His Woman Was a Good Idea

Barbara Mouser’s work, Five Aspects of Woman, what I consider a theological masterpiece in biblical studies of gender, tells of a moment in her childhood when she asks her father, “What is woman?” Her father paused and said, “Woman was a good idea!”

Inherent within the Creation account is another intriguing principle of yet even something greater to come. God spun the universe into being and created the heavens and earth, yet even something greater was to come. In progressive order He formed a living planet, light, darkness, water, land, vegetation, the solar systems, animals and fish – impressive, yet even something greater was to come. Man! God created Man in His own Image and he became a living soul and yet even something greater was to come. Creation was a beautiful expression of splendor, a glorious crescendo one right after another.

God created choice, governed by the parameters of cause and effect, God gave Man his own free will. Man’s choices, the manifest expression of his free will, harbored enormous authority and power. While the full purpose of the gift of choice was not yet seen by Man, it was to determine incredible future events. It was at this point in the Creation account that the drama intensified. So the Lord God said, “It is not good that Man should be alone, I will make him a helpmate comparable to him.”

And the Lord God caused a deep sleep (figurative of death) to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which The Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. Gen 2:20-22

In the deep sleep of the living soul of Man, God brought forth yet even something greater, Woman! Paraphrasing and borrowing from Barbara’s dad, Man’s response to God sounded something like this, “WOW, God, Woman was a good idea!” Woman was the crowning completion of all Creation -- so it seemed. This is all pointing to yet even something greater to come.

Man was created from the earth for the earth, as a functionary being, and woman was created from man for mankind, as a relational being. They were to enjoy and learn union. Though being two, would as one be fruitful and multiply, ruling their dominions by their free will exercised through their choices. As we all know (and God knew too), Woman, His crowning creation, would make the wrong choice and through her influence, Adam yielded all this profound momentum of Creation to be subject to death in the Dominion of Sin, where doubt and confusion make sport of the defeat of Mankind. Sin seemingly silenced the ascending crescendos of glory, yet even something greater is to come.

The stage is set, now the real show is about to begin! All of creation in the natural realm is an imprint or figurative form of the spiritual realm where yet even something far, far, far greater is to be realized. As mentioned in this section, God cursed the nature of mankind’s enemy, Satan. He decreed that the “Seed of the Woman” (Gen 3:15) would crush the Serpent’s head. 

God was going to rescue His highly prized damsel in distress! In the natural, the woman does not bear the seed, man does. It is here where we find yet even something far, far, far greater was to come. God introduces the promise and concept of Messiah, the Incarnation of God.

It was a mystery as to how exactly the Messiah would come as the Seed of the woman. Messiah would be conceived in the womb of a virgin woman and like the prefigurement in Adam, Messiah would lay down and die, and from His side God would create a new and greater “Woman,” a helpmate comparable to Himself, she is the Bride of Christ.

God whispered through His creation the role of a bride to her bridegroom. She is a comparable helpmate to man for mankind. She is a being that is from him and for him. She is responsive to his initiation and she receives him. She brings pleasure to him and finds her pleasure in his desire for her. They would experience what we call communion, or “common-union." Woman was God’s good idea! 

Friends, the Bride of Christ is a helpmate and comparable unto Christ! And even though God spoke in marital terms to Israel throughout the Old Testament, it was His “mysterious secret” how He would fulfill the promised wedding covenant, the Victorious Seed, for both Israel and the world -- a secret He was dying tell -- and so He did!