Genesis 2:23–24

Man was alone, and it was not good that he should be so... If God had created someone else out of the dust, apart from Adam, where would Adam's supremacy have been? And where would the tender closeness of relationship that such a companion needs have been? ... His exclamation clearly shows the joy with which he received her. It also shows that he saw the infinite wisdom that had provided him a partner and companion. She was distinct from him, and so the object of his affection and delight. Yet she was so mysteriously linked with his existence that she had once been part of himself.

When he awoke out of sleep and saw standing by his side the fair one whom the Lord God, in His goodness, had provided for him, he exclaimed, "This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh." The blank was now filled up. He had seen nothing till now to suit his heart.

The woman now came to him as it were from God's own hand... "the man said, This time it is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh: this shall be called Ishah, for out of Ish was taken this." He knew at once how close and fitting this relationship was, though until then he had not known God's purpose. And he gave her a name that expressed the fact perfectly.

Note the intelligence of Adam and his knowledge of the mystery of the woman's creation... He gives her a name, but owns that she is part of himself. This time it is so, as the name itself shows — part of himself, yet subject to him.

God formed the woman by His own hand. He did not take her from the dust of the ground, as He had taken Adam, but out of Adam himself. So the woman really was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. Eve was the Creator's provision for Adam. God saw that Adam was incomplete while he was alone, and gave him a partner designed to meet exactly what he lacked. So in their marriage the two became one flesh, each completing the other.

We all know how ready man has been to forget the truth — how often power takes advantage of what is right! God, for His part, chose to form woman, and to reveal how He formed her, in a way that should shame any man who recognises her as his own flesh and bone, yet slights or misuses so close a relationship.

Adam's marriage is the pattern for the marriage of all his sons. In every true marriage, God arranges the union... Adam had no choice of brides; there was only one who would suit him, and God had prepared her especially for him.

The relationship of husband and wife is not merely a convenient illustration. Ephesians 5 makes it clear that God modelled marriage on what He already had in His mind — the relationship of Christ and the church. In other words, God had the relationship of Christ and His church in mind in His eternal purpose, and only later, in time, did He institute marriage.

The link is not between the Lord as Man and men in general. It was not true, as some say, that in becoming Man He became flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone. It is we, His people, who are flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone (Eph. 5:30). For this, too, death had to come in... It was in the deep sleep that fell on Adam — the image of that death-sleep — that Eve was taken out of his side.

The first verse describes circumstances entirely different from those of Adam, who had no father or mother to leave.

As He had already answered: "Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate" (Matt. 19:3-8). It is not Adam who said this, but God.

Up to the time of a man's marriage the chief relationship he stands in is that of a son, and his responsibility is towards his parents. But when he marries he leaves his father and mother and holds fast to his wife. From then on she becomes his chief care, for he and she are no longer two but one flesh.

This verse settles many questions. He holds fast to his wife — only one wife, so that bigamy and polygamy are completely unscriptural. Holding fast to his wife involves genuine love for her, and faithfulness and devotedness.

Now the same lawgiver who allowed divorces had, in an earlier book of the law, made known how God first set up marriage. That first account has no clause permitting divorce. Both passages (Deut. 24:1; Gen. 2:23-24) were God's Word. The first was a provision "for the hardness of their hearts"… The second (Gen. 2:24) taught the sacredness and the real character of the tie… So we are taken back to how marriage began, and reminded of how God sees it — two made one flesh, whom He has joined, and whom therefore man should not separate.

It matters greatly that God set up marriage between Adam and Eve while they were still innocent. When they were joined, sin had not entered the world, and death, its just penalty, had not yet come. But when their disobedience brought sin in, marriage kept the holy character God gave it when He set it up.

That union is meant to remind the Christian of his own blessed privilege: he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him — not one flesh, but one spirit. This is so because he has received the Holy Spirit. So impurity is a sin not only against his own body, but against the Trinity and the price paid for him. "Glorify God then in your body."

God cast Adam into a deep sleep and formed Eve from a rib taken from his side. This is a picture of the church, which was formed by the death of Christ. Ephesians 5:25-32 brings this out so clearly that there can be no mistake about its meaning. Marriage was not just a handy illustration of Christ and the church. God designed it from the start to be a picture of that union.

Christ, as man, left what belonged to Him through His link with His earthly people, Israel, so that He might gain and have the church… The marriage bond, therefore, becomes the picture of the union of the church with Christ.