Written by O. Palmer Robertson |
Monday, November 6, 2023
In view of the far-reaching consequences of the origin of Eve “out of” the body of Adam, would it be appropriate to conclude that Paul, writing words verbally inspired by the Holy Spirit, was following some form of a mythological concept in his report that Eve was made “out of” Adam? Was Paul wrong in his report of Eve’s origin, and consequently did he err by appealing to an improper basis for the headship of the man in relation to the woman? Let us trust that what was reported in the Old Testament and confirmed in the New Testament is truth. Let us bring our thinking and our lives into conformity with the truth as it is found in Scripture.

There is a thinking abroad among some evangelical Christians that questions the historical reality of the biblical record concerning the origin of Adam and Eve. This questioning about the origin of the human race has broad implications.
The biblical record of the origin of Adam is quite straightforward. “The Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature” (Gen. 2:7). The first man had his origin from the dust of the ground. The point at which the man became a living creature, he was man in all his glory as man, made in the image of God.
But what about Eve? Where did she come from? Adam must have had a startling awakening after his deep sleep. Where did this lovely companion originate?
One view of her origin might suggest that Adam could have sensed that he had a vague recollection of her. For according to this view, Eve had already existed among the female hominids associating with Adam while he was a male hominid. God had selected him from the multiple hominids that had evolved from more primitive forms of living beings. Then God favored him so that he became the first hominid to have a “soul.” In this new status, he became the first “Man” that was then appropriately called “Adam.”
But God noted that it was not good for the Man to be alone. So he brought all the other living creatures for Adam to categorize by giving them appropriate designations. Presumably in this view, Adam must have titled the creatures who were just like him in their bodily form but without souls with a word equivalent to our current “hominid.” But none of these other creatures living on the earth at that time were suitable as a mate for Adam.
What did God do to solve this problem? From this particular viewpoint, it may be supposed God chose one of the female hominids that had evolved from lower forms of animal life and favored her with a soul so that she became the first “woman.” Adam later named her “Eve,” for she became the mother of all the living (Gen. 3:20).
This view represents a current effort to blend the Bible with modern science to make the origin of Adam and Eve more believable. Instead of treating the biblical report as an authentic historical record of how Eve actually originated, this view attempts to accommodate the biblical testimony to what may appear to be a more plausible view of Eve’s origin.
But what does the Bible say about the origin of Eve, and why should its report be believed? When speaking of the Bible’s testimony about any subject, the witness of both the Old Testament and the New Testament Scriptures must be considered. Not only the report in Scripture of what actually happened, but the testimony of the significance of that reported event must be brought under consideration. From this perspective, consider the testimony of the origin of Eve as it appears in both the Old and New Testaments. Review the testimony of three major figures in Scripture: Moses, Jesus and Paul. Jesus the Christ is of course absolutely unique as the Son of God and our one and only Savior. But both Moses and Paul stand high among the servants of the Lord in the Old Testament and the New.
I. Moses
Under the direct inspiration of God’s Holy Spirit, Moses wrote two reports of Creation. In Genesis 1, he provided the larger picture of God’s creation of the entire universe in which humanity resides. This great creative work that embraced the starry heavens and the seashore’s sands climaxed with the special counsel of the triune Godhead: “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness…in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:26, 27).
In Genesis 2, Moses records the creation of man in greater detail. Already it has been noted that Scripture records a special act in the creation of the first man. Formed from dust, God breathed into his nostrils, and the well-shaped inanimate being first came to life.
But what about Eve? Where did she come from?
The Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, and took one of his ribs. “Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and brought her to the man” (Gen. 2:22).
How does the man respond to the presentation of this utterly amazing being?
“This is now bone of my bones
  and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘Woman,’
  for she was taken out of ‘Man’”
A bone from the inmost recesses of the man’s body. Almost certainly a bone with sinews and flesh attached, for Adam declares that this is not only “bone of my bones,” but also “flesh of my flesh.” Not a bleached-white skeletal bone, but a bone with living flesh remaining. From that flesh-covered bone the LORD God “built” a woman, and brought her to the man (Gen. 2:22). God “built” the woman—that’s the actual word. Just as a person might “build” a house after much thought and with great care, so the LORD God carefully framed every aspect of the woman.
How does Moses explain the significance of this origin of Eve?
“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,
  and they will become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24).
The union of a man and a woman is a “great mystery,” one that can hardly be fathomed because of its depth. Body and soul, flesh and spirit become one in a union that exceeds human imagination. Once wed in the intimacies of marriage, they continue by God’s creative design as one. Even when separated across oceans and continents, they still are one.
Why? Because of the origin of Eve. She was not taken from the dust as Adam, though she too is made of dust. She came “out of” the man, from his bone and from his flesh.
That is the testimony of Moses.
II. Jesus
Jesus Christ is your Lord, the Son of God, the Savior of sinners. He is the Word who made all things. By him and for him all things exist. Jesus obviously knows the origin of Adam and Eve. He knows where they came from.
Does Jesus say anything about the origin of Eve?
Jesus responds to a query that seeks to find a way to justify the dissolution of the union of a man and a woman who have married. “Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for any reason?” (Matt. 19:3; Mark 10:2). To answer the question, Jesus points to Scripture. As the Son of God, he could have made his own pronouncement on the subject. But instead, he lets the written word of God speak. Always it’s the Bible that provides the final answer to the hard questions. “Have you not read,” he says. Have you not read the very first two chapters of the Bible?
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In the four Gospels, Jesus had come to the promised land which was still in spiritual exile. He had come to lead the meek and lowly to new creation. He had come to bring life to the dead, restoration to the broken, and forgiveness to the transgressors. The physical miracles were signs of God’s inbreaking kingdom. After thirty-eight long years, the invalid in John 5 encounters the Lord Jesus. Though physically lame, the invalid was a spiritual wanderer. By the pool of Bethesda he beheld the Lamb of God who had come to bring people to a greater inheritance—eternal life and new creation.

Jesus healed an invalid in John 5, and the setup to the miracle went like this: “Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years” (John 5:2–5).
That’s a very specific number of years. In the Gospels, we’re not normally told how many years someone has dealt with a particular malady. When John tells us this number, he doesn’t even round it to the nearest ten (“about forty years”). He says the man was an invalid for thirty-eight years.
Now maybe that number signifies nothing more than those years for that individual. But this number appears in the Gospel of John, which is known to use numbers in very careful ways. For instance: there are seven “I am” claims, there are seven miracles of Jesus before the cross, in 6:13 there were twelve baskets of bread fragments, and in 21:11 the disciples catch 153 fish (and I’ve argued elsewhere that the 153 fish is a number that means something).
John’s careful and symbolic employment of numbers should, at least, invite us to ask the question, “Does the thirty-eight years in John 5:5 have any discernible significance?” Since the other numbers—like seven or twelve or 153—have Old Testament background that illuminates them, we should consider whether “thirty-eight” has any Old Testament background that illuminates it.
The number “thirty-eight” is used three times in the Old Testament.

1 Kings 16:29: “In the thirty-eighth year of Asa king of Judah, Ahab the son of Omri began to reign over Israel, and Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty-two years.”
2 Kings 15:8: “In the thirty-eighth year of Azariah king of Judah, Zechariah the son of Jeroboam reigned over Israel in Samaria six months.”
Deuteronomy 2:14: “And the time from our leaving Kadesh-barnea until we crossed the brook Zered was thirty-eight years, until the entire generation, that is, the men of war, had perished from the camp, as the LORD had sworn to them.”

The two occurrences of “thirty-eight” in 1-2 Kings are not about significant events in Israel’s history. On both occasions, the “thirty-eight” is referenced so that we can know how long one king of Judah had been reigning when another king came to power over Israel.
Deuteronomy 2:14, however, is very significant. The period of Israel’s wilderness punishment was thirty-eight years. When you add the months prior to the rebellion in Numbers 13–14, you get forty years from the exodus to the promised land. Nevertheless, the “thirty-eight years” is an important historical note. This number for the wilderness years appears in the Old Testament only in Deuteronomy 2:14.
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When worship is arranged by a biblical model of covenant renewal, these individual pieces are placed in the larger context of the Church’s experience of grace in the presence of God. No longer does the service seem to depend on the man up front or the congregation’s participation. “How was church today?” God met with us, forgave us, assured us of his love, encouraged us in our faith, and reminded us that he remembers his promise to save us.

By the grace of God I am what I am… (1st Corinthians 15:10)
Liturgy on the Lord’s Day, if biblically formed and properly ordered, is an experiential participation in the gospel. I have been in many worship services where every element of worship was biblical and appropriate but the arrangement of the whole was like a box of Legos, disconnected and subject to arrangement into whatever shape the pastor may have desired. This is not the way worship was structured in the Bible.
When an Israelite brought his sacrifice to the Tabernacle or Temple, there was a gospel-logic to the sequence of events. First he laid his hands on the animal, confessing his sins and identifying with his sacrifice who would die in his place. The sin offering would be followed by an ascension offering, often translated as the burnt offering because the entire animal was consumed in the fire. Here the worshiper’s consecration to God was visibly enacted. The sacrifice stood in the man of Israel’s place on that altar. It was not only the bull that was being given to God but the believer who brought him. Present your bodies as living sacrifices, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable worship. Finally a peace offering would be presented. In this sacrifice, a token portion of the animal was placed on the altar, but the greater part was given to the worshiper and his family to be eaten in the presence of the Lord. The worshiper, having been cleansed and consecrated, now enjoyed communion with the God who had made peace with him.
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We cannot deny man’s sinfulness, as revealed by God’s law; we are sinful, polluted, and an abomination in God’s sight. But we also must not deny God’s gospel; He delights to save sinners and encourages them to come to Him (John 6:37). Both these truths should not keep us from Jesus Christ, but direct us to Him, the only remedy for sin. The gospel should lead us to pray, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Please take away all the unrighteousness of self that fills me and fill me with all that I am missing—the righteousness of Jesus Christ.”

Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.—ISAIAH 55:6–7
In Isaiah 55, God shows His compassion by inviting “everyone that thirsteth” (v. 1) to enter into His promised blessings. This thirst of deep spiritual longing drives us to Him for mercy; verses 6 and 7 emphasize the urgency of responding to Him. The verb seek suggests actively using God’s means of prayer. The One we seek is the LORD: the unchangeable, gracious, covenant-keeping Jehovah. We should not foolishly delay embracing God’s offer; we must seek Him “while he may be found”—now—before the day of our death. The prophet emphasizes personal prayer with the words “call ye,” reminding us that God’s offered salvation is available now, while “He is near” us with His Word and blessings. We must not reject this offer. If we do not heed the call, the time will come when He will not be found and we will be separated from Him forever. God requires us wholeheartedly to repent of our sinful thoughts, words, and actions, receiving by faith His abundant, pardoning mercy and grace, which far exceed the mountains of our great sin and guilt.
Some people argue that because they cannot pray rightly, it is better for them not to pray at all. They draw support from Scripture verses that describe the prayers and worship of sinners as a stench in God’s nostrils and an abomination in His sight. They say that God will not hear sinners and that whatever is not of faith is sin.
The first part of this argument—that we cannot pray rightly—is true, but the conclusion that it is then better not to pray at all is false.
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It begins with the Church recognizing first how pagan it has become, then rooting out our rotten structures and rebuilding them in the eyes of the Word and His word. We can’t hope to overturn the advances of Satan with a gospel that doesn’t even move those who already believe it. Our preaching must be with power and assurance, and our discipleship needs be ordered to shape all the areas of life that a Believer needs prepared to face. And none of this can come about without prayer. We so underestimate what prayer can accomplish because we fail to comprehend the God we pray to.

As the next to last entry for the fall series on things that go bump in the night we need to talk a little bit about a subject that can illustrate for us some of the dangers of the world in which we are currently living, especially in the West. When I say “the West” I mean Europe and North America. The cultural fishbowl in which all of us live in our day-to-day. Despite what your DEI representative (and I can’t be the only southerner who reads that as Dale Earnhardt, Inc.) told you at the last HR meeting it is okay for us to identify and express ourselves as Western. We are men and women who are the result of a bunch of dead white guys philosophizing about the world and we are also the result of the infiltration (in a good way) of the Bible into how we see and understand everything around us. It’s not white supremacy to notice our own culture, and even think that it is good and in fact better than what came before Europe became the Europe it became after Constantine’s dictate. We should celebrate the fact that we don’t sacrifice babies on the altar (well, more on that in a second) and force women to die with their husbands. Those things are bad. White men passing laws that stopped it were good. We shouldn’t be ashamed to say so. The art, philosophy, science, religion, etc… that produced the Christian states of Europe were and continue to be a blessing to all those downstream from them. Yet, there is a problem.
In our prayer and worship help today we are going to talk about the world in which we live today and how the same men tasked with building up have been working to destroy and tear down. We are now experiencing the results of this evil. In some sense the reappearance of the strong gods, the pagan culture we left a millennia or more ago is all a result of men abandoning their responsibilities in accordance with the Fifth Commandment. Everything comes back to the law of God, and whether society will bow their knee to Christ or seek to be their own god. Psalm 2 and other passages warn us as to the consequences of such. I get calls/texts regularly from folks both within and outside the congregation about why we see such rampant licentiousness and sin in the world today. On one hand the earth has been so since the days of Adam’s fall. However, there were times when it was better, even if sin was still present. The golden age is not yet with us. In our Thursday catechism lesson this week we are going to hear about Stews, and as will be opened there that means brothels, houses of ill-repute. Why did our Westminster Divines write about this? Because it was a problem. They were all over the place in Seventeenth-Century England. How many open, public, state-authorized spaces do we have for this practice in Clover? I am not naïve enough to not know that there is availability for such if you were desiring to look.
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History is full of examples of societies that tamper with God’s design for marriage, sex, and the family. It’s no coincidence that en vogue progressive ideas today, ideas with distinct roots in cultural Marxism, also decry marriage and the family as oppressive institutions that should be reimagined and sexual morality as outdated and even harmful.  

The Soviet Union was well known for rejecting so-called “bourgeois” morality in ways that led to rejecting reality. Economically this meant squashing human self-interest in favor of state control.  So, basic modern commodities like cars and plumbing could take years for the average Russian to secure. Marxist-inspired agricultural science rejected “Western” science and led to the deaths of millions as crops were planted in the dead of winter, too close together, and without pesticides in the mistaken belief that they could be “educated” to take on more beneficial traits.   
In the 1920s, Revolutionary Russia rejected “bourgeois” sexual morality by attacking the institution of marriage and the nuclear family. 
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels believed the nuclear family was, like religion, just another means of keeping the working class oppressed. According to the Marxist dialectic version of history, prehistoric humanity lived in a state of free love, and the nuclear family only emerged to protect the property rights of the rich through inheritance, keep workers content with less, and enslave women to the home.   
Engels, who spent a lot of time in Manchester’s red-light district, was more specific than Marx in his condemnations of the family.  
He wrote, “[W]ith every great revolutionary movement the question of ‘free love’ comes to the foreground.” Together, Marx and Engels attacked “bourgeois claptrap about the family and education, about the hallowed co-relation of parent and child.” In their view, family was a social construct that stood in the way of revolutionary progress.   
When Lenin and the Bolsheviks came to power in 1917, they put these anti-family theories into practice. In 1918, the Soviets issued decrees “on the abolition of marriage” and “on civil partnership, children and ownership.” Marriage could be declared without the involvement of the state, and divorce could be obtained just as easily. As one Russian journalist summarized, “Divorce was a matter of choice.”   
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Christians are prone to take a relatively minor point of doctrine, one we might identify as second- or third-order, and set it like the earth at the pivot point of Ptolemy’s universe. Their love of this doctrine and their conviction that it is key to a right understanding and practice of the Christian faith means that soon everything begins to orbit around it. It becomes the center of their beliefs in such a way that any other point of doctrine is understood only in relation to it. It becomes the measure of their affirmation of faithfulness or their indictment of unfaithfulness. And eventually, it leads them toward legalism and draws them away from Christians who may not set that particular doctrine at the center of their own theological universe.

It was around 150 years after the birth of Christ that the Alexandrian astronomer Ptolemy determined that the earth must be at the center of the universe. If the earth was at the center, then the sun and the moon and the stars and the planets must orbit around it. Though many people had observed and assumed such geocentrism in the centuries prior, it was Ptolemy who standardized the view and who proved it to the satisfaction of very nearly all of humanity.
It was not until nearly 1400 years later that Copernicus first posited and then proved that it is not the earth but the sun that is at the center of our solar system. The sun does not orbit the earth, but the earth and the other planets the sun. This finding was met with a mix of curiosity and censure and, eventually, for Copernicus’ successors, outright persecution. But over time everyone came to understand and admit that it is heliocentrism rather than geocentrism that properly describes the position and the movement of the stars and planets within our solar system.
I once read the words of an old preacher who was indicting Christians for too easily falling into Ptolemaic tendencies when it comes to matters of disputed theology between believers. Christians are prone to take a relatively minor point of doctrine, one we might identify as second- or third-order, and set it like the earth at the pivot point of Ptolemy’s universe. Their love of this doctrine and their conviction that it is key to a right understanding and practice of the Christian faith means that soon everything begins to orbit around it.
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Written by C. Michael Patton |
Sunday, November 5, 2023
Beyond the physical aspect, many believe it refers to the deep emotional and spiritual bond that forms between a married couple. This bond is characterized by love, trust, understanding, and a shared life. This bond is only realized through the radical transparency that a married couple has, both physically and emotionally.

Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (Genesis 2:24)
What does it mean to become “one flesh”?
Five options:

Physical Union:

On a straightforward level, it can refer to the physical union between a husband and wife, particularly sexual intimacy, which is a unique aspect of the marital relationship. Since Eve was created from Adam as a helper “suitable” or “according to” him, she represents the part of him that he lacks, or cannot be on his own. The sexual diversity between a man and a woman brings about an act of the fulfillment of the mystical union that is necessary for man to be God’s image bearer.

Emotional and Spiritual Bond:

Beyond the physical aspect, many believe it refers to the deep emotional and spiritual bond that forms between a married couple. This bond is characterized by love, trust, understanding, and a shared life. This bond is only realized through the radical transparency that a married couple has, both physically and emotionally. It should be the most veridical of all relationships. Allen Ross says, “Such fellowship was shattered later at the Fall and is retained only in a measure in marriage when a couple begins to feel at ease with each other” (Genesis 2:18–25, BKC, 1985).

Covenant Relationship:

Marriage in the Bible is often depicted as a covenant—a deeply binding promise or agreement. “Becoming one flesh” can be understood as the merging of two lives in such a covenant, implying a lifelong commitment and deep unity. This characteristic is often the most alluded to as it is (or should be) evident in the vows and brings commencement to all aspects of the one-flesh marital relationship. While God gives no instructions on the particular consummation details a marriage must include, a study of natural theology through the history of marriage finds two elements necessary for a marital bond between a man and woman to be licit. 1) A covenant that expresses lifelong commitment to the marriage and 2) a public announcement of the covenant.
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Before time, God determined to save a people. The Son agreed that he would come, that he would take on flesh, that he would bear the sins of his people, that he would give his body to be tortured and crucified for them. The gift of the kingdom of heaven is free for the recipients, but costly for the giver. God purchased the kingdom of heaven for us with the blood of his Son (1 Pet. 1:18-19). Love it or despise it, this is grace. This is the beating heart of the Bible. God is a gracious God. He gives the kingdom of heaven. He gives it to the undeserving. He gives it at the cost of his Son’s blood. Salvation comes only by grace.

Where is grace? Real grace. True grace.
Giving to one another generously and abundantly, without thought of any payback? Giving not just from a bucket of excess, but from one’s needs? Giving that causes the giver to suffer? Giving to those who can never repay? Giving to those who hate you? Who have harmed you?
Where is this grace? It is a foreign object. We don’t see it. We don’t understand it. We don’t do it. We don’t know how to do it. And we don’t like it.
I am likely typical. I give of my surplus: my surplus money, time, and energy. And I hope to be noticed, to get appropriate gratitude and applause. When do I give without wanting anything back? When do I give to those who hurt me or insult me?
Grace is pouring out one’s life, without any hope of something being poured back. Grace is pouring out our time, talents, resources, physical and mental energy, without looking to see what is left. Grace is emptying self, until suffering, even upon those who hate.
Who does this? We hear rumors of it, but we don’t see it. What is familiar is the pouring out of anger and frustration. We are harsh with each other. Even in our homes, grace is alien. We get cross with each other. Prickly. “I have poured out much. You have poured out little. So I will punish you, and coddle myself.”
Grace is central to Christianity, and so it is still in the DNA of Western society. This means that one important aspect of grace—giving one’s life for the good of others—is still admired.
But true Christian grace has been pummeled. The German philosopher Nietzsche (1844-1900) did a lot of the demolition. He derided the Christian values of humility, kindness, and pity. These only got in the way of the ideal “superman,” the “magnified man, disciplined and perfected in both mental and physical strength, serene and pitiless, ruthlessly pursuing his path of success and victory and without moral scruples” (Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 1997, p.1154). Nietzsche understood grace, and it disgusted him.
Grace is alien to us.
Ayn Rand (1905-82) was the same. In her much-admired novel The Fountainhead, hero Howard Roark is strong and talented. He takes what he wants and lives unashamedly for himself in order to achieve his fullest potential and fulfill his destiny. He cares nothing for the weak, the disabled, or the frail. These are hindrances to be thrown off. Grace has no place in Rand’s system. By retarding the strong and the talented, Grace just poisons things.
Such attacks on grace have not been unsuccessful. Our naturally ungracious hearts have lapped it up. In short, grace is alien to us.
In fact it is so alien to humanity, that in order for us to understand grace, Jesus has to shock us. And he does that in his parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard.
He tells a story that will antagonize us, that will perhaps even enrage us. When builders insert bolts into concrete, they use explosive tools. Explosive charges force and break the bolt into the hard concrete. The concrete is our graceless hearts. The explosive bolt is Jesus’ parable. He tells it not to guilt us into grace. He tells it that we might understand grace, and so be in a position to receive it. For it is only when we have received grace that we can come to be gracious.
Here is the parable from Matthew 20:1-16,

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius….”

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