Episode 232 - "It is not good for man to be alone" - Genesis 2:18-25

Gen. 2:18 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.”

Gen. 2:24 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.

This is another one of those times where there is so much we could call attention to in this text. But it just seems appropriate to take it all together and focus on what is important.

The first thing is that God spoke again. To humorously borrow from an old commercial for an investment broker, the pitch line is “When E.F. Hutton speaks, people listen.” Well, it seems to me that when God speaks, we need to pay attention and listen. In this case, God, for the first time recorded in the Scriptures, expresses his assessment that something is NOT good, and he immediately resolves to do something about it. It was “not good that man should be alone” (Gen 2:18).

Before we look at God’s plan and action to resolve this, let’s consider the principle revealed here. We’ve already learned some very important God-revealed facts about humanity, haven’t we? Humans are valuable in the eyes of God. That is by God’s intent and design. This is a valuable tenet for us today. For those who claim to follow the God of the Bible, we should value other people with no regard to race, ethnicity, gender, socio-economic class, or other characteristics that may differentiate us from them based on outward appearances. The Scriptures tell us that God is no respecter of persons. (Acts 10:34, Rom 2:11) It would appear that this value assigned to us by God is related to the measure of how we bear God’s image.

Now we receive another truth about people that should inform how we live; how we think about others and interact with others. It is not good for man to be alone. What is evident in the immediate context is that God’s intent is to create the woman and the marriage relationship through which they can “be fruitful and multiply,” as was already expressed in the more general story of creation in chapter one. But at the more general level, we find the principle that God does not want us to isolate ourselves. We should not think that we can avoid people at all costs and just look out for ourselves. We need to be otherly-minded. This is not a condemnation of introverts. It is a principle that should inform us that God wants us to pursue and engage in relationships with other people.

Why would God say this? Why is this so important? We Christians understand that God is triune. There is one God, but God is three in person. Therefore, there has been fellowship within the Godhead from eternity past. Furthermore, we’ll see that as the Scriptures unfold, God doesn’t just want people to be in relationships with other people; God wants to be at the center of these relationships.

Picking up where I left off, God expressed his plan to “make a helper fit for him.” (Gen 2:18) The idea is that God was not going to make someone just like the man he’s created. However, the person he would create corresponds to the man and has similarities but is different enough to be a perfect complement to the man. In short, together, they will best fulfill the roles and responsibilities given to them by God, and they will best reflect the dignity and value of which they were endowed by their Creator.

Before God created the woman, it’s recorded that God brought every animal he had created to the man who named them. The man exercised his God-given responsibility to rule over the creatures and the earth. But the helper fit for the man was not among those creatures.

God could have formed the woman out of the ground as he had the man. But to form her out of the man himself reveals the connectedness and the intimacy they were designed to have. The culmination is when the LORD brought the woman to the man, and he was in absolute awe. He recognized that this is the perfect partner for him. (vv. 22-23)

This section closes with two important statements about this couple. First, the marriage relationship is the God-ordained formation of a new family in which the allegiances have shifted from parent-child to husband-wife. There are many people today who fail to get that. It does not mean to disregard or abandon our parents. But the child’s primary responsibility is now to their spouse and children.

The second statement says this first couple was naked and not ashamed. This is a picture of innocence. They have no knowledge of any wrong done. They have nothing to hide.

So what can we learn from this section? I would suggest that we need to embrace God’s assessment that it is not good for man to be alone. This does not mean that it’s sinful for people to be single. The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians argues for the value of remaining single so that one’s focus and energy can be on doing the Lord’s work. But, of course, that means serving others, doesn’t it? God wants us to be concerned for others and seek to serve them.