God Prepared Man’s First Home—The Eden home of our first parents was prepared for them by God Himself. When He had furnished it with everything that man could desire, He said: “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.”(Genesis 1:26) ...
(AH 25.1)
MC
VC
The Lord was pleased with this last and noblest of all His creatures, and designed that he should be the perfect inhabitant of a perfect world. But it was not His purpose that man should live in solitude. He said: “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.”Genesis 2:18.
(AH 25.2)
MC
VC
God Himself gave Adam a companion. He provided “an help meet for him”(Genesis 2:18)—a helper corresponding to him—one who was fitted to be his companion, and who could be one with him in love and sympathy. Eve was created from a rib taken from the side of Adam, signifying that she was not to control him as the head, nor to be trampled under his feet as an inferior, but to stand by his side as an equal, to be loved and protected by him. A part of man, bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh, she was his second self; showing the close union and the affectionate attachment that should exist in this relation. “For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it.”Ephesians 5:29. “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one.”Genesis 2:24.
(AH 25.3)
MC
VC
First Marriage Performed by God—God celebrated the first marriage. Thus the institution has for its originator the Creator of the universe. “Marriage is honourable”(Hebrews 13:4); it was one of the first gifts of God to man, and it is one of the two institutions that, after the fall, Adam brought with him beyond the gates of Paradise. When the divine principles are recognized and obeyed in this relation, marriage is a blessing; it guards the purity and happiness of the race, it provides for man’s social needs, it elevates the physical, the intellectual, and the moral nature.
(AH 25.4)
MC
VC