Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.”
Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. – Genesis 2:18–25
James Montgomery Boice writes:
Marriage exists for God’s glory. This is why God instituted marriage. During the week I was preparing this message I attended a membership class at Tenth Presbyterian Church in which the teacher, one of our elders, said that God created sheep so that Christians might understand how they act and what they are. I had never thought of it that way, although I should have. I had thought of it the other way around, that God had created sheep and that Jesus came along and discovered that they made a good illustration. Our elder meant that God had created sheep with this end in view – that Jesus would have the illustration when he should come to this important part of his teaching. The point is: If this is true of sheep, it is even truer of marriage, for the Bible tells us explicitly that God created marriage in order that by marriage we might understand the most important of spiritual relationships.
That is why Jesus is portrayed to us in the Bible as the great bridegroom and husband of the church. It is why we who believe on him are portrayed as his bride. How are we going to communicate this greatest of all relationships if we who are Christians do not demonstrate it in our marriages? On the other hand, if we do demonstrate it there, then the world around will have a real-life illustration of how God works toward us in Christ to bring us to faith and save us from our sins.
MEMORY WORK – Shorter Catechism Q/A 27
Q. 27. Wherein did Christ’s humiliation consist?
A. Christ’s humiliation consisted in his being born, and that in a low condition, made under the law, undergoing the miseries of this life, the wrath of God, and the cursed death of the cross; in being buried, and continuing under the power of death for a time.