GLEANINGS — October 26, A.D. 2014                                                                                                               "Name that Error"

He took a hundred pounds of clay
And then He said, "Hey, listen...
I'm gonna fix this-a world today,
Because I know what's missin."
Then He rolled his big sleeves up
And a brand-new world began.
He created a woman and-a lots of lovin' for a man!

So begins a pop song released in A.D. 1961, performed by Gene McDaniels. It would be refreshing to find a song celebrating the origin of  marriage on modern pop charts, even if it had a mistake such as the one found in these lyrics.

Did you catch it?  It was probably not a malicious perversion on the part of the songwriters* like the perversions which abound in much of modern American entertainment. Nonetheless it is a mistake. God took the dust of the Earth to form Adam's body, but when it came to the creation of Eve, God took one of Adam's ribs (Genesis 2:21) and used it to form Eve – and all men should note well that God left the weight of the world's first woman unspecified.

Have you ever wondered WHY God created Eve in this way? Why not simply take another quantity of dust and make her out of that, as He did with Adam? Did God not know that this method of creating her would make His infallible, inerrant Word all the more laughable in the eyes of proud mockers? Of course He did and does know that, but the dread judgment of strong delusions being sent by God upon those who do not receive the love of the truth (2 Thessalonians 2:11) is something to contemplate another time...

When Paul referred in Ephesians chapter five to the Genesis passage in which Eve's creation is recorded and marriage is instituted by God Himself (not subject to man's redefining), the inspired apostle wrote, "This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church" (vs. 32).

God's eternal purpose is consummated in the indissoluble union of the last Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45) and His eternal bride the Church. Therefore the world's first marriage foreshadowed this. Paul had previously written in Ephesians five, "For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones" (vs. 30). When he beheld his wife for the first time, Adam proclaimed, "...this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh" (Genesis 2:23).

Thus the holiness and purity of one man / one woman marriage for life does not center on mankind's happiness, even though that is a wonderful "by product" for those who honor God's institution. And marriage is not to be honored because it is a traditional social construct of human origin. Marriage was established by our Creator, and the glory of marriage is in its representation of our Redeemer and His bride. Desecrating marriage is heinously wicked for its proud imagination that God's ordinance can be altered by man. Honoring marriage is the duty and privelege of all, especially of the redeemed who understand the great wonder which earthly marriages set forth: Heaven's one, everlasting marriage.

"Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge." (Hebrews 13:4)

*A Hundred Pounds of Clay was written by Kay Rogers, Luther Dixon, and Bob Elgin