From His Side

The book of Genesis says that when God created Eve, he caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep, and while he slept, he opened his side, took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. And from the rib which God took from the man he made woman, and brought her to the man (2:21-22).

Thus, what had been taken from the man came back to him in the form of a woman. From what God had done, Adam could understand the intimate relationship between him and the woman. She was not created out of him, but originated from his own body. What came back to him was bone from his bones and flesh from his flesh. This was reflected in the name that Adam gave to his wife: "Woman", because, he said, she was taken from the "Man".

Some four thousand years later, there was a similar scene on Golgotha. The soldiers approached the crucified to break their legs, and hasten their death. Since the Lord Jesus was already dead, they exempted Him from this, and instead pierced His side with a spear, "and immediately blood and water came out" (John 19:34). At that moment, the birth of the church was sealed, and the way it was to be cleansed from its sins (1 John 1:7), and washed from every stain (Eph. 5:25-27). Adam's dream is a figure of Christ's death. From that wounded side, the Father took a rib from the last Adam, and made the church.

What name will Christ give to the church, when he saw it presented before him by the Father? Adam gave Eve a name that was a derivation of his own. Will the name of the church be something like Christian? There will be a day when all things will bear a new name, one that corresponds to the true nature of things and persons, to God's initial purpose and finished work in them (Rev. 2:17).

In Ephesians, when Paul describes marriage, he says that it is a great mystery, and that in speaking of marriage, he is really speaking of Christ and the church. Human marriage is, then, only an allegory of that true marriage of Christ and the church. The first expression in time of that union of Christ and the church is the union of Adam and Eve. In the Genesis account we can learn what happens -perhaps not before our eyes, but in the eyes of God- with every earthly marriage.

We can see God putting every man to sleep to bring forth his wife from his side, so that he, on seeing her, may exclaim in wonder: "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh"; and then say: "This one shall be called Joan" (if he is called John), or "this one shall be called Paula" (if he is called Paul); so that perfect unity is not just a thing of Scripture, but a unity in fact, perfectly reflected in their names.

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