Scripture Reading
Genesis 2:18-25
18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 19 Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.”
24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
Sermon Quotes & References:
… that image of God created in Adam was a workmanship most beautiful, most excellent & most noble, while as yet no leprosy of sin had attached to him. Then all his senses, both internal & external, were the most perfect & pure. His intellect was most clear, his memory most complete & his will the most sincere, accompanied by the most charming security, without any fear of death & without any care or anxiety whatever. To these internal perfections of Adam was added a power of body and of all his limbs, so beautiful & so excellent that he surpassed all other animate natural creatures. I fully believe that before his sin the eyes of Adam were so clear & their sight so acute that his powers of vision exceeded those of the lynx. Adam, being stronger than the animals, handled lions and bears, whose strength is so great, as we would handle a young kitten. To Adam the sweetness & the virtue of the fruits which he ate were far beyond our enjoyment of them now. – Martin Luther, “On the Creation of Adam & Eve”
… the woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; she was not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved … If man is the head, she is the crown, a crown to her husband, the crown of the visible creation. The man was dust refined, but the woman was dust double-refined, one removed further from the earth … – Matthew Henry, Notes on Genesis
Adam was a figure of him that was to come; for out of the side of Christ, the second Adam, his spouse the church was formed, when he slept the sleep, the deep sleep, of death upon the cross, in order to which his side was opened, and there came out blood and water, blood to purchase his church and water to purify it to himself. – Martin Luther