just the two of us...

Standing on the edge of a canyon is an amazing experience. The size, depth, and scope of the view can take your breath away! That’s what happens between Genesis chapter one and Genesis chapter two. Genesis one gives us the large scale view- we get to watch creation unfold day by day.

In chapter two of Genesis, it’s like God zooms in to explain more of the details. If you missed the discussion on chapter one, you can read it here. We are pressing into chapter two. Where it’s just the two of them :)

We are trying to wrap our minds around why God would make two distinct sexes. Thinking and reasoning through these beginning chapters. Asking the Holy Spirit to teach us! This is exciting business!

Back to chapter two- we see a short explanation of creation, but a focus on the creation of man starting in verse 7 and woman in verses 18-24.

Right from the start it strikes me as interesting that the man gets one verse to describe his unique creation but the woman has 7- hmmmm.

God forms the man from the dust. So intimate, so messy. I picture God covered in dust as he shapes, molds, and fashions just what He is picturing in His mind.

And then, when the man is fully fashioned, God leans in and breathes into the mans’ nostrils.

To me that is staggeringly cool.

Then God puts the man into the beautiful garden that He had created and gives him jobs to do and a moral code to live by. Purpose and meaning found in this place (Eden) and in this relationship (with the Trinity/God).

Yet God, even as He relates and cares for Adam, states a fact,

“it is not good for man to be alone”.

Adam surveys and names all the animals, and no one suitable was found for him.

So God… reaches in again. Not into the dust this time, but into Adam’s flesh. He takes one of Adam’s ribs and makes/ fashions a woman from this rib. It always strikes me how uniquely both the man and the woman are fashioned by God. 

And Adam certainly seems excited by the uniqueness of Eve. His exclamation:

“bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh”

highlights their sameness. Yet he names her ‘woman’ highlighting their difference. And since they were both naked, some of the differences were pretty obvious to both of them.

Verse 24 begins with the phrase,

“for this reason”.

What reason? I would say that the text is pointing us back to the previous verse highlighting the sameness and the difference of Adam and Eve. Because they are both similar and different, they can come together as one flesh which should not be separated.

Jesus reaffirms this coming together of the man and the woman in the Gospel accounts. 

We end the chapter with a beautiful picture of Adam and Eve together without shame entering in. That’s its own interesting feature- why specifically mention shame? But not a topic for today!

We, in reading these first two chapters, are living in the space before sin entered and corrupted God’s original design. It’s important to hold this space for a bit.

We live in what could be called “the time in between the times”- a time when sin still reigns but is being pushed back by the Kingdom- but the Kingdom and its complete dominion has not arrived.

God’s design for gender and sexuality was put into place in a completely perfect garden, where there was no sin and no shame. Where everything was done exactly as God planned. 

That world is different from what we experience around us today. It can come across as mean spirited or insensitive to talk about God’s design for gender being binary, His design for marriage being male/female with the backdrop of gender dysphoria and often unwanted same sex attraction that mars our vision today.

Can we hold this tension? On one hand, seeing God’s intention in creation, and on the other hand the impact of sin and the disorder it has brought. Sin has brought disorder into all of our experience of ourselves. Not one of us has a rightly ordered experience of sexuality or gender because we are fallen living alongside a fallen creation. 

We stand on the edge, catching glimpses of God and His glory despite sin's destruction. Seeking to love well without all the answers, but with conviction about some of the answers. It’s precarious for sure- but we can be guided by the Holy Spirit and have hope moving forward.

This video is of Mark Yarhouse speaking on the topic of gender and gender dysphoria. He is a  clinical psychologist who specializes in conflicts tied to religious identity and sexual and gender identity. He assists people who are navigating the complex relationship between their sexual or gender identity and Christian faith. He’s done massive amounts of credible research and has a huge heart to see the church grapple with these issues in ways that result in better loving of people.