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Genesis

2:18-25


 

Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him." So out of the ground the LORD God 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. (ESV)

 

 

 

 

 

Richness of Marriage

Ignatius of Antioch, Pastor and Martyr

17 October 2012

Despite the calumny that Martin Luther was a lecherous beast, Luther actually speaks about marriage with a great deal of regard and honor toward God. He held the estate of holy marriage to be an exceptionally great divine gift, which Moses spends a great deal of time describing and explaining in Genesis. Before the fall Adam recognized precisely what God had accomplished when he gave to him the gift of his wife, Eve. After the fall, the gift of marriage, which was given by God, was in itself unimpaired. No, humans were impaired by the fall, not God's gift. While the original gift of marriage remains we have done much to it to pervert it, twist it, and abuse it.

 

Adam knew right well who she was, where she came from, and what she was for. His reason and theological sense were unimpaired, holy, and perfect. Today, we have no idea what this might be like except for the divine revelation of Adam's unimpaired reason. This paradisiacal life gives us some view of what the restored garden of the kingdom of heaven would look like in the age to come. To know and share God's will immediately and perfectly and to express that will well and beautifully will be our lot in that kingdom to come. This is a gift which only now is beginning to be ours as we live in the word of God. Only the Holy Spirit can rightly tell us the fullness of marriage and its meaning, as we hear it on the lips of Adam.

 

Adam tells us that Eve is a creation of God, as every bride is for her husband. God is the maker of woman and the creator of marriage. He has given this institution to humanity for the joy of husband and wife, for mutual support in evil days, and for the procreation and nurturing of children. Eve is from God. She was made of Adam: bone of his bone; a second self. She is for the habitation of man. She is home. She does not merely build, or offer a home, but she is home itself. That's why earthly habitations are only approximations of the divine gift of a home. They are but houses. The first woman was the real thing; a home for Adam. So we only know the fullness of marriage and the proper significance of a wife through the divine revelation given by God through Moses. Only the Holy Spirit can possibly give us an enlightenment about the richness of God's gift of marriage.

 

Martin Luther

 

"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' (Gn 2:23) The statement, which follows a little while after, 'A man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife,' (Gn 2:24), is cited by Christ (Mt 19:5) as though it is spoken by God Himself and not just by Adam. But here there is no real difficulty. Because Adam was pure and holy his voice was rightly the divine voice. For God spoke through him.  In his state of innocence both the words and works of Adam were all absolutely the words and works of God. God Himself offers Eve to him. As therefore the will of God had already prepared for the institution of marriage, so Adam was already prepared to receive Eve with the highest desire and holiness. Even today a bridegroom has toward his spouse the most beautiful affection, although it is contaminated by the leprous desire of the flesh, a contamination which was not in righteous Adam.

 

"It is with the most dignified admiration that Adam, when he recognizes that Eve is a building taken from himself, immediately acknowledges her and says 'This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh' (Gn 2:23). These are the words not of a fool or a sinful human, who does not understand the works and creations of God but of the most just and wise person and full of the Holy Spirit, who reveals this wisdom to a world to this point unaware that God is the efficient cause of wife and marriage. The purpose of this creation is that a wife should be an earthly habitation for her husband. This understanding does not simply arise from sense and reason, but is a revelation of the Holy Spirit." 

 

Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis, 2.23

 

Prayer

O Holy Spirit, thank you for enlightening us about the true blessedness of holy marriage, which joined the first couple in the garden, but which, despite our depravity and ungratefulness, you have maintained for your people even now. Help us to treasure it, honor it, and speak well of it. Bless all those who are in marriage with many years of joy in the institution which you have created. Amen.

 

For Michelle Kleb, who will undergo heart catheterization on Thursday, that the holy angels would watch over her

 

For Vivienne Kasper, in thanksgiving to God, that she has been enabled to return home after a hospital stay

 

For the work of the Lutheran Malaria Initiative, that the Lord God would bless this labor with success, that many lives might be saved from the ravages of this disease

Art: D�RER, Albrecht  The Adoration of the Trinity (1511)

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