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In all the animal kingdom, there could not be found a “helper like him.” He alone, of all creatures, was really alone. And that was not good! Before God could declare His creation “finished” and “very good,” this all-important deficiency must be eliminated. God would provide such a helper and companion for Adam, one “like” him, and yet different, perfectly complementing him and completing God’s work.

The account of the creation and formation of Eve is the despair of theistic evolutionists. Even if one can bring himself to believe that man evolved from an apelike ancestor and that this is what Scripture means when it says Adam was formed from the dust of the ground, there seems to be no way at all in which the account of Eve’s unique mode of origin can be interpreted in an evolutionary context.

To make matters worse for the evolutionist, the New Testament explicitly confirms the historicity of this record. “For Adam was first formed, then Eve” (1 Timothy 2:13). “For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man” (1 Corinthians 11:8). All other men have been born of woman, but the first woman was made from man.

It is significant that the first human institution established by God was that of marriage. The long period of human infancy and helplessness requires careful protection and training of the children by their parents. In His wisdom, God ordained that the home, built on the mutual love and respect of husband and wife, should be the basic human unit of authority and instruction.

From the authority of the father in the home there would develop, as populations grew, the patriarchal and tribal systems, and, later, still more elaborate governmental structures. Similarly, from the fundamental activity of the parents in teaching and training their children, schools and other educational institutions would eventually be established. The church also, which has the function of teaching and authority in the spiritual realm, is likewise patterned in many respects after the home.

The way in which God made the first woman is certainly not what one would naturally expect. It would seem rather that He would form her body in the same way He did Adam’s—directly out of the earth itself. But instead He “built” her out of the body of Adam! Adam’s life would become her life.

God must have had a good reason for “building up” Eve in this peculiar way. From the New Testament we infer that there were certain great spiritual truths which were being pictured in this symbolic action, as well as the more immediately meaningful truth that Adam and Eve were truly “one flesh” and should thus serve their Creator together in unity and singleness of heart.

Having completed His presentation of the animals to Adam, God quite probably explained to Adam what He was about to do (Adam seemed later to have understood clearly how God had formed Eve).

In any case, God put Adam into a “deep sleep” and, while Adam slept, performed a marvelous surgical operation. Since this sleep was not necessary to prevent pain (as yet, there was no knowledge of pain or suffering in the world), there must have been some profound spiritual picture in the action. It seems almost as though Adam “died” when as yet there was no death in the world, in order that he might obtain a bride to share his life.

On this side of Calvary, the Christian can hardly fail to see here God’s first proclamation of the everlasting gospel (Revelation 14:6), telling of one who was “slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). Though Adam himself may not have understood this, he would at least forever be impressed with the formation of new life and perfect fellowship out of what would have seemed, except for God, to be the very cessation of life!

It is likely that the word “rib” is a poor translation. The Hebrew word tsela appears thirty-five times in the Old Testament and this is the only time it has been rendered “rib.” Most of the time (in at least twenty of its occurrences) it means simply “side.” The thought evidently is to stress that woman was made neither from Adam’s head (suggesting superiority to him) nor from his feet (suggesting inferiority), but from his side, indicating equality and companionship. Probably the verse should be translated somewhat as follows: “And he took one of his sides, and closed up the [remaining] flesh in the stead of [that which he had taken]; And the side, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.”

Instead of what some have regarded as a childish and unscientific myth (pointing out that man does not have one less rib than woman, and ignoring the fact that, even if this were an actual rib, such “acquired characteristics” are never inherited!), this narrative is beautifully realistic and meaningful.

In what sense did the Lord God take one of Adam’s sides? A “side” would include both flesh and bone, as well as blood, released from the opened side. Adam could later say, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.”

Physiologically, it is significant that both bone and flesh, in the human body, are sustained by blood and the marvelous blood-pumping and circulatory network designed by God. The blood carries the necessary oxygen and other chemicals from the air and the food taken in by man to maintain all the substance and functions of the body. In fact, the very “life of the flesh [literally ‘soul’ of the flesh] is in the blood” (Genesis 9:4; Leviticus 17:11).

These thoughts, of course, immediately remind us again of the One whose side was pierced on Calvary as He entered the “deep sleep” of death, of whose body not a bone was broken, but from whose side “forthwith came there out blood and water” (John 19:34–36). From the “life” of Adam (the blood sustaining his bones and his flesh) God made Eve, his bride. In like manner, we who constitute the “bride of Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:2) have received life by His blood (John 6:54–56). Thereby we become “members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones” (Ephesians 5:30).

Eve was thus made from Adam’s side, to work alongside him in carrying out the divine commission to “fill the earth” and to “subdue” it. She not only had the same “flesh” (that is, body) and “life” (that is, soul) as did Adam, but she also had an eternal spirit, as he did; but the spirit (or, better, the “image of God”) was directly from God, not mediated through Adam as was her physical life. This we know from Genesis 1:27: “So God created man in his own image … male and female created he him.” The “image of God,” directly created by God, was given to both man and woman. As “joined unto the Lord,” however, even in this dimension of life, they would become “one spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:17).

Similarly, although all the descendants of Adam and Eve have inherited their physical and mental characteristics by genetic transmission, yet each individual has an eternal spirit directly from God, and thus himself is capable of personal fellowship with God. It is God who “formeth the spirit of man within him” (Zechariah 12:1) and to whose disposal each man’s spirit “returns” (Ecclesiastes 12:7) when his body returns to dust.

When Adam awoke from his deep sleep, and when God had finished forming Eve, He “brought her unto the man,” to be with him from that time forth. In like manner, God is now forming a bride for Christ (Acts 15:14), as it were “building up the body” (Ephesians 4:11–16). When this work is finished, God will bring His bride to the Lord Jesus and He will go to meet her, and she will be evermore joined to the Lord (John 14:2, 3; 1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17; Revelation 19:7–9; 21:1–4).

Morris, Henry M.: The Genesis Record : A Scientific and Devotional Commentary on the Book of Beginnings. Grand Rapids, MI : Baker Books, 1976, S. 98