Proper 22
Genesis 2:18-24; Mark 10:2-16
You can also subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube.
I.
The man was alone.
God undertook to make a helper fit for him.
Genesis 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.”
Genesis 2:19a:
So out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them….
Out of the ground. The animals are made from the same dust (Genesis 2:7, 3:19) as man.
Genesis 2:19b:
…whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.
Man’s word is both free and determinative. This does not preclude God’s sovereignty. After all, it was God who made the animals.
Genesis 2:20:
The man gave names….
The man exercises a prophetic office in naming the animals. He is interpreting God’s creation. He is revealing what God made them to be.
To name something is also to limit it, to set the boundaries of what defines it. Something is this and not that. Naming is an act of dominion (Genesis 1:28).
Dominion, not domination.
So far, the man has exercised the office of prophet in naming and interpreting God’s creation, and of a king in naming and limiting, and setting boundaries around God’s creation.
The animals provide motive power and allow for economic activity, but they are not a fit help for the man.
So, God makes the woman from and for the man.
Genesis 2:21-22:
So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; and the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.
…the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman….
Unlike the man and the animals, the woman is not made of dust but made of the man.
Man and animal are made of dead stuff, inanimate matter, but woman is made from living matter.
Man had to have his soul God-breathed (Genesis 2:7) into him, but woman was made with the vital force already active and present in her.
The man is no longer alone.
In Genesis 2:23 the man says:
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.
This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh…, is a prophetic utterance. This means it is inspired, a revelation of divine will.
…she shall be called Woman, the man exercises kingly dominion in naming and limiting and setting boundaries around the woman.
…because she was taken out of Man, the man exercises his prophetic office in interpreting the meaning of the woman’s creation.
Her meaning is rooted in the life principle.
Compare this first naming of the woman to the man’s second naming of the woman in Genesis 3:20:
The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.
The woman is made from living matter.
In naming her Eve, the man emphasizes that she is the one creature “born alive” — created with the life principle already in her, taken from the man, taken from his rib — and thus destined to become the bearer of life.
This is why abortion is an affront to God and a criminal act.
Genesis 2:24 tells us:
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.
…cleaves to his wife, refers to the act of sexual union. There is a sense in the Bible in which every sexually active couple is a married couple. This is why fornication is such a grievous sin. It dishonors the marriage bed. Hebrews 13:4 says:
…let the marriage bed be undefiled; for God will judge the immoral and adulterous.
In offering themselves to each other (offering is a priestly act) the man and the woman become one flesh.
In marriage the man exercises the three offices of prophet, priest, and king.
As prophet, he interprets the woman by naming her, revealing who and what she is as God’s creation.
As priest he offers his body to the woman. The old marriage rite of the Church of England had the man (and only the man) say: “with my body I thee worship.”
As king he sets boundaries and limits for her, again by naming her. He acknowledges the limits and boundaries that God has set in creation.
II.
Both texts are talking about the union of man and woman.
In Mark 10:2-16 we read of another pharisaical test of Jesus.
The key point is that the union of man and woman is part of creation.
Man and wife, therefore, cannot be separated.
In Mark 10:2 the Pharisees ask Jesus if divorce is lawful.
And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”
Jesus gets them to answer their own question in Mark 10:4.
They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce, and to put her away.”
In the next verse, Jesus responds that divorce is legal only as a concession. Divorce is a legal concession to hardness of heart, to sin.
However, in reality, divorce is impossible.
The sexual union cannot be undone.
In Mark 10:6-9 Jesus says:
But from the beginning of creation, “God made them male and female.” “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.
…the two shall become one flesh, it is the sexual union, rooted in creation, that defines marriage.
What therefore God has joined together, creation defines and determines marriage, not the law.
(Hence, same-sex activity, regardless of legality, can never be marriage because it is not rooted in creation.)
…let not man put asunder, man’s laws ought to mirror God’s creation.
This is a difficult teaching for the disciples, and in Mark 10:10-12 we read:
And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. And he said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
…commits adultery, adultery occurs regardless of the legal certificates of divorce and remarriage.
Once the sexual union has taken place it is irrevocable.
In Matthew’s account of this story, the disciples conclude that it is better not to marry (in other words, not to have any sexual relations with a woman).
Matthew 19:10:
The disciples said to [Jesus], “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry.”
Meanwhile, we are left to ask: how can we regain our purity?
When the biblical logic is applied, it turns out that some of us have had far more “spouses” than the law recognizes.
The legal demand for divorce combined with the recognition that we are far less pure than we thought — in Matthew 5:28 Jesus says, “that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” — reveals our unmet need for a new heart, one that his not hardened by sin.
Thus illustrating: the sexual union of man and woman is permanent and rooted in creation.
Genesis 2:24:
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.
Same-sex unions do not establish a permanent union. They are not rooted in the creation. Leviticus 18:22 calls such unions an “abomination.” (See also: Romans 1:26-27.)
But for men and women to unite with each other as God intended, their hearts need to change so that we can once again look upon each other and say, “This at last….”
III.
Once it’s gone, we cannot get back our physical virginity or our moral and spiritual innocence.
Mark 10:13:
And they were bringing children to him, that he might touch them; and the disciples rebuked them.
They rebuke Jesus because their hearts are hard.
So much of our hard-hearted culture is aimed at destroying and corrupting the innocence of children. We hate their innocence because we have lost it ourselves. Jesus welcomes it.
Mark 10:14:
But when Jesus saw it he was indignant, and said to them, “Let the children come to me, do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God.”
…to such belongs the kingdom of God, refers to the virgin innocence of children. Their purity is intact. They have not yet been adulterated by frivolous unions.
This is why the sexual revolution has been so devastating. It has robbed young people of something they can never get back.
They bear the loss caused by that theft for the rest of their adult lives.
Marriage, divorce, and sex are classic examples of how we set law and grace against each other, when, in fact, law and grace correspond in the fundamental ordering of creation.
Law. It is not good that the man should be alone.
Grace. I will make him a helper fit for him.
Divorce goes against God’s will because it attempts to legislate against creation.
In Mark 10:3-4, Jesus asks:
“What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce, and to put her away.”
The law can only certify what God has determined in creation, and a divorce, while legally valid, is nullified by creation. The bond between the husband and wife remains intact.
Mark 10:9 tells us that when man fell from grace, his nature was not destroyed, and neither was the woman’s. The union between man and woman survived the fall.
What emerged damaged on the other side of the fall was man’s capacity to live in that union.
Therefore, we have to ask that “What therefore God has joined together” be renewed by grace.
This means not just the physical union, but the spiritual and moral union of the man and woman needs renewing as well.
IV.
Jesus can restore us to moral and spiritual innocence.
Genesis 2:21 tells us that the man is wounded, sacrificing his rib, so that his wife can be “born alive” instead of from the dead dust. Likewise, Jesus sacrifices His life for our lives, so that our dust can be reborn.
The living heart of the reborn man is no longer hardened, and, therefore, Christian men are capable of living with their wives as creation intended.
The opposite is also true, the regenerated heart of a new Christian woman is capable of living with her husband as creation intended.
It is even true if only one party has a regenerate heart, as Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 7:12-14:
To the rest I say, not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is consecrated through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is consecrated through her husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is they are holy.
However, the consent of the unbelieving party must be genuine. Proverbs 21:9 warns us:
It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a contentious woman.
Let me add here that the opposite is also true.
V.
Now men and women must live as God intended. Now they can without being bound by their pasts.
The past is filled with body counts and divorces.
Young people, young women especially, speak openly, with not a little gallows humor and defensiveness to mask their shame, the shame of their “body count” — meaning the number of people they’ve slept with.
Given what we’ve learned today, according to the Bible, they might be surprised to learn that these unions are permanent.
What about the divorced and remarried? Are they committing adultery?
Mark 10:11-12 is clear:
Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.
But God grants His believing children peace.
This was the original intent behind Moses’ law permitting divorce.
Paul reminds us in Romans 3:20, “through the law comes knowledge of sin,” not peace.
Yet in 1 Corinthians 7:15 he writes:
…if the unbelieving partner desires to separate, let it be so; in such a case the brother or sister is not bound. For God has called us to peace.
I’ve heard it said that Jesus’ words are to be preferred to Paul’s here, that Jesus set a higher bar and Paul is just knocking it back down, good Pharisee that he was, but that is to miss the fact that the entire Bible is the word of God, and that scripture must be used to interpret scripture.
We know that Jesus came so that we might have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10).
If we are convicted by Jesus’ words because of our body counts and divorces, then we must not forget that He is also the redeeming Word incarnate.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
Though the sexual union, once made, cannot be severed, the believer is not bound by his past.
Paul assures us in 2 Corinthians 5:17:
Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come.
Let us pray:
Almighty and everlasting God, who art always more ready to hear than we to pray, and art wont to give more than either we desire or deserve: Pour down upon us the abundance of thy mercy, forgiving us those things whereof our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask, but through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Questions for reflection and discussion:
1. God undertook to make a helper ____________ for man.
2. The animals are made from the same ____________ as man.
3. Explain how the man exercises a prophetic office.
4. The woman is made from ____________ matter.
5. Explain how the man exercises a priestly office viz. the woman.
6. As ____________ the man sets boundaries and limits for the woman by naming her.
7. The union of man and woman is part of ____________.
8. The sexual union between a man and a woman cannot be ____________.
9. ____________ defines and determines marriage, not the law.
10. Once it’s gone, we cannot get back our physical ____________ or our moral and spiritual ____________.
11. In Christian marriage, the consent the unbelieving party must be ____________.
12. God grants His believing children ____________.
Parents and Grandparents, you are responsible to apply God’s Word to your children’s lives. Here is some help. Young Children – draw a picture about something you hear during the sermon. Explain your picture(s) to your parents or the minister after church. Older Children – Discuss with your parents one or both of the following: 1) Have you ever lost something that you can’t get back? How did it make you feel? 2) Think about what it means to offer or dedicate yourself to someone or something? What qualities do you look for in that person or thing?
(1) fit; (2) dust; (3) in naming the animals he reveals what God means them to be; (4) living; (5) he offers his body to her; (6) king; (7) creation; (8) undone; (9) creation; (10) virginity/innocence; (11) genuine; (12) peace
Share this post