More from Dr. Luther, this time on God’s act of “building” Eve, where she can fulfill the noble act of being the building for Adam’s dwelling and serve by building the family. Luther articulates a distinct “theology of the body” in 1535, long before John Paul II. Namely, the woman’s body is created with the noble purpose of sustaining and nurturing creation.
Genesis 1:22: “And the Lord God built the rib which He had taken from Adam into a woman, and He brought her to Adam.”
… A woman, especially a married one, is called a building, not for the sake of allegory but historically. Scripture employs this method of speech everywhere. Thus Rachel said to Jacob (Gen. 30:3): “Take the maid that I may be built by her.” Scripture states the same thing of Sara (Gen. 16:2). And in Exodus it is said of the midwives (Ex. 1:21): “The Lord built them houses”; that is, through the blessing of a family He repaid the kindnesses which they showed to Israel contrary to the king’s command. Likewise, in the account about David, when he wanted to build a house for the Lord, he receives the answer (2 Sam. 7:11): “You shall know that the Lord will build you a house.”
Thus this expression is common in Scripture, that the wife is called a household building because she bears and brings up the offspring. The form which this building would have had in Paradise we have lost through sin so completely that we cannot even conceive of it in our thinking. But, as I said above, this present life of ours possesses some small and pitiable remnants of its culture and safeguards as well as of its dominion over the beasts. Sheep, oxen, geese, and hens we govern, although boars, bears, and lions pay no attention to our rule. Similarly, some faint image of this building remains; for he who marries a wife has her as a nest and home where he stays at a certain place, just as birds do with their young in their little nest. Those who, like the impure papists, live as celibates do not have such a home.
This living-together of husband and wife—that they occupy the same home, that they take care of the household, that together they produce and bring up children—is a kind of faint image and a remnant, as it were, of that blessed living-together because of which Moses calls the woman a building. If Adam had continued in his innocence, his descendants would have married and wandered away from their father Adam to some little garden of their own. There they would have lived with their wives, and together they would have filled the soil and brought up their children. There would have been no need for imposing buildings of hewn stone or for kitchens or for cellars, as we have now. Just as birds live in their little nests, so they would have dwelt here and there in God’s work and calling. And the wife would have been the main reason for the husbands’ dwelling in fixed habitations. Now in this disaster of sin, when we must have houses because of the severity of the climate, we cannot even conjure up a picture of this bliss; and yet these pitiable remains are excellent gifts of God, and it is truly wicked to use them ungratefully.
We all realize how much of the dominion which man received in Paradise was lost after our defilement by sin. And yet what a great blessing it still is that this dominion was turned over to man and not to the devil! For how could we withstand our invisible enemy if he had not only the determination to inflict harm but also the power to do so? In one hour, in one moment, we would all be annihilated if Satan stirred up merely the wild beasts against us. Thus even if the dominion has been almost entirely lost, it is still a very great blessing that some remnants of it are in existence to this day.Similarly, there are also some remnants in the instance of procreation, although in the state of innocence women would not only have given birth without pain, but their fertility would also have been far greater. Procreation is now hindered by a thousand diseases, and it happens either that unborn children do not survive the period of gestation or that at times marriages are altogether barren. These are flaws and punishments resulting from Adam’s awful fall and from original sin. In the same way the wife is still the house of the husband, to which he goes, with whom he dwells, and with whom he joins in the effort and work of supporting the family. In this sense it will be stated below (Gen. 2:24): “Man will cling to his wife, and he will forsake his father and mother.”
But in addition to the countless other troubles which it has because of sin, this living-together is marred to an astonishing degree by wicked persons. There are not only men who think it is clever to find fault with the opposite sex and to have nothing to do with marriage but also men who, after they have married, desert their wives and refuse to support their children. Through their baseness and wickedness these people lay waste God’s building, and they are really abominable monsters of nature. Let us, therefore, obey the Word of God and recognize our wives as a building of God. Not only is the house built through them by procreation and other services that are necessary in a household; but the husbands themselves are built through them, because wives are, as it were, a nest and a dwelling place where husbands can go to spend their time and dwell with joy.
What Moses adds, “And He brought her to Adam,” is a sort of description of betrothal, which is worthy of special note. Adam does not snatch Eve of his own will after she has been created, but he waits for God to bring her to him. So Christ also says (Matt. 19:6): “What God has joined let no man part.” For the lawful joining of a man and a woman is a divine ordinance and institution.
Here, therefore, Moses keeps his own particular expression. “He brought,” he says. Who? No doubt … the entire Divinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These say to Adam: “Behold, this is your bride, with whom you shall dwell, with whom you shall beget children.” Without a doubt Adam received her with great joy, just as even now in this corrupt nature the mutual love of bridegroom and bride is extraordinary. But then it was without the epileptic and apoplectic lust of present-day marriage; it was a chaste and delightful love, and the very coming-together would also have been most honorable and most sacred. But now sin forces itself in everywhere; it presents itself to the eyes and ears and then also to all the senses.
Martin Luther, vol. 1, Luther’s Works, Vol. 1 : Lectures on Genesis: Chapters 1-5, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald and Helmut T. Lehmann, Luther’s Works (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999, c1958), 1:131.
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