As believing Christians, we look to the book of Genesis for a divine account of how God created all things. It is right and proper that we do so. For example, we can clearly see that He created the heavens and earth, and the sun and moon, and the sea and dry land. He is the Creator, after all. On the sixth day of creation, He created our father Adam, and then as the crown of that creation week, He took a rib from the side of Adam, and fashioned Eve from that rib.
Her first name was Ishah, for she was taken out of man. This is her name in her capacity as wife. Her second name was Eve, for she was to be the mother of all the living. God was doing an intricate weave from the beginning. Adam was to be a husband first, and then a father. Ishah was to be a wife first, and then our mother Eve.
But when God created her, He did not just send her off with a vague hope that she and Adam would perhaps meet. He had created Adam, as an individual man. He had then created Ishah, as an individual woman. But He was not done. When He had finished fashioning the woman, He “brought her unto the man” (Gen. 2:22). He was in this moment creating a third thing, something larger than the two of them individually.
This was more than just a wedding. This was more than a wedding in that it was the archetypical wedding. It was the paradigm for all weddings that would ever take place—including this one. Just as Adam was the first man, and all men are represented in him, and Ishah was the first woman, and all women are represented in her, so also this wedding was the first wedding, and all weddings are represented in it.
And this shows us that the first wedding was something God Himself directly created. It was not that He created the man and also the woman, and maybe they could work something out. No. God created the male. God created the female. And Jesus is explicit that God also created the marital union in the moment they came together. “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Mark 10:9). God did more than create one, and then create the other. God also created marriage. Marriage is an artifact of His. It comes straight off His workbench.
Adam had been created from the dust of the ground (Gen. 2:7). The word for ground there is adamah, but with a feminine ending. Adam came from adamah, and Ishah was taken out of man, taken out of Adam. Adam was one man, and then God divided the one into two so that He would then be able to bring the two together into one. As a result of that, one of those two would then become two, and she would give birth to a child. I used the phrase intricate weave earlier, and all of this indicates that the entire human race is a created thing, and marriage is the catalyst of its growth.
As the Creator of marriage, God is the only one who has the authority to define it. It is a created thing. It is His invention, and He describes how it all fits together. He explains to us how it is all supposed to work. And not only did the Creator of all things do this, He also made sure that we were provided with a manual. That manual is the Bible, the holy Scriptures, the Word of God.
So marriage is not the result of any evolutionary developments. It is not something that we have the right to fool around with. As progressives think they are progressing, but they are only pressing onward through the fog, they do not have the right to manufacture some new marital upgrade. The narrative of the first few chapters of Genesis is an authoritative narrative. We are required to comply with it. It is a narrative that must be obeyed.
It was not good for Adam to be by himself because God declared that it was not good for man to be alone (Gen. 2:18). It was not good for Adam to be with one of the beasts because there was no suitable help for him there (Gen. 2:20). It was not good for Adam to be a polygamist, because God only made one woman for him (Gen. 2:22). It was not good for Adam to divorce his wife because that was not the intention from the beginning (Matt. 19:8). It was not good for Adam to be homosexual because God fashioned a woman for him (Gen. 2:22). The creation of marriage was an authoritative moment, authoritative for all time. Heterosexual monogamy is as authoritative as it gets.
Henry, my charge to you is this. Your task is to constantly hold your marriage up—the one being established here today—against two templates. The first is the template of the created order, and the second is to the template of the Word. The Word is more specific, and will shed a lot of light onto what you see in the light of created nature. But it is also the case that obedience to the way things were created will bring additional light to your understanding of the Word as well. Obey what the apostle writes to husbands in Ephesians 5. Obey your chromosomes. Walk in the Spirit. Read the Scriptures aloud with your wife from day one.
Eve, my charge here is as follows. Your model is to be the marriage of our first parents when they were walking with God. Your model is not to be the first marriage as it was in the process of going off the rails. In other words, you were created to be a helper suitable to your husband. But don’t be helpful in unhelpful ways—don’t help him get his hands on the forbidden fruit. You will have an impulse to “make suggestions,” whether or not you have thought them through. Resist that first impulse, evaluate it in the light of the Word, count to five . . . and then bring your help. It will be most needed.
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, amen.