Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. This is study #25 of Genesis, chapter 2 and we are going to read Genesis 2:23-25:

And Adam 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. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

As we have been going along, verse by verse, through Genesis, chapter 2, we have seen that God has given us the true historical facts of the creation of man, the creation of the woman and the beginning of the human race.

Also, spiritually, we have seen that God has shown us through these actual events that took place long ago the Gospel picture, with the Lord Jesus Christ as the “man” and everyone God has saved as the “woman.” She was built out of the man, just as the church came forth out of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Just as the woman was bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh, so, too, the whole company of the elect, the bride of Christ, are said to be bone of Christ’s bones. We are likened to the body of Christ and God views us through Jesus. We are “one flesh,” in that sense, in God’s sight – He sees Christ and His atoning work. He does not see the sins of the woman because all those sins were cast upon the Lord.

God says in Genesis 2:24:

Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife…

We know this is how God has established things in this world. There is the father and mother and they have children and the children grow up in the home until they are sufficient age and then they, too, marry. God has established civilizations through the family. The husband and wife bear children and the children grow up and go out to form their own families. This is the natural order of things which God has created from the very beginning. This is the manner in which God brought about the society of man throughout the history of the world.

Of course, in our present day at the time of the end of the world, the marriage relationship has been shattered and the family institution has been effectively destroyed in many places of the world. There is often only one parent, due to divorce. Today you may have children that have “two mothers” or “two fathers” and it is complete destruction of what God had established in the beginning in regard to the family environment that was essential to the proper development of the children. Today it is in ruins. The reason for that is that we have come near to the end of time and God has given man up to their lusts to their own destruction and it appears that family life is one of those things that is being destroyed at the time of the end.

Again, it says in Genesis 2:24:

Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife…

The word “cleave” is a word that is used many times in connection to cleaving to God Himself. We are not going to go to all the verses, but this is a good example of how this word is used, in Deuteronomy 11:22:

For if ye shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you, to do them, to love JEHOVAH your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cleave unto him;

Here, God is speaking to man. We are to keep God’s commandments and we know this is how we demonstrate love for God, as Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” Therefore, it is mentioned here to keep God’s commandments and to love God and walk in all His ways and to cleave unto Him. The child of God cleaves to God by keeping His commandments. That is the closest possible intimacy man can have with God. The closest relationship is when we keep His commandments. Then we are in union with Him. We are inseparable from Him. What does God say about our sins? We read in the Book of Isaiah, “But your iniquities have separated between you and your God.” Sin separates. It breaks asunder. It causes God to put man away from Him and, yet, obedience to God’s commands brings about a cleaving to one another that is pictured by the marriage relationship.

The difference is that in Genesis it is the man that cleaves to his wife. In the verse we just read in Deuteronomy, God tells man to obey Him and to cleave unto Him. Of course, God is in the role of the husband or the man and the believer is cast in the role of the woman, so it is reversed, but we have to keep in mind that we love Him because He first loved us. In other words, the way it works in regard to cleaving to God, we would keep His commandments and love Him only if He first loved us and cleaved to us. This is how it would work in the spiritual marriage. When the Lord Jesus Christ has saved someone and brought the Gospel to the ears of that person and given them the Spirit of God, he will desire to do His will and keep His commandments. He keeps the commandments perfectly in his born-again soul and it is all because Christ, the husband, has loved that individual and cleaved unto that individual. Christ will never leave nor forsake that individual. With that eternal security and the eternal union established, the elect person responds by cleaving to God and they are inseparable now and forever more.

This cleaving of Christ to the elect sinner and the elect sinner’s response of cleaving to Him in return is one of the reasons why the child of God keeps going to the Bible, no matter what is going on in his or her life. Sometimes the worst things can be happening in the child of God’s life and he may be having all kinds of troubles and difficulties. He may be cast down in soul or physically sick, but he keeps turning back to the Bible. Things may not be going well for him and people may wonder why he keeps reading the Bible and listening to Bible teaching and Bible readings. Why does he keep cleaving to the Bible? The child of God knows he needs to keep going to God in prayer and keep going to the Bible. He is cleaving to God because God is cleaving to him. God will not allow us to go away. In the words of Peter under the inspiration of God: “To whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.” He will not allow us to cease wrestling with Him because it is all God’s doing to permit us to struggle with Him in these spiritual things. God is drawing us and not allowing us to depart and return to the world and former things. We cannot do so because it is impossible for one of God’s elect to be cast away and to return to the world. Remember Naomi that had the two daughter-in-law and after her two sons died she told them to go back and return to their native country. One of them did so, but Ruth cleaved to her mother-in-law. It says in Ruth 1:14-18:

And they lifted up their voice, and wept again: and Orpah kissed her mother in law; but Ruth clave unto her. And she said, Behold, thy sister in law is gone back unto her people, and unto her gods: return thou after thy sister in law. And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: JEHOVAH do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me. When she saw that she was stedfastly minded to go with her, then she left speaking unto her.

Ruth is really describing of the relationship between Christ and His people. Sometimes God bring circumstances into our lives and He presents obstacles in our path to see what will be our reaction. It was charged by Satan that God had put a hedge about Job, but if God removed the hedge and allowed calamity to come into his life then Job would curse God to His face. God permitted that to happen to Job and then Satan came with even more accusations when Job remained faithful to God. In the depths of despair and deepest sorrow that any of us could imagine, Job turned to God in prayer and turned to the One whose hand was against him. Yet, it did not stop Satan from making accusations and leveling charges against one of God’s saints. The thing is when someone has been saved by God, God is the one that will hold him fast. God is the one that first cleaves to the child of God and, in response, the child of God cleaves to God in this marriage relationship, the inseparable union God has brought together: “What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” No one can come between God and His elect child. No one can separate this relationship that God has brought together and God plainly tells us that in Romans 8:31-39:

What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The word “separate” that appeared in verses 35 and 39 is the word translated as “asunder,” where it says, “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” Let not man separate. Here, God is saying, “Who shall separate us? What shall separate us? Who can put asunder this spiritual marriage between the Lord Jesus Christ and His bride?” Can any of the things mentioned in Romans, chapter 8 put asunder that spiritual union? No, they cannot and this is an absolute truth.

And it is the absolute truth today that the end of the church age will not put asunder Christ’s union with His spiritual bride, the elect. The completion of the Great Tribulation will not separate the Lord Jesus Christ from His elect people. The spiritual judgment of the world will not separate Christ and His elect people. The circumstances happening today – whatever they are for God’s elect – will not bring about a separation. It will not divide asunder that relationship that Christ has purchased. He has atoned for the sins of all His people and He has joined with them in spiritual marriage, as He became dead to the Law in their stead that they might be married to another, Christ Himself. There will be no forsaking of God’s elect through separation of any kind. There is forsaking in the aspect of temptation only; that is, God “leaves” His people to be tested and tried, but He will never forsake them by removing His Holy Spirit or by ending the spiritual marriage between Christ and His elect. The truth is that at the end this grievous time period we will find that every one of God’s elect that entered into this time period in union with the Lord Jesus will come through this time period in the same manner – they will still be one with the Lord Jesus Christ. That spiritual marriage of Christ and His people will continue eternally without separation and without divorce or putting asunder of any kind.

We can be greatly encouraged as we read in our verse in Genesis 2:24:

Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.