couldn't be whole without us. His covenant bride, his people, whom he loves. So that truly it might be said that the whole Bible is really the story about a man and his love for his wife. And this world is where that story unfolds and is unfolding. In the first appearance of Eve, the mother of all living, we see the first hint of the church as Christ's bride, the first appearance of the woman. What does Jesus want from us? His bride, his helper in the world. He wants us to honor women. He wants us to honor marriage. He wants us to honor male headship. The Apostle Paul puts all these together in his words to the Ephesians, and I'll let us end with this. From Ephesians 5.25, Paul says, Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her, that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that he might present her to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. This is a great mystery, Paul says, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless, let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Shall we pray?