New Revelations About The Mystery Of Marriage

For the past several months I've been focusing upon the divinely established institution of marriage. Not only did God establish and define marriage, He also blessed it. However, in this fallen world what God has established will always be rejected or redefined. It has been so from the beginning because we live in a rebellious world, led by the prince of darkness and confusion. Recall how he began his attacks: 

¹ Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.

   He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” ² And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, ³ but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” ⁴ But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. ⁵ For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:1-5)

For untold centuries people of all nations have assumed that marriage is the union of a man and a woman—for life. Many want us to believe that is not so, that we have come to a new understanding, even a new revelation from God in our day. They are asking, "Did God actually say that?"

And when we quote God's Word, they reply, "That's not quite correct. Let us tell you what He was really saying. You see, in our day we have gained new and deeper insights into this institution. What was once a mystery has now become quite plain to us through our studies. We have new revelations. Marriage is not only the union of one man and one woman. It was meant by God to be more than that." 

Interesting. Could it be so? More than that? Maybe, maybe it is. Wow!

But let us be very cautious. Are we changing what God has said? Before approaching this mystery called marriage we had best address the back story. In novel writing, the back story is vital to understanding how the main story progresses. Let's take another look at the back story of marriage, because, as the Apostle Paul says, it is indeed quite a mystery! And you will never unravel this mystery unless the Author of the great story, the Author of Life (Acts 3:15, Hebrews 12:2), unwinds it for you. Paul writes about this in his commentary on marriage:

"Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh (Genesis 2:24). This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church" (Ephesians 5:32).

In the Bible the word mystery, as in novel writing, is something unraveled step by step. The hints were already there in the beginning, when the Author of Life made Adam and Eve as two separate beings. When Adam awoke he was amazed. He sensed the meaning of the mystery. He said, "Aha! This is it! At last I see what You are doing. A bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. I shall give her a name like my own, even as I have been commanded to define all of the other creatures (Genesis 2:19). She shall be called Woman (Hebrew: Ishah. The word for man is Ish)."

Wikipedia gives us this background for our English translation of the Hebrew: 

The Old English wifman meant "female human" (werman meant "male human". Man or mann had a gender neutral meaning of "human", corresponding to Modern English "one" or "someone". However in around 1000AD "man" started to be used more to refer to "male human", and in the late 1200s began to inevitably displace and eradicate the original word "werman").[1] The medial labial consonants coalesced to create the modern form "woman"; the initial element, which meant "female," underwent semantic narrowing to the sense of a married woman ("wife").

But wait, the story is  moving too fast. I've skipped over a vital part, the part about Adam's rib. Remember that? No sweat, right? Everybody knows that Eve was made from Adam's rib. But do you really know that part of the story? Just for fun let's take another look at it. The Hebrew text of Genesis says something far more than that. It actually says that Adam was split in two while he slept. Take a look:

"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. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man" (Genesis 2:21-22).

So reads most familiar English translations. But is that what the original Hebrew text actually states?

The word translated 'rib' is tsela. The Stone edition of the Chumash (English translation of the Hebrew Pentateuch) renders the verse in this manner:

"and He took one of his sides and He filled in the flesh in its place."

Following this translation you see at once that something far more was going on than merely making another being out of a piece of Adam, like his rib. Indeed. Did you know that nowhere else in the Bible is that word tsela translated as rib? Let me give you but two examples a bit further into the Pentateuch. Speaking of the Ark of the Covenant, the LORD told Moses,

"You shall cast four rings of gold for it and put them on its four feet, two rings on the one side of it, and two rings on the other side of it" (Exodus 25:12).

The word for side in this quote is tsela, the entire side of the Ark (see also Exodus 37:3-5  for the same description of the Ark).

Now move to the description of the two sides of the Altar:

"And the poles shall be put through the rings, so that the poles are on the two sides of the altar when it is carried" (Exodus 27:7).

Once again the word for side is tsela in the plural, the two sides of the Altar. There are other examples of the word (1 Kings 6:5-6; 6:34; Job 18:12, etc.). As noted, nowhere else in the Bible is the word translated as rib. Makes you wonder why the King James folks ever got into calling it Adam's 'rib'. But that's another story.

Think about this. What is the Author of Life telling us, both about marriage and about His plans to unite Himself with His Bride? For starters, note that Adam was split in two. He had been one, but now he was made two. When he awoke he saw at once his other half, like him, yet different. He was separated, alienated, but here she was. He could only become one by being united to her, this woman,  this female human.

There's a whole lot more to this mystery. But we'll save that for another day.