The First Union

Read Genesis 2 before you read a wedding vow, because the order matters.

God forms the man and puts him in the garden “to cultivate and keep it” Genesis 2:15. Then God says it is not good for the man to be alone. The man names the animals, “But for Adam no suitable helper was found.” Genesis 2:20 So God makes the woman from the man's rib and brings her to him, and the man knows her right away:

And the man said: “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for out of man she was taken.” Genesis 2:23

The next verse says, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” Genesis 2:24 Notice who that is written to. Adam had no father and mother to leave. Eve had no father to give her away. Moses is telling Israel, people who did have fathers, mothers, and weddings, what the garden means for them.

Then: “And the man and his wife were both naked, and they were not ashamed.” Genesis 2:25 That is the union. It is bodily. They recognize each other. They fit. And God is the one who made her and brought her. He was there from the start, not waiting outside until there was a ceremony.

What Came Later

Then sin comes in, and death with it. Childbirth becomes painful, and the relationship between them is bent: “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” Genesis 3:16 The blessing to be fruitful is still on them, but now it is in a world where people are buried.

The law has to deal with that. If a man died without a son, his brother took the widow, “so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel” Deuteronomy 25:6. That is the law the Sadducees used. It is marriage as a way to handle a death, and it is not the garden.

A father gave a daughter. A man could “write her a certificate of divorce, hand it to her, and send her away from his house” Deuteronomy 24:1. Jesus said Moses allowed that because of hardness of heart, “But it was not this way from the beginning.” Matthew 19:8 Paul, writing to people who still die, says a wife is bound while her husband lives and is free if he dies. Romans 7:2 Those verses are about the institution. They tell a widow she may remarry. They do not say God has taken back the reason He made the woman.

One Flesh Is Real

Paul uses "one flesh" even for a joining that is wrong: “Or don’t you know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.”” 1 Corinthians 6:16 So the Bible does not save that phrase only for Adam and Eve. When two become one flesh, something real happens. That is part of why sexual sin is not a small thing. It is also why I use the word union for more than friendship. I mean the pair God made, and the one flesh He named.

Back to the lesson: Marriage and Union