It has been my custom to instruct gay Christian men, when people use aginst them that ridiculously tired old line that "God made Adam and Eve - not Adam and Steve", to look them lovingly in the eye and say,

"Yes, God made Eve for Adam .... but He made Steve for me."

Because, in actuality, that is exactly what happened. Please let me explain how. 

First, picture the situation in the Garden. Moses points out in Genesis 2, that God saw that Adam was lonely and that He said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make an help meet for him." Stop and think of that for a second. Adam was lonely?! Here was Adam, 100% perfectly made, 100% perfect, made in the very image of God, with the very earth and all that is upon it at his command, and with God Himself as his friend who walked and talked with him. Adam (and later Eve) was the ONLY HUMAN IN HISTORY who ever stood in the full glory and presence of God Almighty. He could do this, of course, because he was completely without sin. And yet he was lonely.

 

Before Eve's creation and immediately after God announced that it was not good that the man should be alone, a very remarkable thing happened. Notice that God specifically stated "I will make an help meet for him," yet that was NOT what He did next. In a curious move, Scripture says that the very next thing God did was that He presented all of the animals to Adam. Then it gives a strange reason why: "...to see what he would call them."

 

At first that doesn't seem too strange in and of itself. But there is a reason why God wanted to see what Adam would call each creature immediately AFTER He said that it was not good for the man to be alone. He was waiting to see if Adam would name one of them as his companion - to see if Adam would choose a mate among them!

 

Bear with me, because I'm about to show you something in Scripture that they, regretably, never mention in church, and you are going to see why the church has been so wrong about their understanding of marriage and homosexuality and the Law. Let's review  this whole incident in Genesis:

 

18: And the Lord God said,

"It is not good that the man should be alone;

I will make him an help meet [suitable] for him."

19: And out of the ground the Lord God formed

every beast of the field and every fowl of the air,

and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them:

and whatsoever Adam called every living creature,

that was the name thereof. (Now watch carefully!)

20: And Adam gave names to all the cattle,

and the fowl of the air,

and to every beast of the field:

BUT FOR ADAM THERE WAS NOT FOUND

AN HELP MEET FOR HIM.

 

Do you see what just happened? God says that Adam's loneliness is not good, and to answer this problem God parades every creature before Adam - but among them there was not a creature suitable for him as a mate, to keep him from being lonely. No animal is sufficient for us as a comparable mate.

 

Immediately after this, when no suitable mate is found, God creates Eve and brings her to Adam, and Adam says,

 

                                        "This is it!!"

 

Only something made in man's own image, of man's own flesh, can be suitable for man. 

 

But this begs the question: WHY is only man's image suitable to him as a mate? That leads to even bigger questions: Why DID God make Man in the first place? Why is mankind so important out of all creation that God would be willing to DIE for him? And why would perfect Adam in a sinless world be LONELY? I suppose that, firstly, we have to acknowledge, that since loneliness existed before the Fall - since it existed in a state of perfection - therefore the condition of loneliness is not sin nor the result of sin. And yet, while God Himself says that “it is not good” for the man to be alone, loneliness is not something separate from God, else it could not have been there in the beginning during a time of perfection. If man was made directly by God in God's very image, and the first thing God says about this perfect replica of Himself is that he is lonely, therefore loneliness was also with God. And thus being true, the rest of the Scriptures go on to tell us exactly why He made us: to be His mate. He is Man's Husband and Man is His Bride, and Genesis thru Revelation is the story of this Husband seeking and calling His Bride to Him. That is a core doctrine of the Judeao-Christian faith, precisely because this doctrine is taught by Scripture. In fact, nothing more powerful hits this doctrinal nail on the head like Jesus' very own words in Matthew 9:15, where He says of Himself and Man:

 

"Can the children of the Bridechamber mourn

    as long as the Bridegroom is with them?"  

 

And as Paul wrote to believers regarding their relationship with Christ, contrasting it to that of Adam & Eve, in 2nd Corinthians 11:2:

 

"For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one Husband - that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ; but I fear, lest by any means, as the Serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so [too] your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ!"

 

[See also Jeremiah 31:32, Isaiah 49:18, Isaiah 61:10, Isaiah 62:1-5, Jeremiah 2:32, John 3:27-29, Revelation 21 (all), Revelation 22:17, Mark 2:19, Luke 5:34, Matthew 25].

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The issue of the male & the female, and their creation and their unique purposes, is one of those issues in which the one who studies it is (fortunately or unfortunately) required to instantly jump from milk (spiritual baby food) to meat (spiritual adult food), because this is strong meat to be chewed instead of milk to be sipped. That being so, this also makes it difficult to discuss comprehensively. I confess that I do not know it all, and some of it is so deep that it is currently beyond my understanding, as it is written, “If any man thinketh that he knoweth anything, he knoweth not as he ought to know.”  In other words, no matter how much you think you know about something, you still don’t know all there is to know about it. And therefore, in this I stand humbled before God. But we are given reason and the Holy Spirit to comprehend the Scriptures; God does not leave us in darkness. So - first let me at least make it absolutely clear that I am NOT saying that the reason God created Woman was because of sin! The woman was a dear and precious gift of the Lord to the man (and to mankind). Man is not complete without womankind also here with us, and vice versa, as even 1 Corinthians 11:11 says, “neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord”. Even a homosexual man, who does not PHYSICALLY join with a woman, nevertheless is incomplete without women, and the lesbian woman who does not physically join with a man is incomplete without men. As Barbra Steisand put it, "People need people." In fact you may notice that homosexual men actually tend to have unique and deep friendships with women which heterosexual men seem to have a problem attaining (probably because sexuality and lust get in their way). Being female is not the cause of sin. Adam and Eve - the father and mother of Mankind - most assuredly sinned TOGETHER. I want that made clear before we proceed.

 

As I said before, a mate was given by God to Adam to keep him from being ALONE - that is why a mate was created in the first place. My point, as I will prove, was that Eve’s genitals were irrelevant to her qualifying as Adam’s mate.

 

And it is here in my explanation that I must greatly rely upon the reader's understanding that no matter WHY Adam’s mate was crafted in a slightly different appearance, there is no sexism with God, nor in the Scriptures, nor implied by my forthcoming comments.

 

It is interesting to note that a Hebrew tradition - while acknowledging that God mad woman from the man’s rib (thus creating her with his DNA) - also interprets this to mean that God took “a side” of Adam to make Eve. She isn’t merely made of his body, she is literally his "other half" (which is a term used even today to refer to a spouse). If that is so, then this would confirm other theological speculations that, all of that which became "Eve" was originally in Adam – and because the man Adam and the woman Eve each contained a half of the same person (and each possessing what the other is lacking), they were therefore both drawn to each other AND at odds with each other for lack of comprehension of that which they did not possess (which the other possessed). Is this why they say men and women never understand each other? Who knows. But my impression from Scripture is that Eve’s unique difference (that is, the mental and emotional qualities unique to the female) were not taken out of thin air in her creation but were taken from ADAM. I cannot outright prove this from Scripture, but I think there is sufficient context in Scripture to validate the hypothesis.

 

At this point the question may be raised: "But aren't women also made in God’s image?” This is where you must hold tight to your faith and remember that there is no sexism in Christ. Whether women are made in God’s image or not, remember that Woman (and certain biblical women in particular) have been constantly exalted by the Lord. I mean, think of it, mankind is referred to in the feminine as the Lord's Bride. And God includes the female with the male when He calls them by the highest titles: “kings and priests unto Christ”. But WAS the woman made in God’s image, too?  To our logic is would seem so because both males and females are procreated the same way. But the biblical facts seem to supersede and contradict what appears as logic to us (as if anyone could be surprised at that fact) – and what is important is that we rejoice and be contented in whatever the outcome because we are NOW equal before Christ - for "there is neither male nor female in Christ". Amen?

 

What the biblical facts would seem to suggest is that the woman was not directly created in God’s image. The man was created from the dust of the earth in God’s image, for God, and the “help meet” was created from the rib of man, for man to prevent his loneliness. My understanding of this comes from 1 Corinthians 11:3 which says,

 

“But I would have you know,

that the head of every MAN is Christ;

and the head of the WOMAN is the MAN;

and the head of Christ is God.

Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head. But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven. For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered.

For a MAN indeed ought not to cover his head,

FORASMUCH AS HE IS THE IMAGE AND GLORY OF GOD:

BUT THE WOMAN IS THE GLORY OF THE MAN.

 FOR THE MAN IS NOT OF THE WOMAN,

BUT THE WOMAN OF THE MAN. 

NEITHER WAS THE MAN CREATED BY FOR THE WOMAN,

BUT THE WOMAN FOR THE MAN.”

 

Now I realize that these words are politically charged and could have every Amazon feminist burning Bibles on bonfires; but we who believe on the name of the Living God are not of this world, and we know that the Father has all things in His hands and that His purposes are holy and righteous. I believe that the "Help Meet" (meaning "a suitable helper") is greatly honored by the Lord, in that He chose Adam’s “help meet” with privilege and honor of bearing offspring instead of Adam. So instead of there being a sadness that one is God’s image and the other "merely" man’s image, instead a full circle of equality is made by this declaration of Scripture, “For as the woman is OF the man, even so is the man also BY the woman; but all things of God.” So the male is given honor as God’s image and the "Help Meet" is taken from Man - yet the "Help Meet" receives the astounding honor of being the sole replicator of Man! The "help Meet" came out of the man, and now all men – including Messiah Himself – come out of the "Help Meet". I don’t know you’re thoughts about that, but it sure doesn’t sound too shabby to me!

 

Now, you may be wondering why I keep saying “help meet” here rather than "woman/female". Because this brings us back to the original issue. I mentioned that God could have chosen another male for Adam. And you see, technically, He did! There is a reason that we call both males and females “Man” and "Mankind”, and why we say "Man" and "wo-Man [womb-man]", and "Male" and "fe-Male [feminine male]". The male and female bodies are more alike than people realize. As you may or may not know, in the womb all babies begin to form as females – not males (it’s the opposite of the creation order). If God so deems a male be born, the mother’s body introduces testosterone at just the right moment of development. It is much like how an ant colony produces all males unless God intervenes to cause a female birth, which will be queen  - just as the human male is spiritual head of the house, king, priest, etc (Now you know why King Solomon said to the ignorant person, "Go to the ant, thou sluggard!") When the baby receives the testosterone, what would have become the clitoris (which is a miniature of the male’s glans penis) then elongates into a full penis; that which would have been the labia closes at the edges and seals itself into a scrotal sack (which is why all males have what appears to be a scar running down the entire length of the scrotum); and that which would have developed into ovaries becomes testicles instead, which then drop down into the scrotum. Breasts are identical in males and females until puberty brings mammary glands in females.

 

So as you can see, physically Adam’s mate was in fact another male – a fe-male (feminized male). As far as physical form, the only purpose for this variety of male form is to provide capacity for “begetting”, bringing Adam and Eve’s replacements into the world – made of their flesh and bones – because Adam and Eve’s sin brought the death penalty upon them. But, as a previously demonstrated, though God blessed them with the life-giving ability to generate their replacements (offspring), they did not bear children until after The Fall - because there was no need for their replacements until death entered. Additionally, there is only a finite amount of space on earth, and sinless undying people would quickly fill the world up. Which logically tells me that, while the sex act was in use before The Fall (making the two one), the procreative abilities would not have been necessary until after The Fall – which the Lord knew would happen. For this very same reason the Lord created wild beasts with defensive and offensive capabilities, bone crushing jaws and deadly claws and heavy fur, poisonous bites and stings – they had no need of these in a perfect and sinless world, but they had been prepared in advance for the world that was to come after The Fall.