The Marriage of God’s Dreams
When Mark and I made our wedding vows before more than two hundred friends and family members, we had no idea what comprised a healthy marriage or the hard work required to attain it. We’d engaged in premarital counseling, attended a retreat for engaged couples, and read the most popular Christian marriage books—but none of those gave us an accurate vision for what a godly marriage should be and could be.
Of course, the primary reason for that disconnect was our immersion in a Christian culture that taught male headship and female submission in marriage. So many of these teachings on marriage started with Genesis 3 as the foundation for understanding godly marriage, but they missed the ideal that God lays out in Genesis 1–2.
When Genesis first describes the creation of humanity, it emphasizes two things (see Gen. 1:26–28). First, both male and female are created in God’s image. Together, they represent the full image of God displayed on earth. Second, God blessed them with an earthly mandate—to fill and subdue. To multiply through fruitfulness and to disciple the earth into God’s will.
Genesis 2 gives a more detailed account of the creation of Adam and Eve. In it, God first created Adam and highlighted his need of a “helper corresponding to him” (Gen. 2:18 CSB). Adam’s aloneness was a problem no animal could solve. Adam needed a human counterpart. So God then created Eve using a rib from Adam’s side. I grew up believing God’s decision to introduce Eve as Adam’s helper meant a woman is innately designed to follow and submit to her husband’s leadership.
But that was before I knew what the word helper really means. Helper is a loaded word in English, but when I began looking at the context of Genesis 2, I realized God wasn’t addressing a workload problem, but an intimacy problem. Adam wasn’t so overwhelmed with work that he needed an administrative assistant to keep his details in line. No—Adam was alone, and he needed a companion. In other words, helper is about connection and togetherness, not about authority or leadership.
And when I looked at the other places helper (ezer in the Hebrew) is used, I discovered that of the 22 times ezer is used in the Old Testament, 17 of those refer to God. For example, in Psalm 70:5, David wrote:
I am oppressed and needy; hurry to me, God.
You are my help [ezer] and my deliverer; Lord, do not delay (CSB).
And in Deuteronomy 33:29, Moses declared:
Blessed are you, Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord?
He is your shield and helper [ezer] and your glorious sword (NIV).
Clearly, in the Bible, helper is not a subordinate role, as we think of it today. A helper is a mighty defender, a rescuer, a companion at arms. In the New Testament, Jesus called the Holy Spirit our Helper (see John 14:26).
When God commissioned Adam and Eve to fill and subdue the earth, he meant for them to do it together. As companions of the heart, they would fill the earth, and as companions in strength, they would subdue it. That was God’s original plan—men and women living and working as equals.
When Adam and Eve rebelled against God, their fall introduced a power struggle to the male-female relationship. Now, women would contend against their husbands, but their physically stronger husbands would rule over them. While some believers think the curse over women prescribes God’s ideal for male-female relationships, it actually describes a reality introduced by sin. Male headship and female submission resulted directly from the Fall—as a result of sin, not as a part of God’s plan.
Most importantly, through his death and resurrection, Jesus broke the curse that disrupted God’s vision of oneness and mutuality in marriage (see Gal. 3:13–14). Jesus returned us to what’s possible—not just in our relationship with God, but also in our relationships with one another. The Genesis 1–2 picture of men and women working side-by-side as equals is a closer picture of heaven than the power struggle that came afterward. We now get to live in that Garden of Eden ideal.
As new covenant believers, our mandate is “on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10). We are called to establish the ideals of heaven on earth, including God’s ideals for marriage as demonstrated in creation. Now that the power of the curse is broken, we get to live in God’s original design for marriage and the commission he gave to the first married couple.
We get to walk out God’s vision for marriage: male and female co-leading together, in love and intimacy, to advance the kingdom of God.
We get to enjoy the marriage of God’s dreams—the marriage blueprint made in heaven.
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