Whether or not you ‘buy’ into the gap theory, is not as important as what God did in Genesis 2. God created man in the wilderness then took him to the garden.
Gen 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
Gen 2:8 The LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed.
Where did God create Adam? In the wilderness, because after creating Adam, He took the first man to the Garden.
Interesting. Where did God create Eve? We’ll answer that in a moment.
God Creates Marriage
Marriage is something Holy that resonates across time from the beginning to the end times visual of Christ returning for His bride, The Church. It should be no surprise that marriage is under attack by the Usurper and demon hordes, influencing the culture in which we live. This is another attribute many strive to make irrelevant because if marriage between a man and a woman can be destroyed by lies, then God is a liar.
God’s incredible romance with humanity began shortly after creation in the Garden.
Gen 2:18 And the LORD God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.”
Gen 2:19 Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name.
Gen 2:20 So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.
Gen 2:21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place.
Gen 2:22 Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.
Gen 2:23 And Adam said:
“This is now bone of my bones
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.”
Answering the earlier question. ‘Where did God create Eve?’ In the Garden. So appropriate. That implies attributes in which God made man for the wilderness and Eve for the Garden. Opposites attract but there is so much more. Why Marriage? What is its purpose?
God was fully WOKE when he created marriage; two becoming one to be fruitful and multiply. To fulfill the command of Christ to god and make disciples. This begins in the mini-churches of each family.
Gen 1:28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Gen 2:24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
Across the Scarlet Thread, marriage is a gift from our WOKE God, in which two become one. Creation began with a wedding and we know that it will end with a wedding. In fact, the culmination of the Scarlet Thread flows from the creation of the church in Acts to its wedding feast with the Lamb of God.
Rev 19:9 Then he said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!’ ” And he said to me, “These are the true sayings of God.”
The New Testament portrays the Church as the Bride of Christ in Ephesians 5:22-33 (Paul even quotes Genesis 2:24 as the union at the Parousia of the Bridegroom in v.31!); cf. Romans 7:4; 2 Corinthians 11:2; James 4:4. In the opening verses of John 14, the marriage covenant is confirmed.[1] Paul continually reminds us of the purchase price[2] and the covenant[3] by which we, the Bride, are set apart, or sanctified.[4]
From the beginning in Gen 2, God set the stage for marriage. I must admit that 38 years of marriage to Jan have been the hardest thing I’ve done. Harder than hugging a curb in Iraq when rockets and mortars landed around my data center. Marriages should have love and happiness – and our marriage has those things – but marriage is about Holiness. God uses it to transform us into the people HE wants us to be. Even when we are arguing about something, I try to keep in mind the fact if I were alone on that hospital bed in Wurzburg, with a liver abscess that was killing me, I would not be here. Jan was there, every day.
To make sure we don’t miss the point, Malachi said:
Mal 2:16
“For the LORD God of Israel says
That He hates divorce,
For it covers one’s garment with violence,”
Says the LORD of hosts.
“Therefore take heed to your spirit,
That you do not deal treacherously.”
Jesus stressed this in his conversation with the Pharisees:
Mat 19:3 The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?”
Mat 19:4 And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’
Mat 19:5 “and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?
Mat 19:6 “So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”
Jan has said on occasion that she and I promised we would never threaten each other with the ‘D’ word, but she would use a gun to hasten ‘until death do we part,’ if she had to. That’s funny but underlines how important we believe marriage is. Yet, that is not our opinion. It is what God thinks.
Eph 5: 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her
John 15: 16 You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.
All through the Gospels, Jesus relied on the ancient Jewish wedding pattern for many of His parables,[5] climaxing in His promise in the Upper Room in John 14:
John 14:1 “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me.
John 14:2 “In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
John 14:3 “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.
This is almost word for word what a future husband says to his fiancé when she accepts his request to marry her. His task is to go prepare a place for his future bride. It’s what Jesus promises to do for us. Many of us miss the full import of these allusions if we aren’t familiar with the model of ancient Jewish wedding practices.
[1] 1 Corinthians 11:25
[2] 1 Corinthians 6:19-20
[3] 1 Corinthians 11:25-26
[4] Ephesians 5:25-27; 1 Corinthians 1:2; 6:11; Hebrews 10:10; 13:12
[5] Matthew 22:1-14 and Matthew 25:1-13 for notable examples.