Frank

Cheryl,
There are a number of problems with the complementarian interpretation of Gen 1-3 that you and the others have pointed out. In the comments and observations that follow, I am expressing some ideas suggested by a sudden flash of insight I had from what you said about the prophetic/typological significance of these chapters. But don’t take anything I say without measuring it by the Scripture, because I could be wrong. Here we go:
1. Let’s consider the first in terms of what you earlier referred to as “prophetic naming.” In their discussion of Gen 3, the complementarians never seem to see or discuss the possible “prophetic” connection between 3:15, 20-21; 4:1; and Gal. 4:4-7. God declares that “the seed of the woman” will be the one who defeats Satan, redeeming humanity and bringing them back into a new life of restored fellowship with God, 3:15. Adam, by faith claims the promise, and to encourage his wife, gives her a name that indicates she is, not the mother of the doomed, but of those who live because of the Deliverer who come through her Eve, “mother of all who are to live.” And then Eve, also believing the promise will be fulfilled, in 4:1, when she says she given birth to a son “with the LORD’s help,” seems to believe her first born son is the fulfilment of the promised Seed. However, as Paul tells us in Gal. 4:4-7, it was at God’s appointed time when the Seed of the woman, who is also the Seed of Abraham, came and fulfilled the promise of redemption and reconciliation to which Adam and Eve, by faith, looked forward to and received, as signified by the God’s provision of a sacrifice, the animal skins with which they were covered being a sign or symbol of the righteousness with which we are covered when we appropriated, by faith, the redemption and reconcilation we are offered through Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. In this light, I think the complementarians miss the prophetic/typological significance of this story, in terms of Christ as the promised and long awaited Seed of the woman.

2. Paul tells us in Eph. 5 that before the fall, the “marital” relationship Adam and Eve (before the Fall I would argue) is both typological and prophetic of Christ and His Church. And here, I will let Jon Zens, who expresses it better than I can, how the complementarin interpetation destroys the typological/prophetic significance of Gen 2 (Cf. ST: A Review of John Piper’s WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?):

What burdens me as I listen to the contemporary rhetoric surrounding the issue of marriage and the roles of husbands and wives is that the typological nature of marriage is minimized or omitted. This arises because most believe that marriage is fundamentally an institution or creation ordinance started in the Garden of Eden. Yet it seems quite clear that earthly marriage is a type – a picture of Christ and his bride, the ekklesia (Eph.5:31-32). So to talk about marriage as isolated from the typology of Jesus and his church is to miss a Christ-centered perspective. Marriage is given real meaning and significance only when it is vitally connected to its purpose as an earthly picture of Christ and his people. We must not sever what God has joined together. Consider these beautiful parallels:

** Before the fall into sin, “Adam” as the first human being was looked upon by the Lord as “male and female.” Gen.5:2 makes the astounding, but crystal clear observation that “When God created Adam he made this one in the image of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Adam when they were created.” Adam looked like one person, but he was actually a plurality — he had a woman within his body. “He named them [plural] Adam [singular].”
The Lord Jesus is called “the last Adam” (1 Cor.15:45). He looked like one person, but he, too, had a bride in his side. He came to purchase the ekklesia of God with his own blood (Acts 20:28). The unity between Christ and his people is so deep that to touch his flock is to touch the Savior himself – “why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4).

** Adam was put to sleep in order that his wife might be created. “And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept.” Adam was completely passive in the creation of his wife. Likewise, Christ was put to sleep in order that his wife might be created. She could not become his bride without being saved from her sins. Her redemption required that Christ be put to the sleep of death as her substitute. Christ’s death was a part of his passive obedience to God. He took upon himself the death His bride deserved.

** Adam’s side was opened, and his wife was made from that which was removed. “And [God] took one of [Adam’s] ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the place from which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman.”

Likewise, Christ underwent an opening of his side and from what came forth redeemed his wife. “But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out.” The church of God was redeemed with this blood, and birthed through this water.

Interestingly, Eve is pulled from the “side” of Adam. The Hebrew for “side” is tsela and the Greek is pleura. When Jesus died it was his “side” (pleura) that was pierced with a spear, and from that redemptive act the church is, as it were, pulled forth as a new Eve (cf. John 19:34; 20:20,25,27).

** Adam was married to his wife: “and [God] brought her to the man. And Adam said, ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman [Hebrew, Ish-shah], because she was taken out of Man [Hebrew, Ish].’ Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”

Likewise, Christ is married to his wife. As Eve was united to Adam in the most intimate of physical relationships, so is the church united to Christ in the most intimate of spiritual relationships. Adam and Eve were united into “one flesh.” Christ and his church are united into “one body.” She is therefore called “the church which is His body” (1 Cor.12). And as God designed the union of husband and wife to last a lifetime, so the union of Christ and his church will last forever. Nothing will ever separate the bride from the love of the heavenly Bridegroom. ** We discover another parallel in this: as a man leaves his father and mother in marriage on earth so he can cleave to his wife, so Christ left his Father in heaven to come to earth, redeem his people through his death, burial and resurrection, and so cleave to his Bride forever.

From a biblical perspective, specifically in God’s promise in Genesis 3:15, it can be said that the whole unfolding of human history is ultimately about the coming of Jesus the heavenly Groom who secured the forgiveness of sins and the fellowship of his Bride — folks from every people group on earth, a people so great in number that no one can count them. We are given, by the apostle John in the Book of Revelation, these glorious descriptions of the end of history:

For the wedding of the Lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear . . . .I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband . . . .Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb . . . . The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come!” And let the person who hears say, “Come.” Those who are thirsty, let them come; and those who are willing, let them take the free gift of the water of life (Cf., Donald Joy, Bonding: Relationships in the Image of God, Evangel Publishing House, 1999, pp.19-29; Daniel Parks, “Christ Typified in the First Marriage, Gen.2:18,21-24,” http://www.sovereigngraceofgod.com/parks.htm).
Once we begin to see marriage as an earthly pointer to the ultimate marriage of the Lamb with his bride, it puts the issues dealt with in What’s the Difference? in a completely new light. The emphasis in Genesis 1-2 is not on differentiated roles but on a one-flesh partnership. The issue is not “Who’s in charge?” but “How can we in our relationship enhance our love and service to God?” It’s not about the “creation ordinance” of marriage. It’s about a passionate relationship – “she is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh!” This is ultimately Christ’s proclamation to his ekklesia.

Connecting human marriage to Christ and the church also opens the door for understanding the crux issue in sexual sins. People tend to look at sexual sin as a violation of God’s will – and it is. But the most fundamental problem with sexual deviations is that they mar, violate and contradict in various ways the beauty and purity of Jesus’ relationship with his Bride, the ekklesia. Adultery, same-sex relationships, fornication, promiscuity, bestiality, rape, using women/ children/men in the sex industry, female circumcision, etc., are all destructive perversions of “the beginning” when God created them male and female, and of “the fullness of time” when Christ came to gather a Bride from all the nations.

Without sin, Adam and Eve were fully naked and had no shame. “There is now no condemnation to those in Christ” (Rom.8:1). Sexual sins that twist the image of Christ and his Body practice all kinds of nakedness attended with the fullness of shame. They ruin and disfigure the wonder of Christ and his ekklesia becoming “one flesh.”

Ephesians 5:21-33

With this “profound mystery” as a backdrop, we better understand Paul’s words to husbands and wives in Eph.5:22-33. In Eph.5:18 the apostle gives an imperative to be “filled with the Spirit,” and five participles follow showing the fruit of such a life. Verse 21 sets forth the fifth evidence of the Spirit-filled community, “submitting yourselves to one another out of reverence to Christ.” Here we see a mutual submission among all the parts of the body. This is the setting for the specific relationships that follow, beginning with husbands and wives.

Verse 22 has no verb. It reads literally, “wives to your own husbands as to the Lord.” Then why do most English translations read, “wives submit to your own husbands…”? Because they have correctly inferred that submission is implied. In the English language a sentence is not complete without a verb. In the Greek, a sentence may be complete without a verb, but in such cases, the action is assumed to continue from the preceding sentence. The verb in verse 21 is “submit.” The assumed verb in verse 22, therefore, should also be “submit.”

But that’s not the whole story. Since verse 22 was written in such a way as to make it deliberately dependent on verse 21 for its action verb, it is also appropriate to assume a continuation of any previously established qualifiers to that action. In verse 21, the act of submitting is not a one-way street, but mutual – “to one another.” If Paul did not intend for that same spirit of mutuality to be assumed in the submission implied in verse 22, he would have supplied a new verb and structured the sentence differently. Even though Paul’s focus in verse 22 is on “wives,” therefore, there is no justification for stripping the implied “submit” supplied by the translators of its previously established mutuality. A wife should indeed voluntarily “submit” to her husband. But that does not cancel out her husband’s responsibility to just as willingly submit to his wife. Indeed, husbands and wives should “submit to one another.”

It should be clear, therefore, that Paul’s motivation for instructing believing wives to submit to their husbands was not to establish a hierarchy in the marriage relationship – nor in any other relationship between believers. It is the unique, “one another” quality of life within the body of Christ that is its most essential characteristic. Just as elders (pastors) have no inherent right to lord it over those whom they shepherd (cf. 1 Pet. 5:3), husbands have no inherent right to lord it over their wives. In Christ, earthly marriage is an equal partnership, with both husbands and wives willingly submitting to one another as unto Christ. Paul’s only reason for underscoring the wives’ need for submission to her husband is because her role in marriage, as the following verses so beautifully reveal, is to be an earthly reflection of Christ’s bride, the church. And in the “oneness” of that relationship, there is neither male nor female, “for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28).

Because of church teachings, personal leanings and cultural practices, words like “submission” and “authority” are laden with potential misunderstandings. Dennis J. Preato reminds us that we need to think things through a little more carefully:

The Greek word, hupotasso, is often translated as “submitting to” or “being subject” in Ephesians 5:22. However this Greek word has more than one use and a range of meaning that is quite different from what people today generally think. “Hupotasso” actually has two uses: military and non-military. The military has a connotation of being “subject to” or “to obey” as if you are under someone’s command. Most people would probably think of this meaning. However the non-military use means “a voluntary attitude of giving in, cooperating, assuming responsibility, and carrying a burden” (Thayer’s Greek Lexicon #5293). In ancient papyri the word hupotasso commonly meant to “support,” “append,” or “uphold” (Ann Nyland, “Papyri, Women, and Word Meaning in the New Testament,” Priscilla Papers, 17:4 (Fall, 2003), p.6) . . . . [W]hy would Scripture need to command Christians to be filled with the Spirit in order to be subject to, follow orders, or be under someone’s authority? A person does not need to be filled with Spirit to follow orders, for even nonbelievers demonstrate this fact when they “submit,” or obey their superiors (“Empirical Data in Support of Egalitarian Marriages & A Fresh Perspective on Submission & Authority,” Presented at the Evangelical Theological Society, April 23, 2004).

And since John said to pass on copies of this review, I don’t think he would mind this short quote being shared; it just seems so appropriate to what we’re discussing.