One flesh
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There are three prominent prepositions used about Adam and Eve in Genesis 2. For, From, and To. She is for him. From him. Then brought to him.
Which means the whole thing is heading towards a fourth preposition. And I’m afraid I can’t avoid all the connotations of this next word, but let’s hold our breath and be as grown up as possible. No sniggering…
The whole thing is heading towards in. Consummation will mean union. They become one flesh. (Genesis 2:24)
Shakespeare’s Iago may have called it “the beast with two backs” but in Scripture there’s nothing beastly about it. It’s the consummation of the glory of humanity – made male and female, intended for oneness.
And this unity is not monstrous or demeaning. The two do not lose their distinctives in this union. In fact this union preserves and upholds their distinctions. Sex makes sexes. (Say that six times fast!).
Their one-ness does not come at the cost of their differences. This is a one-ness that depends upon deep differences and which doesn’t dissolve those differences. Instead it’s a oneness of intimacy and love.
This word for “one”, which the Authorized Version translates, is the same word used to describe God’s oneness. “The LORD our God is one.” (Deuteronomy 6:4)
Again, this is not a oneness that crowds out distinctives. There is plenty of room in this one-ness for distinct Persons – but Persons who are bound together from all eternity in love. This is the one-ness of God, a one-ness that affirms and upholds the delightful distinctions and roles of the Persons. God is one because God is love. And God is love because God is trinity. So Adam and Eve’s oneness tells us about the oneness of God.
But more personally for us, Adam and Eve’s oneness tells us about our oneness with Christ.
The Apostle Paul quotes this verse about ‘one flesh’ and he says:
This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. (Ephesians 5:32)
Genesis 2:24 is meant to teach us about our union with Christ. It is not a moral union, as though our oneness consists in ethical conformity to Christ. It is a union of covenant faithfulness. It is a union in which our distinctives are not abolished but affirmed. It is a union of delight. It is a union of love. And it is a union of being.
Those united to Jesus are one flesh with Him. Bone of His bones, flesh of His flesh. We are the body, He is the Head. We are so close that we are in fact “in” Him. And you can’t get closer than in.
We don’t simply come into His divine favour and protection, not simply into His divine status and privileges. We are brought into His very Person. Now and forevermore.
I am mindful that the Jewish approach was not want to spiritualize teachings, to divide the material from the spiritual, but was very much focused on the material and spiritual as one. This verse, as you have well pointed out, very much affirms the material nature of the bond in “one flesh” and its concomitant spiritual reality. I find the image you have chosen to be powerful in this regard. How then is that part of the church to deal with this verse in the wake of its rush to bless civil unions, indeed to pretend in some instances to solemnize matrimony, between members of the same sex? They cannot, honestly. I am reminded of working on my autos, and how helpless I would be if I had gotten a bag of all bolts, or all nuts, to put my auto together….it just won’t do.
Yes indeed Mark. Precisely because it preaches there is therefore sex that “just won’t do.” Sex outside covenant union preaches tritheism and a promise-less Jesus who is does not cleave to us.
Same-sex unions preach that the Persons of God are not distinct Persons with a flow to their “dance” but simple repetitions of themselves. It preaches that Christ needn’t have gone out towards *another* but to, essentially, have pleased Himself.
These things are an assault on the Christian doctrine of God and the gospel.
[...] is not obsessed with sex. But it does recognize the inter-relatedness of sex to all of life. “One flesh” has its context in the committed relationship of man and woman in covenant union. Bringing it out of this context is both a sign and source of other relational disordering. [...]
[...] Because of God’s oneness we are to love. As we discussed when we thought about “one flesh” – the way God is one is analagous to the way husband and wife are “one.” [...]
[...] see the bible is a love story. It begins with the marriage of Adam and Eve. It ends with the marriage of the Lord Jesus to His people (Revelation 19). And all throughout, [...]
[...] fundamental level, this one-ness is not a future hope but a present gift. When the two become one flesh it’s not primarily a human union which God then blesses. Instead the human union is an [...]
[...] – the Three Persons are united in love. That’s how one-ness happens in the Bible. Adam and Eve are one because they are united in love. The Church is meant to be one by being united in love (John 17:21-22). And the Father, Son [...]
[...] is not obsessed with sex. But it does recognize the inter-relatedness of sex to all of life. “One flesh” has its context in the committed relationship of man and woman in covenant union. Bringing it out of this context is both a sign and a source of other relational disordering. [...]
[...] to the verse: Because of God’s oneness we are to love. As we discussed when we thought about “one flesh” – the way God is one is like the way husband and wife are “one.” They are united in [...]
[...] see the Bible is a love story. It begins with the marriage of Adam and Eve. It ends with the marriage of the Lord Jesus to His people (Revelation 19). And all throughout [...]
[...] fundamental level, this one-ness is not a future hope but a present gift. When the two become one flesh it’s not primarily a human union which God then blesses. Instead the human union is an [...]