She Shall Be Called Woman

The Origin of Woman in Genesis 2

Want to invite you to open your Bibles with me and turn to the book of Genesis and go to chapter 2. While you're turning in your Bible, I want to make an announcement that I meant to make earlier. We need to be praying for the bud family Chuck is Has his uncle Dom passed away just last night.

So we need to be praying for Chuck. We need to be praying for his aunt who lost her husband. We just need to be praying for the entire family. So, please add Chuck and his family to your prayer list. And as I said, I meant to mention that before the service and just simply allowed it go out of my mind.

If you have your Bibles open to Genesis chapter 2 we have been in Genesis now for many many months and we are Continuing in a verse-by-verse study of this book. This is the first book of the Bible. This is the book of origins.

That's what the word Genesis means it means beginnings or origins and this tells us not only the origins of humanity it tells us the origins of everything the origins of the universe the origins of life itself the origins of Man and today we are going to have the blessing of looking at the origin of woman and I say that with awe and reverence because I've been looking forward to this message for a while because you know what?

Women are pretty special. My woman is very special to me and I know many men in this room who have a wife can say that your woman is special to you and to think about what God did in Creating for Adam a helpmate to create for Adam one who was a fit Helper for him one who was who was like him in the most important ways, but unlike him and the even more important ways.

She was to come alongside him. She was to be his compliment. She was to come alongside him. She was to be his partner. She was to come alongside him. She was to be the fellow image bearer and So today we are going to look Primarily at verses 21 to 23, but to get the sense of the context.

What I would like for us to do is I would like for us to begin reading at verse 18. So we're going to read verse 18 and we're going to read all the way down to verse 25. With our particular emphasis today being on verses 21 to 23 now as you know.

This is our standard practice here at Sovereign Grace that when we're going to hear the word we stand. So let us stand for the reading of the Word of God as we prepare for it to be preached. Genesis chapter 2 verse 18.

Then the Lord God said it is not good that man should be alone. I Will make him a helper fit for him 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. The man gave names to all the livestock into the birds of the heavens into every beast of the field, but for Adam There was not found a helper fit for him 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 man. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh.

And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. May God add his blessing to the reading and to the hearing of his word. May he write its eternal truths upon our heart and may he keep me from error as I preach.

You may be seated if you were here last week you remember that originally I was going to try to preach verses 18 to 23 in one sermon and Then as I began to preach last week, I made the point that there's no way I was going to be able to do it justice by by going that fast through the passage.

So what we focused on last week and if you weren't here I do want to reiterate this because this is very important. What we focused on last week was the deficiency of man and You notice that in verse 18.

When we see verse 18, it says then God said it is not good. That the man should be alone. That is the first time in the Bible that we come across. Anything that is referenced as being not good or deficient.

Up until this point everything has been defined as good. God made the light and he said it was good. God made the land and he said it was good. God made the birds of the air the fish of the sea and he made the beasts of the field and all of them.

He said it was good. In fact, he says it was very good but then we come to Genesis 2 and in Genesis 2 as we've already noted in weeks past Genesis 2 is an is a longer version of what happened on day 6.

Which is found in Genesis chapter 1 where it says on day 6 He created the animals and on day 6 he created man and woman. Chapter 2 of Genesis is the longer version of that chapter 2 is as I said in several sermons ago.

It's like if you read chapter 1. It's like you're standing up on a tower and you're looking down at a piece of property and you can see all the edges and you can see all the property lines you can see where maybe the trees are and maybe where the Where the pond is and you can see where your borders are and you can see where your borders meet other people's borders.

That's what it's like to be up on a tower. But if you want to investigate one aspect of your property, you have to come down off the tower. You have to climb down and you have to get down with a magnifying glass and look at one part if you want to really Investigate one particular part of your property.

Well, that's what we see in Genesis 2. Genesis 1 was a was a large scale the version of what happened in the beginning. Genesis 2 takes that large scale down to a microscopic view and it focuses on God's well the high point of God's creation and Let me tell you this it is no prideful thing to say that man is the highest of God's creations because that's what he says in fact man is the only part of God's creation that receives the the statement of being made in God's image.

Man is made in the image of God. And so this is God's high point of creation so it makes sense that Genesis 2 would take the time to give us an outline of Exactly. How did he make this man? And we looked at the creation of man.

God for man from the dust of the ground. He breathed into his nostrils the death the breath of life and the man became a living Soul and the man was alive and He was in fellowship with God. He was in the most beautiful sanctuary in all of history.

The garden which was in Eden. He was there with all of the Blessings that God had given him food. That was nourishing and wonderful Beauty that was beyond compare and a relationship with God that was Uninterrupted by sin and yet it was still not good enough.

It was still deficient and As I mentioned last week Adam had a perfect vertical relationship vertical relationship with God. But what Adam lacked? Was he lacked a horizontal relationship? He did not have a positive relationship.

Horizontally, he had a perfect relationship. Vertically, there was no interruption between his relationship with God. But there was no one with whom to share the blessings that God had given him so God brings all the animals before him and says name them and In the process of naming in them.

He was reminding Adam of his dominion. The act of naming something is demonstrating your authority over that thing as I mentioned last week remember when you had children. What was the one great blessing that you had with your children?

You got to name them you demonstrated your authority over them. And so Adam has all of these animals brought to them him and he names them demonstrating his he's he's Exercising that dominion that God had given to him.

But it was also a lesson in education because God was showing him there's not another creature on this earth that's fit to be your partner as Adam looked at the Lions and as Adam looked at the zebras and as Adam looked at the Gazelles and whatever other kind of animals there were that were brought before him.

He noticed one thing that distinguished it distinguished him from them. Is that none of them? Were just like him. All of them were deficient in some way. All of them were missing a vital element, you know what that vital element was none of those animals were made in the image of God and Therefore none of those animals were a fit companion for him.

None of those animals were just like him. This was an education for Adam. It was an opportunity to learn something about his own nature. He was different from the animals you see the evolutionists will tell us that we are simply Part of a long line of animals.

I remember going to the zoo. We loved the zoo my family and I buy annual passes because we live literally five minutes from the Jacksonville Zoo. So as homeschoolers, we you know when we during good not right now because it's a thousand degrees.

But in a good temperate time of year We'll go once a week and have lunch at the zoo because it's right around the corner and the kids get to see the animals but I remember years ago going to the zoo and I remember walking into a fixture hut.

It was some kind it was it had been built and and on the on the sign as you walked in the sign said in This room is the most dangerous animal on the planet. So I was curious and when you walked into the room and you looked up it was just a giant mirror.

So the concept behind it was not only is man an animal. But man is the worst of the animals. He's the most dangerous. He's the most polluted. He is the worst. Beloved we are not animals. We are creatures.

Yes. But we are man. We are created in the image of God we bear God's image and we are unlike any other creature in the world. God laid upon man his image and there we find Adam having looked at all the animals and Saying to himself, there's not one fit for me.

There's not one fit to be my companion and so that leads us to verse 21 and the origin of woman. It says in verse 21. So the Lord God. And I want to just remind you because it is important. This is the covenant name of God Yahweh Elohim 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. This is a short passage two lines for the creation of woman, but yet it is immensely powerful in its detail. First we see Adam at the end of verse 20 in a position of loss.

He recognizes there's no one there's no animal. There's no creature fit to be his Companion there's not a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam. God Put Adam to sleep.

This is the first instance of Anesthesia and All of human history. In fact, it's interesting to know if you look at the history of the science of anesthesia. The pioneer sir, James Young Simpson in the early 1800s pioneered Modern anesthesiology through his discovery of chloroform.

You know what that is? That's you breathe it in and it causes you to go to sleep. Well, he pioneered that technology stating that his research had been inspired by Genesis chapter 2. He said well if God is going to do surgery with someone who's asleep.

Maybe that'd be a good idea for us and So he pioneered this idea of putting people to sleep for surgery and aren't you glad that he did? And aren't you glad they don't just whack you in the head with a rock or give you a Bottle of wild turkey to get you through the surgery now.

I've had several surgeries in my life. And I tell you what, I'm glad I was asleep for all of them. And so we have here the very first surgery being performed. By God, he makes an incision. He removes a vital part of Adams anatomy.

He closes the wound and all the while Adam is blissfully unaware. And I want to make a mention of something I have heard. Over the years as many of you know, I've taught apologetics. That's been a favorite subject of mine.

Apologetics is defending the integrity and the truthfulness of the Word of God against arguments that are made by unbelievers and even people from other faiths. And one of the arguments that I have heard is.

Well, the reason we believe in Adam and Eve is because man has one less rib than women that ain't true and If you've ever heard that argument, it's a bad one. And if you've ever used that argument stop.

It just ain't so because even if Adam He did have a rib removed. That doesn't mean his son's going to be born without a rib. Anymore than if I had a rib removed for whatever type of surgery I was to have if I Happen to have a child after that.

It's not as if that son is going to inherit the the one rib less gene. That's not how surgery works. That's not how any of this works. And so if you've ever heard the fact that we should believe the Bible because men have one less rib than women.

It just ain't so. Get it get a skeleton count it out. We have the same amount of ribs. This is unique to Adam. This is not something that men share. This is not based on some kind of later biology. And the reason why I mention that because some people say well when you see the later biology of men having one less rib that reminds Us of this history.

No, it doesn't because that's not where we get the information. We get the information from the Bible we get the information from God's wholly inspired and Aaron infallible and authoritative word and It's what tells us that God took a rib from Adam and From that rib he made a woman.

Now the text does not tell us Why a rib and I have heard a lot of speculation on this one. Why did God choose a rib and of course, there's that old and you probably heard this the old Jewish. Not fable, but it's a Jewish expression.

Which says this God chose to make Eve from the rib of the man. He did not take her from his head so that she would rule over him neither from his foot that he would rule over her. But from his ribs so that they would stand arm and arm as partners.

You ever heard that or something to that effect? Maybe I didn't do it justice. The Bible doesn't say that it's a nice sentiment like to think it was true. I'm sure there's some truthfulness to it. But again, we're coming to the Word of God and we're coming to Learn what it says.

And what it says was that Eve was made out of Adam's rib. You know if anything I like to think of the fact that the ribs are under the arms and It response it shows Adams responsibility in protecting his wife.

I think about the fact that the whole reason for Genesis 3 which we're going to get to eventually. The whole reason for Genesis chapter 3 is that Adam failed to protect the garden? His job remember was to work and Keep the garden and the words work and keep the garden express his responsibility, especially the word keep his responsibility to protect the garden and to protect his bride.

Whom God had given to him. Genesis chapter 3 is not just a failure on Eve's part who of course was deceived by the serpent. But it's an failure on Adams part. Whose responsibility it was to protect his wife?

But again We don't know why a rib was taken. But we do know that a rib was taken and we don't know the process by which God used to form the woman out of The rib, but we know that God can take dirt and make a man.

He can certainly take a rib and make a woman and so the woman was made out of man. Which is very interesting because from that moment forward all men would become from women. If you think about it from that generation forward all men would come from a woman.

But the first instance is that the woman came from the man. So there's a turning of if you will the natural order on its head. Adam was not birthed neither was Eve birthed, but both of them were created by God.

This is very important. Because again going back to the argument from the evolutionist some people are what you call Christian evolutionists. They believe in evolution and they believe in the Bible and they try to meld those two together.

And what they will say is they will say that Adam and Eve were hominids. They were certain types of ape-like creatures that God looked down upon and said see here are these two creatures that I'm going to choose to imbibe with my image.

Here's the problem with that Adam and Eve were not born. Adam and Eve were made. In fact the word for make here when it comes to Eve when it talks about that He took the rib and he made her. It's the idea of fashioning something.

God is the great artisan. God is the great craftsman. God makes man and he says I can do better than that. No, that's I think he did. But that's a different topic. He makes man and he says here is man.

Not good that man should be alone. I'll take apart from man and Out of man will come woman. John Currid in his commentary on this passage says after the woman's creation God brings her to the man. Earlier we had Animals brought to the man, but here God brings the woman to the man in a different way.

The pronominal suffix her emphasizes the object. God is like a father who is presenting his son with a Valuable gift that is bound to please him and be cherished by him. God is in effect saying see what I have prepared for you.

Here is this woman and I have made her just not only from you. I've made her for you. This is a prototype of How later the father Would provide Jesus Christ the Son with a bride. The picture in the garden of God forming for Adam a bride and giving her to or excuse me forming for Adam a bride and giving her to Adam is a Picture of how God forms his church and gives his church to Christ as a bride.

Do you realize this and this is very important theologically. Do you realize that if you are part of the body of Christ if you're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ if you have been Born again into the family of God you are a gift from the Father to the Son.

Turn into turn with me very quickly to John chapter 6. I you need to see this because it's very important. In fact in the Gospel of John alone five different times We are said to have been a gift that was given from the Father to the Son.

In John chapter 6 verse 37 Jesus is talking about How people who are coming to him don't really believe in him. He said the reason why you come to me is because I fed you is right after he fed 5 ,000 people with five loaves and two fish and he said the reason why you come is not because you believe it's because you have a full stomach.

But then in verse 37 he says this all that the father gives me Will come to me and whoever comes to me. I will never cast out. Notice what it says all that the father gives me Will come to me. Understand this my friends my beloved church.

Listen to this if you have come to Christ It is because God Has worked a miracle in your heart the miracle of regeneration by which you went from death to life and you went from being a Person who loved the world to a person who loved Jesus and that was a work of God.

God was like a father who in the ancient world would go and find a bride for his son. It's not like today. You know, you know how it goes today. Man finds a woman he likes a woman he Proposes to her and then he may or may not come to the father and ask for permission for her hand in marriage.

That's not how it was in the ancient world. In the ancient world It was the responsibility of the father to go and find a bride for the son. It was it was a responsibility of the father to ensure his own Progeny to ensure that his family line would go on by providing his son a wife so he would go out and he would find a good wife and he would even be willing to give an offering for her.

He would be willing to pay a price Sacrifice some of his riches for her so that he would be able to give his son a good wife and So the father goes and he gets a wife and he brings her to the son and he says see what I have given you.

I've given you this gift and don't for a minute ladies get offended by that and think that I'm trying to indicate that women are Property. I'm not. I'm talking about the value the great value of a good wife.

Doesn't the Bible like express? How valuable it is a Wife of great value who can find she is more precious than rubies the Bible says and so it was the job of the father to go and bring the bride to the son and We see that prototypically exemplified in God with Adam.

It's not good that you're alone son remember Adams the Son of God. Luke 3 tells us that Not in the same way Jesus is the Son of God, but Adam didn't have a father. Adam didn't have a daddy. Adam had God and God created him.

And so God treated Adam like a son. He gave him a place to live. He gave him food to eat. He gave him a job to do family business. You're gonna run my world and God loved his son Adam. And so God provides the son Adam with a bride thousands of years later Jesus Christ comes and he is the Son of God.

He is God the Son. He is the divine Incarnate all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in him Bodily and as he comes into the world God provides him a bride and that bride is the church. So what we see in Genesis 2 is a typification of what would origin what would eventually happen With Jesus Christ, this is why the Bible tells us Husbands love your wives as Christ himself loved the church and gave himself for her.

Christ gave himself for his wife. So men, we're called to give ourselves for our wives. We are called the bride of Christ. Because Christ is called the bridegroom. In fact, there's a marriage coming. Did you know that?

The Bible says in Revelation 19 that we should rejoice and exalt and give him glory because the marriage of the Lamb has come. See right now we're like the bride waiting on the groom. And one day the groom will return and one day the groom will take us to himself as he said I go to prepare a place for you.

And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself that where I am you will be also. Jesus is the great bridegroom who is to come and when he comes there will be a marriage ceremony like none other and We will live with him forever.

So in Genesis 2 we have this picture and next week We're going to look at the subject of marriage more closely because we're going to look at chapter 2 verse 24. But my point for today in this verse verse 22 is simply the fact that God is giving the woman to the man and This is a prototype of God giving the bride of Christ the church to Christ.

Then we come to verse 23 and we see Adams recognition of his blessing. Verse 23 it says 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 man.

You realize or maybe you don't realize this is the first time we hear Adam speak. Read through Genesis chapter 2. This is the first time we have words from the man. It's not the first time he said anything because he named all the animals but this is the first time we have anything recorded from the mouth of Adam and What's interesting about it is it's a poem.

It comes to us in the form of Hebrew poetry. So the first man the perfect man the man God created with no sin who was himself perfect at that in that state Was a poet and the sight of his new bride caused him to break out into verse Men.

Has your wife ever made you want to sing? Maybe you say I'm not much of a singer. It doesn't matter to her my wedding day 20 years ago. No 21 years. Something like that. It's been a while August 1st 21 years.

But I was right here. Actually, I was here. This stage air chancel area used to be a lot smaller 20 years ago. I stood right here and There used to not be a sound room right there. There used to be two double doors and The pastor was here with me.

I was 19 years old and I looked down the aisle and the doors opened and The most beautiful woman I had ever seen in a Shining white dress appeared in that doorway and I wanted to sing. I didn't. But I understand Adams heart.

He's been asleep. He's been out. God has fashioned for him a bride. If Adam was the perfect man Eve must have been the perfect woman in form and Adam opens his eyes and he says at last. Why does he say at last?

Because he had spent all afternoon looking at creature after creature after creature and there was not one fit for him and He may have thought That he was going to be alone. God puts him to sleep and you know how sleep works.

As soon as you close your eyes and you're out you're awake again. We have no concept of the passage of time. We don't know how long it took God to form Eve. But for Adam it was an instant. He closed his eyes and God went to work and He opened his eyes and before him stood his new partner his new love his new companion his help meat and he said at last one of my bone and flesh of my flesh.

Notice he doesn't see her as a servant. But as a companion he doesn't see her as Property. But as part of him. She is part of me. Bone of my bone flesh of my flesh women you who have had children when you when you gave birth was there not a certain sense of Connection to that child because that child came from your body.

I Know this. I have five children. Three of them are natural children two of them are adopted children. But I will sell you this my three natural children didn't like me at all for the first two years.

Because They were mama's babies they came out of mama and I was just the guy who made funny faces and After about three years old they kind of come around they warm up to you, but the first two years it's all mama's babies.

And that's okay. Because they came out of mama. Bone of her bones flesh of her flesh. Eve comes out of Adam and He sees her. He sees her as His. Not as property, but as having come from him. Do you think of your children as property?

No, but they're yours. We don't think of them as property. We think of them as ours. Because we love them they came from us. Adam loves Eve because she came from him and There's a relationship that's formed now.

That's new and unique because Adam finally sees somebody who shares the image of God with him. No other creature did that. No other form in the universe no other place in the world did that. Only Adam and Eve Were the image bearers of God.

At this time there was no other and together they would exercise dominion in the garden. They would be king and queen of God's sanctuary together. They would exercise rule with Adamus the head and Eve as his help meat.

And again ladies, please don't ever take offense at that. Remember what we learned last week. When it says when God said I will make a helper fit for Adam. Remember that word helper is applied to God so many times in Scripture I set my eyes upon the hill from where does my help come from.

My helper is the Lord who made heaven and earth. God makes for Adam a helper fit for him. And now we have a New couple who are about to be married now next week I'm going to talk about the the covenant of marriage and the doctrine of marriage and the Establishment of marriage which we have in one verse verse 24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother the two shall become one flesh.

So that's going to be our subject for next week. But as I draw today to a close I do want to for a few final moments. Make a few points. About man and woman. God has created man, and he has created woman.

Distinctly while they are both the same in the sense that they are both human beings and While they are both the same that they are both image bearers of God. They are not the same in that. He is man, and she shall be called woman.

We live in a world where unfortunately There is a massive amount of confusion about the fact that men are men and Women are women and I think the implications of Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are Massive for our world today.

We live in a unique moment in history where for the first time in history The concept of male and female is up for grabs and you may think I'm being exaggerated. I am NOT if we watch the news if we watch what's happening around us.

There is great deal of confusion about the subject of men and women. Back in June The Supreme Court handed down a decision That it will now be against the law To not recognize someone's chosen gender in the workplace.

Which means this? That ultimately If a Person says that they are a man regardless of their biological DNA That person can be identified as a man or if a person says that they are a woman they can be identified as a woman.

You may say oh, this isn't going to affect anything. Let me tell you it is going to affect a lot of things. Because ultimately this ruling redefines sex as gender identification and laws that were meant to protect women are no longer going to be able to protect women because women will not be Anything more than what they say they are so for instance Women's sports.

No Can't have that men can now compete alongside women. And we've seen the dangers of that women's shelters. No women's prisons. Well, who cares they're in prison, right? No, we still care the secular idea this secular ideology divorces itself from any Originalist concept of the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act and this secular idea also defies science because there is no scientific Category for gender identity.

It's unprovable. It's undefinable and what we have found is That we were going into a world that is very confused and people are looking to be more and more confused about this issue. The Bible tells us very clearly That God made a man and he made a woman and they are distinct.

You cannot overlap the two and you cannot exchange the two and language matters. Adam is called Is in Hebrew Man and She is called Issa Woman and of course brother Andy's famous joke When Adam why was he called woman because when Adam CSR he said whoa, man.

That's your Reminding everyone of his zinger from a few weeks ago, but there's more to it than just a couple of letters. What we see is a fundamental redefinition of what it means to be a man and a woman and Again, you may think that's inconsequential.

But one of the things that we're seeing today is Is the replacement of language and I will promise you this as the language goes away. So will our understanding of right and wrong? My wife and I were looking at Google and I was showing her that she didn't believe me.

I had to look it up and show her I said now in Certain places where you go when you get your name tag, you know, there's name tags and say hello. My name is So hello, my name is Keith. Hello. My name is Dale.

Underneath the name tag and these are very real. You can purchase them. You can check me out on this fact check me if you feel the need to Underneath it says and my personal pronouns are meaning If you want to be called he or him.

Or if you want to be called she or her. But there's a new one Z Z E. And that means you don't identify as either male or female and the real one the big one now is they they as a Singular pronoun. I don't know about you.

But as a person who prides myself on being somewhat of a linguist using they as a singular pronoun is bad. Just from a linguistic point of view. Because it doesn't work and it makes no sense. Dr. Albert Muller said this if one is the master of language then one controls the entire Communication system and for that matter eventually the culture to control the lexicon to control the dictionary to control The vocabulary is eventually to control the meaning indeed the entire worldview of a society.