#DailyDevotion Marriage Is A Gift From God
3rd day of Lent Friday
Read Gen 2:4–25
Gen 2:16-24 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, (17) but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (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.”
We have two major things happening in this section of Genesis and the creation account. First is the set up of man’s ultimate fall. We really don’t know why God decided to place in the garden two trees of which the man could choose to eat and forbidding him to eat one of them. So it is of no use speculating why. What we do know is all God wanted Adam to do was not eat the fruit of the tree of good and evil. We note God didn’t say he couldn’t chop it down. He didn’t say he could build a tree house in it. Nor did God say he couldn’t have a food fight with the fruit. He simply could not eat the fruit.
There is then the grave threat that if he did eat it, on that day he would die. Now we read this and knowing the rest of the account know Adam does eat it and he lives another 900 years. What gives? Just this, God doesn’t view death like us. The death he is referring to is the removal of his life, his spirit, his soul dies on that day.
The second major part is the creation of woman. Like in this whole account of the creation of man in chapter 2 it is a very personal and hands on creation of mankind. Just as God creates man from the dust of the earth and breathes his life into man, now he takes a rib out of man and forms from it woman, a suitable helper. God had brought all the animals to the man first to see what he would name them. There was no suitable helper among them, not even the dog. Even a six-pack of beer isn’t suitable for the man.
So God takes a part of man from him and actually makes something or rather someone suitable for the man. Adam upon receiving this wonderful gift from God names her-demonstrating his superior position (but not in a sinful way but in an order of creation way) and calls her woman because she was taken from man. While I do not know every language of mankind it is interesting to note of all the languages I do know, every word for woman contains the name for man.
Man really appreciates and glories in this gift that he breaks forth into poetry. And we receive this principle here for marriage we in our culture need to take to heart. A marriage is between a man and a woman. Secondly, when you are married you become one flesh even as God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit yet one God. What this means is you are to stick to your spouse and defend your spouse even above your own originating family. Parents, family and friends are not to come between a married couple and married couples shouldn’t let them interfere in the marriage.
Lord God, heavenly Father, we thank you for the gift of creation and for the gift of marriage. Help all married couples honor their marriage bed and keep all single people chaste until such time as you joined them to another. In Jesus’ Name we pray, amen.