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ADAM & EVE METAPHOR:
The creation story in the book of Genesis is a fascinating study in itself and we’ve enjoyed looking at the ways various individuals have attempted to reconcile its more challenging aspects. Unfortunately, none of these attempts (of which we are aware) has satisfied our own longing for a coherent explanation, particularly on those points which seem at odds with modern science. It can sometimes seem that the conflicts are swept under the rug or dismissed without authentically acknowledging them. And so we’ve continued to ask God for revelation and a deeper understanding of His intent.
One day several years ago my husband was meditating on the creation story and he found himself asking some really basic questions. Questions most people would find innocuous, simplistic, or even a little pointless in the overall scheme of things. Questions like this:
God, you could have created anything. There were a million or more options open to you. Why did you do it like this? Why does it look this way?
Why a beautiful garden?
Why a whole bunch of animals, birds and fish, but only one man?
Why did you make the man first, and the woman later?
And why did you make her out of the man’s side instead of from the dirt, the way you made him?
And why a woman at all? Where’d you come up with that?
And why marriage? What’s that about?
This rapid-fire download of questions was the outpouring of a heart desperate to know and understand the God who is. “Something created all this,” the heart says, and the Bible purports to know who did it and at least the rudiments of how it was done. We accept that on faith, but not everyone does.
Sometimes we ask questions of God like those listed above but we don’t really expect an answer. Maybe because we seldom get one. At least not instantly and maybe not at all. Sometimes we think up our own answers because we get tired of waiting, and sometimes we give up asking altogether. Perhaps we have resigned ourselves to one-way conversations (if that), because He doesn’t usually give us the immediate feedback we require in our instant gratification society. “Too bad, God. Time’s up. Gotta go.” If this is you, you’re not alone. But fortunately, in this case, He didn’t wait long. In a moment of time, a flash, the answer came back. Stunningly. The words weren’t audible, but they were clear as a bell.
“T.L., this is Me. This is a picture of Me and My situation.”
Whoa! That was it. Like a telegram from heaven. Full stop. Just 13 little words. But what words. God’s not a big gabber. He says the bare minimum, but He says it in a way that communicates volumes. That was it. His short little answer was like a golden key that unlocked a profound truth. Genesis (chapters 1-3) appears, at first reading, to be a quick snapshot of the creation story: the order, a few brief descriptions, and a recitation of the curse. But what emerges on closer examination is a striking self-portrait of our God! We’ve read these pages many times; countless times really, yet have not discerned this fundamental truth.
This terse little narrative, a mere 80 verses, conveys the bare minimum to the cursory inquirer, but embedded within its prose is a masterful treatise on the eternal purposes of God, one that shows us not just what He’s up to, why and how He made you and me, and what He intends to accomplish, but more importantly, who He is. It’s a picture of God Himself, not just His plan, and it’s foundational to all of scripture.
The Bible sometimes acts like one of those 3-D paintings that looks like little more than a repetitive series of dibs and dabs or drips and drops; that is, until you relax your eyes and stare meditatively for a protracted period. Then, all of a sudden, from the once-flat canvas emerges a three-dimensional world of trees, mountains and eagles flying in mid-air, and, if you move your head, you can actually see around the mountain! Amazing. It is true that treasures are hidden in the pages of our Bible, and are yielded only to the persistent and patient seeker of truth.
Let’s take a closer look at what those 13 little words in God’s reply meant. As we digested them, this is initially what we came to understand.
THE GARDEN: If the Genesis story, as He said, is a picture of Him and His situation, then the “garden” of Genesis 2 must represent or be a picture of Heaven, where God lives (and where we hope to live one day). His home. It’s perfect; and there is no death there; no decay at all. It is bountiful and beautiful, full of every kind of fruit and vegetable and flowering tree, and it serves Him, not the other way around. He rules over it. There are no weeds to pull. No thorns or thistles. Just the most lovely of spaces, arranged and arrayed for His pleasure, with springs of water flowing through and a mist rising from the ground in the early morning––its own built-in sprinkler system.
THE ANIMALS, BIRDS, FISH, AND CREEPING THINGS: The animals of Genesis 1—the cattle and creeping things, the swarms of living creatures in the sea, and the birds of the air— represent, in this snapshot, all of the creatures, the hosts of heaven, that God had created in eternity past, before He made Adam. God rules over them, too, just as he commanded Adam to rule over the lower forms of life created in Genesis 1.
If this analogy holds, God’s relationship with these hosts of heaven (angels, etc.) then would be similar to men’s relationship with the animal kingdom. We can enjoy an animal’s company, mutually fill certain needs in each other, and even say we love them, but we are limited in our ability to commune with them.
They are not peers. And we are to master them. We are the superior being. They were intended to serve us, not the other way around.
And it’s the same for God. The hosts of heaven are more like servants or employees of His than intimate friends. He can relate to them to a limited degree, but they are not peers. They live with Him and around Him in His heaven, giving Him obeisance, just as the animals lived with and around Adam. They serve Him and do His bidding as “ministering spirits,” the Bible says, “sent to do His will.”
Some, however, have been cast out of heaven (at their own Fall) and they are, frankly, hideous. Perhaps that explains the presence of certain unattractive and frightening creatures sharing our earth. Could they represent, in this illustration, the fallen angels or demons? Just a thought. I’ve always wondered why God would create things that were ugly and frightening looking? This is one possible answer. Interestingly, they are often hidden from view, just as the demonic world is hidden from view. Most lie deep in the undersea world, or in the microscopic or miniature world of bugs and skittery critters.
(Of course since the Fall, the creation ~ both flora and fauna ~ no longer serves us without a tussle. Perhaps this is illustrative of the fact that some of the hosts of heaven no longer serve God either, at least not willingly.)
ADAM: And Adam himself is a figure or type (i.e., picture) of God. God even describes him as being made “in His image.” Typology such as this is a staple of basic biblical interpretation. It is pervasive throughout the scripture.
So, if Adam is a picture of God, we can safely assume that man, the image of God, is the pinnacle of the created order. Just as there is no being higher than God, there is no creature higher than man. He has dominion over the garden, just like God has dominion over His heaven. He’s in charge.
And just as Adam was initially one of a “kind” in the garden, the only human (with no mate or complement), so God is one of a “kind.” He stands alone in His universe. There is no one like Him. He rules and reigns over all He has made, but He has no companion who is actually like Him in nature and capacity, able to commune on His level.
And, given this illustration, we can assume that, just as God said it was “not good for the man to be alone,” the same holds true for Himself, in His own opinion. It is not good for Him to be alone. That is His assessment.
God has gone a long way toward rectifying that problem, however, by creating someone who is like Him, and this is the Bible’s story and the point of Genesis 1-3. God, the creator of the universe, is in the process of taking a Bride. Or better said, making a Bride, for Himself.
EVE: Eve, at her creation (before the Fall), then, is picture of what God is after. His goal. She is a “type” of this Bride that He desires. Once she is purified and refined, she will be someone who loves Him for who He is. Someone who thinks like Him, who bears His image and who will ultimately reflect His character. Someone who is beautiful, trustworthy and supremely attractive on a multitude of levels. And someone upon whom He can bestow all His “worldly goods,” in a spiritual sense now and in a literal sense in the hereafter.
God desires a love-object who is figuratively “bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh,” a poetic way of saying “someone who is like Him,” made of the same stuff, and who is as connected to Him as He is to Himself. Eve is made from Adam’s side to illustrate this ultimate reality. What this means in heavenly terms is not exactly known, but we can safely say (at the very least) that when all is said and done, the heavenly Bridegroom will have a Bride who is glorified and incorruptible as He is (because, in being one with Him, she shares His life and immortality), and who bears His image and shares in His divine role. John says “when He appears, we shall be like Him…” (1 John 3:3) She will be His heavenly consort. Marriage itself, then, as first mentioned in Genesis 2:24, is as much a creation of God as was Eve. Marriage was God’s idea. It is He, then, who should define its parameters, not us.
And Eve is created from Adam’s side, at a physical cost to Adam, to illustrate the fact that the Bride exists only by the selfless sacrifice of God Himself, who gave His own flesh and blood (Jesus Christ) to redeem her, to give her “life.”
Genesis 1-3, then, is a deliberate portrayal of much more than it is traditionally taken to be (that is, a recitation of how things came to exist), though that in itself is wonderful and awe-inspiring. Men have argued for eons whether Genesis should be taken literally or figuratively; whether it is scientific or metaphorical. Was it seven literal days, or seven ages? Does “day” really mean “day”? Though there are serious implications in how we answer those questions, that is not the focus of our discussion here, and the argument, unfortunately, distracts us from the bigger picture. For the purposes of this particular theory and its ramifications, those issues are moot.
In the meantime, just reflect on the overarching theme presented here. If this theory is true, it should shape our understanding of all that is happening in our world, and it should dramatically inform our own individual lives. Whether or not you have scoffed at the “story” of creation in the past, you can now take a second look at it. Not as a treatise on how things were done (the order, timing, etc.), but as a revelation of a deeper truth that explains not only how we got here, but why we are. We will flesh this out in more detail in the following theories, but for now, just do your best to keep an open mind. The walls of skepticism and intellectualism and modernism can be rebuilt later if you do not ultimately find this credible.
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