Bone of My Bones: Genesis 2:18-25

The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."

Not good. In a creation pronounced "very good," one thing was not good—human solitude. The image of God, who exists in eternal relationship, was never meant to be alone.

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.

A parade of creatures before Adam. Lion, eagle, elephant, sparrow—each one examined, each one named. Naming was an act of authority, of understanding, of relationship. Adam studied them all.

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.

He named them all, but none of them fit. None of them could look back at him with recognition. None of them could share his thoughts, his work, his worship. He was surrounded by creatures and utterly alone.

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.

Divine surgery. Adam slept while God worked, unconscious of the miracle being performed. A rib—not from his head to rule over him, not from his feet to be trampled, but from his side to stand beside him, close to his heart.

Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to him.

He brought her. Like a father walking a bride down the aisle, God presented the woman to the man. The first wedding. The first gift.

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."

Adam's first recorded words are poetry. He had named animals with single words, but the woman drew song from him. At last—bone of my bones! Flesh of my flesh! Someone like him. Someone from him. Someone for him.

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

One flesh. What God had separated—taking bone from Adam to make Eve—marriage would reunite. Two becoming one, a union as close as the original surgery was intimate.

Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

Naked and unashamed. No hiding, no covering, no embarrassment. Complete vulnerability, complete trust, complete acceptance. This was how it was meant to be—before the serpent, before the fruit, before everything shattered.

The garden held two naked people who had never known shame. It would not last.