Bequests From Adam and Eve, Our “Uncommon Ancestors”
“It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.” Genesis 2:18
The first instance in the Bible of something that was “not good” happened when Adam was found to be without a companion. Adam was incomplete until God’s special creation of Eve from Adam’s rib. God Himself brought the first man and the first woman together, to be united for life. In this way God established the institution of marriage for the blessing of mankind. “Therefore,” Moses later wrote, “a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24) This is a precious inheritance from our “uncommon ancestors.”
“God sets the solitary in families,” David writes in Psalm 68. The foundation of the family throughout history has been the marriage bond. There are always, of course, many examples of troubles within families, but when it’s working as God intended then blessings abound. We find in Ephesians chapters 5 and 6 that a believing husband will, because of God’s love in Christ, love his wife as Christ loved the church. A wife who knows Christ as Lord and Savior will love her husband and submit herself to him as to the Lord. An earthly life of peace, love, stability, and satisfaction finds its origin in family life as God intended it to be.
Because of sin that still lives in us, believing husbands and wives often fail to live up to God’s standards of love and commitment which they have promised to each other. Yet, hand in hand, they have the privilege of going to Jesus’ cross to be assured of God’s forgiveness. They then can go forward with the renewed goal of being “…kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you.” (Ephesians 4:32)
Father, You created Adam,
Crafted Eve, and made them one;
Jesus, from their sin You saved us,
As God’s true incarnate Son;
Holy Spirit, You forgive us;
From our sins we are released.
Bring us, Lord, at last to heaven,
To the endless wedding feast!
Lutheran Service Book 860:3