Stephen
Terry, Director
The
Genesis Foundation
Commentary
for the April 12, 2025, Sabbath School Lesson
"Some
Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, 'Is it lawful for a man to
divorce his wife for any and every reason?'
"Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the
beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a
man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two
will become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore
what God has joined together, let no one separate."
"Why then," they asked, "did Moses command that a
man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?"
Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your
wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the
beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual
immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery." Matthew 19:3-9, NIV
According
to the Bible, marriage is older than sin, for in Genesis, chapter two, we read
of God bringing Adam and Eve together. (Genesis
2:20-24) Although we refer to them as Adam and Eve, those are just transliterations
of two Hebrew words. Adam means "the man," and Eve means "the primal mother."
In fact, the same word "Adam" is translated as "the man" in other places in the
chapter as well as both "man" and "Adam" in verse twenty. While it is more
complex than that, relating to the use of the article with the noun, I am trying
to keep it simple, so I do not lose anyone along the way. The normal Hebrew
words for a man and a woman are "ish" and "ishi" respectively. The usage here
in Genesis is using terminology intended to highlight the idea that humanity
must have begun with a single, primal couple since that is how human beings are
produced, the same way as much of the rest of Creation's fauna. Male and female
come together and through intercourse, they produce offspring, children for humanity,
and for the rest foals, cubs, kittens, puppies, etcetera, according to kind.
While there are exceptions within nature, the preponderance of biological
reproduction is reflected in the Genesis account. Designating the first pair as
Adam and Eve is equivalent to the designation of Father A and Mother A, the
first couple. It is not a scientific treatise on evolution or creation. It is
simply a layman's understanding similar to when you
have a flock of chickens, they can normally be traced
back to a rooster and the hen he fertilized, producing viable eggs that hatch
into more chickens.
It is
easy to see that extrapolated into an understanding of humanity's pedigree as
well, a pedigree vouched for in several places in the Bible and attested to by
extra biblical sources that have genealogies that extend back to mythical or
semi-mythical heroes of past ages. The Bible even gives cryptic hints of a link
between these accounts when it tells us of unions between the sons of God and
the daughters of men producing the heroes of old, referred to as Nephilim. (Genesis
6:4) From a scientific perspective, that cross breeding may have been
almost universal since the Nephilim are mentioned as being around after the Noahic
Flood, and the only way that could be possible if the flood was as universally
catastrophic as the Bible says it is would be if Noah's family carried the
genes with them that had been passed on in those unions. But the important
issue here is that marriage derived from the union of that first hypothetical
couple and evolved from Isaac simply taking Rebekah into his mother's tent (Genesis
24:67) to the elaborate ceremonies of modern times. But no matter the ceremony,
it remains the simple union of two hearts opened in love to one another, and
that is why hardened hearts in one or both parties tear it apart.
It is
fitting that our relationship to God is defined in
these terms with God's people as the bride and Jesus portrayed as the
bridegroom coming to claim his bride. In this sense, that original union was
the type, and the Parousia is the antitype, with both bookending the entire
biblical narrative. As beautiful as that metaphor is, we do not live in heaven
but here on earth where the ground is contested by the same foe who brought
dysfunction into that original relationship by inducing one of the pair to walk
away and engage with the serpent without consulting her partner first. When two
stand together in marriage in the face of temptation, the relationship is
endowed with added strength from a divine resource, but when the two walk away
from each other, a fissure opens in the relationship that all kinds of evil can
seep into. And as it enters, the fissure widens and deepens, and the heart
grows cold and hard. To circumvent that, we must constantly remind ourselves
that our partner always wants the best for us and the blessings they receive
will in turn bless us. This is easy to do if we are committed to walking
together, but if we walk apart, we make ourselves open to the sophistries of
others as Eve opened herself up to hearing what the serpent had to say in Genesis,
chapter three.
The
same is true of our relationship with God, and that is why marriage is an
excellent metaphor for that relationship. When we walk away from God, we are
declaring that we can go it alone. We do not need anyone else. We prefer to
only look out for number one, ourselves. And if anyone interferes with that, we
will walk away from them as well. A simplified example of that attitude is unfriending
those who have opinions differing from our own on social media. Pretty soon we
end up in a confirmation bias bubble where all we hear are echoes of our own
ideas. This is the perfect recipe for surrounding ourselves with hissing
sycophants who will tell us whatever we want to hear, hoping to steer our
course to their advantage. While this may mean we will be free of ever having
to listen to the opinion of someone who differs from us in perspective, it also
means that we will never have the advantage of growing beyond what we were to
become all that we might have become. According to the Hegelian model of
growth, when we are confronted with an opposing idea, we examine it, learn from
it, and develop a synthesis between what we thought and what we learned that we
can take with us to the next step in our growth where the process repeats ad infinitum, limited only by our
life span. For those who believe in the possibility of eternal life that could
mean endless growth in intellect, understanding, and wisdom.
What better
place to begin than here and now? Each day can be a challenge to learn
something new. And it can be double the blessing when it happens together in a
relationship. Humanity was made in God's image. What the text says is "Let us
make man in OUR image." Even God does not walk alone. God's identity is defined
by the relationship between Father, Son, and Spirit. The three are one as two human
beings become one in marriage but maintain their distinct personalities. We
were created to be complete only in relationship to others. God stated this
from the very beginning when he recognized that it was not good for man to
exist solely as an entity unto himself. (Genesis
2:18) Even extra biblical mythology recognizes this truth in the tale of
Narcissus who became so self-focused that he lost all interest in life beyond
his own reflection. This illustrates that this is an incredibly old understanding
that goes deep into antiquity and has survived millennia into the present to
guide us in our own understanding of relationships and what they mean.
Most
of us have walked away from God at one time or another in our lives, just like
Adam and Eve in that Genesis account. But we are offered the opportunity to
repent and return. (Acts
2:38) People may equate repentance to groveling in the dirt to beg for
mercy from a vengeful God, and after exercising a strong spirit of independence
for years, that is about as appealing as jumping naked into a thorn bush. But
the word translated "repentance" in the Greek is "metanoia" which simply means
turning around and instead of walking away from God, start walking toward him.
If we do that, one day as our life changes as a result, we will find ourselves
wondering how it was so simple and why we had been avoiding it for years. The
hardest step to take is the first one, but when we do turn around and start
walking toward God, the love we discover makes each step easier than the last.
One day we will notice the softening of our hearts toward others, and when we
look into the mirror, we will see a softness in our eyes that was not there
before. It is then that we understand that our relationship with others and our
relationship with God are really about the same thing, and we no longer want to
walk away.