Genesis 2:18 Commentary and Bible Study

The account is very careful: ‘And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone’ – he must have a companion, he is made for companionship. He must have an associate in the work, in that wonderful, positive, enjoyable, immensely fulfilling work of the Garden of Eden. ‘I will make him an help meet for him.’ Before we go to the fall, we learn about the creation of the woman. Previously creation has been described as very good and complete, but now this seems to be an exception. It was God that pronounced Adam’s state to be not good, the first time that anything in creation had been said to be not good. In what sense was it not good? Not because there was any fault with creation, but because the work was not yet complete while Adam had no wife. These things are said for man’s sake to teach Adam that he had a need which only God could supply. God of course created Adam with this need in the first place and so was not in any way taken by surprise. God only allowed this situation to exist long enough for man to learn from it, for from the beginning God taught man by creating situations which made truth apparent to him. Man had already been commanded to be fruitful and multiply but without Eve he could not carry out this mandate. Something very wonderful is going to happen. The woman is going to be taken out of the man. In a sense she will not be a new creation. She will be a counterpart of him, part of his creation. She will have all his gifts and capacities, but to a different degree: some more, some less. But it isn't good for the man to be alone. For one very obvious reason, how can he be fruitful and multiply he's not capable of bearing children. He must have a child bearing counterpart. That's the very least of the meaning. But there are other qualities too which he lacks. There are some things that the man lacks and the help meet for him will make up those deficiencies. Adam also needed Eve as a help suitable for him. He needed help for his pleasure and enjoyment and sharing, as a social being. So a woman would be brought to Adam. She was to be a help in practical things, in assisting Adam in making decisions, in facing life together with him, in encouraging him, in being a companion to him, in enjoying God’s blessing with him, and in worshipping the Lord together with him. She was to be a helper suitable for him and not the other way round; she was made for him and not he for her. There was an order in marriage even before the fall, but Adam’s headship was kindly, loving, gentle, as it should also be in every Christian marriage. The ordinance of marriage which Moses is about to describe, was created for this life, for this world, and Christ tells us there will be no marriage in heaven. That is true because marriage is itself a type of something far more wonderful and more permanent – the relationship between Christ and his church. That union will be the only marriage in heaven when the earthly ordinance of marriage, which ends at death, will no longer be in force. Then man and woman will be equal before God for both were made in the image of God.