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What actually happened physically here is beyond the scope of these articles to
consider, but the interested reader might like to give thought to the suggestion made by
Dr. R. G. Sobey in a small booklet entitled Tsela, in which he says:
"It does not seem possible anatomically to refute the biblical possibility, that the
Tsela removed for the upbuilding of Eve was no less than one of the side chambers of the
left lung, as then constituted, and more specifically the uppermost and third lobe of that
left side."
Whatever we may think of the above possibility (and of course Scripture gives no
details in this matter), it is certain that Adam found in this piece of Divine surgery, a
help-meet for him.
"And the man said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be
called Woman, because she was taken out of Man" (2: 23 R.V.).
Moses almost certainly added the explanation which followed (it is out of place in the
mouth of Adam), in which it is seen that the man will find his completion in the woman,
the two becoming "one flesh" again when the man "cleaved unto his wife" (Gen. 2: 24).
This wonderful unity was to be used later by Paul as a picture of an even more
wonderful relationship, which now exists between Christ and the Church which is His
Body (Eph. 5: 25-33).
Hence it is seen that the woman, as an individual, stands on a complete equality with
the man; she is his counterpart, "like unto himself". In God's ideal and original
arrangement, true completeness was to be found when the two came together again (even
as they were one originally in the person of Adam); there was to be "one flesh". Man
and woman were not, however, made identical with each other, but possessed those
differences necessary for the fulfillment of their respective places in God's economy;
and hence they were to be looked upon as complimenting one another.
The advent of sin into the world, bringing with it a certain amount of disorder, may
have spoilt the balance that was originally intended, but it in no way invalidates the truth
expressed in Gen. 2: 24. What the situation would have been had not sin entered to
spoil, is not the subject of Scripture, but it does seem, on the basis of Gen. 2: 18-24, that
every man would have found his complement and completion in a woman; it would have
been, one man--one woman--one flesh. That this is not now universally so, nor in fact
apparently ever has been, should not cause us to lose sight of God's original ideal as far
as the earth and its economy is concerned.
Man and woman different positionally.
Whilst it must ever be maintained that man and woman as individuals before God
stand on equal footing, there can be no doubt at all that they have been entrusted with
different positions in God's present economy. Seen from the point of view of "faith in
Christ Jesus", Paul could write: