Gen. 2:18-25
“I Will Make Him a
Helper Fit for Him”
Somewhere along the road in our development from childhood to adulthood, a longing is formed in our hearts for that special someone to love and to be loved by, to settle down and to have a family with. In our young adulthood seems to be consumed with that longing from thinking and daydreaming countless hours about it to reading and hearing about it from people and actually doing something about it to make all that wishing and hoping and daydreaming come true. In the meantime, our body changes to accommodate the fulfillment of that longing. But why? Is it a natural part of the evolutionary process, the necessity to procreate, ensure the survival of the species? If so, why marriage? Is marriage even necessary for that?
These days the concept of the traditional marriage is greatly challenged in every way. This onslaught of challenge is not directed to the question of who should be married, what constitutes a marriage. It has already been wreaking havoc as it is evident in the high percentage of marriages ending in divorce. Why do so many marriages break up? Maybe the answer lies in finding out why people get married in the first place, how we view our marriage, what it is about, what it is for, has everything to do with how we handle our marriage and deal with our respective spouse, etc. The question is, who decides it? The State? The families involved? The couples themselves?
What we are dealing with, in essence, is the question of who we are, whether we are merely a product of the evolutionary process or creatures made in the image of God according to God's specific design and for God's specific purpose. We find out in God's word that this question of marriage, if it plays such a crucial and prominent part in our life, as it does, it is because it is important to God who created us. In our passage we learn of God's design and purpose of our marriage.
Marriage is an expression of God's image. And that is expressed in our companionship. “It not good for the man to be alone, God says. We can't help but notice how shocking it is to hear what the Lord says, that something was not good. All throughout the creation account in Genesis 1, what we heard again and again after God created something was and God saw that it was good. In fact, after creating everything, God surveyed everything he had made and saw that it was “very good”, “exceedingly good”, in fact. And now we hear that something was not good. It was not good for Adam to be alone. Does this mean that there was something wrong with Adam's creation of man, that God made a mistake or that Adam was incomplete? Does it mean that it was absolutely bad in every way for Adam to be alone? Did he mean that Adam was miserable in every way because he was alone?
I would say no. Whether something is good or bad presupposes some kind of standard. The standard is quite often very specific. For example, a piece of wood may be good as firewood, but it may not be very good for building. And the Lord said that it was not good for the man to be alone. According to what standard did he say that it was not good for man to be alone? It was not that there was anything wrong with Adam. He was a fine specimen of a man, quite possibly the finest ever. “Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being” (2:7). The Hebrew word evokes the image of a potter working with his hands to fashion a lump of clay into something. Do you see? It is as though God formed Adam with his very own hands. Rather than just speaking as He did with all the other things, God it is as though he were forming Adam with his own hands. Then we hear that God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. It is as though God put his face right in front of Adam and breathed the very breath of life. Oh, what closeness! Oh, what care and attention! Oh, what tenderness! Of all men, it should be said of Adam, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made!”
No, there
was nothing wrong with Adam as there is nothing wrong with being a single man
or woman! Jesus said, “There are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for
the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt.
When God says it was not good for Adam to be alone, he meant it in another sense. What we just affirmed and what we are about to say may seem like a contradiction, but we must bear together to see the true ideas are not contradictory.
In what sense, according to what standard was it not good for Adam to be alone? It may seem obvious, but we have to spell it out. God intended man to be a social being. He was not meant to live alone. Notice how it was God who said it was not good for Adam to be alone. Before Adam felt any tinge of loneliness, after looking at himself in wonder and amazement as to how wonderfully and fearfully he made, before he had a tinge of loneliness, before Adam pleaded with God for a companion, God said, “It is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him.” And thus, God declared his kind intention to provide Adam with a companion. God showed his loving care and concern and kindness to Adam even before he asked.
The question is why should God determine that it is not good
for Adam to be alone? The answer: because our God is a triune God. It is
interesting that when God declared to make man in His own image, He said, “Let Us
make man in Our own image after Our
likeness” (
Here we see a mysterious free movement back and forth between divine plural and the divine singular. This makes perfect sense when we view it in the light of God's triune being, God in three divine Persons. As we see the image of God associated with this divine plural, we see why it was not good for Adam to be alone even as he is made in the image of God. For the God whose image he bears is the triune God. God is an eternal community of the three divine Persons in perfect harmony. God has always existed in this perfect community. God's delight and joy lie in this perfect community and God wanted man created in the image of God to enjoy such community.
As the God whose image Adam bore is a community of divine Equals, so would Adam's fellowship with his helper be a fellowship of equals. In the remainder of this passage is to show the fitness of the helper that God made for Adam. Look at the structure of the text divided into three sections.
V. 18 speaks of God's intention to make a helper fit for Adam.
Vv. 19-20 are about Adam's naming of the animals that God brought to him with a conclusion that no helper was found who was fit for him.
Vv. 21-25 give the account of God's actual creation of Eve with a concluding commentary in the end.
If you look at that, you see an obvious interruption, a disjuncture in the story. God’s declaration comes at the very beginning and God's act of actually creating is interrupted with an intervening narrative of Adam's naming the animals. Though the flow seems to be broken, the intervening narrative about Adam's naming of the animals is not unrelated to the overarching plot. See how the intervening narrative concludes. “But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.” This brings us back to v. 18, to God's intention to make “a helper fit for Adam”. But it does not just bring us back to v. 18, does it? Something is added to the plot. Adam’s helper was not found among the animals he named. Why? Because they were not fit for Adam. Also demonstrated in this intervening narrative is Adam's self-awareness--the awareness about his unique status, his superiority over other creatures, other animals not fit for his companionship.
What does the conclusion of this intervening narrative imply? The woman whom God would bring about was the true helper fit for Adam--that is, someone who is equal in dignity with Adam. Let us take a further look at the peculiar way God proceeds to create the woman: ““So the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and while he slept he took one of his ribs and closed up the place with thresh and the rib the Lord had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought him to the man.
Why this peculiar way of making the woman? Think about what was said about the creation of man in chapter 1 as we saw that God created man in his own image, male and female he created them. You can see that our passage is an obvious elaboration of the fact that male and female were created in the image of God. How then is the image of God reflected in the creation of the woman? See how the woman is made of the rib which was taken out of Adam's side. It is as though the woman proceeded from the man and when the woman was brought to the man, the two were united as one flesh (v. 24). Doesn't this curiously sound like the doctrine of the Trinity, except, of course, the number differences? There is only one true God but three Persons in one Godhead; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Son is begotten of the Father, Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. Father is neither begotten or proceeding. The Father is not the Son, the Holy Spirit is not the Father yet these three distinct divine Persons are united as one God.
How remarkable! Should we take these parallels as merely a coincidence? The woman proceeds from the man they are two distinct persons and yet they are united as one. We may be able to say man is created in the image of God and woman is created in the image of God but man and woman together reflect the image of the triune God. Here again we see God's kindness. God so designed our marriage that we might experience something like the joy that He has in His inner-Trinitarian fellowship. As our marriage is a reflection of that, God wants us to experience something like that.
The image of God is also reflected in Adam and Eve's mission
as well because this companion that God would make would be more than just a
companion to Adam. This companion would be a helper. What is presupposed here? What
is presupposed is the task or mission, with which Adam was entrusted by God. God said in Gen. 1:28, “Be fruitful
and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish
of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that
moves on the earth.” We also read in
This
helper, however, would not be a slave or servant to Adam. This helper would be
“fit for him”, fit to be his companion, fit to have
dominion over all the living creatures with Adam.
So we must affirm two equally important things about the marriage relationship between man and wife. Equality in their being and dignity, made in the image of God, but also functional hierarchy between the two, one as the leader, the other as the follower. This is essentially how we understand the Trinity, especially with regard to God's divine mission for our redemption. This dynamic is delineated for us clearly in Eph. 1. The Father decreed our redemption before the foundation of the world. The Son accomplishes our redemption in history and the Holy Spirit applies our redemption to us in our hearts. So throughout His earthly ministry, Jesus affirmed again and again how He does everything according to the Father’s will (“Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing”, John 5:19) even while affirming that He and the Father are one (John 10:30). And the Holy Spirit comes into this world to glorify the Son. There you see the functional hierarchy between them, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit as it is reflected in the relationship between husband and wife.
The image of God is also reflected in Adam and Eve's union as husband and wife. Because there are other peculiarities in the way God proceeded to make the woman.
“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. And the
rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought
her to the man. Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh
of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of
Do not view this passage apart from what Paul says about a great mystery. In Eph. 5 after talking about the proper relationship and roles between husband and wife, this is the conclusion he draws: “Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.” And he says, “This mystery is profound and I am saying that refers to Christ and the Church. He is saying that if a man should leave his Father and cleave to his wife, it is not because of Adam and Eve. You see, Adam never left his Father and mother to go to his wife. It is rather Jesus Christ, who left His Father to cleave to His bride, the Church.
And now we see how God's creation of the woman is a prefiguring of Christ's redemptive work. The woman is made of the deep sleep of Adam as the Church is made of the sleep-like death of Jesus Christ. The woman is born of Adam's rib, taken from his side, as the Church is born of “the water and the blood from [Christ's] riven side which flowed.”
Do you see? Even when God instituted marriage at the
beginning of creation, God's eyes were already fixed on the cross. The kindness
that God showed to Adam in making a helper fit for him would be fulfilled
perfectly in the marriage between Christ the Son of God and the Church His
bride. Even while God was fashioning the woman, He was contemplating upon the
ultimate sacrifice of the Son of God, whose blood and water would have to be
spilt from His side to give life to His bride, who must be put to a sleep-like
death to bring about the
Even in the ecstasy of Adam beholding his bride for the first time, crying out, “At last! At last! I have seen all the animals. I have named all of them but no helper fit for me was found. But at least by God's kind work I see bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. As I awake from death-like sleep, as I see the wound on My side, I see My bride, bone of My bones and flesh of My flesh. I love thee, I desire to be with thee, I cherish thee!” A glimpse of the joy of God, the joy of Christ in beholding His bride, was given to Adam.
The account of God’s creation of man is unique in many ways.
When He created other things and creatures, God simply called them into
existence: “Let there be X or Y or Z…”, or “Let the waters swarm with swarms of
living creatures…”, “Let birds fly above the earth…”, or “Let the earth bring
forth living creatures…!” But in the creation of man, God addresses Himself
(and that in a plural): “Let us make man….” We get a sense that God is
about to do something very personal, something very close to His heart. Indeed,
we hear God saying, “Let us make man in our own image….” This is a
conspicuous departure from the way God created other creatures. The fish of the
sea, the birds of the sky and the living creatures of the land were all created
according to their own kinds (
What does it mean to be an image of something? It is to have a close resemblance to that something, and this idea of resemblance is of utmost importance. When a person of importance commissions a portrait, the value of the painting lies in its resemblance to the real person. No matter how pleasant the painting is to look at, if it doesn't bear resemblance to the person, it is a failure. We must not lose sight of that simple fact. Our origin and identity has everything to do with the meaning and purpose of our life as well as how we measure success and failure and how we determine the worth of our life. We were created to reflect God, the triune God, and that is the ultimate purpose of our life. Our respective marriage and our respective family is not the end in and of itself. It is the means by which we reflect the image of God. And therein lies of glory. What is more glorious than this--that we are made and saved to reflect the noblest and most beautiful and glorious Being in our character and our family and every aspect of our life?
This is especially true when we consider the goodness of God in making us in His own image. In our marriage, we are enabled to experience something like the joy of the inner-Trinitarian fellowship. But our marriage is only a shadow, as good as it may be. It is only a shadow and indeed God has given us the privilege of experiencing not something like the inner-Trinitarian fellowship and its joy. But God has given us the privilege to experience the joy of fellowshipping with God in Christ Jesus as His image bearers.
So, I exhort you, you married people among our midst: your calling in marriage, your ultimate purpose of your marriage, and the key to your success, the key to your fulfillment, is to reflect the dynamics of the inner-Trinitarian fellowship--the perfect harmony of equality in being in dignity and as well as the functional hierarchy between husbands and wife. Husbands, love your wife in such a way that affirms your wife's equality with you in dignity and worth before God. Lead in such a way that your wife would not feel like she were an inferior person, oppressed and abused. Wives, submit to your husband and honor him in such a way that affirms your husband's leadership so that he does not resort to brute force to exert his leadership.
Also, husbands and wives, reflect the dynamics of the union of Christ and His beloved bride, the Church. Husbands, love your wife as Christ loved the church. One thing that struck me is that, love being such an ideal, it can be made very vague. Do you remember the marriage vow that you made to your wife? To love and to cherish? To cherish--not just to love in some kind of abstract and generic way, but to cherish, like a man, who pulls out his most treasured possession and looks at it from every angle; like my son, who looks at his toy fire engine from every angle again and again every day. We are called to love and to cherish our wives as Christ loves and cherishes us as His own body. And wives, love your husbands, honor your husbands, as you honor Christ your Savior and Lord. Remember it is to the glory of God that we love one another. Ultimately, it is about Christ, not about us. If we are to love our wives, it is for the sake of Christ, to magnify Christ. If you are to honor our husbands it is not because you are inferior or your husbands are honorable but because of Christ whom we honor for our redemption. Let us not make these precious gifts God has given to us into an idol by neglecting our communion with God, from which flow our reason and purpose and motivation to love one another.
And to the single people, I exhort: marriage is a wonderful
gift from God, but singleness is, too. Don't waste your singlehood.
Practice purity of mind and heart and body. Sexual temptations do not go away
just because you say your vow. Even after marriage, you need to practice
keeping your mind and body pure from adulterous thoughts and actions. You are
preparing yourself, if God so wills to bring you a spouse. Practice and
exercise your purity till then. Your body belongs to two persons and you are
not one of them: it belongs to God and to your future spouse. Don't waste your singlehood! Serve the Lord with your free time. I know you
are busy, too. I don't want to talk condescendingly, pointing out that I've
been there, done that, and you don't know what how much busier it is to be in
marriage and have children. But even Paul seems to say that, when you are not
married, you have more time and less concern. Use that time to serve the Lord. Practice
this because once you have your husband or wife, once you have your children,
yes, it's going to be even more difficult. You need to practice serving the
Lord in all circumstances. You have to practice so that, even as you serve the
Lord by loving your spouse and loving your children, you do not neglect serving
the
Let us all remember, whether single or married, that our life is not about us; it is about God, whose image we bear! The very purpose and meaning and fulfillment of our life depend on whether we bear the image of God, whether we resemble God, the triune God and His inner-Trinitarian relationship and His redemptive relationship with us. Let us see our life as set apart, sanctified, consecrated, unto that noblest purpose of magnifying God in our life by reflecting God's glory. John Piper gave this wonderful example. To magnify is to make something look big, as it really is. It is like what the telescope does. When we just look into the night sky, what we see in the sky may be just twinkle, twinkle, little stars. But when we see it through the telescope, we realize that those twinkle, twinkle little stars may be giant stars and even vast galaxies! And that's how our life is supposed to be! When people look at us, people should see how great God is, how great Christ is. Our life is all about making God look great as He truly is! May our marriage be that telescope! May your singleness be that telescope! Let the very core desire of our hearts be this--that, whether by marriage or in singleness, Christ is to be exalted, magnified, in our life. Until that day, when he shall participate in that great marriage supper of the Lamb, when we shall finally be satisfied to the very deepest core of our being, when we shall be united with our God, our Husband-Lord. When that deepest desire, which is reflected in our desires for a husbands or a wife and for everything else; when that deepest desire will finally be fully satisfied, how happy we shall be! And that is your life, what you are granted even in this life, in which you can foretaste our glorious, perfected union with Christ. Whether in marriage or singleness, then, let us magnify God!
© Copyright 2008 by Jeong Woo "James" Lee
All Rights Reserved.