Verse 24 is very important. This is Moses' commentary on what had just happened. He is giving us a conclusion because these two, a man and a woman, are alike but different. They are both mankind. They are both human, but they are of the two different sexes.
What that tells us in verse 25 is that in that environment, in the Garden of Eden, that arrangement was great. Before sin had come in that was the model. That was the way it should be. One man and one woman joining together to be one.
What we have seen here in these two passages is that God's distinction between the sexes is binary. There are two. One of each sex is necessary for procreation. You cannot have two men or two women. There has to be just one man and one woman. That is how it works. The two sides of humanity are to come together as couples, as one in marriage. Not just for reproduction. That is only the most basic reason for the one flesh of the two, but also to accomplish higher, more spiritual goals. And they go from having a conducive family environment to preparing for eternal life. When a man and a woman come together as one flesh and they create the best environment, they can use that environment then for spiritual growth.
Now, in his Companion Bible, E. W. Bullinger has an appendix (it is number 10), on the significance of numbers in Scripture. I believe he later had a whole book that he explained all the numbers in Scripture. But I got this one from the Companion Bible itself. He concludes that the number two signifies difference. We have already seen that. There were two sides of humanity, a male side and a female side, and if you cannot see the difference, you are as blind as a bat because there is very much difference between men and women. They are very much the same in many ways too but the differences are enough to be very distinctive.
So two means different, difference. But if two become one, which chapter 2, verse 24 encourages, then they are no longer binary but unitary. They are one, the two have become one, and in that unity that is created because they have come together, in that unity they can foster progress towards a goal. Let us just think of this in in general terms. Let us say you have a bunch of people and you have a goal, you want to build a house. What you want to do is get all the people on the same page, you want them to be reading from the same blueprint so that when it is time to construct the house, it all goes according to plan.
But if you have one wanting to do a one bedroom apartment and another one wanting to do a three bedroom ranch and another one wanting to have an uptown loft and another one wanting a castle or you know, just to name all these things, there is no unity there. You are not going to get the house built.
So God has made it very simple. One man, one woman, one goal, ultimately the Kingdom of God. Put these two together, give them the same blueprints, encourage the unity between them, unity of mind, and you are far more likely to reach the goal under that than having no union or a divided union, some sort of separation or divorce.
Right here in Genesis 2, already (we could even take it back to Genesis 1, but it does not come out quite as clearly there), but definitely by the end of chapter 2, we have a vital principle in Scripture brought to the fore. And actually it began before that. It is not in Genesis necessarily that we find this out, but we find it out later in the book of John. In the real beginning that is there in the first chapter because this two becoming one started with the One who is called the Father and the other who is now called the Son. They are two entities, two people, two Beings, but They are one in mind and They have a great purpose that They are trying to work out. And because of their unity, even though They are two different Beings, Their unity is so close that They are now well on Their way towards bringing that purpose to pass because of the two of Them.
They … . . .