Two Adams
Su-per-i-or (a.) situated higher in rank or number; of greater value or importance; better than most others of its kind.
How many times have you heard the question asked, or asked it yourself, or thought it even, "Which is superior—the male or the female? Who's higher up, the most important… the better of the two?"
Well, if you hadn't asked it before now, I just did. But let's not roam around inside our heads looking for an answer. Let's see what the Bible has to say about it. "…In the day when God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female, and He blessed them and named them Man in the day when they were created" (Genesis 5:1,2).
Did you ever notice that God made two Adams? That's right. The name itself—Adam—means literally man. God made two men.
Well, then where did the name "woman" come from?
From the man God told to name everything: "And the man said, 'This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman…'" (2:23). God said, "Okay, Woman it is." And He's been calling the female "woman" ever since.
Now, you may be thinking to yourself, Well, okay, this bit of information may move me a couple of spaces on a Bible Trivia game board, but what is it saying as to which of the two, male or female, is basically superior?
Exactly this: That God originally called the female Man as well. He Himself named "them" one, establishing from the beginning an inherent equality. It's a given, you see, because one can't be better than oneself. In God's eyes, Man and Woman, husband and wife, are literally one and the same.
So when one gets better, this means the other gets better, too. When one climbs higher, the other is higher. And the most important of the two? "…God blessed them; and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth'" (Genesis 1:28).
The First Man wasn't out in front receiving the marching orders while the Second Man was peeking through the bushes, asking, "What'd He say? Ask Him to speak up a little!" God gave the marching orders to "them"—not to "him" or to "her."
It was together as one that they were blessed and established as ruler over the earth and everything in it.
Living as One
So many people in today's world have such warped views, not just toward the opposite sex, but toward this "oneness" that is the marriage relationship. God's biblical model is widely considered archaic and rigid, a way of the past. We have it up in the attic in a box marked, "Don't throw away—may come back in style."
I wonder why this is, but not for long. I think back to my marriage, what views I had going into it and where they'd come from: the popular culture of the day, my parents example, what was traditionally considered "Christian" because, "Well, that's just the way Grandma said it was." Substituting any way other than God's way toward living as one might turn out okay… but it will certainly remain distant from the mind-blowing breadths of what our Creator designed it to be.
And the fact is, His way will never become obsolete. His original plan is that husband and wife were—and still are—created equal and one. But ours is a popular Culture of Divorce today… where relationships are birthed and die in matters of days. Where the current marriage motto reads: "When the going gets tough, get going to a lawyer." Where any talk of relationship is littered with I, me, mine. I, me, mine. I, me, mine.
So many marriages fail because people don't see or ever discover by way of example that the whole concept of living as one—as God intended it—is kind of like living in a minilab where our toothbrushes are in the same glass. Where we come home to each other at the end of the day and are forced to interact sometimes just when we don't want to. But this environment is designed such that we have the opportunity to learn how to love each other. Not with just any kind of love. Agape love. That love which says I am committed to doing the most constructive, redemptive thing I can do for you. Regardless of how tough it gets. Regardless of the really hard times. "…In sickness or in health, till death…."
This is the living as one that produces and nourishes the ultimate "in love" relationship. Not the feeling of being in love you understand, which seems to come and go of its own accord most of the time. But rather the commitment of agape love. Loving your spouse as you would like to be loved. Getting past being simply "in love" and on to the love of sacrifice… the love of doing what's best for your union, learning to serve your other self, to lay down your life, to "wash feet."
The Perfect Role Model
Paul said in Galatians, "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and delivered Himself up for me" (2:20).
Jesus is the only one who ever lived this life of agape love. But praise God, this isn't to say we can't or don't. Just the opposite, in fact. You see, we don' have to shore up ourselves, bolster our self-confidence, and try to live this life of agape love "doing our best with God's help." "For you have died, "Paul says, "and your life is hidden with Christ...who is [your] life" (Col. 3:34).
It is His life, in and through us, that lives the life of agape love. Use the same faith you used to accept Him as your Savior and Lord, trusting the indwelling Christ to live through you to produce this love, compassion, gentle but firm confrontation, patience, kindness, goodness, and integrity—all by faith. Doing so generates a life of service, rather than one of survival--a life of sacrificing its own rather than seeking its own. This is Christ-like behavior, modeled by the God who created us one and equal, who named us Man in that day and demonstrated this life of agape love for us through His Son and our fellow heir—Jesus.