For all the fault we have in our married lives, God has given us not just a helper, but a Savior.
Our text for today forms the foundation of the Christian teaching on marriage. As we preach this, it would be good to draw out and not avoid that theological confession or to simply reduce these verses to just some information about our original parents. You could use it to compare and contrast God’s original design for marriage with what it has become today. Utilizing the “Compare and Contrast Structure”[1] for your sermon could help organize your thoughts as you unpack this biblical teaching. This will allow you to focus on the marriage metaphor in the Bible between God and His people as He redeems the whole institution from any negative comparisons which might happen as you contrast God’s original design for marriage and what we have made it thus far.
Our text begins with some of the most merciful words from God in Genesis: “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (verse 14). You and I were not meant to be alone in this world. We were not meant to be self-enclosed or self-fulfilling. Instead, we were made for relationships with others. Of all the complex relationships people have with each other, this text singles out the relationship of marriage.
God, who is a trinity, muses to Himself about how it is not good for the man to be alone. After He has declared so much to be good which He has made, here we have Him reflect on something that is “not good.” He sets out to reconcile this quandary. He makes a partner so Adam might live in relationship and community together with God who, again, exists as a trinity. God makes for the man one in whom He sees Himself, one with whom he can share, care, and commune in mutual service and partnership. Here, we have humanity as God intended it.
After Eve is created, God brings the woman to Adam. When He does, Adam cries out, “This is at last bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh (verse 23)!” In other words, here is the one corresponding to me, the individual I can share my life with, the person I can be in community with and enjoy a deep fellowship! Woman and man are joined together for the first time in the joyful new community of marriage, as one flesh, sharing their lives and work together.
Woman and man are joined together for the first time in the joyful new community of marriage, as one flesh, sharing their lives and work together.
This is the good God intended in Christian marriage. Then, in sin, we corrupt these good gifts with our lust, perversions, family disruptions, marital breakups, and our battle between the sexes. Jesus knows how rough it can get in marriage, but that does not stop Him from teaching its true intention in Mark 10:2-9; our appointed Gospel Lesson for today. Only in Jesus is there healing for our sick homes and relationships. The entire New Testament proclaims this glad message that “marriage is a gift, in fact, a great gift, a clear forerunner of God’s greatest gift of all, His Son, Jesus. Come to think of it, this Jesus “left His Father” to “cleave unto us.” He too, in His birth at Bethlehem, became “bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh.” The woman God created for Adam was made out of man, Adam himself. Similarly, Jesus was “made of a woman” (Galatians 4:4)![2]
So, for all the fault we have in our married lives, God has given us not just a helper, but a Savior. If there is any sin in marriage it is taken by more than our spouse, but our Lord. When the Lord weds this little, poor, and sinful Church, He gives to us something by grace which we could never earn or deserve. Luther likely put it best when he compared the benefits of faith to the benefits of marriage. He says:
“The benefit of faith is this: That it unites the soul with Christ, like a bride with a bridegroom. By this “mystery” (as Paul teaches), Christ and the soul are made one flesh. For if they are one flesh and if a true marriage—indeed by far the most perfect marriage of all—is culminated between them (since human marriages are but weak shadows of this one), then it follows that they come to hold all things, good and bad, in common. Accordingly, the faithful soul can both assume as its own whatever Christ has and glory in it, and whatever is the soul’s, Christ claims for Himself as His own.
Let us examine these things in detail to see how invaluable they are. Christ is full of grace, life, and salvation; the soul is full of sins, death, and damnation. Now, let faith intervene and it will turn out that sins, death, and Hell are Christ’s, but grace, life, and salvation are the soul’s. For if He is the groom, then He should simultaneously both accept the things belonging to the bride and impart to the bride those things that are His. For the One who gives His body and His very self to her, how does He not give His all? And the One who receives the body of the bride, how does He not take all that is hers?
This is truly the most delightful drama, involving not only Communion but also a saving war, victory, salvation, and redemption. For Christ is God and a human being in one and the same person, who does not and cannot sin, die, or be damned; and His righteousness, life, and salvation are unconquerable, eternal, and all-powerful. When, I say, such a person shares in common and, indeed, takes as His own the sins, death, and Hell of the bride on account of the wedding ring of faith, and when He regards them as if they were His own and as if He Himself had sinned—suffering, dying, and descending into Hell—then, as He conquers them all and as sin, death, and Hell cannot devour Him, they are devoured by Him in an astounding duel. For His righteousness is superior to all sins, His life more powerful than death, and His salvation more invincible than Hell.
So, it happens that the faithful soul, through the wedding ring of its faith in Christ her Bridegroom, is free from all sins, secure against death, protected from Hell, and given the eternal righteousness, life, and salvation of her Bridegroom, Christ. Thus, “He takes to Himself a glorious bride without spot or wrinkle... making her clean by washing... in the Word of life,” that is, through faith in the Word, life, righteousness, and salvation [of Christ]. As Hosea 2[:19] says, [the Lord] becomes engaged to her “in faith, in mercy and compassion, in righteousness, and judgment.”
Who can even begin to appreciate this royal marriage? What can comprehend the riches of this glorious grace? Here, this rich, upstanding Bridegroom, Christ, marries this poor, disloyal little prostitute, redeems her from all her evil, and adorns her with all His goodness. For now, it is impossible for her sins to destroy her, because they have been laid upon Christ and devoured by Him. In Christ, her Bridegroom, she has her righteousness, which she can enjoy as her very own property. And with confidence she can set this righteousness over against all of her sins and in opposition to death and Hell and can say, “Sure, I have sinned, but my Christ, in whom I trust, has not sinned. All that is His is mine and all that is mine is His.” As it says in the Song of Solomon [2:16]: “My beloved is mine, and I am his.” This is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15[:57]: “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” But this “victory” is over sin and death, as he notes in the previous verse [v. 56]: “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the Law.”[3]
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Additional Resources:
Craft of Preaching-Check out out 1517’s resources on Genesis 2:18-25.
Concordia Theology-Various helps from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO to assist you in preaching Genesis 2:18-25.
Text Week-A treasury of resources from various traditions to help you preach Genesis 2:18-25.
Lectionary Kick-Start-Check out this fantastic podcast from Craft of Preaching authors Peter Nafzger and David Schmitt as they dig into the texts for this Sunday!
Lectionary Podcast- Prof. Walter A. Maier III of Concordia Theological Seminary in Ft. Wayne, IN walks us through Genesis 2:18-25.
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[1] https://concordiatheology.org/sermon-structs/thematic/comparisoncontrast/
[2] Francis C. Rossow, Gospel Handles: Finding New Connections in Biblical Text. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2014. 17.
[3] Timothy J. Wengert. The Freedom of a Christian, in The Annotated Luther, vol. 1, “The Roots of Reform,” ed. Hans J. Hillerbrand, Kirsi I. Stjerna, and Timothy J. Wengert. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2015. 499–502.
