“Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’” (Genesis 2:18, ESV)
Our culture now proclaims the legitimacy of marriage between people of the same sex. In addition, transgender ideology has become the norm. People feel it is okay to choose one’s gender. And Transgenderism and gender fluidity spawn all sorts of permutations regardIng sexual identity. Add this to a culture which has long condoned and praised extramarital and premarital sex and we find ourselves wallowing within a morass of sinful confusion and chaos.
This ought not to be: God has provided mankind with the truth about sexuality here in Genesis 2. Regardless of how one views this passage as literal or figurative, (I believe the former) the Lord uses it to teach a theological lesson about the fundamentals of life. For one thing, God has created male and female as the only two genders. That is all that is needed. All humans are born as one or the other. This is how God has ordained it. We cannot change it by our choice or by governmental regulation.
It is also obvious from this passage that the only sexual relationship the Lord sanctions is between one man and one woman in marriage. Woman is the only real helper God has created for the man. She is designed by God as the perfect helper or companion. The Lord placed her in the garden as the supporter of the man. She alone answers his need, for she alone is his true counterpart in creation. And this perfect and blissful union is fundamental to God’s creation. Two become one flesh. God is three in one, but in marriage, two human beings, one man, one woman, become one. And since human beings are made in the image of God, like God, this union is unbreakable, or should be. Only in such marriage can we experience true intimacy.
Genesis teaches us that God created sex and created it good, but it is good only if it is used in the way He intended it. Those who think the primary purpose of sex is pleasure maintain that they can do whatever they want with their body. They either do not know or choose to ignore what God’s purpose is. But when sex is used in a way contrary to what God has ordained, it is sin and will always produce harmful results. Yet people in the world are unwilling to think about these results and deny that there is any harm. They are unwilling to accept the consequences: AIDS, other STDs, unwanted pregnancy, abortion, depression, emotional turmoil, dysfunctional families, and suicide. Only by faith in Christ can we find forgiveness for all sexual sin as well as the strength we need to overcome our sinful desires.