Genesis 2:18-25 | “The Creation of Woman”

Genesis 2:18-25 | "The Creation of Woman, Part One" Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (226)

 

From the Cosmic to the Personal

The first chapter of Genesis gives us an overview of God’s creation of the cosmos in six days.  At the end of Genesis 1, Moses slows down and zooms in on the most beautiful diadem of God’s creation: man and woman (vv. 26-27).  The creation of humans at the end of day six is the climax of the six days of creation.  Moses uses more words to describe what happens here than any other day.  What happens here is so important that Moses comes back to it in more detail in chapter two in order to give us a 3-D view of what God does here in chapter one.

In chapter 2, Moses double-clicks on Genesis 1:27 to tell us more about God’s creation of man and woman.  In 2:4-17, we’ve seen that God created man out of the ground, breathed into him the breath of life, placed him in the Garden of Eden, told him to work it and keep it and to enjoy its abundance while avoiding only one tree.

Verse 7 is one of the most intimate scenes in the Bible.  The God who spoke galaxies into existence stoops down and gently breathes his breath into him.  Like lightning turning sand into a diamond, the Lord makes something beautiful out of the dust.  This was a holy moment.

Where’s Eve?

At this point in the narrative, you may wonder, “Where’s Eve?”  1:27 says that God created “male and female,” but so far in chapter 2, the woman isn’t there when God shapes man from the ground.  She misses the first view of God’s garden.  She doesn’t hear the voice of God telling Adam he can have anything he wants except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  The man and woman appeared together in 1:27, but when Moses double-clicks on that verse and expands on how God did it, we learn that God made the man first and added the woman later.

Why would he do it that way?  Our text today (2:18-25) doesn’t explicitly tell us, but there are hints and clues that begin to unveil the beautiful picture of God’s design for man and woman, a picture of oneness yet difference, of unity yet diversity, of beautiful complementarity without competition.

Your experience is going to color how you hear what I have to say today.  If you grew up in an abusive home, or have been in an abusive relationship, or seen the Bible used to justify behavior that harmed women, I am so sorry.  Men who twist Scripture to abuse and harm and demean women are wrong and will talk to God one day about their actions.

The ugliness of many men’s actions doesn’t negate the beauty of God’s design.  The Bible’s teaching on gender roles is beautiful and freeing and life-giving, but it’s a touchy topic because many men have used it to do Satanic things in God’s name.

The topic of male-female roles is littered with landmines around every corner.  If there are any questions about anything I say, please reach out to me.

Man’s Need and God’s Provision

The main question for us to answer here is: Why did God create Adam first and Eve second?  There are at least two reasons.  First, God wanted to reveal man’s great need and his great gift to meet that need.  All through chapter 1, we heard God say, “And it was good, good, good, and very good.”  Then in 2:18, God says, “It is not good that the man should be alone.”

This doesn’t surprise God.  He could’ve made Eve simultaneously with Adam.  But he chose not to in order to show the man his great need.  He wanted Adam to sense his problem so that he could savor God’s solution to it.  God’s solution is found at the end of verse 18, “I will make him a helper fit (or “suitable”) for him.”  Literally, “a help corresponding to him.”

But first Adam must name the animals in order to discover that there’s no helper suitable for him among them (vv. 19-20).  We don’t know how much Adam understood about his aloneness.  The focus of the text isn’t on Adam’s feelings.  It doesn’t say he felt alone.   The problem with his aloneness was something else.  There’s no record of Adam complaining about his aloneness.  Instead, the text says that God thought his aloneness was “not good” (v. 18).

God is the one driving this story.  The point of the story is God’s care for his creatures.  The point is that God is out for our good.  God is showing man his great need and his great provision to meet that need.  God sees his aloneness and acts to solve his aloneness.

This is the great theme of Scripture – God knowing our need and then moving heaven and earth to meet it.  The Scriptures will later tell us what God did to solve our greatest need and remove our eternal aloneness through his Son Jesus Christ.

Verses 21-22 tell us what God did to provide the helper suitable for the man.  Adam can’t hold back his joy.  Verse 23 has the first recorded words of man, and it’s a poem about the woman.  He was one, now they’re two, perfectly matched, completely naked, and totally free of shame.  Adam’s need has been met by God’s provision of a helper.

Many women chafe at the idea of being a “helper” to a man (v. 18).  Even though chapter one clearly teaches the equality of man and woman, many think that the word “helper” implies that the woman is a second-class citizen.  We’re prone to think this way because we use the word “helper” to refer to someone less important, but the word “helper” simply refers to someone who brings someone help.  To bring help doesn’t demean the helper.  A helper is actually praised and prized as someone who can do things we can’t do.

If you’ve been overseas and had to use a translator, you understand how helpless you feel to communicate.  The translators who help are heroes.  Their expertise in maneuvering from one language to another is amazing.  We’re the ones lacking, not them!

God is even referred to as a “helper.”  Psalm 118:7, “The Lord is on my side as my helper.”  The Holy Spirit is called the “Helper” in John 14.  The woman as a “helper” is an extension of God’s strength and help for the man.  She is his way of turning “not good” into “very good.”  The creation of the “helper” is the climatic completion of God’s “very good” creation.  Being man’s helper is an honor, a sign of strength, an admission that man needs help, and a God-given role for the woman.

God’s Order

The first reason why God created Adam first, then Eve, was because he wanted to reveal man’s great need and his great gift to meet that need.  The second reason is that he wanted to establish order in humanity.

This isn’t surprising given what we saw in Genesis 1.  In all that God created, he sovereignly made divisions and distinctions, handed out responsibilities, and delegated dominion.  Every other aspect of creation had its counterpart.  The sun rules over the day, the moon over the night.  The waters have fish, the air has birds, the ground has animals.  These are divisions set in stone and roles that aren’t interchangeable.  It therefore shouldn’t surprise us to find order and distinctions between man and woman.

These distinctions aren’t listed out as explicit rules in the text.  But there are patterns and clues in the text that point to distinctions between man and woman.  The picture that begins to come into focus is that God’s design for man and woman is that the man is the head of the woman, and that the woman is the helper of the man.  Let me give you seven textual pointers that unveil this picture of beautiful complementarity.

Man Created First

First, God created man before the woman.  This doesn’t mean that “first equals best,” as if God were picking players for his soccer team.  If that were true, then jellyfish, earthworms, and buzzards would all be better than men and women because they were created before us.  No, the point is that the order of Adam and Eve’s creation indicates that Adam is the head of the garden and Eve is meant to help him in the work of cultivating the garden.  This reality is why Paul prohibits women from teaching men in the church: “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.  For Adam was formed first, then Eve” (1 Tim. 2:112-13).

Man Received God’s Word

Second, the man was created first, so he first received God’s word, therefore he bears the responsibility to keep it and pass it on.  This is a priest-like task.  The man must maintain the holiness of the garden.  He was responsible for establishing God’s commands in the earth.  Adam is the spiritual head and representative of the couple.  God gives him his commands first, and after they sin, he also comes looking for him first, even though Eve committed the initial sin.  The Lord said to the man, “Where are you?” (3:9) because Adam was the designated leader of the couple.

Man Names the Creatures

Third, God gives the task of naming every creature to Adam (2:19-20).  He was given this command and able to fulfill it prior to the creation of Eve.  Adam also names Eve, twice (2:23, 3:20).  That God gave this job to Adam indicates his leadership of Eve and the creatures.

Man is Leader, Woman is “Helper”

Fourth, the man’s leadership is hinted at in 1:27 when God calls humankind “man,” but is made clear in chapter 2 when Eve is called Adam’s “helper.”  This is a functional term, not a demeaning one.  As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:8, “For man was not made from woman, but woman from man.  Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.”

We might interpret “helper” to mean “friend” or “companion,” someone to comfort Adam in his aloneness.  This is certainly one aspect of Eve’s role.  But “helper” must also be interpreted in light of the creation mandate, where God told the man to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (1:28).  God could’ve provided Adam with another man to help him till the soil and provide friendship, or with a fraternity of manly friends to work and play with.  But he wouldn’t have been able to fulfill God’s creation mandate of “filling the earth,” or producing and rearing children, without a woman.

There’s undoubtedly an interdependence between man and woman, as even the Hebrew words ish (man) and ishah (woman) suggest (2:23).  The woman came from the man, but the man will be irreversibly connected to the woman.  “In the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman” (1 Cor. 11:11-12).  This interdependence doesn’t negate different roles as they seek to rule the earth together.

Man and Woman Created in Different Places

Fifth, the man and woman were given different tasks, corresponding to the realm in which God created them.  Adam was created outside the garden and tasked with protecting and cultivating it (2:15).  Eve was created inside the garden, which suggests that she was meant to have a special relationship to the inner world of the garden.  Kevin DeYoung summarizes this well:

“The creation mandate – filling the earth and subduing it – applies to both sexes, but asymmetrically.  The man, endowed with greater biological strength, is fitted especially for tilling the soil and taming the garden, while the woman, possessing within her the capacity to cultivate new life, is fitted especially for filling the earth and tending to the communal aspects of the garden.”[1]

Man and Woman Created in Different Ways

Sixth, that Adam and Eve were created in different ways also points to a specific ordering of roles between them.  The Lord formed Adam from the dust of the ground (2:7), while he formed Eve from the rib of the man (2:21-22).  It’s thus not surprising that man is tasked with tending the ground from which he came, while the woman is tasked with helping the man from whom she came.

Eve was created from man (v. 22) and for man (v. 20).  They’re equal in worth but different in function.  The way God created each one points to the special work he designed them to do in the world.  Generally speaking, man was created to cultivate the external world of industry and the woman was created to cultivate the inner world of the family.

Man and Woman Experience Curse in Different Ways

Seventh, the fact that men and women experience the curse of sin in different ways, each in their fundamental areas of responsibility, also indicates that God created each for a specific realm.  Man’s unique domain, the ground, is cursed (3:17).  And woman’s unique domain, childbearing, bear the effects of the curse (3:16a).  Each are subjected to frustration in their unique and God-given spheres of responsibility.

“Who You Are” is Not “What You Do”

The idea of unique “spheres of responsibility” sounds foreign to us because our social imaginary teaches us to equate “who we are” with “what we do.”  Some say that to be truly free as a woman you must do what men do.  Others say that you can’t be fully a woman if you’re not a wife or a mother.  Both views are wrong because both views locate identity in “what we do” rather that “who we are.”

Professor Alice Matthews says, “Whenever we confuse roles with identity, we imprison people in roles that represent only a small part of who God made them to be.  For women to love themselves and others, they must realize that who they are is not the same as what they do.”[2]

Ladies, your identity is firmly fixed, image bearer of God is “who you are.”  You were made co-rulers of God’s world.  And, if you’re in Christ, you’re also a new creation (2 Cor, 5:17) a daughter of the King, an ambassador for Christ, a citizens of the eternal city of God.  Your marital status or number of children is not your identity.  Your identity is given, not received.

Household Managers

Once our identity is firmly rooted in God and Christ, then our minds and hearts open up to the various roles that God calls us to have.  As I’ve tried to show from Genesis 2, God’s design is that the man is the head of the woman, and that the woman is the helper of the man.  This pattern flows through the whole Bible, indeed, through the whole world.

This God-ordained pattern is why Paul says that the older women in the church must train the younger women to “love their husbands and children” and to be “working at home” (Tit. 2:4-5).  This can be translated “to be good managers of the household.”  Paul gives similar counsel to young widows in 1 Timothy 5:14, “I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander.”

This instruction doesn’t relegate a women to only work in the home.  Proverbs 31 makes this clear.  But the principles in Genesis 2 and the instructions from Titus 2 mean that women are primarily responsible for the domestic oversight of the home.  They’re the managers, directors, administrators, or supervisors of the home.  This is not a demotion!  Only the most skilled and wise and diligent people are called upon to manage organizations.  Is there any more important organization than the family?  Caring for young souls and creating spaces of warmth and peace and organizing a home that will bless others in Jesus’s name is arguably the most important work on earth.  Think about the homes you’ve been in.  Which ones exuded peace and joy and harmony and life?  Is it the ones with no order, or inverted and confused order?  Probably not.

In a culture that chafes at the notion that God designed men and women with different roles, the church has the opportunity to show the world a better and more beautiful way.  We have the opportunity to create homes where kids and parents are deeply connected, homes of peace and productivity instead of chaos and consumption.

Husbands, are you willing to do whatever it takes to make it possible for your wife to cultivate the inner world of your “garden”?  Wives, is your desire to build a career or a home?  Single men, are you looking for a wife with biblical convictions about the home?  Are you willing and able to provide for a wife and children?  Single women, are you looking for a husband with biblical convictions about the home?  Are you wanting to build a career or a home?

Celebrating, Not Tolerating, Roles

I know that this part of God’s design is hard to understand and accept, especially in our cultural climate.  Let me read some words from Kathleen Nielson, one of the finest Bible teachers out there.  In her book Women and God, she says, “If you’re like me, you might instinctively chafe against this order.  You may accept it as true, because the Bible teaches it – but how can you or I celebrate it as good?”[3]

Her answer is that we wrongly associate difference in role with difference in value.  As soon as we say that man is the leader and woman is the helper, assumptions begin to fly.  We assume that the leader must be more important, and the helper must be less important.

Why do we make this assumption?  Genesis 3 will help us understand, but just think logically for a moment.  Does anyone really equate role with value?  Does anyone here think that the CEO of a big company is more valuable than a disabled person out of work?  Or that the President is more valuable than an illegal immigrant?  Or that a mother is more valuable than her daughter?  Or that a pastor is more valuable than a church member?

We may be tempted to think this way, but deep down we know better.  Deep down we long for our value to not come from roles we play or positions we hold, but to come from something beyond those things.  This longing is met in the truth of Genesis 1-2 – in the revelation that God made us in his image and therefore we’re inherently valuable.  Only in his eyes is ultimate value measured.

God’s design for man and woman is that the man is the head of the woman, and that woman is the helper of the man.  Though counter-cultural, this teaching is a good gift that helps us get our eyes off what we do and onto the God who tells us who we are.  Only in him will we find the value and affirmation and reassurance and support that we need.

[1]Kevin DeYoung, Men and Women in the Church: A Short, Biblical, Practical Introduction (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2021), 26-7.

[2]Alice P. Matthews, Preaching that Speaks to Women (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 146.

[3]Kathleen Nielson, Women and God: Hard Questions, Beautiful Truth (The Good Book Company, 2018), 42.