Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.
These closing words of the Eden account are not story but rule. God set out marriage here before there was a second family on earth. Adam had no parents to leave. So who is speaking here, and how far do these words reach?
Words That Look Past Adam
The sentence describes something Adam could never have faced. It looks ahead to those who would come after him.
The first verse describes circumstances entirely different from those of Adam, who had no father or mother to leave.
When people asked the Lord about divorce, He went back to this verse and to who first spoke it.
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.
Leaving: A New Household Begins
"Leave" marks a change in where a man's first duty lies.
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.
Hold Fast: One Wife, Held With Love
"Hold fast" answers two questions at once: how many, and how.
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.
One Flesh: A Bond Man Must Not Undo
Later law allowed divorce. So which passage shows God's real mind about marriage?
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.
Marriage Began Before Sin
God formed this union while the man and woman were still sinless. The ruin that followed did not cancel what He had set up.
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.
The Believer's Body
The same union points past marriage, and becomes a reason for personal purity.
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."
A Picture Planned From The Start
Ephesians 5 ties this verse to Christ and the church. That picture was no afterthought.
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.
Even the "leaving" finds its counterpart.
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.
Summary
- Speaker — the words describe a man with parents to leave, which Adam never had. The Lord traced them back to God Himself.
- Leave — marriage moves a man's first responsibility off his parents and onto his wife, and a new home begins.
- Hold fast — one wife only, held with love, faithfulness and devotedness.
- One flesh — God tied the two together before sin entered, and sin did not undo it. Later permission to divorce met hard hearts; it was not the original order.
- Picture — the same verse points to the believer joined to the Lord as one spirit, and to Christ and the church. Marriage was designed to picture that from the start.