What is a woman? The confusion over the answer to this question in recent times has astounded many who think they know. To these, the facts have been settled for millennia. Women are the female of the human species. They are the ones who bear children. They are wives, mothers, sisters, daughters. Our very language defines them as unique. Yet there is something baffling about women. Men would attest to this and we women sometimes hardly understand ourselves. So this begs the question: who can unravel the mystery of woman?
Only One who has the authority.
In this study, we will look at the mystery of woman based on what God has revealed about her in His word, the Bible. Each chapter will contain section titled Unraveling the Mystery, based upon what God has revealed.
In the last blog, we answered the question what is a woman by considering who has the right to define a woman? I hope you saw the obvious answer there; the One who created woman gets to define her! He is the final authority about and over her. So now we will peer back through time to the actual creation of woman to get some idea of what God had in mind when He created the first woman. Our conclusions are guaranteed to be helpful by virtue of the fact that what God reveals is truth. However, what we can discover from the Biblical text is not exhaustive. It does not answer all our questions. There is still an element of mystery to it.
The mystery of woman.
We will see that God has not revealed the details of all that occurred at her creation. It is profoundly beautiful and mysterious. Still, there is much He lets us see. Let us go back and see what God shows us about her.
18 And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.” 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. 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. Genesis 2:18-19
It was not good that man should be alone.
This is the first “not good” in the creation account. Therefore, her creation was very important to Adam and very good, implied by what God said about how He created her.
She was created to be a helper comparable to Adam.
God created her to be a helper, and not only that, but comparable to the one she was created to help. God created her capable for the job. Why is this?
Reading back in Genesis 1:27, we learn that the man and the woman were spiritual equals. Both were made in God’s image. This makes them both equally unique in all creation.
27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
However, though they are the same species with the same unique place in creation, we see something else:
The man and the woman are not the same.
God created her from the man; God did not create the man from her. She was created uniquely as his helper. This is a critical point. It would be God’s prerogative to make them two identical creatures if He wanted to, but clearly He did not. God saw aloneness in Adam and He graciously gave it the in creation of someone who was part of him, yet different from him.
So how did this come about?
This is some of what we know of the mystery of woman:
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. Genesis 2:21-22
There were no other humans to witness this. God was there, and maybe some angels, and the animals. And maybe an Enemy. But more about that later.
The Holy Spirit who inspired sacred scripture has revealed as much as is good for us to know. We don’t know exactly how God opened Adam up, how he removed his rib, how He closed up his body after. We don’t have details in this passage what He did to the rib to fashion it into the first female human being.
Meanwhile, Adam was in a deep sleep. He had no say and apparently was not even a witness in the creation of the Woman.
What we can observe about her:
God did not create her in the same way He created Adam, from the dust of the ground. God fashioned the woman from Adam.
Then God brought her to the man (v22).
What Adam observed about the mystery of the woman:
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.” Genesis 2:23
Though he had been asleep the whole time, somehow he knew she was “bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh”.
He named her, as he had named the animals, but her name was not based upon what he thought might be cute. Her name was based on how God had created her. She was called woman because she was taken out of Man.
Interestingly, this is the one and only time that a human was taken out of a man. Subsequent human beings are taken out of a woman.
God instituted marriage at creation.
24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. Genesis 2:24
This is the first marriage; the joining together of one man and one woman as one flesh. Interestingly, up until feminism dominated our culture, the married woman takes the name of the man. In essence, he continues to name her. This is indicative of his authority over and responsibility toward her.
This is an important insight into the relationship between our first parents.
We see that although Adam and the Woman had no parents, they are our first parents. All mankind descends from them. They were the first in a long line of parents whose children would marry and then leave to establish their own families. God founded marriage to be perpetual in all generations.
It is amazing how it all began. God took a rib out of the man, made a woman out of it, and then joined the woman back to the man in a one-flesh union! It is breathtakingly beautiful and yes, mysterious!
Furthermore, God gave them jobs!
8 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.” Genesis 1:8
The man and the woman were to have dominion (rule) on the earth and fill the earth with their children. We will see how God made them co-laborers, using their different gifts to accomplish His purposes. So that is where we will leave it today but…
Stay tuned for more revelations about the mystery of the woman!
The whole Bible gives us increasing glimpses of the mystery of woman. We will learn more of the story of God’s purpose in creating women. Coming up, we will see how through sin, woman fell from her dignity and stature. However, there is great hope in the Person and work of Jesus Christ.
It is plain from scripture that God is, over both man and woman, a redeeming saving God by nature.
God did not forget the woman. The fact that the woman would miss the mark in devastating ways did not change God.
Knowing what is to come in Genesis 3, let the revelations to come give us great reason to hope.
For Single Women:
It is understandable that some of this could be perplexing for the never married, divorced or widowed women. We will address this more going forward. Just be assured that no matter what your circumstances, there are ways to serve and glorify God in accordance with the way He created women!
Unraveling the Mystery
We learned a lot from her creation! She was designed to be the following:
- The Woman was bone of Adam’s bones and flesh of Adam’s flesh
- Adam named the Woman at her creation
- She was taken out of the man, hence her name Woman. Scholars have different opinions about the relationship between ish (the Hebrew for man) and isha (the Hebrew for woman) but what has been revealed to us is the reason for the difference in what Adam called her is that she was taken out of Man.
- Therefore, the woman and the man were not the same
- She was uniquely created to be a helper comparable to the Man.
- She shared dominion of the earth with her husband
- She shared with her husband the mandate given at creation to be fruitful and multiply, to have dominion over the earth and its creatures, to fill the earth and subdue it
- God instituted marriage at creation. It was the joining together of the Man and the Woman, a one-flesh relationship designed to cause the Man to leave his parents and create a new family.
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