The Deviation Spiral (Part 2)

I ended last month’s newsletter with the thought that every deviation spiral begins with an original normal. For the air boss responsible for pilot safety at an airshow, the original normal includes a hard copy plan with clearly spelled out details for keeping airborne planes separated. When we think about what the original normal looks like for relationships, and marriage in particular, Christians refer to the Bible as their source for first principles. When we deviate from first principles, we should not be surprised that people and relationships spin into ever-increasing deviancy before crashing.  

 

I also gave two examples last month of what a deviation spiral can look like in marriage. In those examples, I put an emphasis on how different the couple’s personalities were from one another. And that those differences were contributors to the spiral. I believe that’s true, and I take time in marriage counseling to show couples the content and impact of that dynamic. However, according to the early chapters of Genesis, there are deeper realities going on that inform our marital spiral experiences with hints as to how to correct the spin.

 

Before I go any farther, I should acknowledge that most of the insights I detail next come from Peter Leithart and a lecture he gave on The Theopolis Podcast, episode 729 (“Male and Female He Made Them”). Peter received his Ph.D. from Cambridge and is the President of Theopolis Institute in Birmingham, AL. His fascinating lecture has far more detail than I can cover here. For my purposes, I’ll point out just two insights that connect to my main point of identifying marriage’s original normal and the motive and means of working back to it.

 

First, in the creation account of Genesis 1, why is Adam not having a partner the one thing that God says is not good? It seems obvious that Adam could use some help to care for the garden. We could go further and say Adam needs help to have dominion over the earth. Beyond that, Adam as a male needs help to reproduce and fill the earth as he's called to do. Therefore, we might conclude that woman is made to fulfill a functional need that Adam has. But that’s a very transactional, superficial relationship.

 

Digging deeper into the text of Genesis 1, God doesn't create man the same way He creates the woman. He could have formed a woman from the dust, just like the man, after the animals went by. God could have then breathed into his nostrils, and then her nostrils, the breath of life.

 

But that would mean the woman has the same origin as the man. She'd be the same kind of being as the man—maybe anatomically different but only anatomically different. Leithart believes the image of God in man must be a more radical difference than simply an anatomical one. So God goes through a convoluted process of creating the woman from part of the man.

 

Some translations use the term “rib” in reference to what God used of man to build the woman (Gen. 2:21-22). Except that Hebrew word never anywhere else in the Scriptures means rib. When that word is used elsewhere, it's almost always used as an architectural term. It's a wing, like the side chambers of the temple—they’re the “ribs” of the temple. It's like God removed one side of Adam, not just one rib from his rib cage. It’s like God split the man in two.

 

What we have in the creation of woman, then, is a sacrificial procedure. God places man in a death sleep. He splits him in two. He puts him back together by presenting the woman with whom he becomes one flesh, and he's reunited. Man regains his integrity as a person by uniting with the other that is presented to him. That's a sacrificial procedure, and every one of the sacrifices of the Old Testament goes through that same kind of death and transfiguration process.

 

When we look ahead to 1 Corinthians 15 and Ephesians 5 with the typology that Paul uses, it’s not just the last Adam (Jesus) who sacrifices himself for his bride, the Church. The first man (Adam) sacrifices his body so that his bride, Eve, can exist and have life. We can say then that the cross is inscribed in the heart of mankind’s sexual difference as male and female right from the very beginning of creation.

 

Although Leithart doesn’t say this, it’s not a stretch to say this sacrificial image right in chapter one of the Bible is a grace from God. It’s more than foreshadowing; it’s planting the seed of the Gospel. The sacrifice is making provision for what will follow—both by way of enablement to do what is commanded and for redemption when the deviation spiral begins.

 

Second, with the sacrificial imagery in mind, the woman is created and presented to the man. And the man is transformed. He becomes something other than what he was. Man is made from the ground, Adam. That is his name. He's built up like an altar, but he's not yet lit until the woman comes. And when she does appear, man receives a new name, the name 'ish, (pronounced Eesh) which is related to the Hebrew word for fire. So the man now has two names: Adam, because of his relation to the ground he came from, and 'ish, because of his relation to the woman. Man is transformed from being earth to being glorified earth, burning in the presence of his bride.

 

When the woman is presented to Adam, she is then given a name, 'ishshah, (pronounced Eeshah) because of her relation to the man as the material from whence she came. Then, in Genesis 3, she’s given a second name, Eve, because she’s the mother of all the living. She is actually called Mother when she gives birth to Cain. Adam and Eve each have two names, which we might think of as a double orientation in the world.

 

Think of it this way: man as 'ish and woman as 'ishshah have an orientation to each other, as husband and wife. But the man is also Adam who is oriented to his origin, the ground, and the woman is also Eve who is oriented to the children which are the seeds she produces.  

 

Do you see in this double orientation a starting point for spiraling? The man is divided between his orientation to his wife and his work, and the woman is divided between her orientation to her husband and her children. There is a tension here, built in by God. Right from the beginning.

 

This is the original normal for marriage.

 

Remember, this creation dynamic is good and pre-dates the fall in Genesis 3 (Eve having children is not the result of the fall). The tension certainly gets exacerbated by levels of magnitude once the fall goes down. Everything gets cursed and the man and the woman are now estranged and competing against each other.

 

But then, in God’s sovereign grace, there’s that sacrifice that was also built in from the beginning and fulfilled through Jesus Christ, the last Adam. He bleeds grace and glorifies himself by being a Reconciler. When the deviated man and woman come to Jesus at the cross, the animus between them is broken down and they have a new origin in Christ.

 

Following in our first parents’ footsteps, Christians are first and foremost oriented to Jesus. He puts us back together again, and we find our common origin in him. When we humbly come to Jesus, he gives us the daily grace needed to manage the tensions of our now secondary orientations—our work and our families.  

 

Because daily grace from Jesus overcomes the daily default of deviating into a marital spiral.