The Wayside Pulpit No.83
My Help
It was not good for Adam to
be alone. The Lord therefore created Eve to be his wife, as the AV puts it,
"a help meet for him." A more comprehensive translation would
be "a help, his real counterpart." It was therefore God's plan and
design that a man's wife should not just be his "real counterpart",
but also his "helper".
In the Hebrew text the word
"help" is EZER, which is found in numerous contexts in the O.T. As a
proper name it occurs as EZRA. In Psalm 70:5 we read, "I am poor and
needy, make haste unto me, O God, You are my HELP and my deliverer." In
every case where a person cannot manage alone, and a HELP is needed, the word
EZER is found. Truly, a wife should be a "helper". It is therefore
equally true that in God's sight, and in the normal run of things, man
needs help. He is not supposed to operate alone.
In the N.T. Jesus said that
His disciples would need a Helper in the Person of the Holy Spirit, even as He
had been their Helper in His ministerial years. He used the Greek word
PARAKLETOS to describe the Helper, the Paraclete, the "Comforter" in
the A.V. translation. It is truly a "comfort" to receive help, and
the Lord never intended His disciples to get along in their own strength, either
then or now. Only that which is the working-together of the Holy Spirit and the
child of God can produce fruit acceptable to the Lord.
But the Lord Himself seeks
a Bride, a Wife, one who can be a "helper" to Him. This may seem
strange. How come that the Lord should be in need? Simply because in the
Kingdom of God, when grace will reach out to the "residue of men",
the Lord desires to use His little flock to represent Him on earth, to be His
ambassadors, to reflect His own character. No wonder that we find at the end of
Revelation, the words, "The Spirit and the Bride say 'Come'." That is
a summary of the whole work of preparation in God's children. They do not say
'Come, Lord Jesus' by themselves, but by the witness of the Spirit within, they
cry together for the Bridegroom's coming.
The Holy Spirit is the
Mother figure in the Godhead. In Ephesians 5 we are told that "A man shall
leave his father and mother and be joined unto his wife . . . This is a great
mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church." (
The word Paraclete comes
from two Greek words, meaning, "to call alongside", in other words,
it is exactly the same as the "help" God gave to Adam when he created
Eve. In legal affairs we sometimes need to call in the help of one trained in
matters of litigation. We refer to him as an Advocate, or a Solicitor. Some
versions of the N.T. use the word Advocate when translating Parakletos.
Now we come to the
unpleasant side of things. After the fall, God said to Eve that Adam should
"rule over her." Why? Because she had been deceived. In what sense
therefore should he "rule"? In such a manner that his wife
should no longer be subject to Satanic powers. But throughout history man has
taken this word and used it in quite a different manner than that which God
intended. He has lorded it over his wife, made her into something less than
human, degraded her, refused to listen to her, treated her as housekeeper, cleaner,
washerwoman, child-minder, and object of his sexual energies. This is the
unpleasant side of things.
In what sense should a
husband "rule over" his wife? The first time the word
"rule" is used in Genesis is in
To sum up, our wives should
be precious to us, adequately covered spiritually, loved even as Christ loves
His church. That is the "ruling" aspect. The other aspect is that the
wife is then, and only then, able to fulfil her function as "helper"
to her husband. Her spiritual wisdom, keen insight, sensitivity to the gentle
pressures of the Holy Spirit, can then be used to the full, and rich is the
husband who encourages his wife to act in this capacity, wise is the ear that
listens to his wife's helping words, who doesn't think himself too high and
mighty to listen to her whisper of caution, direction, or enlightenment.
All this may sound too
idealistic to some, and even engender laughter. But it is the Lord's request
from His word, even if in practice we make a bit of a mess of it at times. My
point is this - if a man and wife both understand these principles from the
start of their marriage, then they can work together, pray together, and grow
into that oneness the Lord desires. It's a romantic image that's worth
working at, a dream that can become a reality.
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