MATTHEW 19:5
MATTHEW AND MOSES
With this essay I would like to begin a study of passages in the New Testament which refer to the first three chapters of Genesis. There are at least 63 references in the New Testament to the first three chapters of Genesis. This study is important because the Bible is a unity, and what is taught in one place in the Scriptures must be taught in the other. There is no such thing as a contradiction in the Word of God, and what one believes about a passage or doctrine in the Old Testament must be consistent with what the rest of the Bible teaches. As a Bible literalist I use only the 1611 King James Bible, and I study it in the English language, meaning that I do not turn to the Greek or Hebrew meanings of the words until I have gotten everything there is to understand from the simple English. That is not to say that I do not use definitions of the Greek of Hebrew words at all. Word studies are important. I have found, however, that the English definitions are usually altogether sufficient for our understanding.
We are not told in the Bible that Moses wrote the book of Genesis, but all reliable Bible scholars believe that he did. We are told in the Bible - Jesus told us - that Moses did write the law, but Genesis does not include any of the law of Moses (John 24:44). The events in Genesis occurred centuries before Moses was born. That doesn’t mean that he could not have written Genesis by divine revelation. “All scripture is given buy inspiration of God, . . .” (II Timothy 3:16). He wrote the last chapter of Deuteronomy which includes the account of his death and burial, and he wrote that by divine revelation.
The point here is that Adam doubtless wrote the first four or five chapters of Genesis, and that these books were handed down to Methuselah, and from Methuselah to Noah, and from Noah to Abraham, and so on down to Moses. None of this is mentioned in the Word of God. However, in Genesis 5:1, we are told, “This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made his him.” It is a biblical fact that there was a book in which was recorded the generations of Adam in existence before the flood.
To think clearly about the days of Adam and the generations before the flood, we must clear our heads of the cave man pictures instilled in our brains by our evolutionary public school education. The people who inhabited the earth before the flood were not grunting half-man-half-ape brutes. There is absolutely no scientific or biblical reason to believe such tommyrot. Men did live in caves in the past just as some do today, as Job described them in chapter 30, and Adam and Eve may have lived in a cave until they could get tools made and houses built, but the people on Earth before the flood were the most intelligent people who have ever lived on the earth. Even today, we note that the most intelligent people can be the most corrupt. Adam was not a stoop shouldered hairless monkey. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” (Genesis 1:27)
It would be inconceivable to think that Adam did not write books. A man of his intelligence and experience would be bound to make records of what he had experienced. These books would explain several very important and interesting things in the Old Testament which I have already discussed on this program. Doubtless, Moses had the books of Adam when he wrote the first chapters of Genesis, and he may have copied those books word for word under the Lord’s direction. The law of Moses is contained in the four books following the book of Genesis. But notice that God said “Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.” Abraham obeyed God’s charge, commandments, statutes, and laws 400 years before God gave Moses the law on Sinai. Where did Abraham get God’s law? I believe it was handed down to him from Adam.
The Bible is a unity. If Adam wrote the words of Genesis 1-3, he wrote them by divine inspiration from the Holy Spirit of God.
When Jesus said, “...Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?” (Matthew 19:4,5), He was placing His divine guarantee on those words that they were the Word of God. In recording them, Matthew placed God’s divine approval upon what was said in Genesis 1:27;2:23,24.
Incidentally, isn’t that an embarrassment to note that Jesus asked if they had read? There are more words in existence today available to man than ever in the history, and people read very little. Those verses in Genesis say, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” We can now understand why a man who had no father or mother, that is, why Adam would say that a man should leave his father and mother for his wife. He was prophesying what would be the universal law for marriage. Both Jesus the Son of God, and Matthew, a divinely inspired writer of Scripture confirmed that what was written in Genesis was the divinely inspired Word of God, whether Adam wrote it, or whether Moses wrote it.
Many animals mate for life. Somehow we seem to have a special esteem for animals that mate for life. It seems so right, even for animals, to come together as a pair loyal and faithful to each other for life.
There is a sense of maturity about being mated for life. There is an unselfishness about being mated for life. To be mated for life is so important that God said a man must leave his father and mother, to cleave to his wife. It is seldom a problem about a man leaving his parents.
This is the second commandment God gave to man. The first was that he leave the tree of the knowledge of good and evil alone. This showed that the first thing man must do is to obey God, and allow God to have His place in the universe. God created man, but man should not think it pernicious, as most men do, to remain submissive to God. Most men think they are as good as God, and should at least share His throne.
The second commandment then was for a man to cleave to his wife. The reason for this is simple. God had punished the woman for disobeying Him, and deceiving her husband. He had said, “. . .I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” There would be times when the woman would be helpless in the child bearing work. She would need a faithful and protective husband, and she would deserve his love and care during that time especially. God also made her desire be to her husband, and so it would be cruelty beyond measure for the husband to be at liberty to leave her, or desert her as he pleased. A man who does not care for his family has denied the faith, and is worst than an infidel. There is no excuse for a man to abuse his wife. The laziest, sorriest mortal who ever lived shouldn’t feel her husband’s knuckles.
Of course, we see women whose desire is not to their husbands, and husbands who do not remain loyal to their wives, and that is called sin. It is also unnatural behavior - perversion. People who bewail all the heartache and misery in the world look everywhere for the answers except into the Word of God where the answers clearly lie. God designed human interaction for the happiness and well being of the race, but man scorns the wisdom of God, and considers the wisdom of the world of much greater worth. When disasters occur, it is not the local pastors who are called in to counsel the children, it is the psychologists.
Man cannot improve upon what God has done and planned. Psychology and birth control pills and women’s lib will never make for a happier life than simple, humble obedience to the Lord Creator Who loved us and gave Himself for us. God’s ways are not grievous. Jesus repeated what Adam said, and Matthew recorded it. All of it fits together in a beautiful unity that make for peace and joy. Marriage can be joy. It was intended to be a life of joy. God’s way is the best way.