And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And Adam said: "This is now bone of my bones And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. (vv.21-25)
Here we read that God used Adam’s own body to create Eve to forever remind him of their essential oneness, made of the same substance. Alike and yet different different. There is a beautiful Jewish traditional saying of why God made woman from one of Adam's ribs; "not out of man’s foot to be under him, nor out of his head to be over him, but she was taken from under his arm that he might protect her and from next to his heart that he might love her.”
So, God created Eve out of Adam and brought her to him. He was first – the source and the head. She was created second to be a helper perfectly suited to him. Thus the subordinate relationship of wives to husbands is found before the curse, not after it. We see in Adam's comment, "This is now bone of my bones" that Adam recognized Eve was both like him (bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh) and not like him (woman… taken out of man). They were one, but they were not the same. He understood that two different people were becoming one.
The scriptures tell husbands to recognize that they are one with someone different, someone whom they must understand: "Likewise, you husbands, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel" (1 Peter 3:7). Elisabeth Elliot in answering to the question, "If men and women are different, are they equal? said: “In what sense is red equal to blue? They are equal only in the sense that both are colors in the spectrum. Apart from that they are different. In what sense is hot equal to cold? They are both temperatures, but beyond this it is almost meaningless to talk about equality.”
This passage of becoming one flesh, forms the foundation for the Bible’s understanding of marriage and family. Both Jesus (Matthew 19: 5) and Paul (Ephesians 5:31) quoted it in reference to marriage. The idea of one flesh is taken by many to be mainly a way of expressing sexual union. While sexual union is certainly related to the idea of one flesh, it is only one part of what it means to be one flesh. There are also important spiritual dimensions to one flesh. The fullness of what God wants to do in the one flesh relationship takes time. It has to become.
Finally, the last part of our text reads, "Adam and Eve were both naked… and not ashamed." David Guzik writes of this, "The idea of “nakedness” is far more than mere nudity. It has the sense of being totally open and exposed as a person before God and man. To be naked… and not ashamed means you have no sin, nothing to be rightly ashamed of, and nothing to hide." And before the "Fall," this was true for both of them, they had nothing to hide from God....until they sinned, but that's another story for another time.
TheTruth: "Have you not read," Jesus replied, "that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female, and said,'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." (Matthew 19:5)
