“ And the Lord God. said: It is not good that the man should be alone, I will make a help-meet for him.” (lit., “a help that is his equal.")
God Himself had an object for His divine love, even His only begotten yet co-equal Son, in Whom the Father's heart found its daily delight, before angels or heaven and earth had been called into existence. But that love, though divine and therefore perfectly happy and, if we may say so, perfectly satisfied, wanted to manifest itself outside itself. As has been observed already, love as well as light cannot be hidden. It manifests itself in the wider range of a creation called forth by His word, by Whom all things were made and are upheld by the word of His power. A range that embraces millions of angels in heaven and creatures on earth, whom that divine love had provided for and made perfectly happy, each in their proper sphere and place. Well may the Psalmist exclaim, “O Lord, how manifold are Thy works! In wisdom hast Thou made them all: the earth is full of Thy riches.”
But that the vast range into which that love had expanded, should include for its especial objects, children of disobedience, enemies of God, this it is that characterizes that love as so truly divine and constitutes its highest glory—the glory of redeeming love, and the glory and riches of divine grace which is the result of divine love.
Yes, dear fellow-heir of glory! The Father's love would have many souls to be brought to glory, whom He had predestinated unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself. He wished His heavenly house above, which is as large as is His divine heart, and where there are “many mansions” to be filled not only with the brilliant hosts of His angelic servants (holy and blessed though they be), but with children, (once lost prodigals in a far country,) in glorious bodies, His daily delight for eternity, as His Son was from eternity and will be for eternity. That blessed Son of His love, Who had to shed His blood upon the cross, to fit them for that glorious house, and provide them, according to His power, with glorious bodies, like His own, meet for that heavenly abode, will soon come to take us up to, and introduce us into the Father's house and to present all to His and our Father. “Behold, I and the children which Thou hast given Me.” Blessed hope, to be turned at any moment into a still more blessed reality?
But the Father's love wanted not only children for Himself, but a bride for His Son, and He has given us to Him “Thine they were, and Thou hast given them to Me” (John 17). A bride taken not from His holy angels, “who do His commandments, hearkening to the voice of His word,” but from among the sons of men, fallen, sinful and rebellious men! That bride is to dwell with Him in His Father's house above, whilst the terrible vials of divine wrath will be poured out upon this earth, where once the cross stood and where He bought her, whom He loved and washed in His own blood from her sins. She will dwell there with Him, in the daily peaceful enjoyment of His love, and the object of the Father's perfect delight and love in heaven, as we are now though being in this world “as He is,” beloved, being “accepted in the beloved One”. She will dwell there with Him, until the last vial shall have been emptied upon this poor world, and Babylon, the “great whore", shall have met her threefold deserved fate, and the heavenly hallelujahs chime and announce that “the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife has made herself ready.”
We have turned away, for a few moments, from that bright and happy scene of a yet undefiled paradise, to a higher, brighter, and happier one, which will be ours and will never be defiled nor lost. Let us now return, for a little while, to the earthly type of our blessings in a heavenly paradise, and above all to Him Who is the center of it.
“ And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and He took one of His ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made He a woman and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bone 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”. Wondrous scene! foreshadowing that deepest mystery of divine love, power, peace and wisdom. A scene without parallel, even in the divine record, except by its Antitype on Calvary and at Pentecost. The Holy Ghost, when referring to it in Eph. 5 through the inspired apostle of the Gentiles, to whom the great mysteries of God as to His church had been revealed, says, “This is a great mystery; but I speak concerning Christ and the church.”
The One Who had formed Adam out of a piece of clay, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, we behold here bending over the sleeping man, to form a help-meet for him—not from the dust of the ground, but from flesh—then sinless flesh—even the rib out of Adam's side. It is the Same Who, after four thousand years of poor humanity's probation, was to give His flesh for the life of the world. He Who had said, “It is not good that the man should be alone: I will give him a help-meet,” was one day, when hanging between heaven and earth upon the cross, to be alone in the most terrible sense of the word, to gain His “help-meet”, i.e. His bride His wife—to be His companion in a glorious heavenly home. He was to be alone, not in a paradise, but in the wilderness, to stand firm and immovable, and to bind the strong man, and spoil him of his goods, whilst the first Adam, who was now sleeping before him, soon fell at the first trial of obedience amidst the abundance of a paradise. He was to be alone during His life time, like a sparrow on a house-top, though followed and surrounded by thousands; for not one understood Him, not even His disciples. He was to be alone in the agonies of Gethsemane, when the prince of this world was approaching to bring all the power of death he wielded, to bear upon Him. His disciples whom He wanted to be near Him and watch, whilst He prayed, fell asleep. They had forgotten their Master's watchword, which He gave at the very threshold of that place, not only to them but to us all. Poor sentinels! The enemy, coming suddenly, found them sleeping.
And at last—alone upon the cross, after His own had forsaken Him! When the assembly of the wicked, the bulls of Bashan, the lions and the dogs enclosed Him, He was alone, forsaken of His God. The corn of wheat must fall into the ground and die; else it would have abode alone. But, blessed be His gracious and glorious name! He could not, nor would He be alone, even in glory. He must and will have His spotless and glorious bride with Him there. That same wondrous psalm, which opens with the cry of agony of the forsaken One upon the cross, contains, after He has been “heard from the horns of the unicorns,” these blessed words, “I will declare Thy name unto My brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise Thee”. He could not, He would not be alone, either as to His earthly people in the millennial blessing, when He will say, “Eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved “; or even in His Father's house above, surrounded by all the glories of heaven, He cannot be alone. “Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory which Thou hast given Me; for Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world.” And not only so, but “the glory which Thou gavest Me, I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one.”
Let us remember also these words of our gracious Lord's prayer, beloved; as we find them reiterated by the Spirit of God in Eph. 4:1-31I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, 2With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; 3Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. (Ephesians 4:1‑3). May the Lord keep us from any spirit of selfish independent isolation, whilst in strictest separation from all that is contrary to His will as expressed in His word, which is truth. Soon will He Who would not that “man should be alone” come again, making good His gracious promise, to receive us up into His Father's house unto Himself, that where He is we may be also.