gengwall

Cheryl will probably delve into Genesis a little more as well in her response, but we can’t lose sight of the importance of the Genesis account when dealing with Christ and His marriage to the Church. Paul certainly doesn’t lose sight of it.

Jesus is Adam; the Church is Eve. Does Jesus “need” the Church? Absolutely. Just as it was not good for Adam to be alone, it is not good for Jesus to be alone. The Church is Jesus’ ezer kenegdo. Does Jesus rule the world alone? Absolutely not. Just as with Adam and Eve (Gen 1), Jesus and the Church rule together (Eph 2 and others). Mark asks “Is Christ in authority over the Church at all?” Of course! BUT not in this instance where the relationship is a marriage. This stuns complementarians who can’t fathom the inverse of Mark’s question: “Is there any instance where Christ is not in authority over the Church”? Just as Adam was not in authority over Eve in the Garden, neither is Christ in authority in relation to His bride.

Is it no wonder that Paul so adamantly avoids authoritarian language when the Christ/Church or any other marriage relationship is in view? The use of the head/body metaphor seems, IMO, to be quite intentionally an effort to avoid worldly ideas, about husbands and wives. Paul’s frequent and exclusive use of this and other “mutually benefiting relationship” metaphors when speaking of marriage, whether Adam and Eve’s marriage, yours and my marriage, or Christ and the Church’s marriage, is, I believe, his direct attempt to undo the hierarchialist, patriarchal, ruler/husband-property/wife paradigm wrought by the fall and propegated by the world.