Sermon Tone Analysis

Eve - To help Adam, be comparable to him.

Str 5828; TWOT 1598a—1.

LN 35.1–35.18

helper, assistant, i.e., one who assists and serves another with what is needed (Ge 2:18, 20; Ex 18:4; Dt 33:29; Eze 12:14; Hos 13:9+);

18 And the LORD God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.”

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.

22 Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.

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.”

24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

Why did God take a rib from Adam instead of forming woman out of the dust of the ground as He did Adam?

The creation of Eve from Adam’s rib poignantly portrays the essential unity of spirit and purpose of the sexes intended by God.

A strong desire for such unity and companionship is shown in Adam’s response when he first sees Eve: “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (2:23).

the serpent tricked Eve into eating the forbidden fruit and sharing it with Adam.

Eve seems to have eaten because she was deceived (1 Tm 2:14), Adam out of a willful and conscious rebellion.

Ironically, the two beings originally created in God’s image and likeness believed that they could become “like” God by disobeying him (Gn 3:5).

The terms, in our image, after our likeness, are characteristically bold.

If image seems too pictorial a word, there is the rest of Scripture to control it; but at a single stroke it imprints on the mind the central truth about us.

The words image and likeness reinforce one another: there is no ‘and’ between the phrases, and Scripture does not use them as technically distinct expressions, as some theologians have done, whereby the ‘image’ is man’s indelible constitution as a rational and morally responsible being, and the ‘likeness’ is that spiritual accord with the will of God which was lost at the fall.

The distinction exists, but it does not coincide with these terms.

After the fall, man is still said to be in God’s image (Gen.

9:6) and likeness (Jas 3:9); nonetheless he requires to be ‘renewed … after the image of him that created him’ (Col.

3:10; cf.

Eph.

4:24).

See also 5:1, 3.