The Original Marriage

In my study of what marriage should truly look like, I decided the place to start is in the beginning.  That should give us a good picture of what God intended marriage to be like.

The first thing that I see is that the woman was part of the plan from the beginning.

Gen 1: 27, “ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him;  male and female he created them,” created in the image of God to reflect God-male and female.

Female was not an afterthought, she was part of God’s plan from the start. 

When God spoke of creating man, he meant male and female, in His image.

God is big, great, beyond understanding. Reflecting God was a big job. God needed both male and female to show Him more completely. Male and female…part of God’s original plan.

This first marriage was a partnership. Gen 1:28 “And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

It was to Adam and Eve together that God gave the job of populating the earth, of subduing it, and having dominion over every other living thing.

Genesis chapter two gives us more detail of the creation of man.

Gen 2:18 “Then the Lord God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him."

In  this verse, the word “helper” is the Hebrew word “ezer”, which is sometimes translated “deliverer”, and is often used to refer to God, as in Psalm 33:20, “Our soul waits for the Lord;

he is our help and our shield.”

 God did not mean that Adam needed a servant. Adam had a problem that he needed help with. The problem was that man was alone. God created woman to help Adam with his aloneness. God did not say, “It is not good that the man should have all this work to do without help.” It wasn’t the work. God declared that man did not need to be alone, and that was never God’s desire. He planned from the beginning to create male and female human beings to be together in equality and intimacy.  Adam and Eve had a joint commission. They were to be partners in fulfilling God’s command. There was no question.

Listen to Adam’s response when God first showed him his “helper”.

"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."

24  Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

There is no hint of one person being over another, but of a joyous partnership between the two. Man was the source of the woman, but there was nothing negative about that. Adam is thrilled with this one who is just like him…”bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.”

There was no shame between the two. Just think, a man and a woman living together with none of the pitfalls of our current marriages…fears, insecurities, pride, jealousy, distrust, intimidation, hurt feelings…nothing but love, security, intimacy, joy, sharing life and work, fellowshipping together with God in a sweet, intimate, equal partnership. 

That is God’s original plan for marriage.