It’s not good for the man to be alone, and God in the creation of humanity confirmed it on several occasions. When Adam was created, there was always something missing for all the pieces of the divine puzzle to fit together. However, our creator always had a purpose and this would have to be fulfilled, which is why he also created Eve.
What does Genesis 2:18 mean?
For the first time in the Bible, we hear God describe something as “no good.” Up to this point, God has seen everything he has made as good or very good, including the first man. The entire world created was perfect in form, function, and potential up to this point. Now something was not right.
What is especially interesting about this statement is that, at this point, God is fully responsible for the state of the world. This is not after the fall of man, but before. Why, then, is something that God created called “no good”? And by God himself, no less?
In short, only God can be perfect. So anything that is not God cannot be completely perfect. And, we have already seen God choose in a process of creation and modification (Genesis 1:9-12). It is not only logically possible, but inevitable, that part of God’s creation will be less than perfect, in the sense that God is “perfect.”
What exactly is the problem that God is trying to correct?
Adam was alone. God did not design human beings to live in solitude. Specifically, marriage between a man and a woman was part of his plan for humanity from the beginning, even before sin entered the world.
God declares that he will make a helper who is fit, suitable, or “corresponds” to man. In other words, He will make another person like man: another human built for the purpose of being man’s helper and companion.
Some view the description of the first woman as the first man’s helper as demeaning. Some assume this means that she is lesser in position or purpose. However, God often describes himself with the same root used here for help: (Psalm 33:20; Psalm 70:5; Psalm 115:9).
In either case, the woman will be provided to the man for his sake. She is part of God’s provision for him, as he will be for her. God’s intent and design is for man and woman to live, work, and walk with Him together.
God recognizes that it is not good for man to be alone
Genesis 2:15–25 provides details about the sixth-day creation of humans. After being fashioned from the substance of the earth, God places man in a garden. He is then given the responsibility of caring for the plants and trees there.
God’s first and only prohibition for man is not to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, in the middle of the garden, with the promise of death. Man is also charged with naming animals, an act that reflects his God-given authority.
God recognizes that it is not good for man to be alone and helps him with his own rib “Create Eve”. This woman becomes Adam’s partner and wife, setting the original example of God’s design for marriage. The two exist in pure innocence, naked but shameless before sin enters the world.
Why did God create Eve?
When God made Eve, he was magnifying her crowning glory. He was making a female creature who could enjoy him and reflect the glory of her forever. I would like to suggest that Paul says “woman was made for man” (1 Cor. 11:9), ultimately because she is made for Christ (Rev. 21:2).
The woman was not Adam’s idea. Our first parents did not court, petition, or choose each other. This was an arranged marriage, a match made literally in heaven.
Eve was God’s brainchild. God approaches Adam with plans for a male and female creation. If it weren’t for God, Adam would never have realized that it was not good for him to be alone. He didn’t know any better. He wasn’t alone, and if he was, he didn’t know it.
So why did our lord state “it is not good for man to be alone”? When we read this passage, we tend to automatically insert a few extra words, “it is not good for Adam to be alone.” But in doing so, we have missed the point a bit. God’s creativity is not about us.
God’s creativity is God’s way of seeing and savoring his own glory. “Everything comes only from God. Everything lives by his power, and everything is for his glory ”(Rom. 11:36). “The Lord made everything for his own ends” (Prov. 16:4). If this is true of creation in general, it is especially true of creatures made in the image and likeness of God.
Woman is good “to man” only because she completes God’s pattern for his special creatures to reflect his glory back to God (1 Cor. 11:9). The reason why It’s not good that Adam is alone it is ultimately because it is not good for the glory of God.
Adam did not design Eve’s female body or her female heart for his own pleasure. Eve was not made simply to help Adam with the dishes and laundry. Adam is not the ultimate and ultimate goal of Eve. Eve is the absolute of creation, the crown of Adam, “the glory of man” (1 Cor. 11: 7).
Eve was God’s idea, made for God’s glory
Without Eve, the image of God’s own glory in man would be insufficient, missing. So: “it is not good for man to be alone”. Then she immediately follows up with her special divine solution: “I’ll make him a suitable helper for him.”
But what happens next? Don’t we tend to immediately jump to the creation of Eve? God says “it is not good for man to be alone” So he makes Eve. But that’s not how the story goes. Jumping to the creation of Eve, we miss the scene between the “not good” announcement and the creation of Eve.
Whatever the man called the animals, that was their name. But for Adam there was no suitable helper yet. Then God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep, and he took one of her ribs and made her into a woman and brought her to the man.
Why did God make Eve from Adam’s own flesh and not from the earth?
The man was fast asleep when God cut the rib out of his flesh and formed the woman out of it. Adam was never able to say, “I did that.” He, too, could not say to God, do it one way or another, it was our lord who decided at that moment.
But the main reason why he created her from his own body is because he wanted them to be for each other: “one only” “one body” “help meet”. With this we can verify God’s displeasure with homosexuality, because removing the abomination from the text, he simply does not fulfill his purpose.
The Creation and Incarnation of God
The creation story issues a reminder of God’s enduring passion to glorify himself through the unity in diversity of his male and female creation. He reaches a climax in the incarnation, when he became the new Adam born of a daughter of Eve.
Without Eve, we would not know the eternal Son of God as the incarnate Son of man. God has bound us to himself in an everlasting covenant. We are flesh of the flesh of Christ and bone of the bones of Christ.
God was very clear when he made the following statement: “it is not good for man to be alone” and this was very accurate. Everything will always be easier at home when there is mutual help between the man and the woman. However, machismo has distorted God’s purpose for women.
God said “suitable help”, that is, support, at no time did He agree that the man should leave all the work to the woman. The true purpose was that the man was not alone, when our lord said “it is not good for the man to be alone” and created the woman, he had in mind a companion.