The first woman was made specifically for the first man-- a helper, to meet, respond to, surrender to, and complement him. The Creator made her from the man---bone of his bone, and then He brought her to the man. When Adam named Eve, he accepted responsibility to "husband" her---to provide for her, cherish and protect her. These two people together represent the image of the Creator -- one of them in a special way the initiator, the other the responder. Neither the one nor the other was adequate alone to bear the divine image of God.
The Creator put these two in a perfect place and -- you know the rest of the story. Eve, in her refusal to accept the will of Almighty God, refused her femininity. Adam, in his yielding to her suggestion, abdicated his responsibility for her. It was the first instance of what we would recognize now as "role reversal." This defiant disobedience ruined the original divine order of man and women and things have gradually deteriorated.
Even in their rebellion against His Divine Order, the heavenly Father did not abandon His self-willed Children. In His inexorable Love, He demonstrated the exact pattern for man and woman by calling Himself a Protector and Provider of Israel His Beloved. He rescued her, called her by name, wooed and won her. God was deeply grieved when His Wife went whoring after other (lovers) deities.
In the New Testament we find the mystery of marriage again in the inexpressible relationship between Jesus and the Church: the husband standing for Messiah in his headship and the wife standing for the Church in her submission. Think of a bride! She surrenders her independence, her name, her destiny, her will, herself, to the bridegroom in a public ceremony, before Almighty God and witnesses. Then, in the marriage chamber, she surrenders her body to her husband. As a mother she makes a new surrender -- it is her life for the life of the child. This is most profoundly what women were made for; married or single the special calling of the virgin is to surrender herself in service to her Master, Jesus Christ, her husband, her children, and her sisters in the Church. The Creator's Divine Order for man and woman is not to be shuffled about and rearranged according to the whims of men.
In setting forth the submission and surrender of the woman, a young virgin (Mary) is visited by an angel and given some fairly stunning news about becoming the mother of the only Begotten Son of God. Unlike Eve, whose response to God's Divine Order was calculating and selfish, the virgin Mary's answer holds no hesitation, concern about risks, losses or interruption of her own plans---only utter and unconditional sacrifice and surrender of self. (Luke 1:38) .
The gentle and quiet spirit of which Peter speaks, calling it a spirit "of great worth in God's sight" (1 Peter 3:4), is true womanhood, which found its epitome in Mary's willingness to be a vessel, hidden and unknown except as Somebody's mother. This is the true mother-spirit, so absent in many of today's women who seek liberation from the biblical truths concerning womanhood, instead of fulfillment and surrender to the Creator's Divine Order.
God has given His Daughters spiritual gifts that are meant to bless those in her household and others in the Body of Christ. Women should not use their gifts to usurp the authority of their husband. Our desire should be to be a woman, holy through and through, asking for nothing except what the heavenly Father has ordained as our destiny and being proud to fulfill that destiny.
Attributes of a Woman
Titus 3; 1 Peter 3; Proverbs 31; 1 Corinthians 11:1-16
She is at peace with God, herself and others.
She is surrendered to Jesus Christ as her Spiritual Head and her husband as head of the family.
She has a meek and quiet spirit.
She has a servant's heart.
She does not call attention to her physical beauty, but seeks the inner beauty of a meek and quiet spirit.
She considers homemaking a high and noble call.
She is a joyful person.
She is a woman of prayer and devotion to God.
She has learned the secret of Isaiah 26:3
Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee because he trusteth in Thee.
© Copyright 2002 Norma Daulton
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