THE PERFECT MARRIAGE? (GENESIS 3:1-20)
A while back, men and ladies alike received a tricky e-mail joke, which says:
“Once upon a time, a perfect man and a perfect woman met. After a perfect courtship, they had a perfect wedding. Their life together was, of course, perfect. One snowy, stormy Christmas Eve, this perfect couple was driving their perfect car along a winding road, when they noticed someone at the side of the road in distress. Being the perfect couple, they stopped to help.
There stood Santa Claus with a huge bundle of toys. Not wanting to disappoint any children on the eve of Christmas, the perfect couple loaded Santa and his toys into their vehicle. Soon they were driving along delivering the toys. Unfortunately, the driving conditions deteriorated and the perfect couple and Santa Claus had an accident. Only one of them survived the accident.
Who was the survivor? (Scroll down for the answer.)
The perfect woman survived. She’s the only one who really existed in the first place. Everyone knows there is no Santa Claus and there is no such thing as a perfect man.
Women stop reading here, that is the end of the joke.
Men keep scrolling****. (Scroll down for the answer)
So, if there is no perfect man and no Santa Claus, the perfect woman must have been driving. This explains why there was a car accident. By the way, if you’re a woman and you’re reading this, this illustrates another point: women never listen.”
Even in the garden of Eden, the perfect marriage did not exist. It’s been said, “Adam and Eve had an ideal marriage. He didn’t have to hear about all the men she could have married and she didn’t have to hear about the way his mother cooked.” God created man, male and female, in his own image (Gen 1:27), called all that he had made “very good” (Gen 1:31), and placed them in a perfect environment (Gen 2:8-14). So what went wrong? How did “very good” things go so awfully bad and hopeless? Because God gave people a choice but man chose to go his own way. God did not make us as robots, puppets, or pawns. A person, by definition, has a personality, a choice to make and the freedom to decide to follow Him or deny Him.
How did man lose his way? Why did man and woman undermine each other and their relationship? What are the consequences to the family when man rebels against God?
Disregard for God’s Word Leads to the Path of Disobedience
3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ’You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ’You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’“
4 “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. (Gen 3:1-6)
A man wanted to go ice fishing. He’d seen many books on the subject, and finally, after getting all the necessary tools together, he made for the nearest frozen lake. After positioning his comfy footstool, he started to make a circular cut in the ice. Suddenly - from the sky - a voice boomed, “THERE ARE NO FISH UNDER THE ICE!”
Startled, the man moved further down the ice, poured a Thermos of cappuccino, began to cut yet another hole. Again, from the heavens, the voice bellowed, “THERE ARE NO FISH UNDER THE ICE!”
The man, now quite worried, moved way down to the opposite end of the ice, sat up his stool, and tried again to cut his hole. The voice came once more: “THERE ARE NO FISH UNDER THE ICE!”
He stopped, looked skyward, and said, “ Is that you Lord?” The voice replied, “No, I’m the Ice-Arena Manager!”
Failing and refusing to heed God’s word is the heart of all human and marital problems. At the heart of every failing human relationship is a failing spiritual relationship – the failure to follow God’s established rules of order. God has given us a manual of instructions – the Bible – but we make our own rules. Eve and Adam’s problem began when she did not trust God’s promise; she did not listen to the Wise One – God, but listened to the Wicked One – Satan.
God’s intention for Eve was to be Adam’s helper, not the final decision-maker. They were supposed to confide in each other, confer with each other and compare notes with each other. Eve did not call for a family meeting, ask for her husband’s whereabouts or talk to her spouse at the time she heard things contrary to the fact. She acted as the leader, took over the reins, made her own decisions and chose her own destiny.
The snake came to Eve when she was the most vulnerable. She was by herself when she took temptation lightly and decided for herself, not wanting to miss out on a good deal or bargain. Satan has been making the same sales pitch ever since: to have something for nothing, to have everything you ever wanted and to have the world at your feet. Eve could not resist the 0% down payment, 0% interest and no payment till next year sale. An opening question (v 1) and a false promise (vv 4-5) were enough to plant doubts in Eve’s mind and put wrong ideas in her head. She who had rule over every living creature (Gen 1:28) handed her authority over to one of the creatures. The snake had mastery over Eve when she listened to her lies. Eve wondered if God had told them the whole truth, if Adam had heard God’s instructions correctly and if there’s more to life than being married, being someone’s helper and being secondary in everything. To be fair to her, Eve also had her doubts because God gave the instructions to Adam, not her (Gen 2:15-16).
Eve strayed from God’s truth. She foolishly tampered with God’s word, added salt and vinegar to God’s command, and injected her own interpretation: “You must not touch it, or you will die.” (v 3) The devil appeals to our physical senses, sensual pleasures and intellectual snobbery to snare us (v 6). He works on man’s self-sufficiency, vainglory and self-centeredness. Entertaining him makes us vulnerable, foolish and weak.
Disregard for God’s Word Leads to the Pain of Disagreement
7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. 8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?” 10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” 11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” 12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me--she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” 13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” (Gen 3:7-13)
Marriage is a union, a battle and a test of wills. After years of marriage, my wife and I still squabbled over trivial things.
One issue we tangled over early in our marriage was whether cloth table placemats should be placed in the same wash with regular clothes. My wife would not mix the two, but I would wash them in the same load without a qualm, to save water! Knowing her touchiness on the issue, I threw the placemats into the washing machine without letting her know on a few occasions that I washed. Once, unfortunately, she had more clothes to put into the machine just when I was about to start washing the load. Of course, I asked her to hand her clothes to me but she extended her neck to see what else I have in the load. Instinctively, I closed the door and the door hit her head at about the same time she spotted the placemats inside. She yelped in pain but was more upset at what she saw, so much so that she was shaking as she spoke, “You…You lied to me!” I protested, “No, I didn’t lie; I just didn’t tell you!”
We did not speak that night until eventually she said to me: “I do not mind that you put the placemats there, but we only wash it once in a long while. You should wash it more regularly with the clothes so that the mats would not be so greasy, because the grease might ruin my working clothes, and you know I don’t have a lot of them.”
Unfortunately, many people’s squabbles do not end harmoniously, but painfully and miserably. The fallout from sin is a no-holds barred, a tooth-to-nail, an all-out dogfight between men and women that continues today. The conflict between the husband and the wife arrived quickly on the double, reached a boiling point and spilt into the open.
Shame, blame and game characterized their relationship. Man and the woman felt shame (7) in the presence of each other, they started blaming each other (12-13) and the game of domination began (16). An urge to blame others swept over Adam and Eve – he blamed his spouse and she blamed the snake. Adam pointed a finger to Eve: “The woman you put here with me--she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it” (v 12), but Eve deflected blame, saying: “The serpent deceived me, and I ate” (v 13). Both would not accept responsibility for disobedience.
The two also experienced something inside them they had not felt before (3:10): fear, panic and vulnerability swept over them for the first time (10). The two lovebirds who were joined in one flesh discovered they were far from the ideal soul partner for each other. Love has its limits, familiarity breeds contempt and sacrificing one’s partner was not far from reach or out of question for them. They who had had so far enjoyed each other’s company now couldn’t get along, stand each other and agree on anything. From now on, they contend with each other, contest each other’s opinions, decisions and viewpoint till the rest of their lives (3:16). They began to see the faults, weaknesses and imperfections in each other and were ruthless enough to expose them, embellish them and exploit them. Mark Twain once said, “Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it.”
Disregard for God’s Word Leads to the Point of Disillusionment
14 So the LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,
“Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. 15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” 16 To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” 17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ’You must not eat of it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
20 Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living. (Gen 3:14-20)
Here are some of the more popular jokes on marriage:
- Getting married is like going to a restaurant with friends. You order what you want, then when you see what the other fellow has, you wish you had ordered that.
- At the cocktail party, one woman said to another, “Aren’t you wearing your wedding ring on the wrong finger?” The other replied, “Yes, I am. I married the wrong man.”
- Marriage is an institution in which a man loses his bachelor’s degree and the woman gets her master’s.
- In the first year of marriage, the man speaks and the woman listens. In the second year, the woman speaks and the man listens. In the third year, they both speak and the neighbors listen.
- A husband said to her wife, “You know, I was a fool when I married you.” And the wife replied, “Yes, dear, but I was in love and didn’t notice it.”
- When a man opens the door of his car for his wife, you can be sure of one thing: either the car is new or his wife is new.
- Marriage is very much like a violin; after the sweet music is over the strings are attached.
- Marriage is love. Love is blind. Marriage is an institution. Therefore marriage is an institution for the blind.
- Marriage certificate is just another name for a work permit.
Marriage life was not previously a walk in the park or a chore in the garden of Eden, but definitely hard work after the fall. Note that Eve already had a mind of her own and man was not always on top of things before the fall!
The family, strong, stable and sweet as it is, without God’s presence and lordship, is in for a rude shock. Sadly, a lot of people have taken their eyes off Jesus and placed their hopes on the family, including spouse and children. This is so common even among believing families. By their actions, school, sports and shopping seem more important to families. Unfortunately, women will feel the brunt of emotional pain (v 16) and men will face the bleakness of physical toil (v 17). They eventually know how painful living together can be even though living apart was not an option and not in God’s plan. The Chinese say, “Falling in love is easy; getting along is hard.” Courtship is romantic love, but marriage is relational love.
The harshest words for women throughout the Bible is in verse 16: childbearing, affection and domination. She is pulled to man but he will push her around. The Hebrew language is more intense because it speaks of more than just pain in childbearing: “I will multiply, multiply your sorrow and your conception.” According to the Hebrew text, women’s pain AND childbearing, not merely her pain in childbearing, will greatly increase or multiply. Of course, men have sorrow, too. They are not men of steel, neither are they made of wood and stones; but women’s sorrow is greatly multiplied or increased (v 16). English does not do justice to the phrase “greatly increase.” Hebrew uses same word for “greatly” and “increase,” so that it should read “I will increase, increase your pain,” or “I will multiply, multiply your sorrow.”
Women will dwell on their pain, while men think of their work. They will feel they give more than receive in a relationship and that no matter how much they give they do not get back as much. Their lives are wrapped around their husband and children and family, while men’s identity is shaped by their success and achievement. The same word “pain” or “sorrow” in KJV has been translated as toil (Ps 127:2, Prov 5:10), trouble (Prov 10:22), hard work (Prov 14:23) and harsh (Prov 15:1) elsewhere. The word “desire” (v 16) occurs only twice elsewhere: to depict sin’s crouching at the door in its desire for the angry Cain (Gen 4:7) and the desire for Solomon’s lover for him (Song 7:10). The desire is not only physical, but emotional and relational.
The right use and meaning of the word “rule” (v 16) will go south and turn ugly. God rightly made the sun and moon to rule day and night (Gen 1:18). The Lord is the rightful ruler of our lives (Judg 8:23). A wise father rules over his son (Prov 17:2). But the wrong use of it is dangerous and fatal. Poor ruling examples in the Bible include the rich rule over the poor (Prov 22:7), the slave over princes (Prov 19:10), the wicked ruling over the helpless (Prov 28:15) and a fierce king ruling over the people (Isa 19:4). Women’s desire for her husband is unabated, regardless whether he is rich man, a menial slave, a wicked man or a bad king. Choosing wrongly could be her doom. It’s been said, “A man’s worst fear is to enter the wrong work, but a woman’s worst fear is to marry the wrong husband.” The possibility of his husband controlling, using or mistreating her is high and very real to a woman. Heartaches, wretchedness and headaches could well be her lot if she simply chooses any guy. Friction, debate and rebellion over who is in control will consume man and woman.
Conclusion: The earthly relationship cannot succeed when the heavenly relationship is weak. The horizontal or human or social relationship flattens out when the vertical relationship with God bottoms out. The greatest danger in the world is sin, and our worst enemy is ourselves. Temptation is not sin. God tempts no one (Jas 1:13), and man does have a way out of temptation (1 Cor 10:13). Marriage is hard, but not hopeless. God is skilled at repairing broken lives and marriages, provided the man and the woman are willing to acknowledge and follow Him as Lord and Savior. Sin and death entered the world through one man, and death came to all men because all sinned (Rom 5:12-14), but God’s showed his righteousness to sinners through Jesus Christ: “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive (1 Cor 15:21-23). Is God the rightful head of your house? Are you a proving for your family and protective of their interest? Is your family based on love, trust, understanding and respect?
Victor Yap
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