God Made Marriage for Goodness, Part 2 | What Makes Marriage So Good

Genesis 1-2

So, we’ve set a foundation according to God’s design, and now we are going to build the house according to God’s design and for this point we looked at Genesis 2 and following. We looked at the way God created Adam and Eve and there are two basic patterns in the way that God arranged marriage, in the way he created them, the way he organized the constituent elements of marriage, Adam and Eve, and how he brought them together.

 So, we might call this the formative organization of marriage. The way it’s organized gives form and shape, the way it’s structured forces a certain shape, a certain form. So, when we examine the way that God organized marriage, the way he structured it, we see two patterns emerge here, Patterns of authority and patterns of intimacy. It’s by practicing these patterns of authority and intimacy that marriage accomplishes its telos, that it realizes its purpose.

Well, there’s another pattern that got established in the beginning when he created the first formative institution called marriage, and it’s a pattern of intimacy. So, the pattern of authority and then joins together beautifully with the pattern of intimacy. We said earlier that marriage is good because it manifests the goodness of God in its structure. Marriage is also good because of what the structure provides. God’s goodness is manifest in the paner pattern of intimacy in marriage, that’s what marriage provides is intimacy.

Back to our building analogy, if the pattern of authority provides, like the framing of the building, pattern of intimacy, is everything else: it’s the wiring, it’s the plumbing, it’s the lights, it’s the heat, it’s the warmth. Pattern of intimacy is the heart of the building. It’s the heart of marriage.

It starts with number one, God showing Adam his limitation. Adam has to see he’s limited. Adam has to see that he’s not the end all, be all of human creatures, but that he has a lack. He has a need. We see that in verses 19 and 20. Look at verse 19. “Now out of the ground, the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.”

To exacerbate Adam sense of need, God deploys Adam in naming the animals. This is an exercise of authority that God has given to Adam. Adam is here God’s representative in the work. Notice verse 19, God brought each of the kinds of the animal to the man to see what the man would call him, so you could see in God bringing them or God bringing them over to Adam. Well, God is involving Adam in this work. He’s, you could say, he’s teaching him, he’s discipling him in how to exercise dominion.

The end of verse 20, “For Adam, there was not found a helper fit for him.” Not only is Adam unable to find a suitable helper to complete what he lacked. He’s powerless to do anything to remedy that situation. He has no creative power, got limitations. But Adams powerlessness to remedy his predicament is evident, made evident to us in verse 21, where God puts him to sleep, before God performs the very first surgery. “So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.” God provided, while Adam was sleeping. Single men out there. Single women out there. Are you listening to that? God provided, while he was sleeping.

 Like Adam, you also are powerless to find a companion one who is suitable for you. You rest just as Adam was made to rest, and instead of striving, you should pray and ask God to bring a suitable marriage partner to you. Rest in faith. Wait on God, let him fulfill his perfect will for you as he wills in his perfect timing. And while you wait you give your attention to being God’s kind of man, God’s kind of woman. Align your heart with devotion to God.

Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. And believe me all these other things will be added to you as well, including a marriage, a suitable marriage partner. Rest. You’re powerless to choose your spouse. God chose your spouse. Many times, while you’re thinking about it, he’s forming that spouse for you. Wait. Rest. Back to Adam. Adam would never be able to fulfill the creation mandate, would he? To procreate, to exercise dominion. He’d never be able to do that on his own. God knew what he created at him for. What mankind is intended to do in glorifying God and representing him and perpetuating his image. God knew all this.

God filled the void and so we see next number two: God fashioned Eve from Adam, versus 21 to 22. If you’re still wondering what number one is, number one: God showed Adam his limitation. Versus 20,19 and 20: number two, God fashioned Eve from Adam versus 21 and 22. While he slept, God took one of Adams ribs and he closed up its place with flesh and the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Man is the image and glory of God. First Corinthians 11:7 says, a “woman is the glory of man.” She’s extracted from Adam by the skill of this perfect surgeon. Fashioned by the skill of a divine artist and she is formed, shaped into a perfect, priceless work of art.

There’s an observation about the fact that God fashioned Eve this way. How God took her from Adam’s side, and I’d say it’s not so much an exegetically driven observation than it is a bit of a tender reflection, may be true reflection. The saying has various forms. Maybe you’ve heard one of them. It’s attributed to various men Matthew Henry, Matthew Poole, Peter Lombard, Augustine even further back from him, but whoever said it the thought bears repeating.

I’ll just give you Matthew Henry’s version. He said, “The woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him under his arm, to be protected and near his heart, to be beloved.” As I said, that may not be exegetically driven, but it is a good thought. In the way that God brought Eve into existence, fashioning her this way: forming her. Adam made from the dust of the ground: Eve made from Adam.

There’s a perfective aspect to this, isn’t there? And we can see it as we look around us. I mean, there’s no slight on men to say that women are fashioned, more beautiful, there’s curviness, a flowing of the hair, there’s a beauty in the face, in the form, we understand that. I mean the whole fashion industry is built on that. We get that, just intuitively, and that’s what God wants us to see. In the way that he brought Eve into existence, its evident, self-evident, what God wanted to evoke from Adam.

Number three, God evoked from Adam a deep sense of gratitude. God evoked from Adam a deep sense of joy. God evoked from Adam a deep sense of appreciation. You can just choose one of those words, you know, you don’t have to write them all down for number three. But God evoked from Adam a sense of appreciation about this beautiful creature that he’s been given in a wife. You maybe wonder, what the precedent is for a wedding. This is it.

God brought her to the man. God is like a father, bringing this beautiful bride to the groom. Giving the bride away. Performing the first wedding. Verse 23, Adam gets it. He is filled with a deep sense of joy and gratitude and appreciation and excitement. He says, this this, the man, said verse 23, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of a man.” Think he’s happy? Yeah. After looking at animals all day, yes. You bet he is.

Just pause and make a little comment here. Men, appreciate your wife. Men, tell her you love her and appreciate her, you verbalize that. You cherish her, cherish your wife. Cherish her for things superficial and profound. You cherish her for what she does, who she is, how she acts, how she speaks: you cherish her. God has formed her for you. He’s made her suitable for you. You enjoy her. She is a dear creature. When Eve arrived, this perfection of a beautiful creature, his compliment in every way, her beauty far above his own. Adam is rejoicing in the skill and the care of a good and kind creator. He sees the gift and he looks to the giver. He sees his goodness.

Feminists of our day protest and they cry foul get very shrill in doing so. Whenever the Bible refers to women as weak. 1 Peter 3:7, though, says that the woman is a weaker vessel. It’s what evokes from a man his protective sensibilities, that she’s a creature in need. Modern feminists, fail to see the genuineness of femininity and what the Bible says about that attribute of a woman. Qualities and attributes that are to be celebrated in a woman, rejoiced in, in a woman. Beloved, don’t get caught up in the world.

Don’t be embarrassed by saying what the Bible says. Speak it loudly. It would seem that feminists would prefer to turn the softer sex into a harder form. More like a man, actually. Which is actually anti-woman. They set out to protect women from the harshness of the world. And to do so, they try to strip and emasculate their protectors. Feminists try to strip their protectors of all their masculinity and try to turn them into women and then they tried to turn women into more manly versions. It’s actually anti-woman. It’s actually completely opposite of what they’re trying to accomplish.

And that is not the answer. The answer is, for each marriage partner to recognize and rejoice in and magnify and glorify how God made each one. To see their innate virtues and qualities and characteristics and dispositions, and to rejoice in it, never to make fun of it, never to pick on it, but to enjoy, to rejoice in, to give thanks for, to learn to appreciate.

 We need to see, so desperately today, don’t we? We need to see how God’s complementary design brings the man and woman together. It makes the two one flesh. It makes the two useful together, purposeful together. By contrast, the world takes offense and drives men and women apart, turns them on each other, turns them against each other. There’s beauty in God making the woman to be, issa. Man, the is, her the issa. Whether issa refers to weak, social, soft or all three. The fragility of the woman’s delicate nature is going to be sure to evoke the providing and protecting aspects of man’s male nature. The conversant communicative aspects of a woman’s nature, it’s sure to draw out Adam’s thoughts and conversation and foster intimacy in relationship. And the soft, delicate aspect of her nature attracts him physically, draws out his tender affections, his own longings for intimacy.

What she is, is vital, desperately needed. He needs her. She needs him. Whatever it is that’s in a woman, God hit the intended target. It’s out of a deep sense of appreciation, it’s in the fulfillment of a need for intimacy, it’s an attitude of respect and desire for this beautiful creature made like him, corresponding to him, created in the image of God, Adam is thrilled.

So, number four, we see how God instilled within mankind a self-perpetuating desire for intimacy. We see that in verse 24. Number four, God instilled within mankind this self- perpetuating desire for this kind of intimacy. Verse 24 says, “A man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” This self-perpetuating desire for intimacy is established for all their posterity.

Adam here sees a future for his race, and it’s a future of weddings, of marriages. It’s a future of fathers and mothers. Without the woman, there’s no perpetuating or extending the image of God on the earth. But with the woman and in cooperation with his wife, God image, God’s image spreads throughout all the earth. His representatives exercise Gods’ good dominion over all the earth, throughout the Earth. Which is why he names her Eve, Genesis 3:20, “the mother of all the living.”

 One final point to make. We talked about setting the foundation according to God’s design and that foundation is set by the teleology of marriage, its purpose, its end, set the foundation, then we build on that foundation. The home is framed by a pattern of authority and it’s finished out, its heart is put into it through a pattern of intimacy.

 Here’s the third point, which is the good stuff, we enjoy the house according to God’s design. Let’s not forget to enjoy the house that God had us build. Look at verse 25, “The man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” This points to the practice of marital intimacy. There is this reciprocal self-reinforcing practice of relational intimacy in marriage, which is appropriately manifest in the physical intimacy of marriage and the one promotes the other.

The physical intimacy promotes the relational intimacy and the relational intimacy promotes the physical intimacy. I’ve heard before, some say, it’s use, you know, it’s in a pattern of conflict and anger and bitterness that’s built-up resentment in a marriage and a woman will say I just can’t, I just can’t give myself to this man. I just can’t do that.

 Well, you’re really shooting yourself in the foot, because if it’s intimacy you want a relational intimacy that you want, the two feed off each other. Physical intimacy opens the channels for relational intimacy. Relational intimacy, then produces physical intimacy, desires for physical intimacy. The two come together in a perfect design. There’s a one flesh exclusivity to this intimacy, which is obvious to Adam, I mean, she’s the only other human being on the planet, but it punctuates for him, doesn’t it? Emphasizes the point that God intends to make in pairing one man with one woman, and the only other human beings that will show up are the ones that are produced from their marital union.

That’s the pattern. Exclusivity, one flesh exclusivity of marital intimacy and when I say marital intimacy, I’m not talking just about sex, I’m talking about internal feelings and desires and thoughts and things you desire and dream together. Those are to be shared between husband and wife. Sometimes I see men and women practice this and they say, you know, I, I just need some time with my buddies. I just need some time with my girlfriends because I just need to, I’ve got things to say to them that my husband just won’t understand. You know what she’s trying to do? She’s trying to find intimacy in like kind, apart from her husband. She’s cutting her husband out of the picture. Same way guys do the same thing. I need, I need time with the guys. Just there’s, just things guys can talk about. Kind of getting down to facts and things in life that are true that, yeah, women just shouldn’t be around for that. That is a lie.

 Intimacy is to be shared relationally and sexually, exclusively between a man and his wife. This is a complementary relationship of a man with his wife, and it’s based on a lifelong partnership that they share together in procreation and the exercise of dominion and the joy of accomplishing together, doing together, living together. Don’t neglect the blessing of verse 25. It’s foreign to, well, all of us in a world that’s sin saturated and cursed, right? But it says the man and his wife were both naked and not ashamed. This is not our experience, is it? We can’t even imagine what that’s like.

But it is the experience of a clear conscience of a mind that is untroubled, untouched by sin and guilt, its attendant shame. Once sin enters the picture, guilt is registered before God and shame is felt. Shame is that tendency to want to hide from others. Hide from God, hide from others that’s shame. But in the purity of marital intimacy here, before any fall, relational and sexual intimacy as they share in a private one flesh union they create a new family together, producing children from their union. God brings this woman to him. He rejoices. His comment is made about the perpetuating of this institution of marriage.

Go back to versus two and three of Charter 2. After creation week is over, when the sixth day has come to a close, Adam and his marriage to Eve is just getting started. We see the seventh day is the commencement of what is to be a perpetual rest. “On the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. And so God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.”

Notice what’s missing, if you’re familiar with Genesis chapter 1; notice what’s missing here. There’s no evening and morning, right? There’s evening and morning on every other day, every, sixth day as well. No evening and morning on the seventh day, why not? Because God intended mankind in this marital, marriage union to enter into the perpetual rest of God, to commune together in the love of God, to commune together in the blessedness of God.

Charles Hodge describes the love of God as “Complacency, desire, and delight.” A love that “has rational beings for its objects.” That’s the kind of love that God shares with us. That he lets us practice in marital joy. Loving God, loving one another and that’s why love is a communicable attribute of God, like blessedness. God shares it with us. He communicates it to us. He conveys it to us. Hodge continues writing this “love in us includes complacency and delight in its object, with the desire of possession and communion.”

Complacency is a word, maybe we think of in a negative way, but complacency in this sense refers to a feeling of quiet pleasure or security. It’s, complacency is to be pleased. It’s to be contented, satisfied. We think of complacency of like, that guys complacent, he doesn’t do anything. Complacency in the good sense is to be completely at rest. At rest, that’s why he doesn’t do anything. He doesn’t stir. He’s not in turmoil. He’s not frustrated. He’s not anxious, worried, angry. He or she, complacency is at rest, quiet pleasure, total security in God, total pleased, totally pleased, totally contented, totally satisfied. That’s the complacency of love. That’s the complacency of blessedness of God.

“Love in us,” Hodge says, “includes complacency and delight in its object, with the desire of possession and communion.” To possess God in terms of holding him as our great reward and then to possess one another in marriage. To commune with God in perfect fellowship and then to commune with one another in marriage. These are the delights that God in his goodness, intended for the institution of marriage. This is what he’s forming in us. This is what he’s shaping in us. It’s to be the most basic fundamental institution of society.”

 How long Adam and Eve enjoyed the state of blessedness, of this, is not known. We’re going to find out what happened to this institution next week and it’s the reality that all of us live through. As you hear all of this, as I have, and had to reflect whether, whether through comparison or contrast to my own marriage, as you all have to do with your own marriages. We realize that so much in us falls short, right?

But it’s such encouragement to go back to the design and see what the builder, what the designer, what the artist, what the skillful God of ours intended. It’s interesting to see that in Christ having experienced the full atoning work of Christ is forgiveness of sins. All the sins that we commit in thought, word, and deed, omission, commission, we commit against one another in marriage, right? Committed in the home, in the family. We know that in Christ, all that is forgiven. All that is taken away nailed to the cross, never to be thought of by God again and instead covered in Christ perfect righteousness.

 And now, with a new nature, a new heart, a nature given to us by God, Ephesians 4:24, that’s a nature of holiness and righteousness in the truth. Now we get to go back to the original design knowing what the pattern is, start to practice that. We have new machinery internally. We have a Holy Spirit indwelling us. We have new desires, new affections, new joys. This is the pattern, my friends, walk ye in it, by the Holy Spirit, by his word, by God’s grace.