The quotation is from the building of Eve (Gen. 2:2424Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. (Genesis 2:24)). What is the “great mystery?” Surely not a man leaving his father and mother and being joined to his wife. There is no mystery in that. The great mystery is that Christ should leave His Father, and cleave to His wife, that He and she should become eternally one. There is great comfort to my soul in the fact stated that it is the man that cleaves to the woman, and not the woman to the man. It is not my feeble grip of Christ, my weak cleaving to Him, but it is His mighty cleaving in a deathless love to me that gives me assurance and joy, and leads me ever and anon to cry out,
“O faithful, eternal Lover.”
In order to more fully grasp its meaning and worth, we must go back to the garden scene of Gen. 314And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: (Genesis 3:14). There were Adam and his wife. Into the garden the tempter came. He did not go to the man. Why? I gather from 1 Tim. 2:1414And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. (1 Timothy 2:14), that Adam could not be deceived-figure of the Coming One—but he went to the woman. She believed the lie, obeyed, ate, and died, spiritually, i.e., out of communion and fellowship with God, and physical death passed sentence on them. They both fell. Eve by Deception, Adam by Affection.
Now comes the great test. What will Adam do? He, standing in his innocency, unfallen and in communion with God, sees the wife of his adoption, the gift of his God, lying in misery, bondage, and death, with a yawning gulf separating them forever. Being only a living soul, unlike the last Adam, who was a life-giving spirit, he could not quicken her. Will he cleave to his Father, or will he leave his Father and cleave to his wife?
“For this cause shall a man leave,” so he deliberately, undeceived, yet consumed by his love, left his God that he might cleave to his wife. She fell by deception. He fell by affection. His love for her was so great that he descended to her level and became partaker with her of her ruin and death.
What a picture have we here of the last Adam who, without the sin, left His Father that He might reach and cleave to His bride; not cleave to her in her sin and shame, and thus become like her, but that He might impart to her His own life, and lift her to His own level and glory.
Our adorable Lord, in His consuming passion, stooped from heights no finite mind can scale, to depths no finite mind can fathom, but He “Stooped to Conquer.”
Look at this recorded stoop as traced in Phil. 2, this leaving and cleaving of the Christ, and remember it was not only a stoop for time, but, O matchless Lover, it was for Eternity! Here we are in the “Holy of the Holies,” in the very presence of the Shekinah, and we would seek for grace to tread reverently and softly.
Was He the very form of God? Then He took the very form of slave. Here we have the first step in the descent of His long, weary, and costly search for His bride. It is tremendous to contemplate. From very God to very slave, what an emptying! He who was co-equal and co-eternal with God of His own voluntary will, makes His choice, makes it for Eternity. Will He hold fast His equality with God? If He does, He and she are separated forever. Will His love stand the awful and eternal stoop? His was a love for which, if a man offered all he possessed, it would be utterly condemned. So for her sake He empties Himself, and takes the lowest possible place, the place of a slave. What means it, O my soul? It is love, yea, it is
“Love that no tongue can teach,
Love that no heart can reach,
No Love like His.”