June 16, 2004

Reading through the Bible in one Year: Ephesians 1-3

Good Evening Brothers and Sisters,

Some have considered Chapter two of Genesis to be an alternate view of creation.  I don't see it as that, what I see is in chapter 1, we have a summary of the creation, further details are filled in for us in chapter 2.

Genesis 2:1-3 (NASB95)
¹ Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. ² By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. ³ Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. ^[1]

One thing that stood out to me is that God rested on the seventh day.  He also made that day holy, when we consider today that we don't hold any day's holy, perhaps we are causing a lot of our own problems.  One other observation on these verses, God did not sacrifice any animals on the seventh day.  Adam had not sinned yet, and everything was living in a perfect sinless state, this was the only time in the Bible that sacrifice was not required for sin.  God rested, the earth rested, it was God's day of rest.  Shortly after this, the priest will be offering sacrifices every day of the week including the Sabbath, and although it is technically a day of rest, some still have to work as a result of sin. 

Genesis 2:4-8 (NASB95)
⁴ This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven. ⁵ Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground. ⁶ But a mist used to rise from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground. ⁷ Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. ⁸ The Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed. ^[2]

The writer of Genesis flashes back to the earlier days of the creation and gives us more detail.  Consider how that the earth was watered before there was any rain.  If the separation of the waters that was described earlier had taken place, wouldn't the water vapor have formed clouds and therefore produced rain?  If on the other hand there was a blanket of water surrounding the earth, then the concept of rain may not have taken place because evaporation would have been much slower.  God created the earth so that it was a greenhouse from pole to pole, the water blanket surrounding the earth caused the earth to have even temperatures and lush vegetation from pole to pole.  I don't have the details in front of me on this, but they have found a wooly mammoth on the North Pole that was frozen in the ice, it still had green vegetation in it's mouth.  For a non-creationist this would have been puzzling, for us, it makes perfect sense. 

Everything on the earth was spoken into existence except for man.  When God created man He personally formed man out of the dirt of the earth.  Man was constructed by God in a manner which is similar to a great sculptor at work.  It was more than impersonal action like God did when He spoke into existence all the other creatures of the earth, it was an action of loving creation that God performed for the greatest of His creation.  He cared so much for man that He literally breathed life into the body, both spiritual and physical.  The name "Adam" indicates that he was made from the ground, so since Adam was made from the ground, he was made from the earth, not from heaven.  Therefore any claims that any man tries to make toward becoming like God is blown away because man originated from the ground of the earth, and not from heaven.

Man was not able to cause any growth in the garden, all the growth was ordained by God.  God caused the plants to grow upon the earth and appointed man as a tender of the garden.  Man's first role on earth was that of a gardener. 

Genesis 2:9-17 (NASB95)
⁹ Out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. ¹⁰ Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided and became four rivers. ¹¹ The name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. ¹² The gold of that land is good; the bdellium and the onyx stone are there. ¹³ The name of the second river is Gihon; it flows around the whole land of Cush. ¹⁴ The name of the third river is Tigris; it flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. ¹⁵ Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. ¹⁶ The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; ¹⁷ but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” ^[3]

He was to also take care of the tree of good and evil, have you ever considered why God gave man that responsibility?  God is a just God and does not want his creatures to follow Him out of blind allegiance.  He wants willing followers, those who follow Him because they want to, not because they don't know any better.  The tree of good and evil was the fail-safe that God had built in to prove that man had the opportunity to serve Him out of his own decision.  When God placed the restriction on the tree, He gave man the freedom of choice.  The warning that went with the tree was that if man ate from it he would die.  Up to that time death really had no meaning, so the penalty would have conveyed the idea that something very undesirable would happen.  Consider also that God may have made man understand the concept of death, man was highly intellegent, as intellegent as he is today.
 

Genesis 2:18-25 (NASB95)
¹⁸ Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.” ¹⁹ Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. ²⁰ The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. ²¹ So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. ²² The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. ²³ The man 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.” ²⁴ For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. ²⁵ And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.^[4]

God paraded the animals before man to see if any of them was suitable as a helper for him.  The answer is that none of them were suitable, so God performed the first surgery on earth by removing one of Adam's ribs and cloning a perfect match for him. 

Consider also that the first man was not a "cave man", he was highly intelligent.  He was intelligent enough to name all the animals, birds and cattle (domesticated animals) of the world and to keep track of their names. The early chapters of Genesis do not describe a man that is stupid and carries a club, but rather a highly sophisticated race who are able to build a highly sophisticated city, and later Noah is able to construct a highly sophisticated vessel. No, early man was not a cave man, He was created in the image and likeness of God. Cave men existed because they chose to dwell in caves and not because they were a notch above animals.

Volumes have been written on the relationship between man and woman.  I won't re-invent the wheel here.  One thing to notice is that man and woman are to cleave to each other.  The idea is that they are to separate themselves from their father and mother and cleave desperately to each other.  Today we have problems with that statement because couples want to "join the families", scripture does not teach this.  What is taught here is that the man and woman leave their families behind in order to cleave to each other.  God's design for marriage is a oneness in relationship and in being, the only way that that can mature and come to pass is if both parties of the marriage are determined to cleave to each other.  When families are merged as a result of marriage, problems are raised because the couple never really cuts the ties to the families.  They are bound to their families and to the opinions of their fathers and mothers, so when a problem rises they have the input of four other people that should not be involved in the relationship.  God joined two in marriage, not six, in His plan, the two have a natural desire to cleave to each other.  Enough said.

Father as we considered the words of Genesis 2, open our eyes to the wrong myths that the secular world has raised concerning the beginning of the earth.  Also strengthen our marriages by placing in us a desire to cleave desperately to our spouses. 

In Him,

Joe Turner.