Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them,

God created human beings, God created us in his image, and God created us male and female.

The Relationship of Man and Woman Before Sin

Genesis 2:18–25
18 And Jehovah God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him. 21 And Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof: 22and the rib, which Jehovah God had taken from the man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. 23 And the man said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. 24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. 25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

How were man and woman supposed to relate to each other before sin ruined things? What did manhood and womanhood look like before sin distorted them into what we see today?

Part of the answer, both are created in the image of God, so, they both are to enjoy equality of personhood, equality of dignity, mutual respect, harmony, complementarity, and a unified destiny.

Do Men and Women Have the Same Unique Responsibilities?

Within the equality of personhood and the equality of dignity there might be some special responsibilities that man has because he is man and that woman has because she is woman. In showing mutual respect and care, there might be some special ways that a man is to respect a woman and special ways that a woman is to respect a man.

Does equality of personhood and mutuality of respect demand sameness of responsibilities or even equal access to all responsibilities? Or did God intend from the beginning that our equality be expressed differently in the way we relate to each other as man and woman?

Jesus and Paul’s Appeal

When Jesus and Paul use the Old Testament to answer questions about how man and woman should relate to each other, they go back to what things were supposed to be like before the fall. They don’t take the distorted relationships of Genesis 3 and make them normative. They go back to Genesis 2 and talk about how it should have been from the beginning.

The Man Is Created First

Genesis 2:7 makes it clear is that man was created first and then after some intervening events woman was created.

1 Timothy 2:13 the apostle Paul simply says, “Adam was formed first, then Eve.”

Is The Creation Order Really Important?

Did you ever think about why God did not create them both simultaneously from the same lump of clay? That would have established their equality of personhood more clearly wouldn’t it? But, God had already established that beyond all doubt in Genesis 1:27 where it says that both were created in his image.

It appears God wanted to say something more about the relationship between man and woman. God is saying when it comes to their differing responsibilities, there is a “firstness” of responsibility that falls to the man. Different responsibilities has nothing to do with superior value, both are valued the same.

The issue at this point is that of a sinless man, with a childlike dependence on God, being given a special role or responsibility. God makes him the initial half of the pair to say something about his responsibility in initiating. God makes him lead the way into being to say something about his responsibility of leadership.

Some liberals have said that the order of creation means nothing because in Genesis 1, for example, the animals were created first and then man. So, if order implies responsibility for leadership, then the animals should lead man.

When you read the Old Testament, the Hebrew people gave a special responsibility to the “firstborn” in the family, it never entered their minds that this responsibility would be nullified if the father happened to own cattle before he had sons.

The apostle Paul, who was inspired by the Holy Spirit in his handling of the Scripture did see significance in the man being created first (1 Timothy 2:13). 13For Adam was first formed, then Eve;

Adam Is Given the Moral Pattern for the Garden

One of the responsibilities that came with being there first was the primary responsibility (not the only) to receive and teach and be accountable for the moral pattern of life in the garden of Eden.

Before woman was created, God came to man in verse 16 and said, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” After the woman was created, there is no record that this pattern of moral life for the garden was repeated by God to the woman. It is the same situation with Cain and Able.

After They Sin, God Comes to Adam First

After the moral pattern had been broken by both Adam and Eve, God came to call them to account in chapter. And even though the woman had eaten the forbidden fruit first, God came to Adam first, not Eve, to hold him accountable for the failure to live by the pattern he had given.

Verse 9: “But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ ” Adam, where are you?

Adam is the Primary One Held Accountable

Why would God come to the man first, and call him to give and account instead of going to the woman first, especially since she ate the fruit first? The most natural answer is that God gave to the man a primary responsibility for the moral life of the garden and therefore man has a primary accountability for the failure to live by it.

God does hold the woman accountable for her actions. She is a personal, morally accountable being in the very image of God. And what man does or fails to do does not relieve her of personal, individual responsibility to know and to obey God. But in their relationship to each other God looks to the man and says,

Have you been the moral and spiritual leader you ought to have been here in the garden?

God is asking Adam, where were you when Satan come to Eve? What were you doing instead of leading in this situation?

God brought man onto the scene first as the leader. He entrusted him first with the moral pattern of the garden. And he called him to account first for the failure of disobedience. Even though man and woman bear equal individual responsibility before God for their own obedience (that’s what it means to be created in his image), nevertheless in relationship to each other man bears a greater responsibility for leadership than woman does.

God Gave a Good Pattern Before the Fall

This is the way God meant it to be before there was any sin in the world: sinless man, full of love, in his tender, strong, moral leadership in relation to woman; and sinless woman, full of love, in her joyful, responsive support for man’s leadership. No belittling from the man, no groveling from the woman. Two intelligent, humble, God-entranced beings living out, in beautiful harmony, their unique and different responsibilities.

Satan knows this pattern God has established is good, he knows that God’s pattern of life is designed for man’s good.

But Satan hates God and he hates man, he is a liar and a killer from the beginning. He knows that he can’t attack at the pattern God has established, so he must attack from another position.

Satan Attacks the Woman First

Satan assaults God’s pattern by attacking the woman instead of the man. If God means for man to bear special responsibility for leadership in the garden, then Satan will do what he can to destroy that pattern.

Why did he approach the woman in Genesis 3:1?

Why did he draw her into discussion first and make her the spokesman for the couple?

Why did he put here into the position of being the moral guardian of the garden?

Was it because she was easier prey? Is woman more gullible than man? Or was it because that is exactly what should not have been done?

Satan changes the order that God has established and simply ignores the man and takes up his subtle battle with the woman. Doing that, he makes man into exactly what he wants him to be:

Satan wants the man to be a silent, withdrawn, weak, passive wimp. That is exactly what we see the man as in general today. From the family to politics, he is basically a WIMP.

A masculine wimp is a very dangerous person, whether he is a husband or the President.

One moment Adam is passive and follows his woman; and the next moment he’s angry and blames her for all of his problems.

What has Satan done at this point?

Satan at this point has created such a confusion of roles, they will never sort this out. They will look at the abusive man and tell him to be more passive with women. And they will look at the abused woman and tell her to be more assertive with men. And they will never get to the root of the problem.

But God!

In Genesis 3:17 God goes right to the root of the problem. He says to the man, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you.” In other words, “Adam, you were listening when you should have been leading.” God is not confused about what Satan did.

God doesn’t want us to be confused either. He created man first; he gave him the moral pattern of the garden first; he held him accountable for failure first; and he punished him for falling right in line with God’s archenemy when Satan lured man and woman into a great role reversal at the fall.

As we will see next week, Christianity offers the only answer to the relationship problem,

it is Christ and His death on the Cross.