MY NEED TO "RANT"

Please have mercy, but I’m going to “sound off” for a few moments.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard preachers talk about how lonely Adam was in the garden before God created Eve. This happens most during wedding sermons. The truth is, biblically, that simply is not the case.

Adam was created in the image and likeness of God. He was in perfect, unhindered fellowship with the Holy Trinity. He was not lonely. When God stated that “It is not good for the man to be alone” He was stating that, to reflect the image, the character and nature of God, there had to be community. God said, “It is not ‘TOV’ that man should be alone. TOV is Hebrew for “good” and for God’s goodness to be revealed through the crown of His creation, there had to be community.

So, God created the community of mankind. The word translated “rib” is the Hebrew word ‘tsele’ meaning something that circumscribes or contains something like the ribs of a boat or a cell of a jail. We know that in one human hair cell, all the necessary DNA to reproduce the person is there. In humans, every structure in the male is in vestige form in the female and vice-versa. So, God takes a ‘tesle’ from Adam and rearranges things into what we now identify as male and female. The Hebrew word for man is ‘ISH’ and the Hebrew word for woman is ‘ISHA’.

God’s revelation of Himself shows His transcendent might and power as well as His immanent tenderness and compassion. God is neither male nor female, but when He separated the aspects of His character and nature into Adam and Eve, He gives us the generalized attributes of what we now call male and female.

Interestingly, the name ‘Adam’ is made up of two parts. The first letter is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet ‘ALEPH’. That letter has been used by Rabbis for centuries and a shorthand for “ELOHIM”, the Hebrew word “GOD”.  “DAM” is the Hebrew word for red or blood. In the Bible, blood is synonymous with life. “The life is in the blood.”, the Scriptures state. Adam…the life of God…the image of God.

So, to be in the image and likeness of the Eternal, Triune God, to be ‘TOV’, good, there had to be community with a mutually shared life, a oneness and complementarity lived out in love. Genesis 5:1-2 reads very interestingly! “This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created Adam, in the likeness of God made He him; ² Male and female created He them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.” The Hebrew word most Bible translations record as “man” or “mankind” or “humankind” is rendered correctly by the King James Version: “…and called their name ADAM.” 

It is together as husband and wife, in unity of life, that they are meant to display the ‘life of God’. That will give you insight into why marriage has been under such attack. Satan hates it because God intends that His eternal oneness be displayed in the oneness of the crown of His creation in marriage. By the way, marriage was God’s idea, not cultures’ idea.

Adam was not lonely, but to display the image and character of the Godhead, there had to be community. That community can only find its bearings and wholeness when both the husband and the wife are in an intimate relationship with the Lord God through Jesus Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit to live life as the gift of God it is, as new creations by God’s grace.

Thanks for letting me rant a bit.