The restoration of God's pattern of creation as seen in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 takes place in stages - in particular the Old Testament, the New Testament, the time of Jesus, the time of the apostles and the New Creation. This message deals with the Old Testament.
The Old Testament's attitude toward women and their role and relationship with men was a gigantic leap forward from that of the ancient world of Egypt, Babylon and Assyria. But it did not get back to God's creation order. For example, polygamy was accepted by God in the Old Testament. Abraham was a polygamist, so was king David and king Solomon. God's original pattern was monogamy which means being married to one wife. God never intended that a man has more than one wife. So the Old Testament was less than God's best because it fell short of God's original order.
Paradox of Genesis 1 and Genesis 2
The same paradox or ambiguity between Gen. 1 and Gen. 2 carried all the way through the Old Testament. On the one hand the responsibility of leadership was given to the men. But on the other hand the women were treated better in Israel than in the other nations of the ancient world.
The maleness of the Patriarchal Society
Throughout the Old Testament we have what we called the Patriarchal society, one which the male took responsibility and in which therefore inheritance was passed down through the male. So both the responsibility and the privilege were given to the men.
Right from the beginning God said, "(I Am) the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob ...." (Exodus 3:15). He did not call Himself the God of Sarah, God of Rebekah, God of Rachel. God had tied Himself to the names of those three men. We called them the patriachs - because those three men began the people of God. And it was a male-led people of God. God is the God of the men. The 12 tribes of Israel were named after Jacob's 12 sons. There was not a single tribe named after Jacob's daughter. The whole maleness of the Old Testament society is very obvious.
Deborah, a prophetess and a Judge
There is a very interesting story in the Book of Judges (Judges 4). All the seven Judges raised up by God except Deborah were men. Not only Deborah was a woman; she was a prophetess as well. In fact from the beginning of the Old Testament to the New Testament the prophetic ministry was opened to woman. God often used women to speak to His people, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. Examples are, Miriam, Moses' sister (Ex. 15:20), Huldah (2 Kings 22:14) and the four daughters of Philip (Acts 21:8, 9).
In the case of Deborah, she brought the Words of the Lord that danger was threatening the people of God. She called for a man named Barak to deploy troops for battle. But Barak refused to be a man and he replied Deborah, "If you will go with me, then I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go" (Judges 4:8, NKJV). He was abdicating his responsibility as a man to protect Deborah. God was so angry with Barak that He gave Deborah another prophecy (Verse 9) indicating that a woman would defeat God's enemy and the name of Barak would go down in history in disgrace!
Eldership in the Old Testament
Eldership in the Old Testament was the male responsibility for the people of God.
When Moses needed help to carry responsibilty for the 3 million people he brought out of Egypt he heeded his father-in-law's advice and selected "able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness" (Ex. 18:21, 22) and apointed them as elders.
Many nations of the ancient world had queens - queen of Sheba for example (1 Kings 10). But Israel was never to have a queen because the king was to represent the divine side of the divine-human relationship (please read my previous messages). The king was the representative of God and so Israel could only have kings. The wives of the kings of Israel were never called queens.
God's special concern for widows and orphans
God has a special concern for widows and the fatherless and apparently He has no concern for widowers. He shows not just a concern for the bereaved but also a concern for those whose bereavement has robed them of a man. It is for those who do not have a man to provide for them and to protect them that God has a special concern. This includes the single ladies as well as the fatherless.
God seems to say to those He shows concern, "I make a promise - the the widows I will be a husband and to the fatherless child I will be a father". But He never says to the widower that He will be his wife.
A good example is the raising of a widow's son:
"And when He (Jesus) came near the gate of the city, behold, a dead man was being carried out, the only son of his mother; and she was a widow" (Luke 7:12).
The widow was losing her only son and Jesus had compassion on her for the reason that that she was losing her man.
Similarly, Lazarus, whose sisters were Mary and Martha, was dead (John 11) and Jesus come to raise him up because these women were losing their man.
So Jesus was not haphazard in raising the dead. He was providing a man for those who are losing their man. It was all because of the Jewish background of Jesus and He understood what the Old Testament taught about the responsibility of men.
Women's place of honor and respect
There are a lot of Old Testament Scriptures about the patriarchs' wives. The three of them, Sarah, Rebekah and Rachel were so attractive to look at that when they went with their husbands to a foreign country, the husbands, in order to protect themselves, had to say the wives were their sisters. Abraham told a half lie to Abimelech that Sarah was his sister. He said this so as to save his own life (Gen. 20). What Abraham said however also a half truth because Sarah was his half-sister. Isaac did exactly the same with his wife Rebekah (Gen. 26:7).
The Scripture says that the patriarchs' wives were attractive to look at and attractive to live with. In fact these two qualities are picked up at the New Testament as models for Christian wives.
Solomon and his women
I thought solomon was the wisest man in the Old Testament but I do not believe it now. He had 700 wives and 300 concubines and most of them were foreign women who turned his heart to follow other gods (1 Kings 11:1 - 4). For this reason I will not say Solomon was wise. He broke God's Law and married outside the people of God. This Law is also repeated in the New Testament. If you are a Christian you cannot marry someone who is not a Christian.
Solomon had wisdom for everybody except for himself. He learned wisdom in a hard way - through all his women. You can read about his wisdom in the three books he wrote - Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon. Someone said solomon actually wrote 3000 proverbs but we have only a sample of which in the Book of Proverbs. He wrote 1005 songs but we have only one of his songs. I believe he wrote a song for every one of his women. The Song of Solomon was the only one published because it was about the woman that God chose for him!
You can almost guess Solomon's age by reading the books he wrote. He was an old man when he wrote Ecclesiastes.
Chapter 12, the last Chapter says, "Remember your Creator before the silver cord is loosed, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher shattered at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the well. Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it" (Eccl. 12:6, 7, NKJV).
The Song of Solomon is a young man's poetry. Solomon wrote this when he was a young man deeply in love with a young girl. But allegorically, this book pictures God' betrothed wife as depicted by Hosea (Hos. 2:19, 20). It also pictures the Bride of Christ. As human life finds its hightest fulfillment in the love of man and woman so spiritual life finds its highest fulfillment in the love of God for his people and Christ for His Church.
When you read Proverbs you will read about Solomon's experience with all the women in his life, both good and bad. All the first Chapters are all about the bad women he got mixed up with. But he finished up with a beautiful Chapter concerning an ideal wife.
The virtuous wife
"Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies. The heart of her husband safely trusts her; so he will have no lack of gain" (Proverbs 31:10, 11, NKJV, emphasis added).
The word "virtuous" comes from the Hebrew word "chayil" which means resourceful, able, worthy, ideal and fine. Literally the question asked is "Who can find a fine wife?"
As you read Proverbs 31 notice that the ideal wife puts her home and family first (Verse 15). But she is not limited to do only housework. She goes out to work, she trades and she does business and makes a profit. She actually manufacturing things and sells them. And then as if that does not fill her time she goes out to the poor and the needy (Verse 20). She does the work of mercy all over the place. Surely this a marvelous description of a very full and busy life for a wife.
But when you read it again you will find something missing in her daily life. She does not attend any women's fellowship meeting; she does not attend any prayer meeting or Bible study group or open her house for home-cell group. She is much too busy in three more importnat areas - her home and family, her business and work outside, and her care for the poor and needy. Furthermore, "her husband is known in the gates, when he sits among the elders of the land" (Verse 23). In other words, her husband holds an honored position among the elders. The virtuous wife knows that it is the responsibility of her husband to teach her the Scripture and any spiritual things at home if she wants to learn.
The trouble of the married Christian woman going to endless Church meetings is that she got so far ahead of her husband that both her husband and she are no longer traveling together as one flesh in the spiritual way.
General Comments
The Old Testament was still not God's pattern of role and relationship between the male and the female - there was still plenty of unbalance. For example in the Old Testament a man could divorce his wife but the wife could not divorce her husband (Deut. 24:1 - 4). This unequal justice would be put right in the New Testament.
There were other inequalities in the Old Testament. Sometimes the wives were listed together with the men's property:
"You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shell not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's" (Ex. 20:17, NKJV, emphasis added).
That is the kind of language you will not find in the New Testament. Even though under Moses' Law there were unequal justice, but it was a gigantic leap ahead of the contemporary attitude toward women. One reason is that Christians are not under the Law of Moses. We have the highter Law of Christ which takes us right back to God's original pattern. This we shall see in my next message.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
The Fall of Man
In my last two messages we have seen that Genesis 1 and 2 describe God's original plan of creation. Now let us consider what happened when sin came in. Genesis 3 describes the temptation and the fall of man.
What happened in Genesis 3 is the beginning of the alienation between the male and female. All competition between the sexes is due to what happened in Genesis 3. Instead of just to give direction the man began to give domination and became a dictator. In any home where the man is treating his wife as a slave, in that home sin is ripe. Sin actually pushed the man too far toward being a little god in his home. The result is, the woman instead of deferring to him, becomes defiant and competitive and fights him. We are now living in a world where there is an intense competition between the male and the female; in where women are saying, anything that men can do they can do as well and even better. The high rate of divorce is primarily due to competition between male and female; between two wills striving for mastery - the man wants to dominate and the woman wants to defiant.
How sin came in - according to Genesis 3
Satan got hold of the wife without the husband, and he did it quite deliberately because that is his evangelistic method - he gets her away from the man. Satan was deliberately ignoring God's pattern of the man taking responsibility. She was unprotected, she was vulnerable and she was deceived. Satan seduced her mind.
Someone said it is quite impossible to convert a Jewish wife without her husband. You can do it with the Gentiles but you cannot do it with the Jews because the Jewish wife knows the Old Testament and she knows what happened to Eve when Satan got her away from her husband.
Satan twisted the woman's thinking. She quoted the Word of God at him, but he also quoted the Word of God at her with a little twist. Satan's deceptive quotation of the Bible is always the same. Here are his 3 favorite tricks:
1. He takes a little away from the Word of God.
2. He adds a little bit to it.
3. He then changes it around.
Satan used the same tricks on Jesus Himself (Matthew 4:1 - 110). Beware of satanic Bible teachers - and most of them are women Pastors and women Bible teachers.
The Tempter and Adam
The two main activities with which Satan directs his power against us are temptation and accusation.
Notice that before the Fall, Adam's helpmeet (given by God) was named by Adam himself as "woman" (wife-man or female-man) (Gen. 2:23). But after the Fall, Adam's wife was called "Eve" - mother of every living person (Gen. 3:20). For the sake of clarity we shall refer her name as Eve even before the Fall.
In the Garden of Eden, the serpent approached Eve with an innocuous-sounding question: "Has God indeed said, 'You shall not eat of every tree in the garden'?" (Gen. 3:1, NKJV).
On the surface the question sounded silly, but it actually involved an obvious distortion. God had given Adam and Eve free use of the garden - with one exception. One tree was placed off limits. The rest were fully available. Here we see the subtlety of the serpent. His thinly veiled suggestion is that if God places one limit on human freedom, He has taken freedom altogether. The serpent's question was more than a question. It was an accusation against the fairness and kindness of God.
Eve was quick to set the Devil straight: "We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die'" (Gen. 3:2, 3).
Satan's question was an indirect assault on the integrity of God. Satan then moved quickly from an indirect attack to frontal assault. After Eve set the record straight Satan boldly declared: "You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Gen. 3:4, 5).
Here the temptation is wrapped in a bold-faced lie: "You will not die." Not only did Satan accuse God of lying, but he also provided Eve with a reason for God's lie. He charged God with a kind of divine jealously. God did not want Adam and Eve's eyes to be opened. He wanted to keep His level of knowledge to Himself. He did not want to share His deity. He was afraid that the fruit of the tree would make Adam and Eve divine. His prohibition was both unfair and selfish.
The whole strategy of Satan is very clear - First, he made sure Adam was not around. Then he got Eve confused in her thinking until she could not actually remember what God actually said to her.
Notice that not only Adam did not repent of falling into sin with Eve, but he also accused both Eve and God Himself: "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate" (Gen. 3:12).
Lessons we should learn but failed to learn them
God's punishment for Adam ought to have warned us clearly that a man should not heed the voice of a woman without confirmation from God (Gen. 3:17).
A woman needs a man to protect her thinking and reasoning. That is one of the reasons why in the New Testament Paul said: "Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive, as the law also says. And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for women to speak in church" (1 Cor. 14:34, 35, NKJV).
In my opinion, the above is a practical outworking of Genesis 3. Satan loves to get hold of a woman alone. He twists her thinking and gets hold of a woman's desire to compete with men. That is why so many "Christian" cults and false religious sects have been started by women's teaching. The whole New Age movement began with women, without mentioning Christian Science. You will find in almost every case, these women are either not married, separated from their husbands or have stronger personality than their husbands.
There is evidence in Church history where a denomination makes a lot of women into Pastors and Bible teachers and sooner or later doctrine slips. The majority Pastors and Bible teachers and home-cell leaders of the Churches in China, Hong Kong and South Korea are women.
There are two areas in which men must carry full responsibility in the Local Church. One is in the area of doctrine and the other is in the area of discipline. And if men do not carry those two responsibilities both will slip, because both are not natural for women to exercise. All through the New Testament (especially in Paul's and Peter's epistles) testified this fact. Women taking leadership in any congregation is foreign to the teaching of the Bible. Any Local Church that does not recognize this fact is the evidence of the outworking of the unredeemed Adamic race.
Adam brought sin and death to the human race
Paul said, "And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression" (1 Tim 2:14, NKJV).
The fact that Eve was fooled by Satan but Adam was not, and yet he still took it when Eve gave him the fruit, he had denied his God-given responsibility to watch over Eve and the responsibility to protect her. That is why Adam brought sin and death to the human race. What Adam should have done was to question Satan and argued it through to see if it was the right thing to do. Because of what he failed to do he carried all the resposibility for what happened.
The Punishment
1. Punishment for Adam
The Lord said to Adam, "Because you have heeded the voice of your wife ....." Gen. 3:17).
The primary reason why Adam (and all male after him) was punished was because he heeded the voice of Eve. The result of which Adam saw work as a drudgery (Verses 17 - 19).
The nature of Adam's punishment is very interesting. Because of the Fall many people failed to realize that their daily work is their prime vocation for God. Whether your calling is a plumber or a preacher both callings are equally holy and sacred to the Lord. You do not need to enter fulltime ministry to please God - unless of course you are called by God to enter fulltime ministry.
Paul said, "Who (God) has saved us and called us with a holy calling ..." (2 Tim. 1:9).
In other words, every calling that a Christian received from the Lord is holy to the Lord. Only when you are into sin you see your calling as a plumber a secular employment. In God's eyes there is no such thing as secular calling except sin! Everything else, including your employment as a plumber, is sacred and holy to God. Your prime calling is to do your daily work as to the Lord and not to your boss. Your daily work is God's sacred calling for you.
2. Punishment for Eve
The Lord said to Eve, ".... in pain you shall bring forth children; your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you" (Gen. 3:16, emphasis added).
The nature of Eve's punishment consists of two parts - as a mother and as a wife. As a mother sorrow would be multiplied in her pregnancy and in the bearing and bringing up of children. As a wife "her desire shall be for her husband".
The phrase, "Your desire shall be for your husband" is very interesting. Many people think that women will be so desired of sex that they have to have a man. Recently I discovered what it really means. The key to understanding is found in Genesis 4.
In Genesis 4 after Cain's offering was rejected, God said to him:
"If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it" (Gen 4:7, NKJV, emphasis added).
The use of the word "desire" above is the same as that used in Genesis 3:16. In other words, sin's desire is to take control over Cain and he should overcome it.
In the case of Eve and in all cases of women born after her, they have the desire to control and manipulate their husbands - unless the husbands are capable of overcoming this problem.
The problem of control and manipulation
As discussed above, one of the results of the Fall is that women have the natural desire to control and manipulate men. Instead of looking to a man for a lead there is a desire in fallen female nature to have a man so that she can control and manipulate him. But since she is a weaker partner the man will be able to rule her just as she will want to rule him. That is the direct result of sin - competition and clash between two opposite personalities in the home. The wife wants to change the husband but he has the power not to change. This is the scenario with all the seeds for divorce - not a part of redemption.
There are cases of Christian women asking for prayer for their husbands to be converted. Some Christian women are praying for their husbands to change to the men they want them to be. The use of prayer to change someone you want him to be is a subtle form of control and manipulation.
Peter said, "Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives" (1 Peter 3:1, NKJV).
In other words, in order to win over the unbelieving husband, the wife needs to change herself first - from a manipulating person to a submissive person with holy conduct.
The main result of the Fall is clear. In any marriage if the wife is dominating the husband and running his life and taking his place as a spiritual leader at home, it is contrary to God's original creation order and pattern.
What happened in Genesis 3 is the beginning of the alienation between the male and female. All competition between the sexes is due to what happened in Genesis 3. Instead of just to give direction the man began to give domination and became a dictator. In any home where the man is treating his wife as a slave, in that home sin is ripe. Sin actually pushed the man too far toward being a little god in his home. The result is, the woman instead of deferring to him, becomes defiant and competitive and fights him. We are now living in a world where there is an intense competition between the male and the female; in where women are saying, anything that men can do they can do as well and even better. The high rate of divorce is primarily due to competition between male and female; between two wills striving for mastery - the man wants to dominate and the woman wants to defiant.
How sin came in - according to Genesis 3
Satan got hold of the wife without the husband, and he did it quite deliberately because that is his evangelistic method - he gets her away from the man. Satan was deliberately ignoring God's pattern of the man taking responsibility. She was unprotected, she was vulnerable and she was deceived. Satan seduced her mind.
Someone said it is quite impossible to convert a Jewish wife without her husband. You can do it with the Gentiles but you cannot do it with the Jews because the Jewish wife knows the Old Testament and she knows what happened to Eve when Satan got her away from her husband.
Satan twisted the woman's thinking. She quoted the Word of God at him, but he also quoted the Word of God at her with a little twist. Satan's deceptive quotation of the Bible is always the same. Here are his 3 favorite tricks:
1. He takes a little away from the Word of God.
2. He adds a little bit to it.
3. He then changes it around.
Satan used the same tricks on Jesus Himself (Matthew 4:1 - 110). Beware of satanic Bible teachers - and most of them are women Pastors and women Bible teachers.
The Tempter and Adam
The two main activities with which Satan directs his power against us are temptation and accusation.
Notice that before the Fall, Adam's helpmeet (given by God) was named by Adam himself as "woman" (wife-man or female-man) (Gen. 2:23). But after the Fall, Adam's wife was called "Eve" - mother of every living person (Gen. 3:20). For the sake of clarity we shall refer her name as Eve even before the Fall.
In the Garden of Eden, the serpent approached Eve with an innocuous-sounding question: "Has God indeed said, 'You shall not eat of every tree in the garden'?" (Gen. 3:1, NKJV).
On the surface the question sounded silly, but it actually involved an obvious distortion. God had given Adam and Eve free use of the garden - with one exception. One tree was placed off limits. The rest were fully available. Here we see the subtlety of the serpent. His thinly veiled suggestion is that if God places one limit on human freedom, He has taken freedom altogether. The serpent's question was more than a question. It was an accusation against the fairness and kindness of God.
Eve was quick to set the Devil straight: "We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die'" (Gen. 3:2, 3).
Satan's question was an indirect assault on the integrity of God. Satan then moved quickly from an indirect attack to frontal assault. After Eve set the record straight Satan boldly declared: "You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Gen. 3:4, 5).
Here the temptation is wrapped in a bold-faced lie: "You will not die." Not only did Satan accuse God of lying, but he also provided Eve with a reason for God's lie. He charged God with a kind of divine jealously. God did not want Adam and Eve's eyes to be opened. He wanted to keep His level of knowledge to Himself. He did not want to share His deity. He was afraid that the fruit of the tree would make Adam and Eve divine. His prohibition was both unfair and selfish.
The whole strategy of Satan is very clear - First, he made sure Adam was not around. Then he got Eve confused in her thinking until she could not actually remember what God actually said to her.
Notice that not only Adam did not repent of falling into sin with Eve, but he also accused both Eve and God Himself: "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate" (Gen. 3:12).
Lessons we should learn but failed to learn them
God's punishment for Adam ought to have warned us clearly that a man should not heed the voice of a woman without confirmation from God (Gen. 3:17).
A woman needs a man to protect her thinking and reasoning. That is one of the reasons why in the New Testament Paul said: "Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive, as the law also says. And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for women to speak in church" (1 Cor. 14:34, 35, NKJV).
In my opinion, the above is a practical outworking of Genesis 3. Satan loves to get hold of a woman alone. He twists her thinking and gets hold of a woman's desire to compete with men. That is why so many "Christian" cults and false religious sects have been started by women's teaching. The whole New Age movement began with women, without mentioning Christian Science. You will find in almost every case, these women are either not married, separated from their husbands or have stronger personality than their husbands.
There is evidence in Church history where a denomination makes a lot of women into Pastors and Bible teachers and sooner or later doctrine slips. The majority Pastors and Bible teachers and home-cell leaders of the Churches in China, Hong Kong and South Korea are women.
There are two areas in which men must carry full responsibility in the Local Church. One is in the area of doctrine and the other is in the area of discipline. And if men do not carry those two responsibilities both will slip, because both are not natural for women to exercise. All through the New Testament (especially in Paul's and Peter's epistles) testified this fact. Women taking leadership in any congregation is foreign to the teaching of the Bible. Any Local Church that does not recognize this fact is the evidence of the outworking of the unredeemed Adamic race.
Adam brought sin and death to the human race
Paul said, "And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression" (1 Tim 2:14, NKJV).
The fact that Eve was fooled by Satan but Adam was not, and yet he still took it when Eve gave him the fruit, he had denied his God-given responsibility to watch over Eve and the responsibility to protect her. That is why Adam brought sin and death to the human race. What Adam should have done was to question Satan and argued it through to see if it was the right thing to do. Because of what he failed to do he carried all the resposibility for what happened.
The Punishment
1. Punishment for Adam
The Lord said to Adam, "Because you have heeded the voice of your wife ....." Gen. 3:17).
The primary reason why Adam (and all male after him) was punished was because he heeded the voice of Eve. The result of which Adam saw work as a drudgery (Verses 17 - 19).
The nature of Adam's punishment is very interesting. Because of the Fall many people failed to realize that their daily work is their prime vocation for God. Whether your calling is a plumber or a preacher both callings are equally holy and sacred to the Lord. You do not need to enter fulltime ministry to please God - unless of course you are called by God to enter fulltime ministry.
Paul said, "Who (God) has saved us and called us with a holy calling ..." (2 Tim. 1:9).
In other words, every calling that a Christian received from the Lord is holy to the Lord. Only when you are into sin you see your calling as a plumber a secular employment. In God's eyes there is no such thing as secular calling except sin! Everything else, including your employment as a plumber, is sacred and holy to God. Your prime calling is to do your daily work as to the Lord and not to your boss. Your daily work is God's sacred calling for you.
2. Punishment for Eve
The Lord said to Eve, ".... in pain you shall bring forth children; your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you" (Gen. 3:16, emphasis added).
The nature of Eve's punishment consists of two parts - as a mother and as a wife. As a mother sorrow would be multiplied in her pregnancy and in the bearing and bringing up of children. As a wife "her desire shall be for her husband".
The phrase, "Your desire shall be for your husband" is very interesting. Many people think that women will be so desired of sex that they have to have a man. Recently I discovered what it really means. The key to understanding is found in Genesis 4.
In Genesis 4 after Cain's offering was rejected, God said to him:
"If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it" (Gen 4:7, NKJV, emphasis added).
The use of the word "desire" above is the same as that used in Genesis 3:16. In other words, sin's desire is to take control over Cain and he should overcome it.
In the case of Eve and in all cases of women born after her, they have the desire to control and manipulate their husbands - unless the husbands are capable of overcoming this problem.
The problem of control and manipulation
As discussed above, one of the results of the Fall is that women have the natural desire to control and manipulate men. Instead of looking to a man for a lead there is a desire in fallen female nature to have a man so that she can control and manipulate him. But since she is a weaker partner the man will be able to rule her just as she will want to rule him. That is the direct result of sin - competition and clash between two opposite personalities in the home. The wife wants to change the husband but he has the power not to change. This is the scenario with all the seeds for divorce - not a part of redemption.
There are cases of Christian women asking for prayer for their husbands to be converted. Some Christian women are praying for their husbands to change to the men they want them to be. The use of prayer to change someone you want him to be is a subtle form of control and manipulation.
Peter said, "Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives" (1 Peter 3:1, NKJV).
In other words, in order to win over the unbelieving husband, the wife needs to change herself first - from a manipulating person to a submissive person with holy conduct.
The main result of the Fall is clear. In any marriage if the wife is dominating the husband and running his life and taking his place as a spiritual leader at home, it is contrary to God's original creation order and pattern.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Divine-Human Love Relationship
Continuing the theme of God's pattern of role and relationship between male and female it follows naturally that it is God's desire that the love of a man for his wife follows the same pattern of God's love for His people. This is true all through the Bible. In fact the Bible is a divine love letter for all of us.
Relationship between the vertical and horizontal relationships
The vertical relationship represents divine-man relationship and the horizontal relationship represents male-female relationship. There is a direct anology or likeness between the divine-human relationship and the male-female relationship. If you understand one you will understand the other. If you understand how God and man relate you will understand how male and female relate. In the male-female relationship, the man is called to model the divine side of the divine-human life, but the woman is called to model the human side of the divine-human life. For example in a marriage the husband must model the divine side and the wife should model the human side.
How does a man love his wife? He should love his wife as Christ loves the Church.
Paul said, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her" (Ephesians 5:25, NKJV).
In other words, the man is to model God and the woman is to model man in the divine-human relationship, so that from the understanding of the human relationship we can understand what is like to relate to God. That is the reason why the love song - "Song of Solomon" is placed right in the middle of your Bible. In this, Solomon depicted the love between a man and a woman as the love between God and men (Israel). If you understand the love between man and women you are well on your way to understand the love between God and men. That is why right through the Bible the relationship between God and men is presented in sexual terms in which God is always called He in the entire Bible and that is why Israel and the Church always called she.
The he-she relationship is the same in many regards - in the relationship between God and man and the relationship between man and woman. The woman is to trust and depend on her man. The man is to protect and provide for the woman. In this the man is modeling God protecting and providing for us.
Pictures of God's love for Israel and Christ's love for His Bride
There are amazing messages depicting God's love for His people right through the Bible. Let us deal with three examples:
1. Hosea
Let me not only paraphrase Hosea 1:2 - 11 but also to dramatize it to show how much God loves Israel despite her unfaithfulness toward Him:
Once there was a preacher called Hosea and he said, "God is there anything you want me to do?"
God said, "Yes, Hosea I want you to go out and find a prostitude."
"But God, I'm a preacher."
"Yes I know but I want you to find her."
"What do You want me to do with her?"
"I want you to marry her."
"Me, marry a prostitute?"
"Yes, that's what I said."
"Alright Lord, but what you want me to do then?"
"I want you to start a family with her. Hosea, you'll have 3 children. The first she will love and so you'll call it 'love'; the second she'll not want and so you'll call it 'not love'. And the third child will not even be yours for another man will be the father. So you'll call it 'not mine'."
"And then what Lord?"
"She'll go back on the streets as a prostitute again and you'll lose her."
"Lord, what do I do with the three children?"
"You go and look for her and when you find her on the streets you'll buy her back with money from the pimp who is running her. And then you'll start all over again and love her again and you'll rebuild the family."
"And then what Lord?"
"Then Hosea, you must go and tell Israel that is exactly how I feel about them. They have gone after other gods and producing children who are not mine. That is how I feel but I just can't give her up and I'm going to love her back again."
What a touching message!
2. Ezekiel
Ezekiel 16:1 - 22 is also another message depicting God's love for Israel.
Israel was seen like a child born in a polluted land, abandoned from its birth, left by its parents to the chance regard of any passer-by. On such a child the Lord looked with compassion, tended and adopted it. Under the Lord's tender loving care the child grew up to be comely and beautiful and later the Lord joined her in marriage union.
The Lord said, "And when I passed by you and saw you struggling in your own blood, I said to you in your blood, 'Live!' Yes, I said to you in your blood, 'Live!' I made you thrive like a plant in the field; and you grew, matured, and became very beautiful .... When I passed by you again and looked upon you, indeed your time was the time of love; so I spread My wing over you and covered your nakedness. Yes, I swore an oath to you and entered into a covenant with you, and you became Mine, ..." (Ezekiel 16:6 - 8).
That is how God feels about Israel and that is why Israel is a chosen wife of God.
3. Christ's love for His Bride
The whole appeal of the Bible is on the basis of a covenant which is of a Marriage between God and His people - the people are the wife and God is the Husband. The same is true in the New Testament - Jesus is the Bridegroom and we are the bride.
Paul wrote to the believers in the Church in Ephesus concerning the preparation of the Bride:
"Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish" (Eph. 5:25, 26, NKJV, emphasis added).
The love of Christ toward the Church models the love of a husband toward his bride. The love of God toward Israel, as depicted by Hosea and Ezekiel above also models the love of a man toward his wife.
God Himself found and prepared His own betrothed wife, Israel. Later He sent His Word (Jesus) to prepare, sanctify and cleanse the Church to make her fit to be His Bride.
What beautiful and perfect analogies!
Practical Applications
I wonder if you have noticed that it is far easier to lead a woman to Christ than to lead a man.
If you read my previous message again you will realize that according to Genesis 2, woman was made for man, from man and after man. Because of this fact it is always easier to get a wife to trust Christ, the same way she trusts her husband. In other words, a wife, by nature, is fitted to take the human side of the divine-human relationship. By nature she is submissive and dependent. Therefore she does not have to change her nature to accept Christ. The same attitude she has toward her husband she can now transfer to Christ.
Whereas the man has to make a huge adjustment because he is by nature aggressive, independent so that he can fight for the woman he loves and at the same time to protect her and to provide for her. It is the man's nature not to depend on someone else but to have other depend on him. Therefore for a man to receive Christ and become a Christian he has to change from being musculine to become feminine - change from an aggressive independent person to a submissive, dependent, obedient and trusting person. This is certainly a huge adjustment for the man to make. It takes the grace of God to do it. He will suffer ridicule, persecution; sometimes his business will be affected, he may go bankrupt and his marriage may even be in danger of breaking up. In the midst of disasters, only the grace of God is able to tell him he is not self-sufficient and he needs help.
The problem
Because of the fact that it is easier to lead a woman to Christ than to lead a man, in the average Local Church there ar usually more women that men. This problem arises because we have our priority wrong; we have evangelized wives apart from their husbands. The is the root problem that is creating so many Christian women without Christian husbands.
In my opinion it is wrong to evangelize the wife away from her husband. When the wife becomes a Christian and goes to Church you are beginning to break up that marriage.
Paul said, "And a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him" (1 Cor. 7:13).
In other words, if you make the wife a believer and the husband does not like it he can leave!
I believe the easiest to convert are the children, and then women and the hardest are men. Therefore go for the hardest, men. When you get the men converted their whole households will be converted.
Paul and Silas were imprisoned at Philippi. At midnight they were praying and singing. Suddenly the whole place was shaken and all the doors were opened by an angel. The keeper of the prison (the jailer) was in fear and wanted to commit suicide. Paul and Silas ensured him they would not escape and put the jailer in danger of being executed. Later the jailer said to them, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved" (Acts 16:30)?
"So they said, 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household'" (Acts 16:31, emphasis added).
We need to have men's evangelistic meetings in all of our Local Churches. When you go for the men you will get the whole family saved. If you really believe man and woman are one flesh you cannot evangelize them separately. Furthermore it is such a joy to see a husband ahead of his wife spiritually so that she can look to him and trust him, look after him and respect him.
This is the outworking of God's pattern of Divine-human love relationship. This is also the outworking of Genesis 2.
Relationship between the vertical and horizontal relationships
The vertical relationship represents divine-man relationship and the horizontal relationship represents male-female relationship. There is a direct anology or likeness between the divine-human relationship and the male-female relationship. If you understand one you will understand the other. If you understand how God and man relate you will understand how male and female relate. In the male-female relationship, the man is called to model the divine side of the divine-human life, but the woman is called to model the human side of the divine-human life. For example in a marriage the husband must model the divine side and the wife should model the human side.
How does a man love his wife? He should love his wife as Christ loves the Church.
Paul said, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her" (Ephesians 5:25, NKJV).
In other words, the man is to model God and the woman is to model man in the divine-human relationship, so that from the understanding of the human relationship we can understand what is like to relate to God. That is the reason why the love song - "Song of Solomon" is placed right in the middle of your Bible. In this, Solomon depicted the love between a man and a woman as the love between God and men (Israel). If you understand the love between man and women you are well on your way to understand the love between God and men. That is why right through the Bible the relationship between God and men is presented in sexual terms in which God is always called He in the entire Bible and that is why Israel and the Church always called she.
The he-she relationship is the same in many regards - in the relationship between God and man and the relationship between man and woman. The woman is to trust and depend on her man. The man is to protect and provide for the woman. In this the man is modeling God protecting and providing for us.
Pictures of God's love for Israel and Christ's love for His Bride
There are amazing messages depicting God's love for His people right through the Bible. Let us deal with three examples:
1. Hosea
Let me not only paraphrase Hosea 1:2 - 11 but also to dramatize it to show how much God loves Israel despite her unfaithfulness toward Him:
Once there was a preacher called Hosea and he said, "God is there anything you want me to do?"
God said, "Yes, Hosea I want you to go out and find a prostitude."
"But God, I'm a preacher."
"Yes I know but I want you to find her."
"What do You want me to do with her?"
"I want you to marry her."
"Me, marry a prostitute?"
"Yes, that's what I said."
"Alright Lord, but what you want me to do then?"
"I want you to start a family with her. Hosea, you'll have 3 children. The first she will love and so you'll call it 'love'; the second she'll not want and so you'll call it 'not love'. And the third child will not even be yours for another man will be the father. So you'll call it 'not mine'."
"And then what Lord?"
"She'll go back on the streets as a prostitute again and you'll lose her."
"Lord, what do I do with the three children?"
"You go and look for her and when you find her on the streets you'll buy her back with money from the pimp who is running her. And then you'll start all over again and love her again and you'll rebuild the family."
"And then what Lord?"
"Then Hosea, you must go and tell Israel that is exactly how I feel about them. They have gone after other gods and producing children who are not mine. That is how I feel but I just can't give her up and I'm going to love her back again."
What a touching message!
2. Ezekiel
Ezekiel 16:1 - 22 is also another message depicting God's love for Israel.
Israel was seen like a child born in a polluted land, abandoned from its birth, left by its parents to the chance regard of any passer-by. On such a child the Lord looked with compassion, tended and adopted it. Under the Lord's tender loving care the child grew up to be comely and beautiful and later the Lord joined her in marriage union.
The Lord said, "And when I passed by you and saw you struggling in your own blood, I said to you in your blood, 'Live!' Yes, I said to you in your blood, 'Live!' I made you thrive like a plant in the field; and you grew, matured, and became very beautiful .... When I passed by you again and looked upon you, indeed your time was the time of love; so I spread My wing over you and covered your nakedness. Yes, I swore an oath to you and entered into a covenant with you, and you became Mine, ..." (Ezekiel 16:6 - 8).
That is how God feels about Israel and that is why Israel is a chosen wife of God.
3. Christ's love for His Bride
The whole appeal of the Bible is on the basis of a covenant which is of a Marriage between God and His people - the people are the wife and God is the Husband. The same is true in the New Testament - Jesus is the Bridegroom and we are the bride.
Paul wrote to the believers in the Church in Ephesus concerning the preparation of the Bride:
"Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish" (Eph. 5:25, 26, NKJV, emphasis added).
The love of Christ toward the Church models the love of a husband toward his bride. The love of God toward Israel, as depicted by Hosea and Ezekiel above also models the love of a man toward his wife.
God Himself found and prepared His own betrothed wife, Israel. Later He sent His Word (Jesus) to prepare, sanctify and cleanse the Church to make her fit to be His Bride.
What beautiful and perfect analogies!
Practical Applications
I wonder if you have noticed that it is far easier to lead a woman to Christ than to lead a man.
If you read my previous message again you will realize that according to Genesis 2, woman was made for man, from man and after man. Because of this fact it is always easier to get a wife to trust Christ, the same way she trusts her husband. In other words, a wife, by nature, is fitted to take the human side of the divine-human relationship. By nature she is submissive and dependent. Therefore she does not have to change her nature to accept Christ. The same attitude she has toward her husband she can now transfer to Christ.
Whereas the man has to make a huge adjustment because he is by nature aggressive, independent so that he can fight for the woman he loves and at the same time to protect her and to provide for her. It is the man's nature not to depend on someone else but to have other depend on him. Therefore for a man to receive Christ and become a Christian he has to change from being musculine to become feminine - change from an aggressive independent person to a submissive, dependent, obedient and trusting person. This is certainly a huge adjustment for the man to make. It takes the grace of God to do it. He will suffer ridicule, persecution; sometimes his business will be affected, he may go bankrupt and his marriage may even be in danger of breaking up. In the midst of disasters, only the grace of God is able to tell him he is not self-sufficient and he needs help.
The problem
Because of the fact that it is easier to lead a woman to Christ than to lead a man, in the average Local Church there ar usually more women that men. This problem arises because we have our priority wrong; we have evangelized wives apart from their husbands. The is the root problem that is creating so many Christian women without Christian husbands.
In my opinion it is wrong to evangelize the wife away from her husband. When the wife becomes a Christian and goes to Church you are beginning to break up that marriage.
Paul said, "And a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him" (1 Cor. 7:13).
In other words, if you make the wife a believer and the husband does not like it he can leave!
I believe the easiest to convert are the children, and then women and the hardest are men. Therefore go for the hardest, men. When you get the men converted their whole households will be converted.
Paul and Silas were imprisoned at Philippi. At midnight they were praying and singing. Suddenly the whole place was shaken and all the doors were opened by an angel. The keeper of the prison (the jailer) was in fear and wanted to commit suicide. Paul and Silas ensured him they would not escape and put the jailer in danger of being executed. Later the jailer said to them, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved" (Acts 16:30)?
"So they said, 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household'" (Acts 16:31, emphasis added).
We need to have men's evangelistic meetings in all of our Local Churches. When you go for the men you will get the whole family saved. If you really believe man and woman are one flesh you cannot evangelize them separately. Furthermore it is such a joy to see a husband ahead of his wife spiritually so that she can look to him and trust him, look after him and respect him.
This is the outworking of God's pattern of Divine-human love relationship. This is also the outworking of Genesis 2.
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
God's Pattern of Male-Female Role and Relationship
Whenever Jesus or any of the apostles was asked about the question of the male-female role and relationship they always went back to Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 to find the answer. When Jesus was asked about divorce where did he go for the answer? He went back to Genesis 2. When Paul was asked about male-female role relationship in the Church he also went back to Genesis 2 (Please read my earlier message - Male-Female Role Relationships in the Church).
The fisrt two Chapters of the Old Testament hold the key to understanding God's original plan and pattern of creation. This is because redemption is the restoration of creation. God only redeems you so that He may put back to what you were originally meant to be. And He is going to put the whole heaven and earth back to its original plan. God's desire is you and I and the whole human race follow His pattern of male-female role and relationship in the world, in the family and in the Church. It is from those two chapters we have the total answer to the whole question of what is the relationship between male and female and what are their different roles in the world, in the home and in the Church. The fallen Adamic race, including you and me, is not considered fully redeemed until we are fully restored to what God began in Genesis 1 and 2. It is very unfortunate that the majority denominations and Churches failed to understand this and followed the way of the world. It is truly shameful that the Body of Christ failed to grasp this basic truth. In my opinion if you do not know Genesis 1 and 2 you will get very confused about men and women today. That is the reason why I am spending so much time to do some research work on this theme alone.
Basic Timeline of God's Creation
God spent six days creating the world and everything He wanted in it. On the seventh day He did not do a single thing. In fact He rested, not in a 24-hour day, but all through the Old Testament. He did not create anything new in the Old Testament. That was why Solomon said in Ecclesiates, "That which has been is what will be, that which is done, and there is nothing new under the sun" (Eccl. 1:9, NKJV).
But now God has gone back to work and He is back in the business of creation. He started His eight day of reation on the first Easter Sunday, when He raised Jesus from the dead. God's creation work of the old finished with a Sabbath rest. That is why it is proper for Christians to worship on Sundays and not on Saturdays. We do not celebrate God's rest but celebrate when He has gone back to work, when He created all things new. It was on a Sunday that God poured out His Spirit (Day of Pentecost) and we are His new creation when we are in Christ and "old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new" (2 Cor. 5:17).
The two accounts of the Creation of man
Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are in fact two accounts of the same event - the creation of man. The first account begins at Gen. 1:26 - 31 on the sixth day of creation, "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; ..." (Gen. 1:26). The second account is in Gen. 2:15 - 24 ending with, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh" (Gen. 2:24).
By giving these two accounts God wants us to look at His creation of man from two different points of view - almost from opposite view points of the same event. If you read Genesis 1 and shut your eyes you will feel yourself way up in heaven looking down and see what is happening down on the earth. In fact Genesis 1 was written from God's angle - from the divine or heavenly viewpoint. But when you turn to Genesis 2 you will have a completely different viewpoint; you are standing on the earth and looking around in the Garden of Eden. In other words, one is a vertical viewpoint looking down from heaven to earth from God's point of view. But the second account is a horizontal veiw and you are looking around at the relationship between the different parts of creation - between man and the birds, man and the beast and man and woman. These two dimensions help us to get a full picture of the role and relationship of male and female.
God's way of helping us to understand Bible truth
One of the vital characteristics of the Bible is that when God wants to give us the whole truth He sometimes has to give us the truth from different angles just like the prison authority takes photographs of criminals from different angles of their face.
Not only God gave us two accounts of creation, but He gave us two accounts of other things as well. To help us to understand the history of Israel during the rules of kings He gave us two accounts in the two Books of Kings and the two Books of Chronicles. When He wanted to us to have the full picture of Jesus Christ He had to give us four pictures in four Books - One from Matthew to see Jesus as the King of the Jews, one from Mark to see Jesus as the Son of Man, one from Luke to see Jesus as the Savior of the World, and one from John to see Jesus as the Son of God.
Prominence of sex and sexuality
It is interesting to realize that in both accounts of creation sex is prominent. In other words, sex is as important from the Divine point of view as from the human point of view. Unfortunately many Christians have never seen this truth. Indeed in many denominations and Churches sex is a taboo subject. But God gets great pleasure out of sex and our sexuality.
Prose and Poetry
We need to understand the difference between prose and poetry when we see it in the Bible. Basically prose is ordinally written language used to impart information, mush like the Newsprint. But poetry refers to poem, often written in short lines which usually rhyme. Prose is the language of the mind but poetry is the language of the heart. Whenever you see prose, it is a message from God's mind to your mind so that your thoughts may be His thoughts and His thoughts your thoughts. But when He speaks in poetry, the message is from His Heart to your heart so that you may feel His feelings. Prose is to change people's thinking but poetry is to change people's feelings.
In both Genesis 1 and 2 there is only a little phrase within a verse that is written in poetry form. In both cases the poem is about sex. To me this is truly amazing. When Adam first saw Eve he said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; ..." (Gen. 2:23). Because this is the language of the heart, God wants you to know how He feels about the woman He created. At the same time God wants you to know how Adam feels about his helpmeet.
Let us take a closer look at the following passages of Scripture:
"Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; ... (V. 27) So God created man in His own image. In the image of God He created him, male and female He created them. (V. 28) Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ..." (Gen. 1:26, 27, 28, emphasis added).
Notice the emphasized phrase is in poetry form and the next verse the poetry disappeared. In other words, the male and femaile belongs to the previous verse - it belongs to the image of God.
Great significance of the first verse of the Bible
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen. 1:1, emphasis added).
It is interesting to realize that the Hebrew word for "God" is "Eloheem" or Elohim" which is a plural word for three. Therefore right at the beginning God is three Persons in One. Unfortunately the Jews missed it and the consequence is that they can never say that God is love. The fact is that if God was only one you can never give Him the Name of Love. One person cannot express love by himself. We have the full revelation in the New Testament that God is the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit and therefore we can say God is Love. Notice that there is no other religion in the world can say their god is love! Only Christians believe that God is love and because of this, those who believe in God love God and love one another.
Let us follow some logical conclusive steps. If God is love and is 3-in-1 and He wanted to make us in His image He would have to make us capable of loving and we are incomplete without someone else to love. And so He made us 2-in-1 not quite as great as He. So He made us male and female capable of experiencing something of what it is to love someone else and be one with Him. What a beautiful idea!
Male and female are both created in the Image of God
It is extremely important to acknowledge that both man and woman equally carried the Image of God (Gen. 1:27). Therefore the whole relationship toward each other must be based on the clear understanding that in God's sight man and woman are of equal value, equal status and of equal worth. Therefore salvation is equal in Christ for all of us. This is the fundamental truth to the entire Bible.
Paul said, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galations 3:28, emphasis added).
Peter said, "Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered" (1 Peter 3:7, emphasis added).
However there are differences between the male and the female. We have different functions in the world, in the home and in the Church with different ministries. When we turn to Genesis 2 we will certainly realize that there is a contrast and there is inequality. The fact is, in the vertical dimension of God creating us, we are equal. But in the horizontal dimension in our relationship with each other, we are not equal.
Male and female are created differently
The three things said in Genensis 2 about our relationships which are picked up in the New Testament are:
1. Woman was made from man.
2. Woman was made for man.
3. Woman was made after man.
Each of these little words (from, for, after) is picked up in the New Testament to teach us how we are to behave (in role relationships) in the family and in the Church as men and women. Unfortunately many denominations and Churches missed it altogether!
1. Woman was made from man (Gen 2:21, 22)
Genesis 2:21 says that woman was made from a "rib" taken out of Adam's side. In Hebrew the word "rib" means a small part. Adam, in recognizing the fact that the woman was made from him, he was given the authority to name her, and he named her Eve. That is why in mariage nowadays the wife takes the name of the husband and not the other way round. Furthermore since a woman was taken from a part of man and not made like man from the dust, she is not independent from man. Paul, in 1 Cor. 11:11 testified this fact. Therefore a man who lives to himself and has no relationship with the opposite sex is not a full man. Similarly a woman who lives to herself and has no relationship with a husband is not a full woman.
2. Woman was made for man (1 Cor. 11:9)
This is same as saying the primary purpose of a woman is to be found in man. She is created to be his helpmeet. Being a helpmeet, or being the partner in ministry (in the Christian/Church context) she must not compete with her husband. When her husband is out ministering the wife being the helpmeet should be praying for him. Recently I heard someone said, a certain woman is the Senior Pastor in a Church, but her husband is one of the associated Pastors in the same Church! These "christians" must have thought man was made for woman! This is totally contrary to God' original creation pattern.
There is a teaching right around the world, in the feminist movement (Christian or non-Christian), teaches that a woman must find her fulfillment within herself, she must find her own gift, her own career and she must find herself by herself. This is also totally contrary to God's original creation pattern.
3. Woman was made after man
The significance is that everywhere in the Bible people follow one another. The first to appear carries the responsibilities for the next. This is the doctrine of the first born son in the entire teaching of the Bible. The first born son had extra responsibility for all the other sons. In Scripture when a father died and left his estate to his family he left an equal portion to each of his sons. But he left a double portion to the first born. Adam was the first born and therefore he carried responsibility for Eve.
Though Eve was the first to sin and the first to take the forbidden fruit the New Testament never blames her for introducing sin and death. Who does the New Testament blame? Adam, because he was responsible for her.
God expects the family life and Church life in the New Testament follow the same pattern of Genesis 2 that men carry the responsibilities for women. This is the reason why leadership in the Church is the responsibility of the men and never women.
How many Local Churches do you know are truly following God's original pattern of Creation clearly laid out in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2?
The fisrt two Chapters of the Old Testament hold the key to understanding God's original plan and pattern of creation. This is because redemption is the restoration of creation. God only redeems you so that He may put back to what you were originally meant to be. And He is going to put the whole heaven and earth back to its original plan. God's desire is you and I and the whole human race follow His pattern of male-female role and relationship in the world, in the family and in the Church. It is from those two chapters we have the total answer to the whole question of what is the relationship between male and female and what are their different roles in the world, in the home and in the Church. The fallen Adamic race, including you and me, is not considered fully redeemed until we are fully restored to what God began in Genesis 1 and 2. It is very unfortunate that the majority denominations and Churches failed to understand this and followed the way of the world. It is truly shameful that the Body of Christ failed to grasp this basic truth. In my opinion if you do not know Genesis 1 and 2 you will get very confused about men and women today. That is the reason why I am spending so much time to do some research work on this theme alone.
Basic Timeline of God's Creation
God spent six days creating the world and everything He wanted in it. On the seventh day He did not do a single thing. In fact He rested, not in a 24-hour day, but all through the Old Testament. He did not create anything new in the Old Testament. That was why Solomon said in Ecclesiates, "That which has been is what will be, that which is done, and there is nothing new under the sun" (Eccl. 1:9, NKJV).
But now God has gone back to work and He is back in the business of creation. He started His eight day of reation on the first Easter Sunday, when He raised Jesus from the dead. God's creation work of the old finished with a Sabbath rest. That is why it is proper for Christians to worship on Sundays and not on Saturdays. We do not celebrate God's rest but celebrate when He has gone back to work, when He created all things new. It was on a Sunday that God poured out His Spirit (Day of Pentecost) and we are His new creation when we are in Christ and "old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new" (2 Cor. 5:17).
The two accounts of the Creation of man
Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are in fact two accounts of the same event - the creation of man. The first account begins at Gen. 1:26 - 31 on the sixth day of creation, "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; ..." (Gen. 1:26). The second account is in Gen. 2:15 - 24 ending with, "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh" (Gen. 2:24).
By giving these two accounts God wants us to look at His creation of man from two different points of view - almost from opposite view points of the same event. If you read Genesis 1 and shut your eyes you will feel yourself way up in heaven looking down and see what is happening down on the earth. In fact Genesis 1 was written from God's angle - from the divine or heavenly viewpoint. But when you turn to Genesis 2 you will have a completely different viewpoint; you are standing on the earth and looking around in the Garden of Eden. In other words, one is a vertical viewpoint looking down from heaven to earth from God's point of view. But the second account is a horizontal veiw and you are looking around at the relationship between the different parts of creation - between man and the birds, man and the beast and man and woman. These two dimensions help us to get a full picture of the role and relationship of male and female.
God's way of helping us to understand Bible truth
One of the vital characteristics of the Bible is that when God wants to give us the whole truth He sometimes has to give us the truth from different angles just like the prison authority takes photographs of criminals from different angles of their face.
Not only God gave us two accounts of creation, but He gave us two accounts of other things as well. To help us to understand the history of Israel during the rules of kings He gave us two accounts in the two Books of Kings and the two Books of Chronicles. When He wanted to us to have the full picture of Jesus Christ He had to give us four pictures in four Books - One from Matthew to see Jesus as the King of the Jews, one from Mark to see Jesus as the Son of Man, one from Luke to see Jesus as the Savior of the World, and one from John to see Jesus as the Son of God.
Prominence of sex and sexuality
It is interesting to realize that in both accounts of creation sex is prominent. In other words, sex is as important from the Divine point of view as from the human point of view. Unfortunately many Christians have never seen this truth. Indeed in many denominations and Churches sex is a taboo subject. But God gets great pleasure out of sex and our sexuality.
Prose and Poetry
We need to understand the difference between prose and poetry when we see it in the Bible. Basically prose is ordinally written language used to impart information, mush like the Newsprint. But poetry refers to poem, often written in short lines which usually rhyme. Prose is the language of the mind but poetry is the language of the heart. Whenever you see prose, it is a message from God's mind to your mind so that your thoughts may be His thoughts and His thoughts your thoughts. But when He speaks in poetry, the message is from His Heart to your heart so that you may feel His feelings. Prose is to change people's thinking but poetry is to change people's feelings.
In both Genesis 1 and 2 there is only a little phrase within a verse that is written in poetry form. In both cases the poem is about sex. To me this is truly amazing. When Adam first saw Eve he said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; ..." (Gen. 2:23). Because this is the language of the heart, God wants you to know how He feels about the woman He created. At the same time God wants you to know how Adam feels about his helpmeet.
Let us take a closer look at the following passages of Scripture:
"Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; ... (V. 27) So God created man in His own image. In the image of God He created him, male and female He created them. (V. 28) Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ..." (Gen. 1:26, 27, 28, emphasis added).
Notice the emphasized phrase is in poetry form and the next verse the poetry disappeared. In other words, the male and femaile belongs to the previous verse - it belongs to the image of God.
Great significance of the first verse of the Bible
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen. 1:1, emphasis added).
It is interesting to realize that the Hebrew word for "God" is "Eloheem" or Elohim" which is a plural word for three. Therefore right at the beginning God is three Persons in One. Unfortunately the Jews missed it and the consequence is that they can never say that God is love. The fact is that if God was only one you can never give Him the Name of Love. One person cannot express love by himself. We have the full revelation in the New Testament that God is the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit and therefore we can say God is Love. Notice that there is no other religion in the world can say their god is love! Only Christians believe that God is love and because of this, those who believe in God love God and love one another.
Let us follow some logical conclusive steps. If God is love and is 3-in-1 and He wanted to make us in His image He would have to make us capable of loving and we are incomplete without someone else to love. And so He made us 2-in-1 not quite as great as He. So He made us male and female capable of experiencing something of what it is to love someone else and be one with Him. What a beautiful idea!
Male and female are both created in the Image of God
It is extremely important to acknowledge that both man and woman equally carried the Image of God (Gen. 1:27). Therefore the whole relationship toward each other must be based on the clear understanding that in God's sight man and woman are of equal value, equal status and of equal worth. Therefore salvation is equal in Christ for all of us. This is the fundamental truth to the entire Bible.
Paul said, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galations 3:28, emphasis added).
Peter said, "Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered" (1 Peter 3:7, emphasis added).
However there are differences between the male and the female. We have different functions in the world, in the home and in the Church with different ministries. When we turn to Genesis 2 we will certainly realize that there is a contrast and there is inequality. The fact is, in the vertical dimension of God creating us, we are equal. But in the horizontal dimension in our relationship with each other, we are not equal.
Male and female are created differently
The three things said in Genensis 2 about our relationships which are picked up in the New Testament are:
1. Woman was made from man.
2. Woman was made for man.
3. Woman was made after man.
Each of these little words (from, for, after) is picked up in the New Testament to teach us how we are to behave (in role relationships) in the family and in the Church as men and women. Unfortunately many denominations and Churches missed it altogether!
1. Woman was made from man (Gen 2:21, 22)
Genesis 2:21 says that woman was made from a "rib" taken out of Adam's side. In Hebrew the word "rib" means a small part. Adam, in recognizing the fact that the woman was made from him, he was given the authority to name her, and he named her Eve. That is why in mariage nowadays the wife takes the name of the husband and not the other way round. Furthermore since a woman was taken from a part of man and not made like man from the dust, she is not independent from man. Paul, in 1 Cor. 11:11 testified this fact. Therefore a man who lives to himself and has no relationship with the opposite sex is not a full man. Similarly a woman who lives to herself and has no relationship with a husband is not a full woman.
2. Woman was made for man (1 Cor. 11:9)
This is same as saying the primary purpose of a woman is to be found in man. She is created to be his helpmeet. Being a helpmeet, or being the partner in ministry (in the Christian/Church context) she must not compete with her husband. When her husband is out ministering the wife being the helpmeet should be praying for him. Recently I heard someone said, a certain woman is the Senior Pastor in a Church, but her husband is one of the associated Pastors in the same Church! These "christians" must have thought man was made for woman! This is totally contrary to God' original creation pattern.
There is a teaching right around the world, in the feminist movement (Christian or non-Christian), teaches that a woman must find her fulfillment within herself, she must find her own gift, her own career and she must find herself by herself. This is also totally contrary to God's original creation pattern.
3. Woman was made after man
The significance is that everywhere in the Bible people follow one another. The first to appear carries the responsibilities for the next. This is the doctrine of the first born son in the entire teaching of the Bible. The first born son had extra responsibility for all the other sons. In Scripture when a father died and left his estate to his family he left an equal portion to each of his sons. But he left a double portion to the first born. Adam was the first born and therefore he carried responsibility for Eve.
Though Eve was the first to sin and the first to take the forbidden fruit the New Testament never blames her for introducing sin and death. Who does the New Testament blame? Adam, because he was responsible for her.
God expects the family life and Church life in the New Testament follow the same pattern of Genesis 2 that men carry the responsibilities for women. This is the reason why leadership in the Church is the responsibility of the men and never women.
How many Local Churches do you know are truly following God's original pattern of Creation clearly laid out in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2?
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