Genesis 2:18. Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”
The opening chapters of Genesis make it clear that God is interested in a relationship with his creation, especially we who are his image bearers. “Let US make man in OUR image.” God himself is a relational being, existing as three persons in one being. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that God would create us to also be relational. In the same way that God needs God, we will need each other.
It is not good.
These are some of the most jarring words in all the scripture. Seven times in Genesis 1, God declares that his creation is good, even very good. God rested on day seven signifying that his creation work was complete, that there was nothing more to add. And in a very real sense, the creation of Eve will not be a new creation, for she already existed within Adam. In fact, the word make in Genesis 2:18 is a different word from any used to describe God’s creation so far. God formed Adam out of the earth, but he will make (the Hebrew word banah) Eve out of Adam. Literally he will build her from out of Adam’s side to be her co-equal, co-ruler of creation.
Genesis 2:21-22. 21So 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. 22And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.
Couldn’t Adam have simply existed with God alone? Isn’t God his perfect relational partner? Isn’t God enough? The answer to this is both yes and no. Of course, God can satisfy all of our deepest longings and needs, and he does so better than anything else in creation. When everything in creation fails us, God never will. But God also created a physical world in which the way he satisfies us is through his creation. If we need food, God created food for us to eat. If we need beauty, God created beautiful things for us to see and hear. If we need love, acceptance, and honor, God created a helper fit for us, one another, to offer these gifts of God. You see, we don’t have God in addition to all the things that satisfy us; we have God within all the things that satisfy us.
Adam will need to learn to love if he is to truly live. He will need to learn to live sacrificially for another, giving himself to another just as God eternally gives of himself within himself. But Adam could never learn this with just God. How does one live sacrificially for a God that has everything within himself? How do you meet the needs of a God who is fully self-sufficient? How do you love a God that IS love?
We must believe that Adam could have never learned to love and thus live without another person. God knew that man by himself was very much unlike the Trinity; the unity in diversity that is God could not be experienced by a lonely Adam. It could only be found in a humanity that lived relationally in a loving community. Thousands of years later, Jesus knew this too, which is why he expressed the greatest commandment as the dual command to love God AND love others.
The glory of the incarnation is that in Christ Jesus, we are offered a renewed relationship with both God and man. Jesus, the God-man, is the Helper fit for us. It is still not good for man to be alone, and so Jesus has entered into our hearts to dwell within us, never leaving us or forsaking us. It is this truth that empowers us to now thrive within the gift of relational living. Loving. Sharing. Sacrificing. Serving. Forgiving. Honoring one another. Satisfied by Jesus so that we can sacrifice for others.
Questions: In what ways are you trying to live life alone? How does your relationship with Jesus allow you to embrace deeper relationships with others?
To Live is Christ 