“This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh”
Genesis 2:23a NIV
Throughout the history of the Evangelical church, the account of Eve’s birth has often been framed as the moment man came alive in response to a woman’s beauty. He laid eyes on her body for the first time, jaw dropped, and body shook. It makes sense right? She is standing in front of him, nude, perfect, and all his.
But the problem is, that is not at all what happened.
In the first chapter of Genesis, we see God create humanity rooted in three central truths:
The Trinitarian God said, "Let us make mankind like us, in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule." (Gen 1:26a). This means God is an us and embodies both maleness and femaleness (a whole other series).
God designed and desired humans to be in intimate connection with God and one another, with the vocational purpose of caring for all creation (including one another).
The creation of humanity (male and female) was the one thing God said was very good, and it was the last thing God did to complete creation and enter rest.
What does this mean?
Humanity is the best and most important thing God has ever created and has the potential to be the most beautiful display of who God is. God intended for humanity to be such an intertwined partnership between male and female that the only difference between the two was how he planned to create life through them.
I am not writing off the many nuanced and explicit gender differences between men and women. I am pointing to the truth that, before shame entered the garden, God created with likeness and image bearing in mind, celebrating difference as the source of all life and multiplication of fruitfulness (spiritual, physical, creative).
Genesis 1 is like a podcast on 2x speed regarding the creation account, and then the second chapter feels almost like the .5x speed of humanity's introduction and role in creation.
It is a play-by-play of the very goodness God marveled at.
In Genesis 2, we see that God had prepared the soil and put everything in place for fruit to be born and creation to thrive, but needed his image to flood the garden. God, the Creator, had to be the cultivator and caretaker of his creation, so he created in his image the fullness of who God is: male and female.
He began with Adam, making him out of the soil he would tend to. And his breath was the literal breath and Spirit of God. Every inhale and exhale reminded him of who sustained his life, and the dust of his body reminded him of his connection to the earth he was called to care for. He was a beautiful combination of both Creator and creation.
So he formed Adam and gave him ultimate freedom to enjoy all that grew from the ground. All except the one tree that would take his breath and sense of connection to his Creator away. Or at least the experience of it.
Remember, Dr. Brené Brown says that shame is the fear of disconnection.
And that tree of knowledge, never meant for us, would instantly bring a sense of disconnection. But of course, that enemy waited until humanity was complete before he tempted with that tree because his damage would only be done if the fullness of God’s image was attacked.
As God was about to send Adam out into the garden, he knew it was not good for him to go alone. He needed a warrior, the other half of his fullness, a partner to labor with. Ultimately, the fullness of God’s image was not complete. God is three in one, and humanity could not bear his image without the same: man, woman, and God.
The Lord said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” Gen. 2:18
"A helper suitable" in the Hebrew (ʿēzer) is also the word most often used to describe God as our helper and shield. It is a relational-based, masculine noun, that most often describes God as our Creator and Protector:
My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. Ps. 121:2
Our help is in the name of the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. Ps. 124:8
The woman was not created to meet the man’s needs but help complete the image of God and mutually point to the True Ezer.
So God sent Adam to sleep and fashioned Eve out of the very same body Adam inhabited. And when he laid eyes on her, it was not “wow, she is hot!”, it was
She is just like me!
Don’t move past this too quickly because once we arrive at the encounter of the slithering snake and the covering of bodies in shame, we will see that this likeness between man and woman was one of the most beautiful moments of connection humanity has ever experienced. It was also the exact target that the snake was after, and we still live with the effects of this shattered moment today.
She is just like me!
Jesus brought Divine Reversal to the shame that tears men and women apart. He died for, inhabits, and commissions a church that is to live as:
There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Gal 3:28 NIV
This Divine Reversal is not male domination in the home, recapturing the lost masculinity of Adam (that never existed), nor is it modern feminism that demeans and destroys the beauty and dignity of men. This Divine Reversal is the unashamed gasp at our incredible likeness as the full and perfect image of God completed in one another, co-laboring in caring for this incredible creation the Creator is actively redeeming.
Male and female without shame, in the garden is the most beautiful picture of humanity bearing the image of God. And the will of God, through Jesus and his church, is to return there as the Kingdom comes.