order.
Regardless of the authorial intent of the divine command to anthropos that they—and all other creatures—restrict themselves to that form of food that was from seed-bearing plants and from every tree whose fruit contains seed, this divine command implies that the taking of any form of animate life would be the misuse of graced freedom. One cannot comprehend this word from the Lord as anything less than a direct command, and therefore calling for an expression of graced freedom in obedience to God’s command. To take the life of another animate being, for purposes of self-sustenance, would be a violation of the command, and therefore demonstrate the relinquishment of graced freedom in the desire to impose one’s own will on another being, since one cannot (in the context of the narrative as it stands) speak meaningfully of any sentient creature willingly offering its life for the well-being of another. As we will soon see, one of the first casualties of Adam’s fall from graced freedom is the Lord’s sacrifice of one of his beloved creatures to “cover” the shame of Adam and Eve; in this singular act of divine compassion, one can overhear the sorrowful voice of graced freedom’s demise! It can be stated that as broadly as graced freedom animated the whole of creation and every creature, so extensively did the effect of Adam’s fall from graced freedom adversely affect that same graced freedom, and at every level of existence.
Yet before taking up discussion of Adam’s fall from graced freedom, we must turn briefly to exposition of the second narrative of creation as found in the Book of Genesis (2:15–25):
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.” . . . So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. Then the Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He has taken from the man, and brought her to the man. The man said: This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken from Man. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and be joined to his wife; and they become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
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
