Being God's Image: Why Creation Still MattersExemplo

God's Design for the Partnership of Men and Women

God gives the first human a job to do, cultivating and caring for the garden (Genesis 2:15). But the man lacks a partner to fulfill his duties. God makes space for human agency by giving the man a meaningful task, inviting him to name the animals. The parade of animals that God brings him only exacerbates the sense that he stands apart from all of them: he’s alone. If the man’s need was for someone to carry his burdens, he could have chosen a horse or mule. What he needed was a companion.

God’s creation of woman from man’s own flesh indicates their essential similarity and equal status before God. Unlike the animals, she is his counterpart. She comes from his own body (as every future man will come from the body of a woman), which suggests their mysterious connection. She “corresponds to him” (Hebrew kenegdo, Genesis 2:18, 20). Kinship is later implied by the expression “my bone and my flesh.”

Why, then, does God call her the man’s “helper”? Because the man cannot fulfill his purpose alone. He needs her. Humans are made for community. The rest of the Old Testament will use the same word “helper” (ʿezer in Hebrew) in two main ways: (1) to refer to allied soldiers who assist in battle (e.g., Joshua 1:14), and (2) to refer to God as Israel’s helper (e.g., Genesis 49:25 and Psalm 10:14). The word ʿezer occurs as a common noun or verb over ninety times in the Old Testament but never refers to what servants or subordinates do for their masters. ʿEzer is primarily used in military contexts and is best translated as “ally.”

The first man, placed in the garden and given a task and a command, needed an ally to help him fulfill these directives—someone more like him than the animals. God made woman to fill this role.

Before Adam and Eve rebel against God, no hierarchy separates them. Both male and female are God’s image (Genesis 1:27). Neither one rules the other. God’s plan is for us to work as partners. Both of us are to rule Creation.

Adam and Eve’s disobedience to divine command and failure to trust God’s good intentions immediately fractures their relationship with God, with each other, and with the world God made. However, as they leave the garden, God issues a promise that the seed of the woman will crush the serpent once and for all (Gen. 3:15). Eve remains an essential partner in the Work of Redemption.