Chapter 10

The Age of Innocence

Marriage

His spiritual discernment correctly perceived that she had come from him, therefore he called her Woman [3](verse 23) which is the Hebrew word ishshah %:! and is the same word translated as Wife. There is a curious anomaly in the Bible with this verse. Jesus said to the Pharisees that were trying to trick him;

In the Genesis account there is no indication that Adam has stopped speaking from verse 2:23 and verse 2:24 from which Jesus is referring. It is possible that verse 24 is the Lord speaking, but is not clearly stated. This writer thinks otherwise. Adam was the created version of the Word made flesh and as such had proven himself by this point to be in complete communion with God, speaking prophetically as the Word of the Lord. His mature knowledge of the will of God is declared in this verse. As the Lord said of Moses to Pharaoh, "See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh" (Ex. 7:1), which is to say Moses was in God's stead. Adam made a notable statement since he had no parents yet understood the concept of family.

ONE FLESH

It is the will of God for mankind to exist in unity: unity with Him and with one another. At this point in the creation, that desire has been fulfilled. A community had been created of a husband and wife with God in the center. The marriage is the cornerstone to this new community. The couple is the family upon which children added later revolve around. The family with children becomes the nucleus upon which societies revolve, and later, governments serve. During the antediluvian period, however, government was limited, being subservient to the patriarchy.

The desire of God for marriage and society to be in unity with Him is best expressed by Jesus:

The benefit of unity that Adam and Eve were to experience was expressed by Paul to the Ephesians:

While the metaphor in this statement may seem convoluted, Paul is simply saying that each member of the body works together like a precision machine that builds itself up by the contribution of each part, thus being self-sufficient. This is the design of Adam and Eve for reproduction. Their individual differences were the strength of their whole so that a new stronger being was formed in their union under God. The Lord's words, "It is not good for man to be alone," refers to this. Yes, God cared about Adam's loneliness, but was addressing the greater benefit of two working together for greater benefit. As Solomon said,

Their strength was to cover each other's weakness and to stand together in one mind. It is a shame that many times couples today do not recognize this benefit. Many times the differences which should be accepted as complimentary strengths become continual points of conflict as each spouse assumes the mate should see it their way.

MARRIAGE & AGREEMENT: Spiritual Laws

The prophet Amos asked, "Can two walk together, except they be agreed?" (Am. 3:3). The question was rhetorical; of course not! The strength of unity comes by agreement. Jesus said, "If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matt. 18:19 & 20). This walk of agreement was given to Adam and Eve. For when they agreed with God's word, then the strength of God was in them. For, in deed, the very unity of the Godhead comes by the agreement of the Father, Word, and Spirit.

The power of unity by marriage and agreement is a spiritual law that binds all things together. Paul explained this principle to the Roman Jews concerning their freedom from the Mosaic law in using a marriage by analogy. He explains that a married woman becomes an adulteress if she remarries while her husband lives. However, if he dies then she is free to marry another. He concludes:

It is the spiritual law of marriage that unites us to Christ, yet enables us to remain separate. This is why we are both the body of Christ and the children of God. This holds true for us as mates; we are one flesh, yet two separate people. It is a genuine melding of spirits into one spirit. Walking in agreement is a spiritual law of the soul that unites minds together. And sexual intercourse is physical union, which is designed for the context of marriage only, that connects spirits together via the body. As Paul said to the Corinthians:

Because of this spiritual union that occurs through intercourse, marriage is a monogamous institution. Jesus refuted the Pharisees on the question of divorce by saying, "Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so" (Matt. 19:8). His declaration shows that Adam and Eve were given a monogamous sexual union, which was God's intent for all mankind.

In fact, during the ancient world and even in the Old Testament, the act of physical intercourse was considered the marriage act. An ancient example is Virgil's classic, "The Aeneid," which is an epic poem recounting the flight of Trojan born Aeneas from sacked Troy to Latium to found the Roman peoples. On one of his stopovers, Dido, the Phoenician Queen of Carthage, and he are trapped by Juno [the mythological wife of the storm god Jupiter, or Jove] and Venus [goddess of love] in a cave. Juno explains to Venus:

In the Old Testament Rebekah was brought to Isaac as a wife. The Bible says:

The implication being that he had no ceremony, but consummated the marriage by sexual intercourse.

The power of agreement, which is a soulish bonding, is significant for the corporate body. Not just in the church, but in communities and nations. God views us corporately as well as individually. Both as a church of believers as well as a people of believers and unbelievers in a community. When agreement occurs in friendships and societies, there is a uniting of souls. This is why breakups hurt. Young lovers that abstain from premarital sex, yet enjoy common ground, experience pain in breakup when they realize that they are not God's will for one another. This is because of the soul bonds being broken. Friends that separate experience this rending of soul bonds, and deaths bring grief because of the tearing of souls. Divorce in marriages experience tearing of soul and spirit, and take the Holy Spirit to heal. Shared experiences involve the body so that bonding occurs in the spirit as well as the soul. This is why eating together is an important form of bonding, and why the Lord used food for our communion. Just as the soul binds the body and spirit together, we are created to bond with one another. This is why every rejection is a tearing of soul and is the cause of wounding for so many emotionally. Negative comments, gossip, and the like all cause wounding because of rejecting the bond. With this kind of pain caused by soul and spirit being rent apart, imagine how much worse it is in a miscarriage or abortion. There it is a total rending of body, soul, and spirit as the fetus is torn away.

MARRIAGE AS DISCIPLESHIP

While becoming one flesh is the goal of the Lord, testing and proving the bond is part of our discipleship. Adam not only was relieved of loneliness, and not only was strengthened by marriage, but his marriage to Eve was a part of his discipleship in obeying God. An hierarchy and order was established by God in the marriage which has never changed.

The line is straightforward: God, Christ, Adam, and Eve. While Christ had not incarnated at that time, He existed as the Word and was to be crucified from the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8). When children are born, the line continues from wife/mother to children. Why is the man over the woman?

Or in other words, Eve came from Adam's side, since Adam was created first, and Eve was created for Adam who already existed.

This order of creation, however, is not for the man to Lord it over the woman, as the world does. It is an order of mutual submission. The man submits to God, and the woman submits to man, and the children submit to the woman. Ultimately all is in submission to God. When a wife submits to her husband, she is submitting to God first. Paul declared, "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church" (Eph. 5:22 & 23). And as Peter observed, "Even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord" (1 Pet. 3:6), which is recognition on her part of his position. If the man is obeying God, then a woman's obedience to her husband is the same as obedience to God. A husband that doesn't obey the Lord, within proper limits, is to be submitted to by the wife as unto the Lord. "Likewise ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation [or lifestyle] of the wives" (1 Pet. 3:1). This, of course, means that the wife needs a relationship with the Lord, as well, to know the will of God, too. Wives are not to obey husbands in sin. Neither are husbands to follow wives in sin. This is the mutual strength gained in marriage that Solomon referred to in Ecclesiastes.

But a husband is not to abuse his authority by "lording it over" his wife. Jesus said,

And since the husband is considered the priest of his family, Peter's admonition to the ministers of the gospel applies as well:

The husband's responsibility and godly behavior towards his wife is succinctly stated by Paul:

Since Adam was still perfect and had been partially proven mature in his ability to discern what is an appropriate mate for him, we can assume that he also understood these principles. His union with God had not been severed yet, so he must have understood by his spirit what God expected from him in his role as a husband. Indeed, it was Adam who declared that she was "bone of his bones, and flesh of his flesh," so we know he at least understood that much.

But knowing these things by the spirit and in the mind is only part of the answer. It is by experiences of reality (through the body by doing the right things) that cause the spirit to grow and to become a permanent part of one's character. His wife was given to him to prove whether he would act accordingly, and thus permanently seal it in every fiber of his being. This part of Adam's discipleship would either make or brake him. Likewise, the Lord continues today to use marriage as a means of discipleship to prove and test our character into the image of Christ. But for now, Adam and Eve enjoyed paradise in perfect harmony with both God and the creation.

IN GLORY

As discussed in Chapter 4, Adam and his wife were clothed in the glory of God. At this point, we remember that God called them Adam (Gen. 5:1) which demonstrates the unity of their being. With this verse, the sixth day of creation ends which is summarized in chapter 1:26-31. The conclusion of this chapter reads:

And so it was.