God's Ideal for Males and Females
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Gen. 1:27, NIV.
Male and female he created them.” Have you ever wondered why God chose to introduce into His new, beautiful earth male and female units? True, it was His chosen means of populating our planet. But God could have done that in many different ways. He could have spoken inhabitants into existence until He was satisfied that there were enough.
But how much we would have missed! Father and Son had known the joys of an intimate relationship since the beginning (John 17), and He wanted earthlings to know a similar joy in several areas of their relationships. So since He chose to make us in His image, He provided for a special relationship between the male part of His image and the female part of His image. It was to be the hallmark of His earthly creation—the gift of the power to create.
How carefully He went about this Edenic event. Adam’s significant contribution came from his side. Eve was dependent on him for that. He was dependent upon her for the continuance of life from his seed. Complete interdependence.
Adam slept during this first surgical procedure, not because God was not a painless surgeon, but more likely so that the first man could never be tempted to employ the argument “I was there. I witnessed your origin.” To do so would not have been fair!
Then God said four significant things to both of them together. He blessed them equally; He told them to be fruitful and multiply, for which both were equally essential; He told them to subdue the earth, involving them both in implementing submission over it; and He enjoined them to have dominion over His nonhuman creation—in effect, to be comanagers. No wonder Ellen White can assure us that Eve and Adam were equal at Creation (Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 46).
How thankful we can be to God for His ideal plan, which brought male and female together in a relationship of oneness, side by side and equals in perfect harmony.
O Creator-God, may I show my spouse the respect and admiration of a side-by-side, egalitarian, Edenic relationship, God’s original purpose for male and female.
Male and female he created them.” Have you ever wondered why God chose to introduce into His new, beautiful earth male and female units? True, it was His chosen means of populating our planet. But God could have done that in many different ways. He could have spoken inhabitants into existence until He was satisfied that there were enough.
But how much we would have missed! Father and Son had known the joys of an intimate relationship since the beginning (John 17), and He wanted earthlings to know a similar joy in several areas of their relationships. So since He chose to make us in His image, He provided for a special relationship between the male part of His image and the female part of His image. It was to be the hallmark of His earthly creation—the gift of the power to create.
How carefully He went about this Edenic event. Adam’s significant contribution came from his side. Eve was dependent on him for that. He was dependent upon her for the continuance of life from his seed. Complete interdependence.
Adam slept during this first surgical procedure, not because God was not a painless surgeon, but more likely so that the first man could never be tempted to employ the argument “I was there. I witnessed your origin.” To do so would not have been fair!
Then God said four significant things to both of them together. He blessed them equally; He told them to be fruitful and multiply, for which both were equally essential; He told them to subdue the earth, involving them both in implementing submission over it; and He enjoined them to have dominion over His nonhuman creation—in effect, to be comanagers. No wonder Ellen White can assure us that Eve and Adam were equal at Creation (Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 46).
How thankful we can be to God for His ideal plan, which brought male and female together in a relationship of oneness, side by side and equals in perfect harmony.
O Creator-God, may I show my spouse the respect and admiration of a side-by-side, egalitarian, Edenic relationship, God’s original purpose for male and female.
Used by permission of Health Ministries, North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists.
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