At First Sight of Love - the image of God

When two people first realize that they are both in love with each other, there is a tremendous thrill in their hearts. Suddenly, they have an inkling of the loving, creative intimacy of the Godhead. By forming a loving intimate relationship, they have recreated the Adamic image of God. They feel new and utterly transformed, as if anything is possible. It is a thrill our culture has celebrated for millenia.

Originally, you will recall, God created Adam in His image; but then as part of the performance aspect of this work of art we call Creation, God declared that it was not right for the Adam to be alone. And from that moment, it was not right.

At first, the Adam had been complete and entire, wanting nothing, doing a little gardening. Then, in a sort of artistic contrasting gesture, God made an instance of every beast and bird He had created, and brought them to the Adam, to see what he would name them. Adam gave each one a name, but it was never an appropriate companion for him.

I imagine that this went on for a long time. Can't you just see it? Every little while, Adam is interrupted in his gardening by God coming up with another animal. This could have gone on for years, with God exploring all the variations of theme that He had created, and Adam coming up with a name for it, quietly considering whether it would make a good companion.

Finally, God puts Adam into a deep sleep, and fashions a companion using a part of Adam's own body as the basis. When He brings this that He had made to Adam, Adam cries out in recognition: "Now this is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called ishsha, because she was taken out of ish." After that, he was no longer the Adam: he was an ish, a man needing an ishsha to be complete.

The entropy had increased.

I think this has an analogy in the godhead itself. Each person is a full person, as each man and woman is a full person. Both God and Adam were originally described with plural nouns, and so each has a perfect unity; but then the Adam is separated into man and woman, foreshadowing the time when the Son separated from the Father, and came to earth, born of a woman. He has since returned, more glorious than he started out, the new Adam who will reunite, in the end, with his new Eve, the church.

So when a man and a woman form that intimate loving relationship, they can achieve a more glorious state than Adam had alone; yet even this is only a shadow of glory to come. When we who believe are resurrected and glorified and united with him for the marriage of the Lamb, we will all be much more intimate than we can be now in this life. It will be a greater, more glorious being than God was when He first began Creation. The entropy will be as high as ever, but the unity will be restored, and there will be a new heaven and a new earth.