Genesis 2:4-25 | Marriage Part 2
Introduction/Recap
Video Clip (‘Mawage,’ The Princess Bride, 1987)
I cannot tell you how many times that phrase has gone through my head as I have prepared for these sermons. And I was also fascinated by how many of you had that phrase going through your heads as well. That is truly one of the classic lines from the 1987 movie The Princess Bride.
But it is also so appropriate on so many levels. Think about what he just said:
Marriage is what brings us together today.
Marriage, that blessed arrangement.
That dream within a dream.
Marriage is what brings us here together today. As we have moved on from Genesis one to Genesis two, we see that the second main narrative and story in all of Scripture that God wants us to know about is marriage. Not necessarily what we would have guessed if we were writing the story of Scripture and all of creation. God moves in Genesis one to Genesis two and introduces us to the idea of marriage.
Now, it is not a surprise to anyone who HAS read Scripture that Genesis chapter two is about marriage. Most people, if they have started trying to read through the Bible, usually start at the beginning (like any normal person) and usually get through at least chapter two. And we see there the marriage of Adam and Eve. But Genesis chapter two is about more than the marriage of a man and woman. As we talked about last week, Genesis 2 is first and foremost about our God who draws near to us. Our God has an intimate relationship with us. Our God who has a relationship that is imaged through this beautiful language of marriage in Genesis 2.
Our immanent God (remember, immanent means close to us) says we are the product of heaven and earth in Genesis 2:4. God coming close to his creation brings about the creation of his image-bearers. God lovingly knits his image bearers together in Genesis 2:7. Still, in Genesis 2:7, God generously comes close enough to kiss us and place the very Spirit of life in us. He then takes his image bearers to his place, his garden, where his presence dwells with them in Genesis 2:8. The Lord God speaks and makes a covenant with his image bearers in Genesis 2:16–17. God even makes sure to complete the picture by making sure his image bearers are not alone, but that they are completely made as male and female in Genesis 2:16–23 to experience an intimate relationship themselves.
Before we get to the marriage of the man and the woman, the very language and descriptions in Genesis chapter two are meant to point us first and foremost to God’s intimate relationship with us. With HIS people. God wants and has designed us from the very beginning to have an intimate relationship with him. And one of the most amazing images that God uses to help us understand the depth of his relationship with us is marriage.
That was our point last week—CAN you believe, DO you believe that God designed you and me for a relationship with him that is as intimate, and actually more intimate, than marriage? Do we believe that:
Marriages were created BECAUSE OF and TO IMAGE the relationship God has chosen to have with us.
Why Not Straight to the Marriage of Men & Women?
I think it is common when we get to Genesis chapter two, read it and think, “Okay, this is about marriage. So, what is this telling men and women to do in their marriage?” That’s not a wrong question, and that is often how I personally have approached things. “What does it tell me? Let me act, let me get going.” And in fact, that is where we are going next week. But I think you and I are usually much too quick to ask how Scripture is all about us. And one of the great ideas in Scripture is that it isn’t always about us. So much of what God is sharing with us is who HE is. How HE loves us. And how can we better know and love both him and others by seeing God more clearly?
That is a little counterintuitive, but one of the grand stories of Scripture is that you and I don’t just need more rules. We don’t just need more things to know in general. Israel received about 613 commandments in the Old Testament, and they still failed to love God and walk rightly with him. Rather than just giving us rules, God is often trying to show us that knowing is more than just information. We need to know God intimately. We need to see him rightly. To behold him in every way we can. To actually glimpse his glory and who he is, and find we are changed as we look at him more deeply. Much of the New Testament is about showing us God’s love tangibly in Jesus and then expecting that once we have seen Jesus, we will be able to finally walk out a life of holiness before God in His Holy Spirit.
We paused last week to notice that marriage is first about God’s intimate love for you and me. And we may still be tempted to then quickly say, “Okay, I get it. Marriage is about God’s love for us. Okay, now what do I do?” But I find in my heart that even with that idea, I don’t often think deeply about exactly how God has loved me intimately. Exactly how intimate that love actually is. I think it is often hard for me to realize the depths of God’s love for me and what it really looks like in Jesus.
That can be hard for us to imagine for many reasons! And I think God knows that about us. Remember, God is not surprised at how history was going to unfold. God knew, even before he created Adam and Eve, that they would rebel against him. And God knew that because they would rebel against him, they would be separated from this intimate relationship with God. That all of humanity coming after Adam and Eve would be born into sin and would similarly be outside of this intimate relationship, because we too are rebels to his good ways. That we would start our lives as sinners and outside of a relationship with our God. That we would be outside that intimate relationship. That means it is hard for us to imagine what this intimate relationship with God would look like in many ways.
And that is the beauty of Genesis chapter 2. God doesn’t just tell us he loves us like the marriage of Adam and Eve. Within his very creation of Adam and Eve, he encodes a pattern and a way that this specific marriage not only shows us that God loves us (what we saw last week) but also an image that would point us FORWARD to how God would solve the problem of our lack of intimacy with him. An image within this image that would show us exactly how much God loves us and what he would be willing to do to bring us back into this special, intimate relationship with himself. Before humans even sinned, God knew it would happen and began building an image for us within this first marriage account that would point us forward to the beauty of his way of bringing his people back to himself—his true and final marriage to his people—through Jesus Christ.
As that great British comedian Peter Cook, who plays that iconic priest in The Princess Bride, says, marriage really is a blessed arrangement, but it is also, as he says, “A dream within a dream.” Or perhaps we could say, “A vision within a vision.”
Imagery/Metaphor
A vision within a vision. God is using images and metaphors to help us understand Scripture and his plan that is to come. Using imagery to help us understand a hard concept is quite normal: we do it all the time! Think about the idea of our life. To describe this amazing event called living on this earth, we describe it in many different ways. We sometimes say life is like:
Box of Chocolates
Journey/Path
Marathon
Blank Canvas
Roller Coaster
A box of chocolates (to stay with our movie theme for the day). As Forrest Gump says, you never know what you are going to get. Life is like a journey or a path, reminding us there are detours and choices we must make along the way. Life is like a marathon, reminding us to pace ourselves, not overexert, and to rest as needed. Life is like a blank canvas, emphasizing that we have many ways in which we get to determine how we engage and write the story of our lives. And life is a roller coaster, reminding us there are many ups and downs, and many moments that may make you feel like you want to throw up.
God gives us helpful images in many other places in Scripture as well. He uses many other images to tell us about his relationship with us. God tells us he is the loving shepherd who gathers his flock, his people, into his arms in Isaiah 40:11. God is our rock and our fortress, a place we can go to for protection and a firm foundation in Psalm 18:2. God is like a mother hen gathering her chicks for protection under her wings in Matthew 23:37. God is like our father who cares for his children in 2 Corinthians 6:18. He is the vine that provides nourishment for us, the branches in John 15:5. He is the water that satisfies our parched hearts as the deer in Psalm 42:1.
God uses many images about our relationship with him, but the first image he shares with us is the image of his intimate love for us imaged in human marriages. But it is more than just any marriage. As we saw already in Ephesians 5:32:
“This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”
(Ephesians 5:32 ESV)
If our first task in Genesis two is to see that this is all really about the intimate relationship God wants to have with us, the second task is to see how, embedded within this story and the marriage of Adam to Eve, is a story within a story. A dream within a dream. A vision within a vision. We are to see that God is showing us not just a general story about marriage, but a very specific story about marriage. God’s plan and his ultimate marriage to his people THROUGH Jesus Christ.
Jesus and His Church
It’s interesting that God would embed so much in this original story of marriage in Genesis chapter two. If God had wanted us to simply know that he loves us like a marriage in a generic way he could have simply had Moses write Genesis two something like this: “Then God made man and woman and asked them to commit to one another in a lifelong, covenantal relationship with one another, to never forsake each other, and live out the image of his love for one another for the rest of their lives.” He could have said that maybe with more flair and within the same, similar storyline if he had wanted to.
But instead, God gives us a much more detailed description and one that has many specifics that point us directly to JESUS and how we, his people, will relate to him. That is why before we get to next week where we will talk more about how our marriages are meant to work (the question we usually come to Genesis two with) we start first with realizing that God loves us in an incredibly intimate way, and then we turn to look at these specifics—these sometimes odd specifics—of the story of Adam and Eve and see how they are there to help US and all of God’s people see from the very beginning the good news and hope of how God will ensure we are all brought into a FOREVER intimate relationship with God through our faith in Jesus.
That is what I pray you walk away with today. As we look at the specifics of this story, we are going to see some amazing truths:
Jesus (Adam)
The Only begotten son of God
The firstborn of all creation
The one who has the words of life
Jesus & His Church (Adam & Eve)
The Leadership & Accountability of God
The one who leads us and is held accountable
The ones here to help God as his co-rulers and to submit to him
How God Brings About His Partners
The perfect one pierced that we might come to him
The ones who come to God through the wounding of the perfect one
The Love of God
The one who sings in love over us
The ones receiving the glory of God’s love
We start and see that God is going to show us so much about Jesus himself through his creation of Adam. How Jesus is the only begotten son of God, the firstborn of all creation, and the one who has the words of life. Additionally, as Adam and Eve are brought together, we see much about how Jesus and his church are to relate to one another. Jesus (like Adam) is given specific leadership and accountability in his relationship. And through the entire process, God’s creation of a partner for Adam in Eve comes through an astounding way—through the wounding of Adam. And when you might think that could bring about frustration, lament, or even bitterness, it instead brings about loving joy! That is how Adam and Eve come together. That is how Christ and his church come together.
This is the dream within the dream. The vision within the vision. God has an intimate relationship with us, and it is understood best by talking about a marriage. But not just any marriage. The marriage that is to come in Jesus as he joins himself to his church. That is the vision with the vision here. And it is setting up all of God’s people to understand HOW MUCH God loves us and wants to bring us to himself, and HOW EXACTLY God will make that happen through the Son of God, Jesus.
JESUS & ADAM
Let’s start with all the things we see just about Jesus here in Genesis two. It must have struck you that God made Adam first. He surely could have made both man and woman out of clay at the same time, breathed life into both of them, and then brought them together to his place in the garden and spoke to them both right from the very beginning. But he doesn’t. He starts with Adam alone!
“When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
(Genesis 2:5–9 ESV)
And jumping ahead a little:
“The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.””
(Genesis 2:15–17 ESV)
In starting with Adam, God is giving a foreshadowing, a glimpse of the true Adam that would come. First, we see that he is the only begotten Son of God. He is there alone with God as creation begins and unfolds. That is a crucial element of who Jesus—the Son of God—is for us and to the Father. This is something that the Apostle John marveled at:
No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.
(John 1:18 ESV)
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
(John 3:16 ESV)
God starts with Adam in Genesis two because God is concerned to show us THE true Adam, the Son of God, who comes and will come. And that image isn’t just here in Genesis. The idea of sonship shows up almost 1800 times throughout Scripture and is setting the stage for us to see God’s true Son. God wants us to know that his intimate love for us will be found and seen through his Son.
Even more so, Jesus is not just his son, but the firstborn of all creation. As Paul says in Colossians:
He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
(Colossians 1:15 ESV)
Being the firstborn matters especially for Jesus. Adam represents Jesus in not only being made as God’s son, but also as his firstborn. That image also finds its way back into the story throughout all of Scripture as well. The nation of Israel is said to be God’s firstborn in Exodus 4:22. God asks for all the firstborns of creation—animals and humans—to be consecrated (given over) to him in Exodus 13:2. And of David, he says:
And I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.
My steadfast love I will keep for him forever, and my covenant will stand firm for him. I will establish his offspring forever and his throne as the days of the heavens.
(Psalm 89:27–29 ESV)
God MAKES David a firstborn even though he wasn’t literally born first, as a continuation of this image of Jesus THE firstborn who has God’s forever steadfast love on him, just like you and receive in our marriage to God through Jesus.
And then, God takes Adam as an image of Jesus into the Garden and gives him his very words. He tells Adam exactly what is required of him for life and holiness before him. He basically tells Adam to listen to him for wisdom, holiness, and goodness, not anything else. This is exactly what we see of Jesus as well in the New Testament. Of Jesus, we are told:
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
(John 1:14 ESV)
Jesus is the very words of God embodied that we might see and know God’s words and commands for us rightly. Jesus is the one who has been given and actually made the WORD of God for us. As Peter says to Jesus:
Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.
(John 6:68–69 ESV)
Like Adam was given God’s very words to then share with Eve (which he fails to do well), Jesus does that very same thing perfectly for us. Jesus comes that we might rightly know God’s desires and live them FOR us.
Application
Friends, what may look like a very capricious, odd, and even unfair way to create humanity was done very purposefully by God to point us forward to Jesus! JESUS is the son of God, the better son than Adam. JESUS is the firstborn of all creation, the true firstborn who was there even before we were created and through whom we were created. JESUS is the one who truly knows God because he IS God and is THE word of God to us that we might rightly and truly know God.
God starts with Adam so that he might show us from the very beginning Jesus. He creates man and woman in different ways because Jesus IS different than his church. Within this story of God’s intimate love for us is a story of a marriage of the man (Adam) and the woman (Eve). But even within that story is the story of Jesus. The one who will truly be the son for us so we can become the sons and daughters of God. The one who is the firstborn that he might bring us all into relationship with God through HIS work. The one who knows the very words of God that he might be that WORD for us in his relationship with us.
Jesus (Adam) & the Church (Eve)
All of that imagery in how God creates Adam that points us to Jesus sets the foundation for the story of Adam and Eve as they come together. The story of Jesus and his church. And here we see even more about who Jesus is for us as our good husband, and even more about our role as his church through Eve.
First, we see much about the leadership of God in our lives here in Adam and Eve. I think it is hard for us sometimes when we think about all being led and represented in sin by Adam. We can often find it quite hard to think about being led by husbands within marriages or by leaders in the church, and being represented by anyone other than ourselves. We are Americans—we surely can take care of any aspect of our lives ourselves! But we really wouldn’t want it any other way when we think about Jesus.
Start with the idea of leadership and representation. We don’t see this image unfolded completely in Genesis two, but we definitely will see it in Genesis three. Adam was held responsible FIRST for how he and Eve sinned in the garden. Adam was given God’s word to share with Eve and combat Satan, but he fails to do so. This is where the image of Jesus and Adam deviates. Where Adam fails, Jesus will succeed. Jesus will become our representative so well that he not only lives the righteous life that Adam and we couldn’t live, but he also gives that righteousness to us. Jesus so deeply identifies and represents us that HE is held accountable for our sins on the cross that we might come to him. Jesus DOES truly bring us the words of God.
For all the difficulty we have when we think about leadership and representation, when we think of the broken human versions of it in husbands with wives and leaders with the church, we really wouldn’t have it any other way with Jesus. We NEED it to be this way with Jesus!
I don’t know about you, but the longer I walk with God and walk on this earth, the more I see my sins. The more I see just how broken I am and how much I MUST have someone represent me before God rightly. How much I MUST have someone who will take responsibility for the sin and brokenness I have and GIVE me a righteousness I do not have on my own. I keep seeing how much I can only begin to be a rightful image bearer of God as I am found in a perfect image of God—the very Son of God, Jesus. Jesus promises to do what Adam was assigned to do in leading and representing us, but he does it perfectly!
And the picture only gets more beautiful with each step! After God shows the man the problem of being alone, he solves the problem in a peculiar and specific way. Listen to Genesis 2:21–22:
So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept, took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to the man.
(Genesis 2:21–22 ESV)
While Adam was still perfect and sinless, God wounded him. It was through a wound in Adam's side that God brought forth his partner, Eve. It is exactly the same for me and you. It was through the piercing of Jesus’s side, his very death on the cross, that God was able to create a bride for Jesus—a people bought and created in his very blood. We are the ones who come to God now through the wounding of God’s perfect one. We are the ones who are made to be the perfect co-heirs of Christ through his wounding. That is amazing imagery of the life of Christ already here in Genesis!
And we could expect that wounding would bring about sadness for God, that he has to rescue us at great cost to himself. We could expect that God might begrudgingly love us through his life enjoined to humanity and in his journey through the cross. But that is not at all what happens!
Then the man said, “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.
(Genesis 2:23 ESV)
Adam sings for joy at seeing his wife created for him from his wound and from his very side. Jesus, in going to the cross, sings over you and me in joy in seeing us! He did not do what he did begrudgingly or with frustration; he did it to sing joy over you and me!
Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
(Hebrews 12:2 ESV)
The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.
(Zephaniah 3:17 ESV)
God is in our midst. God, the mighty one, to save. Jesus, rejoicing over me and you in gladness. Jesus, quieting our fearful and worried hearts with his love. Jesus exulting over us with loud singing as he endures the cross for us!
Application
Friends, this close, intimate image of God creating Adam and Eve and bringing them together is meant to show us his beautiful design: Jesus as the solution for our forever marriage to God in the new heavens and the new earth. It is meant to show us how God brings us—you and I, the church—to Jesus. Genesis two images for much of what we need in Jesus, and who we are TO Jesus.
He is the true Son of God and the better Adam. He is the firstborn who came first, so that he might experience and do everything for us first. He is the very word of God perfectly demonstrated for us that we might see and behold God’s good, righteous, and holy ways. And even more so, Genesis two shows us the true intimacy of how this relationship would be restored. Our intimacy with God would be restored by one who would lead us and take responsibility for us in every way imaginable. Our relationship would be created and restored from HIS wounding in HIS perfection. And we see that throughout that entire process, God, Jesus Christ the God-man, would sing over us throughout the entire process that we might know God’s great, deep, and sincere pleasure with us!
Application
Last week, we talked about the generic idea of God’s intimate love for us as a marriage; this week, we are seeing the true love of God for us in Jesus, our true bridegroom, who married us in his perfect life as the true Adam. And this has an amazing application for us:
Application
We need Jesus all along.
God wasn’t surprised that we needed this.
God was exceedingly pleased to provide this for us.
First, we needed this firstborn, THE son of God, to be eternally begotten of God as the one who would enjoin himself to humanity that we might be able to be married to God! And God was promising it for all his people from the very beginning in Genesis two, and us.
And second, God knew this and was prepared to provide it before you and me were created. God knew we would need our rebellion dealt with at the cross, and he even knew the extent of how much that would cost. God wasn’t surprised, even from the beginning, that he would have to go to the cross, and he did that in divine, intimate love of me and you through Jesus Christ. That through faith we might come back into a relationship with him. You and I may see more of our sins as we go along in this life and discover how much we really need God, but God is not surprised. He was willingly wounded for you if you trust in his position as the true Adam and bridegroom of our life through faith.
Lastly, God is singing over you today in our faith in Jesus! God does not begrudge what it took for him to bring us back to himself. He is so happy that he might draw us back into a relationship with himself that he sings over us like Adam over Eve!
This image of marriage gets deeper the more we look at it. We could spend years in Genesis one and two thinking about the richness of God’s love for us from the very outset of all of creation. Why would God create and do all this, knowing what was coming? Why was it so hard for all of us to see how much he loved us when the imagery is there right from the start? We could sit and marvel at how God would not allow our intimacy with him to be broken by our rebellion and sinful choice, but rather, provided the Adam and bridegroom we would all need, and stare at that forever. In fact, that is what we will stare at forever as we walk with Jesus back into this marriage-like relationship in the new earth one day.
Marriage is what brings us together today, as his church. We wouldn’t exist without our marriage to the Lamb, Jesus.
Marriage is a blessed arrangement in Jesus, through Jesus, that we might be with Jesus.
And marriage is a dream within a dream, something almost too good to be true. Marriage is a vision within a vision that points us not only to God’s intimate love for us, but also the exact ways and depths in which this marriage is formed.
We have spent these last two weeks looking at God’s general desire for an intimate relationship with us and then the specifics of how the creation and relationship of Adam and Eve point us to Jesus and his church so that next week, when we turn to thinking about ourselves and how this plays out in the marriages we may have or the marriages around us, it isn’t a selfish desire to check a box or just know what to do. Rather, our attempt to encourage and live out Godly marriages comes from truly seeing God and his intimate, marriage-like relationship to us, and seeing how that comes through Jesus in glorious and beautiful ways.
I’m going to invite the worship team to come up, and I want to leave you with one simple thought today:
How is our marriage to God through Jesus even more amazing than we may have originally thought?
Last week I asked us all to consider how our marriage to God in Jesus was amazing. This week, I want you to ponder how it may be even more amazing than you ever realized—and shown to us from the very beginning as the story within the story, a dream within a dream, right in Genesis two and the story of God’s intimate love for his people and the marriage of Adam and Eve, pointing us forward. [My new realization.] I’m going to put up some of our points from this morning, and as the worship team begins to play, stop and thank God for all the images of our marriage promised in Adam and Eve, and pointing us all forward to Jesus and his love for his church. It is such an amazing image!
Jesus (Adam)
The Only begotten son of God
The firstborn of all creation
The one who has the words of life
Jesus & His Church (Adam & Eve)
The Leadership & Accountability of God
The one who leads us and is held accountable
The ones here to help God as his co-rulers and to submit to him
How God Brings About His Partners
The perfect one pierced that we might come to him
The ones who come to God through the wounding of the perfect one
The Love of God
The one who sings in love over us
The ones receiving the glory of God’s love
Prayer
Benediction
“The LORD bless you and keep you;
the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”
(Numbers 6:24–26 ESV)
