A Helper Fit for Him

When we say that the doctrine of man is under attack, we also mean that the doctrine of man and woman is under attack. The idea of womankind is unthinkable today. According to the most recent candidate for the United States Supreme Court, one would even have to be a biologist in order to answer the question, “What is a woman?” Although this is rather curious since the reason the definition is so illusive is precisely because it is no longer a biological reality at all. The idea of the woman, in any sense, being for man would never even enter such a court. However, it is the court of God that matters. We return to Genesis 2 for the design that still stands. The woman was and still is a helper.

A helper fit for whom and a helper fit for what? Those are two fairly operative questions we might want to be asking throughout our reading of this passage.

• The Abstract Absence of the Woman

• The Natural Help of the Woman

• The Relational Orientation of the Woman

Doctrine. God spiritually wired women to cultivate the image of God in her home, and for generations, in a distinctly feminine way.

The Abstract Absence of the Woman

‘Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone’’ (v. 18). The key words here are NOT GOOD (לא־טוב). We have to view this as something of a “historical-hypothetical” or an “abstract actuality.” Why do I make up those phrases? For roughly the same reason as we already saw about those two trees: Were they historical or were they symbolic? The answer is that they are both. Why would we think they can’t be both? Or what we saw about Genesis 1 as a whole: Is this history or poetry or science or covenant framework? Again, this is wrong thinking. This is actual history. Adam really was naming animals for a period before God made Eve. How long? One hour? Three or four hours? I have no idea. But it happened—and God is showing us a hypothetical scenario that He knew was not the fixed design.

God was not looking down and, for the first time, scratching His head, and reacting to something He hadn’t considered. There was no defect in the decree. There was no uncertainty. For our sakes, God the Holy Spirit has Moses press pause on Day 6 and, like an instant replay from a very different kind of angle that I am calling an “abstraction,” that is, for the reader to mentally remove Adam, like a Robinson Crusoe, as if he were to try the design deserted. Alone.

The purpose of this “abstraction” or hypothetical instant replay is to form yet one more prototype in Adam. Waltke explains in his commentary:

“Why does God determine that it is not good for Adam to be alone and then give him animals? Should he not have given the woman first? In fact, Adam must realize that it is not good to be alone. Rather than squandering his most precious gift on one who unappreciative, God waits until Adam is prepared to appreciate the gift of woman.”1

So what we must realize here in the text is that we must realize here in life. A young man—especially in our day—must come to realize that if he thinks the future will be difficult in finding a wife, he will be even more surprised how difficult it will be without one: “An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels” (Prov. 31:10). Notice it says EXCELLENT WIFE. Eve was made most excellent. But why? Can we be more specific? Is the text of Genesis more specific? Indeed it is.

The Natural Help of the Woman

The next Hebrew we have to catch is this word for HELPER (עֵזֶר), which is actually often used for God Himself: “Behold, God is my helper” (Ps. 54:4); and in the Greek παράκλητος this is used of the Spirit, as when Jesus promised: “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper” (Jn. 14:16). This has led to unwarranted speculation about the Trinity, imposing on the divine essence the specifics of creaturely distinction. Nonetheless, there is something in the missions of God, outside of God, that we are called to reflect. In this case, the help is directed toward Adam’s vocation.2 Remember, though they are both created as God’s image, for God’s glory, the man takes the lead in that glory-reflecting: “For Adam was formed first, then Eve” (1 Tim. 2:13). Now sometimes Scripture speaks of their one basic glory-reflecting task. Other times Scripture speaks of the masculine-leading lens, as when Paul says,

“For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man” (1 Cor. 11:8-9).

One author summarized this helping design very well in saying that,

“AT THE HEART OF MATURE MASCULINITY IS A SENSE OF BENEVOLENT RESPONSIBILITY TO LEAD, PROVIDE FOR AND PROTECT WOMEN IN WAYS APPROPRIATE TO A MAN’S DIFFERING RELATIONSHIPS.

AT THE HEART OF MATURE FEMININITY IS A FREEING DISPOSITION TO AFFIRM, RECEIVE AND NURTURE STRENGTH AND LEADERSHIP FROM WORTHY MEN IN WAYS APPROPRIATE TO A WOMAN’S DIFFERING RELATIONSHIPS.”3

So, for all men following Adam—lead, provide, protect—and all women following Eve—affirm, receive, nurture. This is how she cultivates the image of God in her home, and for generations, in a distinctly feminine way.

Note the expression used twice: ‘I will make him a helper fit for him’ (v. 18) and ‘a helper fit for him’ (v. 20). What we find in between those two expressions is the last part of Adam’s task being described. We have seen dominion. We have seen multiplying (that is, of the image of God). We have seen working the ground and keeping it, or guarding it. Now, at first glance, it seems like something a bit more specialized, even oddly obscure, as in zoology or, as we might say within the study of biology, taxonomy.

“Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name” (v. 19).

It is in that context, and in the same breath, that Moses is inspired to interrupt Adam’s task with this great need and God’s great provision: ‘The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him’ (v. 20). Now it seems that there are at least two ways to read this. Adam’s study of the animals is what ends in his recognition that he doesn’t have a partner as he sees that they all do. After all, the two expressions about the helper sandwich the account of his naming the animals. That seems purposeful, so that this task is what God used to bring about this sense of incompleteness in Adam.

The other reading is that it follows all of the other grander tasks already mentioned. So the longing was not just for relational companionship, but vocational companionship. I think both are in view, but I disagree with the commentators who think of this only as a relational longing, as an effeminate reading. That would be an incomplete idea of what such a relationship means to a man.

But note well this makes the woman necessary for the man. There is a stage for the woman that is on the stage of Eden already occupied by the man. And yet, her stage of bringing glory to God is still distinct, and that story would not be told if the actress tore up her script or quit the play. The man would not be liberated to move the ground and set a guard around it. The children would not be raised and formed to go even further in the next generation. All would collapse. There is much that Proverbs 31 says here, but the connection between her liberating her man for his glory and then receiving praise for her particular feminine glory is instructive.

“Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land … Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates” (Prov. 31:23, 31).

There are two extreme lies that this sails between and beyond. On the one hand, we can believe the lie that women are inadequate or defective because she is unnecessary to the task. The whole point here is that Adam would be inadequate without Eve. But the opposite lie is to believe that women are inadequate and defective because she is made subordinate to this task. The former is the lie of chauvinism and the latter the lie of feminism.

Starting in the 1990s, but really gaining in popularity in the 2000s, within the New Calvinism, a doctrine about gender began to be embraced by what seemed like the more conservative wing of Evangelicals. It was called complementarianism—so named because men and women were seen to be ordained by God to serve each other in complementary roles. A man’s role and a woman’s role were distinct. This complementarianism was to be distinguished from the opposite view that we call egalitarianism—so named because it exalts above all else the equality of the sexes, and it imposes this equality indiscriminately over everything else. If anything is distinct, well then the two are not equal in dignity.

But there was a glaring weakness in the complementation doctrine that did not go far enough. Being part of the intellectual-light Evangelicalism, there was no background in natural law thinking, and so this doctrine about masculine and feminine roles was not grounding in a doctrine of masculine and feminine natures. They knew, well enough (to quote John Piper),

“When the Bible teaches that men and women fulfill different roles in relation to each other, charging man with a unique leadership role, it bases this differentiation not on temporary cultural norms but on permanent facts of creation.”4

But which “permanent facts of creation”? A fixed nature that God designed, or a command that was divine enough, but rooted in will rather than reality? It became difficult for anyone to say what exactly was so masculine or feminine about fundamentally immaterial realities—realities that could not be manipulated by biological experiments. So the goalpost kept moving. Why? Because it was arbitrary: even if it was originally by God.

The Relational Orientation of the Woman

We saw earlier in 2:7 that the adam (אָדָם) was taken from the adamah (אֲדָמָה), so it is in verse 24, that the poetry describes the action of verse 22, that the ishah (אִשָּׁה) is taken from the ish (אִישׁ). That’s the other Hebrew word for “man” when treated in relation to woman. So, in other words, we have the same kind of Hebrew word-play here with the woman’s origin as we had with the man’s origin. The nature of man and woman are being subtly unpacked out of the drawer of the nature of what they originate from. The nature of woman is being taught here, as surely and as distinctly, as the nature of man was being taught in the preceding verses.

So, let’s slow this down as well. As the man was taken from the ground, made of its “stuff,” and therefore his nature is to seek for glory by cultivating things from the ground; so the woman was taken from the man’s side, made of its “stuff,” and therefore her nature is to seek for glory by cultivating relationships. Both are made, as images of God, to seek for God’s glory in either a distinctly masculine way. One does planet-moving, the other does people-moving; and it is no good to ask: Well, which one is where the glory is? God stakes His glory in both, and made you one or the other.

But this is the key to why men and women process all of reality the way that they do. And as we will see in Chapter 3, their strengths will be their weaknesses, and their blessings will explain their curses. What we needed to see first in Chapter 2 is that these differences were God’s doing and thus they are wholly good.

PRACTICAL

Use 1. Instruction. This teaches us that it is good to be a man and it is good to be a woman, and it is dishonoring to God and destructive to yourself to want it to be otherwise. Let’s slow this down for individual, personal application.

When I say that “It is good to be a man,” I mean that each person born as a boy is born to be biologically and spiritually and psychologically and sociologically masculine. God assigned your gender, and in so doing God called you into the field of masculinity-specific glory-reflecting. To hate your masculinity is to hate God, whose image you bear in a masculine-natured-lens.

When I say “It is good to be a woman,” I mean that each person born as a girl is born to be biologically and spiritually and psychologically and sociologically feminine. God assigned your gender, and in so doing God called you into the field of femininity-specific glory-reflecting. To hate your femininity is to hate God, whose image you bear in a feminine-natured-lens.

Correction. You want to know what the problem is today? We have a different NOT GOOD than God does here in Genesis 2. God said “It is not good for the man to be alone.” Why? God’s glory was at stake in the task given in the Garden. What’s good is God’s story being told; God’s script being acted out. Under the spell of feminism, we think is not good for everyone not to reach their full potential. It is not good that the scales are unequal. It is not good that everyone is not given the same voice. It is not good that everyone’s choice is not equally affirmed. But these are the ravings of a dull and conquered people, who have given up on being human. To be fully human is to be either fully man or fully woman. To surrender one’s total femininity is to surrender one’s humanity.

At the height of first-wave feminism, G. K. Chesterton wrote that,

“When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colourless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labours and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets cakes. and books, to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness.”5

May God inspire in the church today the awakening of new Rebeccas and Hannahs and Esthers and Ruths and Marys who will affirm, nurture, and receive a far higher glory than a momentary glass ceiling.

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1. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary, 89.

2. cf. Waltke, “God creates the woman to help Adam, that is, to honor his vocation, to share his enjoyment, and to respect the prohibition” (Genesis: A Commentary, 88).

3. John Piper, What’s the Difference? (Wheaton: Crossway, 1990), 22.

4. Piper, What’s the Difference? 21.

5. G. K. Chesterton, What’s Wrong with the World?