Central to this version of the creation of Adam is the importance given to the necessity for companionship as an essential characteristic of what it means to be a creature given existence for the sole purpose of engaging in the covenantal relationship established by the Lord God as the foundation for the relational expression of graced freedom. God creates Adam in covenantal existence and for the purposes of faithfulness as a covenant creature; this covenantal characteristic defines Adam at both the individual (and as soon becomes apparent) and communal levels of existence. As has been affirmed by biblical scholars, the naming of the creatures is, perhaps, a demonstration of Adam’s lordship over creation as the divinely established steward of the created order; but it is also a prelude to the recognition of the painful void that remains in the life of Adam, evident in the limitations imposed on his communion with all other creatures, by virtue of the existing ontological contrast between Adam and them, a contrast that cannot be altered.
The phrase “it is not good for man to be alone” sounds at first blush like an observation made on some unspoken aspect of Adam’s behavior, when in fact it is more likely a theological affirmation of the need for Adam to be defined by the boundary of another’s existence—one who would serve as both complement and contrast to Adam, and in that same necessary duality establish the basis for communal harmony. Here the use of not good seems to suggest something of incompleteness to the being of Adam; not an imperfection in his being, so much as incapacity to be all God intends for Adam as a covenant partner.
The creation of the woman from the rib of Adam would imply an immediate and essential bond between them, even before Adam had awakened to acknowledge the same, evident in the exuberant words, on his first view of Eve, representing an impassioned exclamation: “This one, at last, is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.” Each of the two, Adam and Eve, have as their first object of faithfulness, covenantal obedience to the Lord God; and out of that covenantal existence arises the commitment to a similar obligation in the relationship they will then share. The expression of graced freedom, as obedience to the first covenantal relationship (i.e., with the Lord God), will be manifest in their capacity to enrich and enlarge both the complementary and contrasting characteristics of their divinely created covenant partner (i.e., they become one flesh).
When considered within the framework of human communal existence, harmony, in its essentials, is evident not so much as the absence of conflict as it is in the capacity to express graced freedom in obedience to God and in seeking the welfare and enlargement of life for the other; this is but a reflection—but a genuine reflection!—of that far more transcendent freedom with which the Lord God engages in the lives of both creature and creation. The covenant has established the parameters of conferred freedom for obedience as well as for the establishment and enrichment of communal existence; graced freedom finds its primary expression within the established boundaries of the covenantal relationship with the living God (what could be called the vertical dimensional dynamic) and only secondarily within communal realities (what could be called the horizontal dimensional dynamic). In this passage marriage becomes one of the more evident covenantal contexts in which graced freedom is expressed within the relationship between male and female, as one that promises enrichment and limited fulfillment of life.
The reference to the two becoming one flesh should not be understood solely in terms of sexual intimacy, nor as affirming a form of existence in which the uniqueness and contrasting characteristics of the individual are sacrificed to the bonding of communal realities; in either case, such an understanding would bring graced freedom into serious question and, perhaps, even present a confused if not distorted image of the gracious intent of God in creating anthropos as male and female. Just as anthropos has been created a covenantal-communal creature, whose very existence necessitates the expression of graced freedom in relation to the Other or other, so this affirmation of one flesh implies a commonality of focus and intent in covenantal regard for the welfare and enrichment of the other partner in every aspect that is essential to his or her well-being, and to nurture in him or her that form of free expression of “self” that brings honor to the Creator. Should the reference be to the marital covenant (as is likely the case), the implications extend far beyond the boundaries of any one marriage, pointing instead to “marriage” as that form of covenantal engagement intended by the Lord to exemplify the best employment of the graced freedom bestowed, as the context in which obedience—as respectful acknowledgment of shared accountability for the enrichment of the other before God—mirrors for the whole of creation the beauty of such graced freedom.
At this juncture it is necessary to recall the words of the apostle Paul to the Ephesians: “He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hates his own flesh, but provides and cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, since we are members of His body” (Eph. 5:28b–29). While Paul is engaged in a discussion of analogy (marriage and the church), he apparently stresses the necessary connection between “love” and “covenantal obedience” to the intent of God for marriage (as well as the ekklēsia). At its best—in its fullness of expressed graced freedom—marriage is emblematic of that covenantal relationship with which Christ engages the ekklēsia, a relationship in which Christ seeks to nurture and enrich those expressions of graced freedom as rooted in a “love” that both transcends and is—by virtue of the Holy Spirit—embodied in the ekklēsia, even as it can be seen in the marital covenant as faithful to God’s intent. Being a “member” of the “body of Christ” includes accountability for the spiritual enrichment and enlargement of the other(s), as an expression of agapē and graced freedom in obedience to the evident will of God for this “body” as the “body” of his Son! To treat a member of the ekklēsia with distain, disregard for his or her welfare, or—yes—with hatred, is not only an affront to the Lord, but manifests little more than the abolition of graced freedom and bondage to that which is contrary to God’s will in every aspect of what it means to be a covenantal being (i.e., sin).
This “aside” brings us into the domain of that portion of the biblical narrative that provides evidence of how graced freedom was surrendered in the most subtle and yet the most disastrous of dialogical debates between Eve and that other creature, the serpent, (with Adam, no doubt, lurking somewhere within ear-shot); we delay in pronouncing the name of this other, as it bears all of the characteristics of calamity; simply recall the confrontation between Jesus and the Gerasene demoniac (see Luke 8.26–39) in which, when asked the tormentor’s name, the being replied, Legion! Naming this malevolence is difficult because it seeks to remain anonymous and hidden in the shadows of the world and human living; it has no existence of its own and is merely a leach! We turn our attention now to that portion of the narrative which speaks of Adam and Eve as “fallen” from the gracious gift of an incomparable freedom!
The Abolition of Graced Freedom
Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden?’” The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’” The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she also to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves