Why did God use Adam's rib to create Eve?

Genesis 2:18. Man was alone, and it was not good that he should be so. The earth and all that it contained was good, and man placed in unquestioned authority over it all. But amid its various tribes of animals and plants, man had no companion with whom to share his affections and his thoughts. Whence was such an one to come? Had another been created out of the dust independently of Adam, where had been his supremacy? and where had been, moreover, the tender intimacy of relationship needed in such a companion? Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast and fowl, and brought them to Adam, to see what he would call them. Adam exercised thus his delegated authority, and gave names to all the animal tribes — but for Adam there was not found an help meet. How blessedly was the lack filled up! Out of Adam, while he slept, did the Lord God make woman, and bring her to the man. His exclamation sufficiently evinces the joy with which he received her, as well as his perception of the Infinite wisdom which had thus provided a partner, a companion, distinct indeed, and thus the object of his affections and delight, and yet so mysteriously linked with his existence as to have been once part of himself. "The woman is of the man." Precious mystery, regarded as expressing the relation of the second Adam to His Eve, the church. No one in all the creation of which He is Heir, and Lord, and Head, suited to be the sharer of His dominion, and the companion of His heart, but the church, by virtue of His deep sleep of death, made partaker of His life in resurrection, and yet in the day to come to be presented by Him to Himself, a glorious church, without spot, etc. (Eph. 5)

In the verses before us is another example falling under the same principles. "And Jehovah Elohim caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man; and he slept. And He took one of his ribs, and closed up flesh in its stead. And the rib which Jehovah Elohim had taken from the man He built into a woman, and brought her unto the man. And the man said, This time [it is] bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh: this shall be called Woman [Ishshah] because out of man [Ish] was taken this" (vers. 21-23).

Apples of gold truly in baskets of silver! The God Who wrought has communicated the truth worthily to us. He would give man the boon of companionship, the joy of fellowship, the interchange of affection; and as the end was good, so the way. For He threw the man into an ecstasy, as the LXX. render it, that he might not feel painfully, yet know perfectly what God was giving him. It was not a separate human being independent of Adam, nor yet a female half severed from the male half of a Janus-like creature as Rabbins fancy. It was not from the head nor from the feet, an absolute equal nor an utter inferior, but from his side, as has been remarked by others of old, the object of nearest love and sustaining care, an associated yet dependent sharer of all joy and sorrow.

As Jehovah Elohim deigned to build his rib into an Ishah (woman), so He brought her to the man, the highest and best form of marriage: a source never absent from faith at any time, but as it was then, how admirably suited to primeval simplicity in the innocence of both! He who knew all had said that it was not good for the man to be alone. The recognition of Adam's authority in giving a name to the inferior creation only made the gap more sensible. And now that the woman was received as it were from the divine hand, not from Elohim only but from Him Who in all His action here recorded was laying perfectly the ground for mutual duty in the relationship of marriage, "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 was instantly conscious of the intimate and suited relationship, though hitherto unacquainted with the divine purpose; and he gave her a name admirably expressive of the fact. How poor are all the imaginations of man on this theme in presence of the truth thus revealed to us! But it could be appropriately communicated, not under the head of creation simply (Elohim), but of its moral government (Jehovah Elohim). So simple, sure, and unforced is the usage of the divine designations here employed, without the crude, superficial, and sceptical hypothesis of distinct writers, destructive as it is of all real intelligence, and of that good and profoundly wise design for God's glory which is the surest mark of inspiration from first to last.

Accordingly, the woman was formed by Divine handiwork, not from the dust of the ground as Adam had been, but out of Adam himself, so that literally the woman was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. Eve was the Creator's provision for Adam. Discerning the incompleteness of Adam in his solitude, God provided for him a consort designed exactly to meet his deficiencies. Accordingly, in their marriage the two became one flesh, each being the complement of the other.

The marriage of Adam is the prototype of the marriage of all his sons. In every case of true matrimony, God arranges the union. Divine wisdom observes the moment when the loneliness of the man is no longer good for him, and He provides a bride who is the complement of his nature with its personal characteristics. Adam had no choice of brides; there was but the one that would suit him, and she was prepared of God especially for him. Adam had no rivals for the possession of Eve. Nor can such a thing be imagined in Eden, where each of the two found in the other everything required to complete their enjoyment and to perfect their capacities. There was no alternative that either could have chosen or found.

But this made the want so much the more evident, of which Jehovah-Elohim takes notice, of a partner for Adam's affections and life, one that might be before him, as it is said: "And Jehovah-Elohim caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam.'' The creation of the woman apart from the man (as no doubt every other male and female were made separately) would have been a sterile and unimpressive fact. As it is, God reserves the striking detail for the scene of moral relationship. And may I not put it to the conscience of every soul whether such an event is not exactly where it should be, according to the internal and distinctive features of Genesis 1 and 2? We all know how apt man has been to forget the truth — how often might takes advantage of right! God at least was pleased to form woman, as well as to reveal her formation in a way that ought to make ashamed him who recognises her as his own flesh and bone, yet slights or misuses a relationship so intimate. "And he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib which Jehovah-Elohim had taken from man made he a woman, and brought her to the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be one flesh."

To my mind this, as far as it goes, is just perfection as the word of God must be, instead of the hotch-potch of blunderers who strung together the inconsistent traditions of their own dark days. Such is what self-complacent unbelief has made of it. It appears to me that these critics are alike objects of horror and of compassion, and that what the Christian would desire for them is forgiveness from Him whose word they defame, because their incredulity has rendered them incapable of comprehending it. There is another, and only another, relationship that I will speak of, and this is the one that is last brought before us in this chapter. Relationship to God we have seen tested by the tree. Adam was to till the garden, and keep it, using all freely, but with his obedience tested by a single restriction. Then relationship to the creature is seen, where the various animals were brought before him to be named. But there was a help-meet wanted. How did God meet this need? In a way admirably wise, not by an absolutely fresh creation, but by forming a portion of the man into a woman, thus reminding him what the woman was and should be towards him — that she was part of himself.

Who, beforehand, could ever have thought of such a way? Who does not feel the beauty and appropriateness of the work and the word of God? How vain and unworthy the notions of the heathen as to all this! Alas! I know that some have sunk so low as to mock at this very fact, and the record of it. Perhaps they may never have known their duty toward the woman dependent on them (and if so, sure to be degraded by them). But the word of God puts everything in its place, and reminds the man, and the woman too, of that special relationship; for there was but the man and the woman — not one man and two women, but only one man and one woman. From the beginning it was so; to the end it ought not to have been otherwise. Thus it was God made them; and this the Son of God cited to vindicate His Father, putting guilty selfish man to shame. But He also made the woman out of man, and man discerned the fact at once. Though he had been in a sleep, he had an instinctive sense how matters stood.

And now we arrive at a most interesting section of chapter 2. The Lord God determined to furnish Adam with a helpmeet. He caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep, removed one of his ribs, closed up the flesh, and with this rib He made a woman, and presented her to the man. It is noticeable that the Hebrew word here translated rib is in every other case translated, no less than nineteen times, as side.

The woman was thus formed, the complement of man. We can understand how necessary the affection and companionship of woman is to man, and man to woman, as the two together make one whole, the one not complete without the other.

When Adam came out of his deep sleep, he was greeted by his fair companion, a vision of rare beauty, a woman, God’s masterpiece, a wife, a helpmeet, a companion, a sharer of his life.

Mark, the bone was not taken from the man's head, nor from his feet, but from his side. The Creator's purpose was not to form for him one equal to him in every particular, still less was it His thought to create for him a slave. From his side the bone was taken, indicating the place of the woman in relation to the man; ever by him as his companion and counselor, and the object of his love.

We may find a contrast to Christ in Gen. 2:22. The Lord God presented Eve to Adam; in Eph. 5:27 Christ presents the Church to Himself. Why is this? The answer is very simple — Christ is God.

Yet that "it is not good for man to be alone" is the word of his Creator as to Him. Looking at the circumstances of the fall, he who has learned to suspect God everywhere may suspect Him here. He provides in the woman one whom Scripture itself pronounces inferior naturally in wisdom to the man, but on the other hand supplementing him otherwise. The rib out of which she is made is taken from the breast; and if man be the head of humanity, woman is its heart. Even spite of the fall, this still is clear and unmistakable; and man's heart is correspondingly drawn out and developed by her. The awful perversion of this now shows but the fact the more; and the perversion of the best thing commonly produces the worst. For Adam, where all was yet right, here was not only a spiritual being with whom was possible that interchange of thought and feeling which our whole being craves, but also an object for the heart. Pledge of his Creator's love was this fair gift, in whom love sensibly ministered to him and drew out his own, redeeming him from self occupation as from isolation: surely it was not, — "is not good for the man to be alone," and the help provided was a "help meet for him."

A man may have a very handsome estate, and value it much, but he can never have the same feelings towards it that he has towards his wife and children. They are a part of himself, not it. What were all the pleasures of paradise to the first Adam compared with his delight in his loved and beautiful Eve? She was part of himself, not creation. He had been cast into a deep sleep, and from his opened side a helpmeet was formed. 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 fair creation - the beauties of Eden, had been, as it were, a blank to the first man, until he possessed and enjoyed the blessed fruit of his typical sufferings and death.

Let us, now, look at the manner in which Eve was brought into being, though, in so doing, we shall have to anticipate part of the contents of the next chapter. Throughout all the orders of creation there was not found an help meet for Adam. "A deep sleep" must fall on him, and a partner be formed, out of himself, to share his dominion and his blessedness. "And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, builded he a woman, and brought her to the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man." (Gen. 2:21-23.)

Looking at Adam and Eve as a type of Christ and the Church, as scripture fully warrants us to do, we see how that the death of Christ needed to be an accomplished fact, ere the Church could be set up; though, in the purpose of God, she was looked at, and chosen in Christ, before the foundation of the world. There is, however, a vast difference between the secret purpose of God and the revelation and accomplishment thereof. Before the divine purpose could be actualised in reference to the constituent parts of the Church, it was necessary that the Son should be rejected and crucified — that He should take His seat on high — that He should send down the Holy Ghost to baptise believers into one body. It is not that souls were not quickened and saved, previous to the death of Christ. They assuredly were. Adam was saved, and thousands of others, from age to age, in virtue of the sacrifice of Christ, though that sacrifice was not yet accomplished. But the salvation of individual souls is one thing; and the formation of the Church, as a distinctive thing, by the Holy Ghost, is quite another.