Bone of my bones
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It was not good for the man to be alone. The beauty of the garden, its endless delights, the challenges of work and exploration weren’t enough for Adam. And swans, dolphins, baboons, wombats, poodles – none of them solved this ‘aloneness’ either.
Creation in and of itself is not a suitable counterpart for Adam. It’s just not good to have a whole creation under man, but no-one alongside man.
Think about that for a minute. This God-like creature called man has the whole world under him. He rules the visible universe with unquestioned authority. Isn’t that a good image of the divine life?
It’s many people’s image of God – lonely ruler. But it’s not a good image of the living God. The living God does not create in order to have creatures below Him. Fundamentally He creates in order to have a counter-part alongside Him. Now there’s a challenging thought!
But it makes sense when you realise that the living God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. These Persons have always been counter-parts alongside each other. And they create a universe where this kind of unity and difference abounds.
In Hebrew “the heavens” are masculine. “The earth” is feminine. The stage is set for a love story. When we see ‘the heavens and the earth’ we’re meant to say “Those two should really get together.” Well yes. They were made for each other.
Same as humanity. The LORD Christ forms man first. But then comes the woman out of Adam’s pierced side. She is completely equal but delightfully different. And the whole point of it – the consummation if you like – is union.
So when Eve is presented to Adam he bursts out into history’s first love-song:
This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. (Genesis 2:23)
When he sees Eve, Adam sees himself. But different. She is from him. And is him. But different. But the same. But… How do you express this? Actually you have to break into poetry. Here is the beautiful otherness of the ‘opposite sex’ – and yet this is the ‘opposite’ that truly completes me. Bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh.
A life of pure dominion was not good for Adam. He needed a bride to share life with. And when he gets his bride he cannot contain his joy.
Well keep that image in mind and think about the LORD Christ and His bride, the church. He has always desired us alongside Him – as bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh. And so He took our flesh and endured the ultimate pierced side to win us. And the goal of both our lives and His will be face-to-face fellowship on a day of singing. And not only will we sing in praise of Him. He will sing in raptured joy to us.
He will rejoice over thee with singing. (Zephaniah 3:17)
This has been heavy on my heart the past few months. i know so many people who are getting a divorce or having major marital problems. If you think about in this reference, if Satan destroys our image of marriage he succeeds in destroying our image of God and the church!
Hi Stephanie, So true. In fact my friend Rich is blogging about that very thing right now.
http://christthetruth.wordpress.com/2011/01/10/god-is-not-triune-the-devils-great-lie-part-1/
We had this passage on Sunday just gone! :-) great point Stephanie – from the beginning Christ has been wooing his church through the picture of marriage the he gave to us which point to the ultimate union. When you lose this understanding of marriage you lose hope.
[...] stick together – like the way skin ‘cleaves’ to bone. How appropriate, since Eve is bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. Now he ‘cleaves’ to her like she’s his own body. Actually she [...]
That is an interesting Icon. I perceive it to be the image of our Lord Jesus at Creation with Adam and Eve. We remember that in orthodoxy, the Father alone is never pictured, but rather Christ as the ultimate Icon of the Trinity who lived among us.
“Christ is the icon of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation” (Col 1:15)
More here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Trinity_Icon
and here
http://iconreader.wordpress.com/2010/07/05/jesus-christ-the-icon-of-the-father/
[...] Eve’s creation and her naming, the couple rebel, death and curse are unleashed and the LORD pronounces fearful [...]
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