Genesis 2:21-25

Hey friends, welcome.
Thanks for coming back to our Bible study
as we work our way through Genesis,
kind of plottingly lately,
but we are in the second chapter nearing the end.
Just a reminder, we’ve been doing some comparisons
on this first story in chapter one,
this second account in chapter two.
We have gotten to that point where God has looked at the,
really almost the finished creation in chapter two,
with one exception.
We read, we left off last week
that God looked
and saw that the man was alone,
that there was not a helper
or a partner.
The man is surrounded by the abundance of the garden.
The man is in relationship with the animals,
having named them and giving them identities.
There is a connectedness that runs
throughout this creation narrative,
but for the man,
he is disconnected.
And we don’t wanna
psychologize that too much,
but God sees that this isn’t the ideal situation.
It’s the one gap that seems to be present.
So we jump in verse 21 today,
as God responds to that situation.
So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man
and he slept.
Then he took one of his ribs
and closed up its place with flesh
and the rib that the Lord God took from the man,
he made into woman
and brought her to the man.
We’ll just stop there.
This story has, of course,
received a lot of
attention through the years for a while.
There was this idea that men have an extra rib
in the rib cage,
which is very loosely based in some
physiological fact, though it probably shouldn’t be thought
of the origin for this story.
The word rib here is not used
of the body in any other place in Hebrew.
It means like a ridge line or like the ribbing of ships.
It really just literally means the side,
but it seems by context,
fairly clear here.
And in this story,
remember in the first story,
men and women are created simultaneously.
God speaks them into existence.
Here again, we have God as the kind of builder.
He takes something from man so that he can make woman
and that she comes not from the earth,
as was the case in the man,
but she’s created from the man himself
as a kind of extension of his own being.
And there’s really, at this point in the story,
there’s no real inferred hierarchy or anything like that.
Probably this is better thought to speak to
the kind of partnership, the connectedness,
the oneness.
In fact, the verses we’re going to look at, I think next,
make that pretty clear.
Yeah, so we look here and see that God is
doing something different than what we’ve seen before.
And so we get a sense for that real partnership.
I do think historically,
the church has spent not an insignificant amount of time
focusing on the hierarchy.
I mean, that is somewhat assumed in the story
that the one is made from part of the other,
that there is this sort of natural hierarchy
that has been seen historically.
I think maybe what we might miss if we overemphasize that
is that we might potentially miss the reality
that the woman is made specifically,
intentionally,
and purposefully.
That there’s something that we’re seeing here
where God is actually creating a particular order.
And that the partner that this man’s gonna receive
is not simply another thing made
in the same way that God has made other things.
God is making them in such a way that they fit together.
They’re pieces of a jigsaw puzzle
that wouldn’t exist otherwise.
And so we see in this relationship
foreshadowing of that deeper relationship
that we see those in scripture called to
all throughout this kind of mutual sharing, forbearance.
You know, I’ve always been struck,
Clint, that in scripture,
there’s not as much language about what we might think of
as the institution of marriage as you would expect.
There’s not that many passages
that really single out that thing
and talk about that particular form of relationship.
Yet,
we see in this creation era that this idea
that there is a kind of fittedness,
a kind of togetherness intended from the beginning.
And what we see in that is a reflection
of the larger fittedness,
the larger intention that we’ve seen exist thus far.
So God has made this,
this kind of relationship
is intended to be different than the relationships
that might exist with the other creatures
that Adam has named thus far.
And we see in that,
I think a real affirmation
of the outcome that our relationships should strive to.
I mean,
they should be ordered in specific
and intentional as well.
Yeah, I mean, it is interesting that the backdrop here is relationship.
It is partnership.
Men and women have a complimentary role.
All the other animals have been created in pairs.
And if we borrow from the first story,
the idea of fruitful and multiply,
that is not explicit in this story,
but I do think it’s implied.
And then it says God brought her to the man.
And again,
remember that this was the,
as was previous,
the animals had been brought to the man.
And here the man has this,
I think you can call it a joyous reaction.
He says this at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh.
This one shall be called woman
for out of man,
this one was taken.
And we can stop there just for a minute.
So in Hebrew,
man is the word ish
and Hebrew is the word ishah.
And so as it is in English,
maybe even more so,
there is a connectedness to the words
that implies a relationship,
implies a oneness.
And the man amongst all the creation
looks at the woman
and feels most complete.
Bone of my bones,
flesh of my flesh.
This is my partner.
This is my helpmate.
This is the one to whom I am connected,
the one who in some way completes the creation,
him for her and her for him.
And though we don’t have,
as we did in the first story,
this idea of everything’s finished, it’s very good.
You could read that,
I think, and it would be hard not to read that
into the story at this moment.
So it’s really interesting what we see coming next year.
So let’s just turn our attention to verse 24
’cause we have a therefore statement.
“Therefore man leaves his father and his mother,
clings to his wife and they become one flesh
and the man and his wife were both naked
and were not ashamed.”
Actually, both of these verses have places
that we would want to go,
but let’s start here with the first.
The teaching that comes out of this,
as we’ve already seen in these creation narratives,
we saw this especially in the first
where that idea of the seven days
presents for us a model of living in the universe,
this pattern of living each day with work
and then having a day that’s set aside.
It shows us this cosmic reality
that undergirds the spiritual reality.
Well, here we are,
this is the reason
that we’re told a man leaves his father and his mother,
clings to his wife.
This is why this kind of relationship happens
and is important is because fundamentally
it was built from the order of creation
that when God created this partner,
this is therefore the reason why one would leave
and go create this new kind of union.
It is a blessing of not only just the stuff,
God makes the earth,
God makes the trees,
God makes the birds,
Adam names these things
and that’s good, but he’s steward over them.
Here we now see God blessing,
absolutely blessing this relationship
between these two people and this is the reason we’re told
that we see this leaving in human relationships,
this new kind of relationship that gets made.
It’s a kind of creation that’s not physical
as much as it is relational
and I think that’s a beautiful reflection
of the creation story because what we see happening here
is not just relational between humans,
it’s also God creating relationship between these humans.
It’s God being present to them
in the same way that they’re present to one another.
There’s some beautiful notes tying this all together.
Yeah, verses 24 and 25 are very interesting
because we forget that this story is being narrated
and here we have the narrator sort of leaving the story
and giving us an explanation of current practice
or future practice from the perspective of the story.
This is why men and women cling to one another.
This is why they become one flesh
because there is this fundamental connection
for one another in creation and these verses
have gotten lots of attention in our modern arguments
and discussions about sexuality and whatever else
but what they speak to is a fundamental bent
in the human soul towards another
that men and women gravitate to one another
and this is innate, this is connectional.
There is something in us that is inherently
by our creation relational
and I think you wanna be very careful
not using these verses to say things
that I’m not sure they were intended to say
in regards of our own hangups,
our own discussions, our own arguments but I think what unfortunately
using those texts in those settings have done
is to kind of minimize this idea that men and women
we are truly created to know another,
we are created not to be solitary,
we are created not to be alone
but we are inherently
wired to seek a connection
with another person or with other people
and I think it’s very interesting that the narrator
sort of inserts an explanation piece
into this story, I think it gives it a very interesting flavor.
Yeah and so speaking of that explanation,
Clint, what we have in verse 25 is also very interesting
because if I throw it up here,
we have this language,
the man and his wife were both naked
and we’re not ashamed and just as a point,
okay, just as a teaching point,
I don’t love teaching
the creation story in like confirmation in middle school
because once you get to the word naked,
it’s all gone, right, out of the room,
have fun trying to get that train back into the station
but what’s intended here obviously
is not just physical nakedness,
this has this sense of spiritual vulnerability,
the idea that there’s no barrier,
nothing separating them from complete vulnerability
and care for the other,
right, we have this beautiful garden in which they’re safe,
which there’s nothing that divides them
and what’s interesting when I looked at the commentary,
I wouldn’t have gotten here myself,
that this is at least one commentator said
the only time in all of the Old Testament
where nakedness is spoken of positively,
everywhere else it’s attributed to poverty
or it’s attributed to weakness but here,
we see it is lifted up as a good thing
and of course we know that nakedness
is no longer gonna be tenable and not that long,
the sin’s gonna happen and being clothed
is a way of hiding our sin,
hiding our shame but for this brief moment,
there is no suspicion,
there’s no reason to be tempted by another
or to take more than what belongs to us,
there’s this moment of perfect harmony
and we see in that maybe a strange place,
honestly, a strange place to sort of end
this part of the creation story.
In the first make sense, you know,
God rests at the end of the first story but this story,
we end with this
relationship that is lifted up and now we leave
with this kind of statement of vulnerability
that here they are,
they’re both naked, there’s no shame and that then becomes
the kick start to the next story
that we know is gonna introduce shame into the story.
I think this is a very interesting verse
because it says something not only about
the man and woman relationally,
they have nothing to hide from one another,
they’re not trying to impress one another,
the way that clothing sometimes functions,
it also says a great deal about the garden,
they’re in no threat from the garden,
they don’t need a protective outer layer,
that they are both with the creation
and with one another safe,
there’s no shame,
there’s no hiding,
none of that that we will see in the next story
on the backside of their disobedience,
none of that yet exists in the creation
or in the created and I think,
you know, that’s a beautiful picture.
This, we’ve said this numerous times, but this story,
it’s interesting how verse chapter one
and chapter two get to similar places
but by very different routes
and this story is much more earthy,
it’s also a little predictive,
the other one pretty much just frames creation,
this one is very much setting a stage
as it goes for a longer story,
an ongoing story and this one will seamlessly continue into chapter three
that is part of,
at least the language would suggest,
it is a part of and an extension of chapter two.
Just note that we are finishing
with the second creation story
and here we see this human relationship lifted up
as an example of God’s beautiful pre-sin intention
and I think that’s a beautiful reflection
of what we as humans should strive for in our life
is these kinds of vulnerable relationships
where shame doesn’t drive the conversation,
where we’re free to flourish as people,
sons and daughters of God,
this is the kind of idea
and it’s a scant couple words,
I mean, to be honest, Clint, there’s not much here in this picture
yet this is pre-sin and as we are critical
of Christians coming to a text like this,
that should tell us that this has something
of God’s intention all over it
and I appreciate your comment, I do think
these passages have been lifted up especially
in the 21st century in the midst of lots
of theological conversations about orientation,
identity, these kinds of things
and it’s not that these aren’t relevant
to those conversations, really smart and thoughtful scholars have done that work
but I do think if you only put it in those conversations,
you’re gonna miss the intention of the text
and you’re gonna miss the reason
that the original authors included the story in this way,
it’s not to point us out in terms
of how we should understand who’s involved
in these relationships, it’s the celebration
that God made us to be relational like God is relational
and we should strive to be vulnerable
and to keep shame out of the center of those relationships
and that’s the way God intended it.
This would be slightly overstated, Michael,
but we have in the 20 and 21st century
paid the most attention to the fact
there was a man and a woman.
I think the story is more concerned with A,
how there was a man and a woman and B,
how the man and woman were
with one another and we have imposed this other meaning
that isn’t absent,
it’s just we’ve made it almost primary
and I think to the disservice of the other two points.
I think it’s well said,
that’s all I have today?
Me too, thanks for being with us,
everybody.
Yeah, it’s great to see you,
we will see you all tomorrow,
tomorrow we’re talking about fall things.
Yeah, I wanna think of your favorite fall things.
All right, here we go, talk to you tomorrow, guys.