Author: Richard Graham
Genesis 2:4-25
In 2:19-20, it is the man who names the animals and birds, and whatever he (Adam) names them, that was their names. Eve has not yet been created in this creation account, although the man does in the latter part of this chapter identify her as ‘the woman.” 2:19c-20 says “… brought each to the man to see what he would call it. And whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. (HCSB)” Imagine the intelligence that it took for Adam to do this, as one scholar has said. The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the sky, and to every wild animal. (What about the swimming creatures? We do not know.) God knew beforehand what the man would name each one, but He did not intervene in this work. This naming continues to this day, as scientists, botanists, et al., name newly discovered creatures. In addition, family members, including children, name their children and pets. Humans are a “naming species.” (This relates to the God-given power of the tongue.)
These verses describe a partnership. God, not man, “brought each” (one at a time), and “whatever the man (not God) called a living creature, that was its name.” God foreknew the names, but He did not predetermine the names. God is a bigger God than Calvin could conceptualize. He is a big enough God to allow for partnership with mankind, and to delight in that partnership with us. What a great God!
The man determined the names, and mankind today continues to determine the names, in the continuance of the partnership between God and man. In 2:23 the man also names the woman, not God. God agrees with the names of both creatures and the woman, names that He foreknew.
Not every one is to be married, although most are. Being single is not a curse, a harm, or a negative. Every human being is still called to be in partnership with the God Who created us. All single people are still precious and important to God. Jesus and others were single, and honored God with their lives. Jesus died for everyone who is single. Every single person has the opportunity to be a partner with God. Take it! It is a privilege to be single, because, as Paul says much later, a single person has the opportunity to serve God without any hindrance or distractions. If you are single, then be the single person God has planned for you to be, in partnership with Him. You can honor your heavenly Partner just as much as a married person, and perhaps even more in some aspects of human life. Be the single woman God wants you, His partner, to be. Be the single man God wants you, His partner, to be.
As I said, most people are to be married, and will be married. This, too, is a privilege. The married couple have ways to honor God that a single person does not. This will include modeling the partnership between Christ and His church. Let's look at each person in this partnership.
First, the wife has a wonderful privilege to be the complement of her husband. This is not a lesser role. Many times it is the harder role to occupy. Second violin is often harder. Singing the harmony is as hard as singing the melody. She has the privilege to model how the church is to follow Christ, as she respects her husband, and honors him. In addition, she usually has the beyond words, amazing privilege to be a mother, to bear children, and bring them into life and into the world. As Eve says later, God enables the woman to be a mother, and to give birth to another human being. That is a partnership that only women have. It is a partnership of literally creation with God. How fantastic!
Her body is a miracle in itself. With her (hopefully) husband or a man’s sperm, she has been given the ability to conceive a child, a human from conception, and to help that child to grow to the point of birth. Her womb is miraculously made to grow, feed, nourish, protect, and develop that child. The blood from her and the blood from the child travel back and forth in a marvelous way, as she prepares the child to fight off disease, and the child literally helps her to fight off disease. Scientific studies have shown a part of her body will always have aspects from each of her children in it. When the time for birth comes, her body somehow ‘knows,’ and goes through the amazing process that brings a human being from his or her original place in the womb to being able to breathe outside, and to continue to grow on the outside of the womb. It is a wonderful privilege to be a wife, and it is a wonderful privilege to be a mother. Cherish both, whether or not you get to be one or the other.
Second, the husband has a wonderful privilege to be the complement of his wife. He has the privilege to be the leader, the protector of her and any children, and in many ways the provider for them. This is often the harder role to occupy. He is to love her as Christ loves His church, to being willing to literally lay down his life for her, and/or as a role model of Christ for her. This means he will make decisions that are not his preference, to allow his wife to have her way in many things. To be a dictator to his wife is evil. (Read that last sentence again. Then read it again.)
My wife often does what I want, and I often do what she wants. We literally delight in this to show our love for each other. An example of the latter is that I will never grow a beard. (After all, God only made a few perfect chins, and I have, lol, one of them!) The reason for this is that as a child she was tormented by an older male relative who would often scratch her face and neck with his whiskers. This was done as a ‘joke,’ but it was a form of child abuse. So my shaving every day is one of the ways that I show my love to her. She often does things to bless me in similar ways.
So in many ways, we both show our love to each other. Both of us often find that the other one was right to begin with! One of the most amazing things that has happened in our marriage is that we have grown in understanding each other’s strengths and weaknesses. This allows us to let the other take the lead many times. We have also learned the love languages of each other, and this allows us to more effectively show love to each other. That is fun!
These ways of showing love to each other have enabled us, by God’s grace, to make it through so many trials, troubles, and literal terrors. With God as our Keystone Partner, we make an arch that protects us from many enormous storms and problems.
One of the most wonderful things about being married is the thrill of sexual union, which has two amazing features. One, we give and receive pleasure and intimacy to and from each other. My wife knows I have never and will never be with another woman, and I know she has never and will never be with another man. That alone gives us one huge ‘paving stone’ of the foundation on which our marriage stands. Two, we are given the wonderful and amazing miracle of producing children. Not only is there the beyond-description miracle of conception, growth in the womb, and birth, but we have the knowledge that we joined God in creation of other human beings. She had the privilege of three humans growing in her, and of giving birth. I had the privilege of fathering three humans, whom we raised to be healthy, wonderful adults. We did lose one other child very early in a pregnancy, and we look forward to seeing her (we think her) in heaven.
Let me ask a dangerous question: Who or what is the crown of God’s creation? Mankind? Yes. Mankind was and is created in the image of God Himself. But of the two, man or woman, who is the crown there? Man? No. He is the head of the family and of the church, but he is not the crown of God’s creation. The woman is. Why? Because it is to her God gave the amazing privilege of creating something that only God has ever done before: the creation of a human being. The man does not have this privilege, although he does have a (very small!) part in the beginning. Woman, and woman only, has the privilege of creating another human being. She is the crown, because she alone is most like God in His creative capacity.
Let me ask you to have a picture in your mind of a graph with x and y axis. At the very beginning down in the lower left hand corner there is matter. Next perhaps there are germs, then amoebas, then small swimming creatures, then fish and other water creatures, then insects, then creeping creatures of other kinds, then small animals as the Bible describes. Then come the larger land creatures, up to the largest such as the elephants. All these are ascending a higher and farther to the right line at a 45 degree angle. I’m not trying to be scientifically correct in my description. I just want to give you an idea of about what I am talking. Then at the top, right hand point there is the man, the male. Now where do we put the woman, the female? In the minds of many, she would be put directly to the right of the man. For some, she would still be put to the right of the man, but slightly lower than him.
That would be wrong. She is not lesser than the man. Man did not get the privilege of being able to create another human being. Only the woman. She is the crown of God’s creation, at the very peak of the Lord’s creation. So on that line, she is at the peak, just barely higher than the man.
Does this mean that she is the greater of the two? No. She is the one with that one and only creative power of conception, growth in her womb, and birth, followed by the important step of nursing that child in a relationship that no man can experience.
But man is her head. To the man is given the huge privilege of being her head, her protector, her provider in many ways, her spiritual head, her lover, and the father of their children. Just as Christ is the head of His bride, the church, the man is the head of his bride, his wife. This is huge. We men have a huge responsibility to be the men of our wives and women’s lives. In that sense, we are the leaders, although we are to listen to them at every point of decision, and often do things their ways. Our job is not to dictate to them, but to do, no longer what, the right thing to do, the most important thing to do, even if we don’t like it, even if we would rather do things our own way. At points of decisions in so many ways, we have to make the right decisions, never just what we want to do in our own minds and hearts. We have the responsibility to do only the right thing, never anything else. This is a huge responsibility, and the one for which we, not our women, will answer to God when we stand before Him. In this way, we are God’s servant, to be the head who provides and protects the one to whom God has given the astounding privilege of creating new human beings. We men are to the women what Jesus is to the church—the One who lays down his life, his privileges, his rights, to purchase and achieve for His bride what she cannot provide for herself. What a joy to be a man, to be like Jesus in this way!
