As I lay out my map for this part of the study, I face something of a dilemma. So many of the topics related to man and man’s nature are also topics that might rightly be considered as relating to revealed religion, which is the final portion of this exercise. But then I could as readily say that effectively the whole of this study pertains to revealed religion, as does all of life rightly understood. So, perhaps I shall have to allow the two matters to comingle here to a greater degree than has first suggested itself to me.
A. Adam's Design
Let us start at the beginning once more in regard to man. I know I have made frequent reference to the creation narrative already in this study, but it is so crucial to understanding all that follows that it is inevitable that this should be the case. There is, after all, every good reason why the Holy Spirit saw fit to set this particular text at the front of the book. “In the beginning God” (Ge 1:1). If we stopped right there, we would have an answer for those poor scientists who are to this day at a loss to fully explain the first moment of Creation. They can describe it. They can, assuming the science is correct, measure its effects on the present. And to be clear, I really don’t find cause to question the science. I don’t suppose that all that man has learned about God’s creation is in fact a pack of lies. I do, however, think that scientists, being men, may be led to false conclusions on the basis of partial knowledge. I also think that scientists, being men, overestimate their capacity for recognizing the reasons for Creation. That is to say, the scientists may be entirely accurate in describing the mechanics and chemistry of all that has come into being.
I’d have to say that they have proven very accurate in many of their endeavors. Were it not so, we would not find man-made vehicles traversing the depths of space to arrive at moving targets of minimal size on schedule. Were it not so, much of what we take for granted as the necessities of modern life would not have been made or capable of being made, for pretty much everything we make use of day by day was designed and fashioned on the basis of scientific understanding of chemistry and materials and the like. It would be preposterous to write off the whole activity of scientific pursuits while all the while availing oneself of its product. It is as much a matter of cognitive dissonance as is the scientist’s propensity for rejecting God out of hand when it comes to exploring these universal beginnings. Of course you find no evidence for God! You’ve declared all such evidence invalid a priori. Of course you find the scientist’s explanations unconvincing. You’ve declared all his methods invalid a priori. But, all of this is merely further evidence of the fall of man, which is yet a section or two hence.
Let us proceed one word further into that opening sentence. “In the beginning God created.” That is the starting point for the creature. It declares the source of being. God created and it was. This does not, I observe, get into the mechanics of the whole affair, and as I have already said elsewhere, it does not have a great deal to say as to the timespans involved. That’s just not a battle that seems worthwhile to me. But, this is a solid foundation: God created. There is the starting point. He created the heavens and the earth, setting the stage for all that would follow. He create light and darkness, waters and dry lands, plants and animals, and all of this was wonderful and good. But, all of this was, as it were, stage dressing for the real story of Creation. It was not until the culminating day of creation that God arrived at His central actor in this work He had created. “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness” (Ge 1:26a). He was made to rule over all the other forms of life that were to be found in Creation. He was made, to once more make plain that ‘man’ in the Biblical usage is a reference to the species and not the sex, “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Ge 1:27).
These are statements that require a bit of lexicology, I think. What exactly does it mean to be in His image and according to His likeness? How is it that male and female together satisfy that image in a way that male alone did not?
[11/15/19]
As to the first, the terms are tselem, and demuwth. Both are nouns, and both in the construct state, creating, I guess, a super-noun of man in our image and likeness. The first of these indicates a resemblance, a representative figure. It is, curiously enough, a term used in relation to idols, they being the representative figures for the gods thus represented. I want to explore that thought just a bit. Here is man, at his inception, a being fashioned out of the dust of the earth. Now consider, looking at the Word Study Dictionary, that this tselem is used to indicate something ‘cut out of or molded from various materials’, and thus, an idol. This same article reminds us that the prohibition God sets on the murder of man is established on this very principle, that he is, however fallen, still the image of God. “Whoever sheds a man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed. For in the image of God He made man” (Ge 9:6).
Here's the thing. Combine the two ideas, and the picture emerges of man fashioned by God as the appropriate idol for God. This does not set man up as an appropriate object for worship, any more than an idol is an appropriate object of worship. But it does offer some explanation as to why God first takes the life of man so seriously, and second takes idolatry so seriously. And this needs to be stressed: That idolatry is an affront to a holy God even when it is done with the intent of worshiping Him and no other. He has made you in His image, that you might represent Him, that you might be His representative. The representative does not serve to glorify himself, nor even to bring attention to himself – at least not in the ideal. He serves to satisfy the interests and instructions of that one he represents. God has made His own idol, His own representative. How utterly unfitting, then, that said idol should take to creating idols of its own. It’s of the same nature as the instruction not to try and chisel and form the stones used for building an altar. It is God’s altar, and He has fashioned the materials to His liking. You can’t improve on it, and to try to do so would be a sin.
Demuwth has much the same idea to it, of resemblance, a model. Often, again taking reference to the Word Study Dictionary, this word is utilized in fashioning similes, and in that usage, more often similes comparing two very unlike things. As but one example, it is used to describe the wickedness of people in their sins with the venom of a snake. “They have venom like the venom of a serpent” (Ps 58:4). It is hopefully rather obvious that this is not meant literally. Similarly, Daniel compares the appearance of the angel that visited him to that of a man, but the two are quite distinctly different. “And behold, one who resembled a human being was touching my lips” (Dan 10:16a). It was a resemblance, but perhaps a rather superficial one. The angel was not human-like, nor are we going to find a human who is properly angelic. The two are distinct species from distinct orders of Creation.
So, then, when we come to this matter of being made in the likeness of God, there is a resemblance, but that is all. We are no more gods than the idols fashioned by man are gods. There is a resemblance, and that resemblance, in the case of man, is significant. But it remains a representation, a model of the real, not even a shadow of things in heaven, but at best, a pointer to things in heaven.
Now let me suggest that as bearers of the image of God, earthly representatives of the heavenly Most High being, we bear also a significant responsibility. If we are His representatives, it behooves us to represent Him truly and fully. This was and remains the point. This was the purpose in creating man in the first place, and it is reflected in the instruction given to man: “Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Ge 1:28). This is not to be a tyranny, but a rule in keeping with the God we represent. He, after all, is the true ruler over all that He has instructed us to rule over, and ruler as well over us. We are not kings, certainly, in the sense of being the final authorities, the highest appeal. We are representatives, set in place to serve not our own interests, but those of the One Who appointed us.
With that out of the way, let me try and consider the second question. How is it that man and woman together fulfill God’s purpose more suitably than man alone? And here, obviously, I have shifted from the species to the sex in my use of the term man. Perhaps it would be better to preserve the distinction by considering male and female, rather than man and woman. The meaning is the same, but the confusion is reduced. So, God makes man male and female, and we can reasonably say that until Eve’s addition to the situation, the making of man remained somehow incomplete. Now, the Genesis 1:27 statement is something of a telescoped view of the matter, which Genesis 2 unfolds more fully. Adam was made, and given commandment: Eat what you like, other than that tree over there (Ge 2:17). It’s interesting that, at least textually, God’s decision not to leave man in this male-only condition comes immediately upon the issuing of that simple instruction.
Whatever significance we may assign to that connection, the thought of God is given us. “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper suitable for him” (Ge 2:18), a neged `ezer. The last part is easy, an aid, one who helps, an idea often associated with God Himself, as being our help, our great help. Well, then, there’s a distinct point of representation, isn’t there? But it is the first term, that which we have translated as ‘suitable’, that intrigues. He makes a counterpart, an opposite, a mate. It corresponds, but it is a correspondence of opposites. You will have heard it said that opposites attract, an idea borne out in the science of magnets. But what makes the saying familiar is its application to matters of relationships, and particularly relationships with marriage potential. Opposites attract, we are told. Don’t look for somebody with all the same likes and dislikes as you. Don’t look for one with all the same strengths and weaknesses. Look for the one that will compliment your own abilities and thereby enhance them. But I don’t think the idea was entirely so utilitarian as that. Still, there is that connected idea of aid, so there is definite utility in the arrangement.
Could God have made man a male-only species? Could He have done so without making man a single-instance species? Sure, why not? We have some evidence for hermaphrodite species, species that can reproduce without benefit of a partner of any sort. That, then, is not the controlling factor, the underlying reason. Perhaps we should look to God’s stated reason for this choice. “It is not good for the man to be alone.” But, is not God with him? Does he not, in this Edenic setting, walk with God? Certainly. But just as certainly this could never be an association of equals. However congenial, the fellowship would always be that of superior and subject. It cannot be otherwise. Even as Jesus invites us into fellowship with Himself, as friends to the Son, this distinction remains and remains inviolate. He is King of kings. We are not. We can debate the significance and extent of mankind’s throne occupancy, or the enthroning of the sons of God, but however one chooses to measure it, there yet remains an infinite divide between the status of man, even in his most exalted state, and the Son, even in His most humbled state. This will never be an association of equals, and if it were, we should be in need of finding ourselves another God.
But now we come to this creating of man, male and female, with the female declared a suitable, complementary counterpart with the purpose of aiding. The male, it must be observed, recognized something in the female immediately. In spite of having slept through the operation quite oblivious, he sees the truth. “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh” (Ge 2:23). Now, I suspect God may have said something about this, or perhaps he noticed a bit of scar tissue and put two and two together. We don’t know, but this wasn’t, I think, pure intuition, for he declares a point requiring knowledge: “She was taken out of Man.”
So, what has happened here? Solomon’s observation might help. “If one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart” (Ecc 4:12). This is a most beautiful reflection of what was transpiring there in the garden. It wasn’t for fellowship that these two were fashioned where one might have sufficed. Its very key purpose is exactly as Solomon observed, as seen in the events laid out in the very next chapter of Genesis. Two should have been able to resist. Two were able to resist. But, for reasons unspecified, it seems two were not present in that moment of temptation, and so one fell, and having fallen, soon drew the other after.
[11/16/19]
That second chapter of Genesis, of the Bible in full, concludes with this statement. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed” (Ge 2:24-25). Notice: A reason for marriage is hereby declared, as well as the significance and strength of marriage. What is the reason? God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.” What is the reason? God made woman as a suitable helper, a complimentary and distinct being to be the strength to his weakness, and the weakness to his strength. The two together could resist temptations that either alone might not. The two together became inseparable, like the strands of that cord that Solomon observed, so intimately intertwined as to be declared one flesh, one body in two persons, if you please. Now we see more clearly that man, in this male plus female configuration, truly begins to resemble and represent the God in whose image he is made. The intimate, shared transparency of marriage in its ideal is a fitting representation of the intimate, shared transparency of the Trinity. The inseparable nature of this bond is a fitting representation of the inseparable unity of the Trinity.
In marriage, husband and wife remain distinct individuals with distinct habits, distinct perspectives, distinct patterns of thought and outlooks on life. They may find that they adopt more and more of one another’s ways over the years, yet distinctions remain. Opposites continue to be opposites, although they being to not so much conform one to the other, as to make a place one for the other. The fit becomes more comfortable as each learns of the other’s distinctions, and adjusts his or her own borders to align along those points of distinction. They need not agree on everything. They must, however, arrive at a harmonization if they would indeed represent. They must, despite their unique ways and thoughts, come to a place of oneness of purpose, oneness of faith, oneness of direction, else marriage, instead of serving its rightful purpose of demonstrating godliness will become a lengthy prison term for two, with daily tortures to endure.
To satisfy the intent of marriage is not a given. It is not a simple acceptance of things. It requires effort and commitment, and a desire to see that marriage not merely as a means to personal comfort and fulfillment, but as a holy thing sanctified by God and being fitted for His purposes. Therein lies the distinction between two individuals living alone together, and two individuals joined as God intended into a one flesh unity of life lived for God.
