Excerpted From: Patrick Fairbairn, The Typology of Scripture, Vol. 1, Sixth Edition (Edinburgh, T & T Clark, 1876), The Marriage Relation and the Sabbatical Institution, 304-307.
The formation of a partner for Adam out of a portion of his own frame, and the junction of the two under the direct sanction of their Maker, so as to form in a manner one flesh, however important in a social and economical respect, however fitted also to bear indirectly on the higher interests of the world, was still not formally of a religious nature. For the world’s secular well-being alone, there were reasons amply sufficient to account for its Divine author resorting to such a method, when bringing into being the first family pair, and in them laying the foundations of the world’s social existence. For it was by an instructive and appropriate act, entwined with the very beginnings of social life on earth, that the essential conditions were to be exhibited—if exhibited so as to tell with permanent effect—of its right constitution and healthful working. And so far from being, as some have alleged, an unbecoming representation of the Divine character, a lowering of the Divine Majesty, that Eve should have been said to be formed out of Adam’s side, and thereafter presented to him as his own flesh and bone, on account of which they would turn the whole narrative into a myth, it will be found, when duly considered and viewed in the light of the important interests depending on it, every way worthy of the wise foresight and paternal goodness of Deity. He has thus interwoven with the closing act of creation an imperishable moral lesson—made it, indeed, the perpetual and impressive symbol of the great truth—that the fundamental relation in family life was to consist in the union of one man and one woman; and these so bound together as that, while distinctions as to authority and power on the one side, and subordination and dependence on the other should exist between them, they should still be regarded as a social unity—corporate manhood. So far from the Divine procedure in this violating our sense of the fitting and proper, or doing more than the circumstances of the case required, the records of history were not long in furnishing mournful evidence that it proved all too little to secure the end in view; it failed to perpetuate the intended unity and good order of families, even among the chosen people, the practical inference drawn from it with instinctive sagacity and true spiritual insight by the first Adam. “Therefore shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be one flesh,” (Gen. 2:24), came to be so much lost sight of, that it required to be announced afresh, and with greater stringency imposed, by the second Adam (Matt. 19:5–6).
The Scriptural evidence for the deep significance of the Divine act in respect to the formation of Eve, and the nature of the marriage union founded on it, is both explicit and ample. But in the circumstances of the parents themselves of the human family, and also of their posterity who lived in the earlier ages of the world, it could scarcely have occurred to them to carry that significance into any sphere beyond that of the family life. Nothing in the prospect as yet held out to them of a restored condition was fitted to give their ideas so definite a shape as to suggest a spiritual relationship formed after the model of this natural one; and in the religion of patriarchal, or even much later times, scarcely anything is found that bears this specific impress. As the result of God’s fuller manifestation of Himself and closer intimacy with His people in the wilderness, a kind of marriage union indeed is implied to have sprung up between them, since their defection from His service is represented under the light of an adultery or whoredom (Num. 14:33)—a style of representation which became of frequent occurrence in the writings of the later prophets (Isa. 57:3; Jer. 3:9, 13:27; Ezek. 16, 23; Hos. 1, 2, etc.). In one or two passages also, the Lord expressly takes to Himself the name of the husband of Israel, or speaks of Himself as having been married to them (Isa. 54:5; Jer. 3:14). In the Book of Canticles, this relation even forms the scene of a kind of spiritual drama; and in the forty-fifth Psalm, the hero of the piece, the King of Zion, is even represented as standing formally related to a queen who shares with Him in the honours of the kingdom, and by whom can only be understood the true Israel of God. It is not to be denied, however, that this series of Old Testament representations took its formal rise in the covenant engagement entered into at Sinai, and merely availed itself of the marriage bond as one peculiarly adapted for portraying the obligations and advantages connected with fidelity to the engagement, or the guilt and folly of the reverse. In none of the passages does there seem any distinct reference to the primeval union in Eden; and rather as a fitting emblem, than a type in the proper sense, is the marriage relation in such cases employed much as also the relations of a pastor to his flock (Ps. 23; Ezek. 36; Zech. 11), of a husbandman to his vineyard (Ps. 80; Isa. 5:1–7; Ezek. 15), or of a king to his subjects (1 Sam. 8:7; Ps. 2, etc.).
We are not, therefore, disposed to connect with the religious worship or hopes which came in after the fall, any distinct reference to the marriage relation, viewed as growing out of Eve’s derivation from Adam and subjection to him. In that particular form, and as an ideal pattern for the nourishment of faith and hope, it belongs to New rather than Old Testament times—the times, namely, when the Lord from heaven stands distinctly revealed in the character of the second Adam. As such, He also must have His spouse, and has it in part now, but shall have it in completeness hereafter, in the company of faithful souls who have been washed from their sins in His blood—the elect Church, which in all its members grows out of His root, lives by His life, and is called at once to share in His glory, and as an handmaid to minister to His will. So that the mystery of the primeval spouse (“a bone of Adam’s bone, flesh of his flesh”) may justly be regarded as the mystery of the Church in her relation to Christ (Eph. 5:30–32; 2 Cor. 11:2; Rev. 19:7, 21:2). But in this special aspect of the matter—an aspect that belongs to creation rather than to strictly historical times—it must be allowed to stand in some respects apart from the typical relations with which we have now properly to deal, and which all in a greater or less degree contributed to mould the religious views and feelings of fallen men.
