So far, we have considered the cultural pressure for parents not to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28), whether it comes from Malthusian theories of future scarcity, Paul Ehrlich’s theoretical “population bomb,” or Millennial and Gen Z fears about the state of the world. We also saw, however, that contrary to those theories, there is a divinely established pattern for humanity that includes heterosexual marriage and human fruitfulness. Malthus’s theory is manifestly wrong. There are many more people on the earth than there were during his life, and yet, in the developed world, we are witnessing prosperity hitherto unknown in world history. Like many other prophets of doom (e.g., Al Gore’s discredited climate change prophecies), Ehrlich’s prophecies have been shown to have been wrong.

Still, there are biblical and theological questions to consider.

What About the Fall?

It is true that the creational pattern is just that—creational. We know that Adam, the first federal head of the human race, broke the covenant of works (Gen 2:17; Gen 3), plunging himself and us into sin, and death both spiritual and physical. The reality of sin is undeniable. It is a basic fact of life and Scripture, but though sin is a corruption of the divinely established order, it is not the utter destruction of that order. This is evident even in the curse pronounced by Yahweh Elohim (Gen 3:8) as he came “in the spirit of the day” [of judgment].¹ Even though they had sinned, Adam and Eve were still both a man and a woman (Gen 3:8). Eve (and her daughters) would still give birth to children, though with pain and suffering (Gen 3:16), and Adam (and his sons) would labor in frustration (Gen 3:17–19). Eve’s name means “mother of all living” (Gen 3:20). The clear implication of the narrative about the post-fall world is that the creational pattern of heterosexual marriage (a necessary redundancy in our time) and procreation continues, and with it, the imperative to be fruitful and multiply. This is evident from the next chapter of Genesis. Though Adam and Eve were exiled from the holy garden, the first thing recorded about them is that they had a child together (Gen 4:1). Eve had “gotten a man with the help of the Lord” (Gen 4:1 ESV), who was not the man promised in Genesis 3:15, the one who would be struck on the heel and who would crush the serpent’s head (cf. Rom 16:20). Still, they did have a child, and they did not stop with one. They had Abel (Gen 4:2). The effects of sin were immediately evident (Gen 4:8), but still humanity continued to fulfill the creational mandate (Gen 4:17). Wicked Cain built a city, and Adam and Eve continued to have children (Gen 4:25), and those children had children. People were so fruitful that Scripture gives us stylized glimpses of the growth of humanity, a sort of who’s who of common history and redemptive history.

Nature, Grace, and Redemptive History

In the history of the church there has been a tendency to think that because we are now in the new covenant, the time of fulfillment of the types and shadows; since we are they on whom the “end of the ages” has come (1 Cor 10:11) and now live in “these last days” (Heb 1:2), we ought to focus on the kingdom of God to the neglect of ordinary, creational family life. The assumption of Matthew 19:12, however, is that those who become eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of God are the exception and not the rule.

The principle at work is very important: Grace renews nature; it does not destroy it.² The Reformed invoked that principle against the Anabaptists, who, in their view, lost track of nature and taught as though grace (e.g., eschatology) had wiped out the natural order. There have been other groups throughout the history of the church who have thought that grace—for example, salvation, the advent of the new covenant, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and the inbreaking of the last day (or eschatology)—means that the natural, creational patterns no longer matter.

Our Lord himself begs to differ. The key clause to remember is this one: “But from the beginning it was not so” (Matt 19:8). In their relentless scheme to prosecute and persecute Jesus, the Pharisees tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” (Matt 19:3). Our Lord, as God the Word (John 1:1) who was in the garden, replied,

Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh”? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. (Matt 19:4–6)

The antidote to the error of the Pharisees is the creational, natural pattern revealed in Genesis 2:24, but the Pharisees were dissatisfied. They appealed to the Mosaic legislation on marriage: “They said to him, ‘Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?’” (Matt 19:7). Does the Mosaic permission trump the creational mandate? No. The One who gave the law from atop Sinai said, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so” (Matt 19:8). The creational pattern holds.

As it was in the creation narrative, so it is in the gospel narrative. There is an analogy with the Sabbath principle. We saw that the creation pattern was six days of work and one day of rest. The Pharisees, however, had corrupted that pattern and made what was intended to be a day of rest, communion with God and the church, into a burden, of which they, and not God, were the masters. In Matthew 12:1–8 we see our Lord and his disciples picking grain on the old Saturday Sabbath. The Pharisees accused them of breaking God’s law (Matt 12:2). Jesus defended himself and his disciples on the basis of David’s example and that of the Levitical priests (Matt 12:3–5). He defended his conduct on three grounds: (1) “Something greater than the temple is here” (Matt 12:6), which is an appeal to the progress of revelation and redemptive history. The first and second temples pointed to Christ, who is the temple (John 2:19); (2) The Lord desires “mercy not sacrifice” (Matt 12:7), which is an allusion to Hosea 6:6—that is, the intent behind the law; and (3) “For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath” (Matt 12:8). This is an appeal to his authority as the one who instituted the Sabbath in the beginning. The types and shadows of the Sabbath had been fulfilled, but the Sabbath principle has not been wiped out. When it came to Jesus’s miracle in healing the man with the withered hand, he ridiculed their man-made system that allowed the rescue of a sheep from a pit but refused the rescue or healing of a man made in the image of God (Matt 12:11–12). It is “lawful to do good on the Sabbath” (Matt 12:12) because that was one of the purposes of the Sabbath. What is significant here, for our purposes, is that our Lord did not say, “Now that the fulfillment of the Sabbath has come, now that the new covenant is about to be inaugurated, the Sabbath has been destroyed.”

Rather, our Lord rescheduled the Sabbath. Our Lord was raised “on the first day of the Sabbaths” (μιᾷ τῶν σαββάτων), which is the colloquial expression properly translated “first day of the week” (Luke 24:1). The interesting thing here is that the week is measured relative to the Sabbath. The coming of the Savior did not wipe out the creational pattern of the Sabbath. We still work for six days and rest on one, but in view of the inauguration of the new creation (2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15; Eph 2:10).

Marriage and family are creational institutions that are renewed in the new covenant by grace. Paul gives detailed instruction to husbands, wives, and children (Eph 5:22–6:4). Singleness is an honorable estate for those called to it; but ordinarily, with some exceptions (e.g., 1 Cor 7:25–38), those Christian men and women who have not been gifted with celibacy and singleness should get married and have children. As did our Lord, the apostle Paul invokes the creational pattern: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Eph 5:31; see also Gen 2:24). It is true that the natural, creational pattern becomes, in Christ, an analogy of Christ and his church (Eph 5:32), but because grace does not destroy nature, both things are true simultaneously. The creational pattern persists even as it takes on a deeper sense as it is renewed and sanctified (perfected) by grace.

Notes

1. The traditional English translation “in the cool of the day” is traceable to the inter-testamental Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint (LXX), which, in 3:9 (the versification of the LXX varies from the MT and our English translations) says, “Καὶ ἤκουσαν τὴς φωνὴς Κυρίου τοῦ Θεοῦ περιπατοῦντος ἐν τῷ παραδείσῳ τὸ δειλινόν· καὶ ἐκρύβησαν ὅ, τε Ἀδὰμ καὶ ἡ γυνὴ αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ προσώπου Κυρίου τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐν μέσῳ τοῦ ξύλου τοῦ παραδείσου (“And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the afternoon; and both Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of the Lord God in the midst of the trees of the garden.”) Lancelot Charles Lee Brenton, The Septuagint Version of the Old Testament: English Translation (Samuel Bagster and Sons, 1870); and Lancelot C. L. Brenton, The Septuagint Version: Greek (Samuel Bagster & Sons, 1851). In Genesis 3:8 the Vulgate followed this interpretation: “Et cum audissent vocem Domini Dei deambulantis in paradiso ad auram post meridiem abscondit se Adam et uxor eius a facie Domini Dei in medio ligni paradisi.” Biblia Sacra Vulgata: Iuxta Vulgatem Versionem, 3rd ed. (Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1969). The Hebrew Bible, however, says nothing about the time of day but rather speaks about the nature of the coming of the Lord to Adam and Eve. אֱלֹהִ֛ים מִתְהַלֵּ֥ךְ בַּגָּ֖ן לְר֣וּחַ הַיּ֑וֹם וַיִּתְחַבֵּ֨א הָֽאָדָ֜ם וְאִשְׁתּוֹ֗ מִפְּנֵי֙ יְהוָ֣ה אֱלֹהִ֔ים בְּת֖וֹךְ עֵ֥ץ הַגָּֽן׃ Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia: With Werkgroep Informatica, Vrije Universiteit Morphology (Vrije Universiteit, 2006).
2. For more on the Reformed appropriation of the axiom “gratia non tollat naturam, sed perficiat” (grace does not destroy but perfects nature), see R. Scott Clark, The Heidelberg Catechism: A Historical, Theological, and Pastoral Commentary (Lexham Academic, 2025), 52–54.

©R. Scott Clark. All Rights Reserved.

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Post authored by:

• R. Scott Clark

  

  R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.

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