Articles
This Mystery Is Great
Reading: Genesis 2
After recording the creation account, the Bible gives details about mankind’s earliest days and the land that was first inhabited. Adam was charged with working and keeping the garden of Eden (v. 15) and was given the command to abstain from the fruit of one tree in the whole garden. After Adam gives names to all the other creatures in search of a helper, God performs a divine operation and brings forth Eve from Adam’s rib. And so, the first marriage and first home are established by God Himself.
Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus quotes Genesis 2:24 in his directions for Christian husbands and wives. And yet he immediately follows that quote by making a much larger point: “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:32). The Spirit of God reveals through Paul’s teaching that, even in the origin and institution of marriage, God was painting a picture of the gospel to come.
When God created the bride of Adam, he caused the first man to fall into a deep sleep while he opened his side (v. 21). In creating the bride of Christ (that is, the church), God caused His Son to fall into the deep sleep of death. It was then that Jesus’s side was pierced as the sacrifice was finished (read John 19:30-35)—a sacrifice from which the church, like Eve, was born (Acts 20:28). It is because of this great divine operation that the people of God’s kingdom experience true blessedness in the unity they have with God through Jesus Christ.
