“All About the Family”

Sunday, January 29, 2023

The book of Genesis gives us many answers, if we’ll only listen.  The first several chapters, especially, do a marvelous job explaining intuitively the relationship between God and man, sin and death.  We appreciate this partly because it satisfies our curiosity about the origins of the universe, and of life; but the answers go beyond, and start telling us not only the way things are, but also what we ought to do about it.  The story of creation is a record of God’s commandments, bringing things and eventually people into existence by calling them into being out of nothing; but sitting right at the transition between this story and the next chapter is the first general commandment, not a quotation from God within the narrative, but an eternal law.

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (Genesis 2.24)

This instruction—to leave parents and be joined to one’s spouse—seems so obvious that we take it for granted.  Yet, today there are many in the world who wish to play the part of the serpent from the next chapter, and convince us that the truth is really the opposite of what God said.  If we were to forget everything we think we know, and treat God’s commandment as if it contained all the answers, what would we discover?

Therefore a man…

God expects men and women to fulfill the particular roles he has assigned.  In nearly every case, the animals he created are designed to reproduce sexually, and even the plants are mostly divided into male and female at some level; but only with human beings was this considered important enough to warrant a mention in the text:

So God created man in his own image,

        in the image of God he created him;

        male and female he created them. (Genesis 1.27)

Both are made in God’s image, but male and female are obviously different, never mind that our society has been trying desperately to change that fact, even carving up the bodies of children in a horrible, but ultimately vain attempt to deny the obvious.  Those using technology to pharmaceutically and surgically alter the form of bodies may tell themselves they have become like God (cf. Ge 3.5), creating in their own image; but all they’ve really done is to mangle that which God made and declared “good” (Ge 1.31).

…shall leave his father and his mother…

God expects men to be active and decisive, leaving the comfort of his parents’ home and setting out to build his own.  This does not, of course, mean that women have no agency, or expectations to fulfill before God.  But God did not have Moses write, “therefore a person shall leave his or her parents and hold fast to his or her spouse.”  There’s a reason for the gendered language.

While we’re at it, take note that, according to the pattern, the man ought to have a father and mother to leave.  Not a single mother, nor a father and stepmother, nor a pair of fathers, nor a father and a mother and another mother, nor a village, nor any other combination than a father and a mother.  There will be understandable exceptions to the rule, for example when one parent dies while the child is still at home.  But God’s expectation is clear: a nuclear family comprising a father, a mother, and children who remain in their home until they grow up and leave.

…and hold fast to his wife…

This isn’t a requirement that all men marry—both the Law of Moses and Jesus in the New Testament permit both men and women to remain unmarried—the New Testament even encourages it for some (cf. Mt 19.12, 1Co 7.8).  But it is a general requirement.  God told the human race to “Be fruitful and multiply” (e.g. Ge 1.28), and built into us an incredibly strong  desire to do so.  He declared all of creation to be good, except for one thing: “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Ge 2.18).  His expectation is that most of us should seek to satisfy that desire to procreate, and to do it within the boundaries he has established—a man and a woman, creating a copy of the household the man has left.

…and they shall become one flesh.

This is obviously an allusion to the anatomical appropriateness of sexual coupling—it’s so fundamental that we refer to electrical and plumbing components as “male” and “female” to illustrate their function.  A male fitting without a corresponding female mate serves very little purpose.  God’s instruction here has to do with more than closing a circuit, though.  He says that joining the two results, not in two bodies connected, but one body.  “What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Mt 19.6).

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So, the pattern is clear: a man and a woman marry and form their own family, following the template of those into which they were born.  This means the fulfilling of their roles, a strong and exclusive sexual relationship, and the generation of children, who will one day be released into the world to continue the cycle.  Of course, the world is tainted by sin, and people find all sorts of ways to complicate the situation.  But it’s important to realize that, as with the rest of Genesis, this is about more than fleshly restrictions and reasons to find fault with each other.  Since we are made in God’s image, there’s more to us than flesh.  There are spiritual implications, too!  God’s Son and heir suffered death on the cross in order to adopt us into the family, so that we may be children in “the household of God” (1 Pe 4.17), with all of the responsibilities and blessings that go along with that relationship. It’s all about the family, and it always has been.

Jeremy Nettles

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