Page 6 - Family Life Student Textbook

Although God created man and woman with differences, both of them were created in his image. We will
look in greater detail at the differences between male and female later in this course.

But Adam and Eve were created to mirror God’s image. The Bible teaches us that God is a Trinity, God the
Father, God the son, and God the Holy Spirit. While each of these persons of the Godhead have some
differences, they are all fully God and share the same attributes. And God created Adam and Eve with some
differences, but both are fully mankind, mirrored after the image of God. Therefore, marriage is a picture of
the trinity. Man and woman, different persons of the same human race, unit to form one new unit.

The three members of the Trinity enjoy a very close fellowship with one another. Jesus often spent time
praying to his father in heaven. It grieved Jesus greatly when his father turned his back to look away from
the sin that he had laid upon Him on the cross. God laid our sin upon his son, Jesus Christ, so that he could
pay the penalty for us in our place. Because God the father could not look at sin, he turned his back upon
Jesus Christ. When Jesus said “father, why have you forsaken me.” He may have felt more pain from that
separation from his father than the physical pain he felt. That fellowship between them was very valuable.

God not only created man and woman, he also created marriage in which this man and woman would be
joined together to form one new unit. And this unit was meant to enjoy the kind of close fellowship that the
Trinity enjoys. Man and woman, two separate persons, yet they are joined together to form one new family
unit. God intends for a husband-and-wife to have this kind of close fellowship with one another. And this
design mirrors God’s Trinity.

2. To mutually complete one another:

God also designed marriage to meet the partnership and intimacy needs of the man and woman and to
mutually complete each other. God knew it was not good for Adam to be alone.

Genesis 2:18–23 “The LORD God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a
helper suitable for him.’ Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild
animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would
name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So
the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.
But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the LORD God caused the man to fall
into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then
closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had
taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone
of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of
man.”

Why did God create Adam some amount of time before Eve? God created man first, but then created Eve
and brought her to Adam. This was the first wedding as God, the father, brought Eve to Adam. God had
pronounced everything in his creation to be “good”. But when he saw Adam alone, he said that was not
good. So he created Eve to be Adam’s partner. In creating Adam first and giving him the task of naming all
the animals, God allowed Adam to realize the lack of a partner for himself. God wanted Adam to appreciate
Eve.

And husband and wife need each other today.

1 Corinthians 11:11 “Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man, nor is
man independent of woman.”
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