Posted: 08/27/08

The Foundational Relationship

J. Michael Sharman

            Local artists and the St. Stephens Episcopal Church have made the parking lot wall next to my office into an incredible mural of the six-day Creation account.

            What an event to contemplate each morning and evening as I begin and end my work day!

All of the heavens and the earth God simply spoke into existence, but God "formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being." (Genesis 2:7)

Thus, every human has God's divine spark woven into his DNA.

An entirely separate creative act was needed to make Eve, but before man had woman, before he even had a name, man had work – "Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it." (Genesis 2:15)

Immediately after establishing man's place and identity as a worker, "The Lord God said, 'It is not good that man should be alone, I will make him a helper comparable to him.'" (Genesis 2:18)

Up to that point in Creation, everything was positive and good, but now the first negative in Scripture appears: God expressed that it was "not good that man should be alone" and as the completion of His creative work, "I will make him a helper comparable to him." (Genesis 2:18)

So what did God do next? He made the animals to show man what wasn't comparable to him.

The creative act of making animals was the same as the creation of man but with two important exceptions –like man, God "formed" the animals out of the ground, but He did not put His breath into them, and they are not the image-bearers of God.

Even man could see there was no animal comparable to him. (Genesis 2:20) The animals could be his servants and his commodities (Genesis 1:28), but they could not be a helper comparable to him, with an equal capacity for intelligence, ethics, personality and spirituality.

As God had stated, it was not good for man to be alone - - alone he was inadequate; he needed help to be complete.

In an ironic surgery, to complete man, God removed part of man. Poetically, Martin Luther wrote that God might have fashioned woman from one of Adam's toe bones to signify his rule over her, or He could have made her from one of man's head bones to indicate that she would rule over him, but instead God crafted Eve out of a rib taken from Adam's side to signify their equality and mutual respect.

The chronological structure of the Genesis account is layered with meaning, and the timing of Eve's creation is especially significant, as Matthew Henry lovingly describes it: "Man being made last of the creatures, as the best and most excellent of all, Eve's being made after Adam, and out of him, put an honor upon that sex, as the glory of the man. If man is the head, she is the crown, a crown to her husband, the crown of the visible creation. The man was dust refined, but the woman was dust double-refined, one remove further from the earth."

The foundational principle of our relationship to God, the basis upon which our of our other relationships rest, is that God is our Father, our Creator, Who specifically made us to be His image bearer and to proclaim His rule, now and forever, on Earth and in Heaven.

Thanks, St. Stephens, for using a mundane parking lot wall to remind me each time I approach my workday or return home to my family of the magnificent simplicity of God's plan.

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By J. Michael Sharman Click here for bio and archived articles