Charlie Garrett – Page 1153 – The Superior Word

Genesis 2:18-25 (Beauty From a Rib)

Charlie Garrett Genesis (Written) Monday, December 12th, 2011Saturday, March 22nd, 2025

Beauty From a Rib
Genesis 2:18-25

If you kiss her, you are not a gentleman
If you don’t, you are not a man
If you praise her, she thinks you are lying
If you don’t, you are good for nothing
If you agree to all her likes, you are a wimp
If you don’t, you are not understanding
If you visit her often, she thinks it is boring If you don’t, she accuses you of double-crossing
If you are well dressed, she says you are a playboy
If you’re not, you are a dull boy
If you are jealous, she says it’s bad
If you aren’t, she thinks you do not love her
If you attempt a romance, she says you didn’t respect her
If you don’t, she thinks you do not like her
If you are a minute late, she complains it’s hard to wait
If she is late, she says that’s a girl’s way
If you visit another man, you’re not putting in “quality time”
If she is visited by another woman, “oh it’s natural, we are girls”
If you kiss her once in a while, she professes you are cold
If you kiss her often, she yells that you are taking advantage
If you fail to help her in crossing the street, you lack ethics
If you do, she thinks it’s just one of men’s tactics for seduction
If you stare at another woman, she accuses you of flirting
If other men stare at her, she says that they are just admiring
If you talk, she wants you to listen
If you listen, she wants you to talk

In short:

So simple, yet so complex
So weak, yet so powerful
So confusing, yet so desirable
So damning, yet so wonderful…

…WOMEN!

Introduction: If there were no other reason to disbelieve in the theory of evolution than the presence of women, it would be enough. No amount of random chance, no amount of adapting and changing, nothing in the equation could ever form women to be so bafflingly complex and yet as delightfully simple as they are.

Only an infinitely intelligent mind could give man such a wonderful gift, such a challenge to our patience, such a trial to our souls, such a delight to our eyes, such a knock in our hearts, such a knock on our heads, such a source of frustration, and such a well of delight. Only God could have created a woman. And he did it from a rib.

Now I love ribs from the grill and I like to rib my son about things. The veins in a leaf are known as ribs, and so is the molding on a vaulted ceiling. Sailboat hulls have ribs and so do airplane’s wings. If you alternate purl stitches with plain stitches while sewing, you’ll make a ribbed pattern. All of these have meaning and purpose, but nothing could compare to what God did with one of Adam’s ribs.

Text Verse: Her children rise up and call her blessed;
Her husband also, and he praises her:
“Many daughters have done well,
But you excel them all.” Proverbs 31:28, 29

May God speak to us through His word today and may His glorious name ever be praised.

I. It is Not Good

And the LORD God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.” ¹⁹ Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. ²⁰ So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.
²¹ And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. ²² Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.

“It is not good that man should be alone; – Lo tov hayoth ha’adam li-vado. God used the term “lo tov” to describe Adam’s situation. “It is not good…” Far too often, we try to justify why we can do it alone, but in the end, God created woman for man. The two fit together much better than one does all alone.

They compliment each other, they meet each other’s needs, and they fill God’s purposes for His creation. It is lo tov that the man should be alone.

Interestingly enough, these two little words, lo tov, prove the literal six-day creation account – at least from a biblical perspective. In Genesis 1, it says at the end of the sixth day that “… God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”

If, in fact, everything was “very good” or tov meod at the end of the sixth day and it was “not good” that Adam was alone on the sixth day, then God must have created everything in six literal days. There is no other way around this. The biblical account stands or falls on a literal six day creation.

“I will make him a helper comparable to him…” – literally “a help answering to him, or one who answers.” This doesn’t mean God made a secretary for man, although that can be part of the equation I suppose. The woman was prepared by God to share man’s responsibilities, respond to him with love and understanding, and work together with him in serving and worshipping God.

As it says in the book of Ecclesiastes –

Two are better than one,
Because they have a good reward for their labor.
¹⁰ For if they fall, one will lift up his companion.
But woe to him who is alone when he falls,
For he has no one to help him up.
¹¹ Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm;
But how can one be warm alone? 4:9-11

Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. ²⁰ So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field.

God created the animals, but as we noted in chapter one, God gave man dominion over them. The giving of names to the animals implies this dominion over them. In the first chapter of the book of Daniel, the King of Babylon renamed the exiled Israelites as he so chose, indicating his dominion over them –

Then the king instructed Ashpenaz, the master of his eunuchs, to bring some of the children of Israel and some of the king’s descendants and some of the nobles, ^… To them the chief of the eunuchs gave names: he gave Daniel the name Belteshazzar; to Hananiah, Shadrach; to Mishael, Meshach; and to Azariah, Abed-Nego. Daniel 1:4 & 7

In the same way, parents name their children, we name our possessions, such as a boat on the water, and if we start a company, we give it a name. Designating a name indicates dominion and authority over the thing which is named. God gave this dominion of the animals to man.

We do this even today. If we buy an animal and let one of our children name it, then the animal implicitly belongs to that child. In reality, we get to feed them, clean up their messes, and pay for the vet bills, but that child will always feel as if he is the owner.

In the case of God, man has no dominion over Him and so we can only ascribe titles to Him. Later in Genesis, Hagar, the Egyptian concubine of Abraham calls Him El Roi, the God who sees, but this isn’t a name, only a title. Any god with a name given by man is no god at all. And only the true God reveals or conceals His name as He so chooses. He revealed one name to Moses –

“I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name LORD I was not known to them. Exodus 6:2, 3

And in Revelation 12, He hides another name for Himself alone. It says, “He had a name written that no one knew except Himself.”

Because God’s name identifies His authority and dominion, we are to use it carefully and with respect. He is God and we are man. He is the Creator and we are His creatures.

But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.

God brought all the animals to Adam and he was probably pretty impressed with every new creature that came his way. “Here comes a…a… I’ll call that a platypus, and look I’ll call that a wombat. This one… I’m calling this one a dog.”

“Lord, these are all so cool. I can’t believe the variety of life here! But God, there is something missing in me. All of these creatures have a friend to play with and despite all that you’ve done, I feel lonely looking at them playing together. There’s something missing from my heart and although I’m not sure of what it is, I feel it when I see the animals play.”

Just imagine Adam’s thoughts as he named the animals and looked around him. He was in the very presence of God and in the midst of God’s paradise – a garden of delight. And yet there was something missing in Adam that needed to be reconciled before God could pronounce His final blessing upon the work of the day, the work of creation, and the completion of His efforts.

After 27 years of marriage, I can tell you that I find my life lacking when Hideko isn’t around. She does the cooking, I do the dishes. She feeds the puppies, and I do the laundry. She does the comforting and I do the whining. We fit so well together that when she’s not around, my whining goes unanswered, my food is from a can, and the puppies… poor, poor puppies!

Since God gave Eve to Adam, no man has ever had a wife who fit so perfectly. As Proverbs says –

Who can find a virtuous wife?
For her worth is far above rubies.
The heart of her husband safely trusts her;
So he will have no lack of gain. 31:10, 11

I assure you, I found the virtuous wife.

“And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place.”

The term the Bible uses indicates a deep sleep Adam was placed under. Nothing is said about how He did it, but today we can work ourselves to exhaustion, use anesthesia, or get into a boxing match with our best friend to achieve this type of state.

By putting Adam to sleep, it takes man completely out of the equation. If God consulted man, Adam might have asked for chrome bumpers or a built in attachment where he could place fishing poles. He might have said, “I want a helper that doesn’t talk too much.”

But God knew better than Adam that chrome bumpers would need polishing. On the other hand, women stay lustrous without any effort. He also knew that fishing vacations were a chance to get away from the woman and relax with friends and so He didn’t include the fishing pole attachment. And he knew that man needed to learn patience and to listen while the woman talked. And so Eve was prepared while Adam slept.

All joking aside though, whatever way God put Adam to sleep, it seems as if mercy was being granted during the first operation ever performed on a human being. Normally when we take something out of a body, we do it because it’s something that’s defective and can harm us… I won’t even go in that direction today, alright…!

Modern surgical procedures are for healing and removal of corruption. But instead of something defective being brought out of Adam, something close and personal was removed. At the same time it was also for a sort of healing just as would be the case in any modern operation. What God would make from the rib would be of the same essence as man, complimentary and yet different.

“Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman,” This was a deeply personal act which God performed. The word used for making Eve is the Hebrew word banah. In this account, the Hebrew letters which spell banah are Beth and Nun. Beth means a house and nun reflects an “heir” or the continuance of a generation. God took a part of Adam’s “house” and sculpted from it a comparable part so that the two would be able to continue on for the generations to come.

This continuation would be from their very life and every human today bears the marks of their first father and mother. As it says in Acts 17:26 – “From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth…”

Everything in this account, even to the letters used, shows us that man is never fully complete without a woman and that woman, who came from man, is incomplete without the man. This is how God ordained things to be. She was created to help him and he is under the obligation to protect her and be devoted to her just as he would be to any part of his own body.

Paul explains this mystery in 1 Corinthians 11 –

For man is not from woman, but woman from man. Nor was man created for the woman, but woman for the man. For this reason the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. Nevertheless, neither is man independent of woman, nor woman independent of man, in the Lord. For as woman came from man, even so man also comes through woman; but all things are from God. 8-12

A few weeks ago I called man, the Crown of Creation, but this was only fully realized after God made woman. We noted that God created from the least complex to the most complex and from what is least excellent to what is most excellent.

Woman, being formed after man, has a glory and an honor upon her that Paul notes in 1 Corinthians chapter 11 when he says that “woman is the glory of man.” As Matthew Henry notes, “If man is the head, she is the crown, a crown to her husband, the crown of the visible creation. The man was dust refined, but the woman was dust double-refined, one removed further from the earth.”

Together, the two of them form the pinnacle of God’s marvelous wisdom in the creation and the way He did it shows their complete interdependency on each other.

In the use of a rib to form the woman, it’s been said that “woman was not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.”

…and He brought her to the man.

Adam woke up feeling an empty spot in his chest just like he did before he went to sleep. The only difference was that he had a scar there too and the empty spot he felt was more than an emotion now. Something really felt like it was missing…

After yawning and looking around, you can just hear it… “Wow! Where did this come from?” I can just imagine what he thought when he saw the woman. “Man o man, o boy or boy.” One empty spot, the emotional one, was gone in an instant, and when God said that she was for him, his other empty spot was made full by her presence. Nothing was lacking. Everything was right.

“Oh Lord, this is so much better than chrome bumpers…”

What is it a father does in modern weddings? He walks the woman to her husband and presents her to him. And so God, as the Father of the woman, her Creator, “brought her to the man.” He gave his consent to the man to take this beauty and unite to her in the first wedding ever performed. And this wedding was in a state of complete innocence. As such, it was one of a kind in all of history.

“Never alone” with my wife by my side
What God has done has been done very well
A flood of emotions, like the rising of the tide
This woman is perfect for me, I can tell

A gift of the most beautiful kind
Sculpted and formed beyond imagination
Her beauty fills every thought of my mind
This is certainly the jewel in the crown of creation.

II. She Shall be Called Woman

²³ 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.”

It’s been noted that for every need, there is a fulfillment of that need. We get thirsty and there is water to fill that thirst. Likewise there is thirst because there is water. If water didn’t exist, there wouldn’t be a need for thirst.

Fish need to swim in water and there is water for fish to swim in. In the same way, there are fish because there is water for fish to swim in. If the water didn’t exist, there wouldn’t be anything called fish.

Men need women and there are women for men to join to. And without a doubt, there are women because there are men. If man didn’t exist, then there wouldn’t be anything called woman.

God has filled every need with the answer to that need and God has made “needs” for the things He has created. We need sunlight and God has given us a sun. But God created the sun first and made us afterward. Everything fits so perfectly that all we can do is marvel at the perfection of His wisdom.

In my soul is a need to praise God and God has given me psalms, a mouth, and breath in my lungs to allow me to do that. But praise of God implies that there is a God. Praise God that God is God.

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.”

Modern translations will often set this verse off in poetic fashion. The man was making a pronouncement, acknowledging that God had fashioned the woman from his very bones and flesh. The Hebrew word for “man” is ish and for woman is ishsha and despite a difference in spelling, the only real difference is the feminine ending of the word for female.

Therefore she is a she-man. We differ in sex, but not in nature. The woman was made from the man and she was made for the man.

Adam received from his Father the woman who was being presented from her Father. He created them both and determined every detail that would perfectly fill every void in each other. What one lacked, the other filled. Every need finds its fulfillment. And so it is, even to this day. The cycle of marriage goes on between God’s faithful in acknowledgement of His loving act of making woman for man.

III. Leaving Home

²⁴ Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

This verse sets the stage for the bonds of marriage which have followed down throughout the ages. A man “shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife.” The word “joined” is the Hebrew word dabaq and indicates and action of “sticking like glue.”

Another time this term is used is when Ruth the Moabitess joined to her mother-in-law, refusing to leave her after the death of her husband, “Then they lifted up their voices and wept again; and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her.”

When it says the man shall be joined to his wife it is the man who joins like glue to the woman. He is the stronger vessel and he is the one who bears the responsibility to hold tightly to her. And if he demonstrates the kind of loving power reflected in this verse, she will naturally want to be held by him.

The woman’s responsibility isn’t negated at all though. “They shall become one flesh” indicates that this is a two-way union and that the bond in indissoluble.

When asked about the acceptability of divorce, Jesus referred right back to this account to remind the people that marriage is to be a life-long commitment –

“Because of the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept. But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.” Mark 10:5-9

In Ephesians 5, Paul explains the connection between a man and his wife and that of Christ and the church. This mutual “give and take” relationship is reflective of that which is demonstrated by Him and which we should likewise demonstrate towards Him.

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. ²⁸ So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Ephesians 5:22-33

As I said, the Hebrew word for “join” is dabaq and it indicates that the onus is on the man. Christ has promised to never leave us and never forsake us – accepting the onus upon Himself. It is He, the husband, who fills this role. But we are to give him the honor and glory He is due, deferring to Him that which is rightly His and submitting to His authority and headship.

When God breathed life into man, there was the intimate connection of God to man. That was lost through sin, but when God regenerates us with His Holy Spirit, that intimate connection is reestablished.

And it is the same with man and woman. A connection is lost between the two and a void exists until the two are joined again in marriage. What man lost in the rib, he regains in the wife. And man o man – she is so much better than a rib!

IV. Not Ashamed

²⁵ And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

When God created man and woman, they were naked and there was no shame – either vertically or horizontally. In other words, God created them in a state of beauty and perfection and there was nothing to cause them to hide from either God or each other.

Nakedness implies more than just shame though. It also implies that there was nothing that could harm them. The temperature would have been perfect, none of the animals were a threat, and there wasn’t even anything that could hurt their feet. They were naked, secure, and they were also unashamed.

I think this verse is specifically stated here to show us the contrast with the rest of the Bible where there is perpetual conflict with our bodies through the elements, from the animals, and also from the shame of our actions and the actions of others – both in front of others and in front of God. When shame is lost in people today, it reflects not just an unnatural state, but an anti-natural state.

I’ve seen a lot of my old school friends get divorced in the recent past. Some of them have been married between 15 and 25 years and they’ve decided to give up. One of them, a self-proclaimed atheist, said his wife had gotten fat and saggy after having three children and he didn’t like it. He was ashamed of her appearance.

What are you ashamed of in your husband or wife? If they’ve gotten old and wrinkly or gray, guess what? They got that way around you!

I know of a preacher who was in the Vietnam War and he got burned so badly that he looks almost like a monster. While he was in the hospital recuperating, another guy next to him was visited by his own wife. When she got there and saw how he was mutilated he was she took off her ring and threw it at him.

Later his wife came to visit and when she saw him – who was far worse off than the guy in the bed next to him, she hugged him and held tightly to him. More than thirty years later, she’s still holding tightly to him, despite his monstrous looks.

What is shame? In the end, it’s not a reflection of others, but it’s rather a reflection of oneself. In his great cry of repentance for the faithlessness of the Israelites, Nehemiah cried out to God, ashamed of their deeds as a people –

At the evening sacrifice I arose from my fasting; and having torn my garment and my robe, I fell on my knees and spread out my hands to the LORD my God. ⁶ And I said: “O my God, I am too ashamed and humiliated to lift up my face to You, my God; for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has grown up to the heavens. ⁷ Since the days of our fathers to this day we have been very guilty, and for our iniquities we, our kings, and our priests have been delivered into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, to plunder, and to humiliation, as it is this day. ⁸ And now for a little while grace has been shown from the LORD our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a peg in His holy place, that our God may enlighten our eyes and give us a measure of revival in our bondage. ⁹ For we were slaves. Yet our God did not forsake us in our bondage; but He extended mercy to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to revive us, to repair the house of our God, to rebuild its ruins, and to give us a wall in Judah and Jerusalem. ¹⁰ And now, O our God, what shall we say after this? For we have forsaken Your commandments, ¹¹ which You commanded by Your servants the prophets, saying, ‘The land which you are entering to possess is an unclean land, with the uncleanness of the peoples of the lands, with their abominations which have filled it from one end to another with their impurity. ¹² Now therefore, do not give your daughters as wives for their sons, nor take their daughters to your sons; and never seek their peace or prosperity, that you may be strong and eat the good of the land, and leave it as an inheritance to your children forever.’ ¹³ And after all that has come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great guilt, since You our God have punished us less than our iniquities deserve, and have given us such deliverance as this, ¹⁴ should we again break Your commandments, and join in marriage with the people committing these abominations? Would You not be angry with us until You had consumed us, so that there would be no remnant or survivor? ¹⁵ O LORD God of Israel, You are righteous, for we are left as a remnant, as it is this day. Here we are before You, in our guilt, though no one can stand before You because of this!”

The shame Nehemiah felt is the attitude that God responds to with great mercy. Nehemiah’s shame was felt because of the intermarrying of God’s people with pagans. When King David’s adultery with Bathsheba was discovered, David acknowledged that –

“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,
A broken and a contrite heart—
These, O God, You will not despise.

Both of these great men of God understood the contract between God and His people and the contract of a man and a woman. These contracts were broken and their shame was openly acknowledged.

Did you know that despite the life you’ve lived, Jesus will forgive your sins, no matter how great they are, if you will simply acknowledge your guilt?

For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. ¹¹ For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, ¹² saying:

“I will declare Your name to My brethren; In the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to You.” Hebrews 2:10-12

The author of Hebrews says that Jesus shared in humanity so that He could empathize with us. The very Creator of man – who lovingly gave him a wife, took on mortality in order to destroy death and restore us to Himself. When we call on Him, He is unashamed in calling us His brethren.

Because of this immense demonstration of forgiveness the apostle Paul turned around and returned the same honor to the Lord –

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes… Romans 10:16

Beauty from under Adam’s side
Formed from a rib near his heart
God made a woman with man to abide
Together a new life as one to start

She was formed as he lay in his sleep
God molded her specially for him
They would form a bond wide and deep
That would last till their eyes grew dim

Likewise God gave Christ a bride
When a soldier pierced His own side

Out came the blood which purchased us back
As He lay in death’s sleep for a spell
The devil thought he had won the attack
But Christ rose victorious over death and hell

The Bride of Christ has nothing to fear
The Lord her husband has reign over all
Nothing so precious, nothing so dear
As for the sinner on His name to call

Come unto me you who are weary and worn
And to your souls I will give you rest
By My Spirit you too can be reborn
Drink from Heaven’s waters, be eternally blessed

Enter the cross with me –

And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. ²² Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.

In this account, Adam was being used as a symbol of Christ to come. Just as God took a rib from the side of Adam while He slept, God formed His church through the death of His Son – His moment of deepest sleep. The soldier pierced His precious side and out came blood mixed with water. Two men with similar scars 4000 years apart – one received a bride of flesh and the other a bride of the Spirit.

If God was willing to do that for us, we should respond in kind by calling on His name!

Genesis 2:16-17 (Free to Will or Not Free to Will)

Charlie Garrett Genesis (Written) Sunday, December 4th, 2011Saturday, March 22nd, 2025

Free to Will or Not Free to Will
That is the Question
Genesis 2:16, 17

If you remember Jacob Marley in Dicken’s classic, A Christmas Carol, he was the friend and co-worker of Ebenezer Scrooge who had died many years before and who returned as a ghost to warn Ebenezer. When Scrooge asked him about the chains he was bound in, he said this “I wear the chain I forged in life….I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.”

Marley acknowledged that he exercised free will to his own detriment. While studying quotes for this sermon, I was surprised to find the number of people on both sides of the religious spectrum that deny free-will. Believe it or not, even some atheists deny free will.

Talk about a contradiction in the thought process – how can someone claim there’s no God… nothing but the universe, and then deny that the choices they make belong to them alone? If the atheist doesn’t have free will, then Something must be directing him. If there is something beyond him, then no matter what it is, it is greater than Him. Atheism, at its core, is a mentally corrupt thought process.

For an atheist to ascribe his decisions to the interaction of atoms as I read in one commentary is to simply pass a red herring over the question. Either the will is free or it isn’t regardless of the make up of the decider of the decision.

And then there are the multitudes of Christians who not only deny free will, but who claim that people who believe in free will are enemies of God. W. E. Best said: “God’s character is maligned by every person who believes in free will.”

I have to ask, “How does free will malign God’s character?”

It’s hugely important to understand why we have free-will and to be able to defend it from the Bible. The reason is twofold. First, if man doesn’t have free will as Best claims, then God must be the ultimate author of evil. How someone can come to any other conclusion when reading the Bible is astounding.

And secondly, if we don’t choose Jesus as He asks us to, such as in John 3:16, then God is forcing us to love Him. It doesn’t matter how corrupt we are and how deep is the pit from which He pulls us, if He does it against our free will, then it isn’t allowing a demonstration of love and devotion on out part. And this is exactly what both testaments of the Bible expect from us.

RC Sproul, the modern Presbyterian theologian and free-will denier said once, “If intent is sin as when Jesus said, ‘he who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart’ then Adam fell before the fall, because he sinned before eating of the forbidden fruit by intending to eat it. So the question is, ‘from whence comes evil?’”

Yes RC, whence comes evil? If you deny free will, then that is a gigantic problem because God supposedly created everything good. I mean, if He created man already intent on evil, then you have a real dilemma. But that’s Dr. Sproul’s conundrum.

Thomas Aquinas, the 13^th Century Theologian says this about free-will “Man has free choice, or otherwise counsels, exhortations, commands, prohibitions, rewards and punishments would be in vain.”

Introduction: The Bible is as much a book of choices as it is anything else. Freewill is implied on almost every page and in every account it records. The verses which seem to deny free will, and free will deniers have a lot of them, need to be taken in the context of God’s sovereignty, His foreknowledge, and His love.

Text Verse: And the LORD said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you do all those wonders before Pharaoh which I have put in your hand. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go. Exodus 4:21
May God speak to us through His word today and may His glorious name ever be praised.

I. The choice in the Garden

And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Toba Beta wisely stated, “If there was no free will in men, then there is no sins. When sins happened, it was ‘free will’ that made them doable. This is true, unless God has predestined human to do and to have sins.”

RC Sproul, reads this account and can’t comprehend how Adam actually fell. He has a couple of reasons. First, he cannot accept that man has freewill. His doctrine tells him that man is incapable of doing anything good – a state known as Total Depravity. He misreads and misinterprets verses of the Bible which tell of our fallen state and our inability to fix the mess and equates that with an inability on our part to get out of the mess at all.

Secondly, he knows he cannot ascribe evil to God as no sound theologian ever would or could. And therefore he is left with his amazing and unanswerable question, “Whence comes evil?”

But this is a problem of the heart and a problem of conditioning, not an unfathomable mystery that only God can answer within Himself. Rather, it is a revealed truth contained in the verses we just read – “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat…”

Three points we have to think through are all revealed in this one verse.

Point 1: You may – Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat…

“Mi kol ets a-gan a-kol tochal, uh-me-ets a-da-at tov va-ra, lo tochal mimenu.”

There is a lot of information we can glean from this one sentence –

First, there were multiple trees in the garden and they were graciously granted to Adam. Second, man was given the freedom to choose. As it says, “You may freely eat.” And third, only after acknowledging Adam’s free will was he told what he couldn’t eat.

This verse contains the very first words ever recorded as spoken by God directly to man and it certainly indicates him possessing free will. You may eat. “May” indicates choice… and it’s neutral – in other words, you may or you may not – it’s up to you Adam. Snack on what you’d like except this one thing.

If I’m leaving my house with a sitter while I go on vacation, I might say, “Sitter, the refrigerator is full and you may eat whatever you want in that full refrigerator.” If I came back and the fridge was empty and I had given no other instructions, I could only say “Gee Sitter, you had a big appetite. You even ate all the dog food that I had in the Tupperware.”

And if I came back and the refrigerator was still full, I might think the sitter was good at restraining herself, but I at least offered the food to her.

Point 2: You shall not – “Shall not” indicates choice as well because the tree is there. Were “shall not” a choice, God would have put no tree there at all, or He would have made it inaccessible. Maybe He could have put a force-field around it or guarded it with cherubim like He would later guard the garden itself. In that case, God would have said, “You can not.”

What if I said to my house sitter, “Sitter, I’m only going to be gone for 2 days, so don’t eat the food in my fridge.” She still has the choice to eat it, but it would be out of disobedience and she would have to face whatever consequences I decided on.

If I wanted to make sure she didn’t eat it, I could put a lock on the fridge, leave nothing in it, or hire a security guard to keep her out of it. No matter what, unless I acted first, the implication is that she could use her free will even though she wasn’t supposed to.

Everything so far implies free will in man. God didn’t keep the tree from him, but simply warned him not to eat of it. Paul says in 1 Corinthians –

No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. 1 Corinthians 10:13

God certainly gave Adam a choice in the matter and He also provided a way of escape. There was no burden beyond his ability to bear.

Point 3: The knowledge of good and evil. To finish our three points of this verse we return to the thought, “From whence comes evil?” What we need to do is to simply think these words through. “Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.”

Man was given free will. From the context of what we’ve look at, this is absolutely certain. Those who deny this point have failed to come to the text with clear eyes and instead are wearing rose colored glasses as they teach and preach from such a clear and carefully worded statement from God.

However, this free will was given and exercised in a state of innocence. If he hadn’t yet eaten of the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” then he didn’t have… well, obviously he didn’t have the knowledge of good and evil.

In fact, as well see in chapter 3 when we get there, two obvious things occurred when Adam ate of the fruit. First, he became more, not less like God – at least in one way – and secondly, he became aware of right and wrong –

Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. (22)

Adam was told to not eat of this particular fruit or he would be punished. At the time, he was in a state of innocence – not knowing good from evil, but innocence, as I said last week, doesn’t negate guilt. And that brings us to our next major point today.

II. Disobedience is Sin and Sin Leads to Death

The great philosopher and author of last century, CS Lewis said this about free will –

“God created things which had free will. That means creatures which can go wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong, but I can’t. If a thing is free to be good it’s also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. … Of course God knew what would happen if they used their freedom the wrong way: apparently, He thought it worth the risk. (…) If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will – that is, for making a real world in which creatures can do real good or harm and something of real importance can happen, instead of a toy world which only moves when He pulls the strings – then we may take it [that] it is worth paying.”

As I said, innocence does not set aside guilt. The speed limit on your way home tonight will vary from time to time and from place to place. When you first pull out on Midnight Pass Road, you’re not going to see a speed limit sign. So suppose you go 40 mph when you leave here. You might get a ticket because the speed limit is actually 35 until you get around a few turns and then it turns to 40.

If a cop pulls you over and says, “You were speeding,” you might try to defend yourself by saying, “but there was no sign posted from the time I pulled out onto MidnightPass until now.” Do you think he’s going to say, “Oh, well then, never mind – my bad.”?

Of course not! You are responsible to know the laws of the road and obey them. Your lack of knowledge doesn’t excuse your guilt.

What Adam did was in innocence because he had no knowledge of right and wrong. However, he had his warning clearly laid out for him – “for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Just as every driver knows that a ticket waits for the speeder, Adam knew that death would come if he disobeyed God’s law.

This brings up a point that we shouldn’t miss though. Adam had never died and he had never experienced death around him. When he was told that death would result from disobedience, he had no way of understanding death’s implications.

If you tell a child that doesn’t understand death that they can die from something, they have no idea what you’re talking about until you explain it to them. Without the knowledge of good and evil, Adam could not comprehend death – the result of evil.

Again, this innocence towards death in no way relieves him of the consequences of guilt. Guilt comes about from disobedience and death results from guilt. James explains this in his small epistle which appears 59 books into the Bible –

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. ¹⁴ But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. ¹⁵ Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. James 1:13:15

Adam was placed in the garden and given instructions. When God placed the tree there that He wasn’t supposed to eat from, it wasn’t God’s fault if Adam disobeyed. God in no way tempted Adam. He created and therefore everything is as He purposes. And plus, He gave Adam the warning.

If he wanted to make every tree in the garden forbidden except one and that one tree could sustain Adam’s life, then that would have been fine. Instead, he allowed every tree but one. How much more is God clear of Adam’s sin?

On the other hand, if God made Adam the way He did, knowing that Adam needed to eat and drink in order to survive, and then He forbid Adam from eating and drinking anything at all, then God would be guilty of tempting Adam and forcing him into sin.

What if a mother said to her newborn baby, “You’d better not cry, baby If you cry, then I’m going to punish you.”? Mom would be guilty both morally and criminally of abuse. The same might be true about one of my sermons. I could say, “If I catch you sleeping, I’m going to punish you…” you might have a case against me.

But Adam had no case against God… not even a hint of it. As David wrote after his horrendous sin of murder and adultery –

Against You, You only, have I sinned,
And done this evil in Your sight—
That You may be found just when You speak,
And blameless when You judge.

III. One Command, and in the Negative

TH White in The Once and Future King said this – “There was just such a man when I was young—an Austrian who invented a new way of life and convinced himself that he was the chap to make it work. He tried to impose his reformation by the sword, and plunged the civilized world into misery and chaos. But the thing which this fellow had overlooked, my friend, was that he had a predecessor in the reformation business, called Jesus Christ.

Perhaps we may assume that Jesus knew as much as the Austrian did about saving people. But the odd thing is that Jesus did not turn the disciples into storm troopers, burn down the Temple at Jerusalem, and fix the blame on Pontius Pilate. On the contrary, he made it clear that the business of the philosopher was to make ideas available, and not to impose them on people.”

The Bible is just a book of do’s and don’ts… I suppose you’ve heard this at one time or another. It’s not really. Instead, at least on these lines, it’s a book of choices. Do’s and don’ts are involved in many of those choices, but in this context the choices are set out for our good.

If there is a “do” it’s there to keep us following the right path. If there is a “don’t” it’s there to keep us from getting onto a wrong path.

When mom says to her son, “Don’t put that screwdriver in the wall outlet” she says it because she doesn’t want him to get hurt. When she says to her son leaving for the military, “remember to go to church on Sunday” she’s telling him this to keep him walking in a straight and upright way.

In both instances, the choice is his. If he wants to try the screwdriver in the outlet thing, he’ll wish he’d listened to his mom. And if he skips church and goes to soccer matches while stationed in England, he will eventually wish he had made church the priority. When his life wanders off into meaninglessness, he’ll hopefully understand why his mother asked him to go to church.

The book of proverbs is a lot like this. There are do’s and don’ts in there, but they are stated in the form of choices. Proverbs opens with these words –

The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel:
² To know wisdom and instruction,
To perceive the words of understanding,
³ To receive the instruction of wisdom,
Justice, judgment, and equity;
⁴ To give prudence to the simple,
To the young man knowledge and discretion—
⁵ A wise man will hear and increase learning,
And a man of understanding will attain wise counsel,
⁶ To understand a proverb and an enigma,
The words of the wise and their riddles.
⁷ The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge,
But fools despise wisdom and instruction. Proverbs 1:1-7

After saying this, Solomon pens 31 chapters of wisdom for those who are simply willing to listen and he contrasts them with those who turn away from his wise counsel. He says, “…the complacency of fools will destroy them; But whoever listens to me will dwell safely, And will be secure, without fear of evil.”

So do’s and don’ts aren’t all bad and they always imply free will. In the case of Adam, he had no do’s and only one don’t. In other words, a command that was in the negative. If this is the premise of Adam having eternal life in the Garden of Eden, then there must be a similar premise for returning to that Garden. If not, then there might seem to be a problem with the way God is dealing with His children.

One of the hindrances to understanding God’s favor of individuals is tied up in the Law of Moses. In those five books, meaning Genesis to Deuteronomy, also known as the Torah, there are 613 laws – a lot of do’s and don’ts.

If there are all of these laws heaped upon laws, then what God expects of us must be immensely complicated, even burdensome. I mean who can do all that stuff? And the LORD even said in Leviticus, “You shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments, which if a man does, he shall live by them: I am the LORD.”

And the penalties for failure… I mean if you slip up you can get beaten with rods, exiled from the community, stoned to death, and so on. Those aren’t just minor issues. And time and time again, right after receiving the laws, either individuals or groups turn around and break them.

Within just 40 days of receiving the Ten Commandments, Aaron and the people of Israel made a gold calf in place of God, thus violating the first two commandments. When they did, it cost 3000 people their lives. There are accounts of people being stoned for blaspheming God’s name, for breaking a vow of dedication, and for working on the Sabbath. Terrifying stuff.

What happened to Adam’s “one command which was in the negative?”

And what about the other side of the coin? David committed adultery and killed the lady’s husband and he didn’t get stoned. He allowed his children to get away with things that should have called for the death penalty and what… did God turn a blind eye?

And then when David takes a census of the people of Israel – admittedly, something he shouldn’t have done, God sends his destroying angel to kill 70,000 Israelites! How does that fit in?

Unless you understand the reason why these things occurred and how they fit into the greater picture of what God is doing, you might come to the same conclusion as some who call God an evil sadist. But this is the furthest thing from the truth and completely misunderstands what God is trying to tell the people of the world.

Free will.
Free will.

God is telling us about our choices, our free will choices, and what the consequences of them are. In the end, He understands our limitations and our faults – He created us.

And He understands the difference between those who love Him, and their internal struggles, like David, and those who either ignore or outright hate Him and act against Him in a high-handed manner. He understands the difference.

What is the reason that God could call David “a man after my own heart” and protect Jerusalem for David’s name sake even hundreds of years after he was dead and buried? It was because, despite his faults, despite his internal struggles, David loved God and understood His morally depraved state in the presence of perfect righteousness.

Paul explains the law, which David was under, and it’s over-arching purpose in the book of Galatians –

Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law. ²² But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. ²³ But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. ²⁴ Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. ²⁵ But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. 3:21-25

The law and all of its associated death and punishment was a tool, or better – a mirror – to get us to look at ourselves and see how desperately sinful we really are and that we needed something more to be right before God.

The law could never give life back to man. Just as Paul said, “if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law.”

So what is it that even those under the law needed? They needed grace. And this is exactly what they got, once a year, on the Day of Atonement. The very fact that they needed a Day of Atonement meant that they could never meet the demands of the law. And where did the atonement come from? Did the sacrificed animals take away the people’s sins? No.

The book of Hebrews says that “it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.” So think it through… if the Day of Atonement was God’s grace to the people and the blood which was shed on that day didn’t provide the grace, then what did? It was the people’s faith in God’s provision.

Back to Adam … what was Adam lacking from the tree? He was lacking the knowledge of good and evil. Is knowledge faith? No. Faith is faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. And this is the evidence that God wanted from Adam – the surety of things not seen.

This is also what God respected Enoch for. And not only Enoch but Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Rahab, David, and a host of others throughout history who were sure of what they couldn’t see.

Was Adam faithful about the promise of surely dying if he ate the fruit? No. Was the man who was gathering sticks on the Sabbath day faithful about believing God would provide for him the other six days? No. Was David faithful when he had Uriah killed after sleeping with Bathsheba? No.

Then why was the Sabbath breaker stoned and David allowed to live? Why are some treated differently than others? Some are examples of God’s justice. Some are examples of God’s mercy. Some are lessons of high-handed sin and some are lessons of repentant hearts. Each case is given to teach us of the many facets of God and the key to obtaining His favor – which is always faith.

And faith only comes – ONLY COMES – through free will. Forced faith isn’t faith. The book of Ephesians says this –

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. 2:8

The construct of these verses tell us that we are saved not by grace alone nor by faith alone, but by grace and faith together and that these are a “gift” of God. A forced gift – be it grace or faith or both – isn’t a gift at all. Rather, these are offered to us by God. They are unmerited and they are available to all. And that brings us to our final point –

IV. Your Choice

“Mi kol ets a-gan a-kol tochal, uh-me-ets a-da-at tov va-ra, lo tochal mimenu.” Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat…

Jim Butcher says this about your free will – “God isn’t about making good things happen to you, or bad things happen to you. He’s all about you making choices–exercising the gift of free will. God wants you to have good things and a good life, but He won’t gift wrap them for you. You have to choose the actions that lead you to that life.”

One argument used by Dr. Sproul and most others who argue against free will stems from Paul’s comment in Romans –

There is none righteous, no, not one;
¹¹ There is none who understands;
There is none who seeks after God.
¹² They have all turned aside;
They have together become unprofitable;
There is none who does good, no, not one.”3:10-12

Their claim is that if there is “none who seeks after God” that we can’t freely choose life through Jesus Christ. Free will is nullified in humans based on this verse. But this quote of Paul comes from the psalms. It’s repeated in Psalm 14 and Psalm 53.

The fool has said in his heart,
“There is no God.”
They are corrupt,
They have done abominable works,
There is none who does good.

The questions I submit to you are, “Are Muslims seeking God?” “Are Mormons seeking God?” “Are Jews seeking God?” The answer is “Yes.” The context of the quote from Paul which comes from the Psalms is speaking of the atheist – “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”

The problem with people like muslims and mormons isn’t that they are lacking faith. The problem is their faith is misdirected. And misdirected faith is wasted faith. One can’t use Paul’s verse as an overall claim to deny free will. In fact, the opposite is the truth. One must freely deny God in order to deny God.

In our previous point I said that in the Garden there was one command and that it was in the negative and that “There must be a similar premise for returning to that Garden. If not, then there might seem to be a problem with the way God is dealing with His children.”

A similar premise? There is, you know. There is a similar premise for returning to the Garden. Paul lays it out in the book of Romans. In the Garden, there was one command in the negative and that command was based on faith. In Christ there is one request and it is in the positive. And it, likewise, is based on faith.

…that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. Vs 9.

That sounds like two things, but it’s really one. If you confess Jesus as Lord, it’s based on the assumption that Jesus is alive. If He is alive, then God raised Him from the dead.

I am free to choose, this is known
Because to deny that I can
Is a choice of its own

Free will doesn’t claim the place of God
Instead it exalts Him when He judges
Wouldn’t it be rather odd
To blame on Him all of my life’s smudges?

Perfect and pure is my Savior
Undefiled are His ways
My free will is mine alone
To withhold from or to give Him praise

I can choose to be a fool
And deny He is God
I can follow Muhammed or Buddha if I choose
Or I can give Krishna a favorable nod

But I choose life, I choose Jesus
He alone destroyed the grave
And He is ever here with us
He alone is able, our souls to save

Great and worthy – behold the Lamb
Sacrificed because of our choices
Let us turn our souls to Him
And lets us to Him raise our voices

Thank You O God for the gift You granted
Grace and faith tied into one
Thank You for the greatest Gift
Thank You O God for Jesus, our Lord Your Son

Hallelujah and Amen
Thank You for Jesus, our Lord Your Son

Genesis 2:4-15 (To Serve and Worship)

Charlie Garrett Genesis (Written) Sunday, November 27th, 2011Saturday, March 22nd, 2025

Genesis 2:4-15
To Worship and to Serve

Some time ago, I started a through-the-Bible study class and we’ve gone slowly and methodically through each verse in an attempt to miss as little as possible, but while preparing for this sermon, I was stunned to see how much I missed in Chapter 2 of Genesis.

There are patterns and parallels which are wonderful to see and yet I’d never considered them until I looked more deeply into things in preparation for today. It makes me realize how immense God’s word is and how arrogant we can be to assume that we could ever understand everything that He’s give us in the pages of this wonderful book. An infinite mind is, after all, infinitely intelligent.

I chose the title for today’s sermon “To Worship and to Serve” based on a translation of verse 15 which is completely different than any translation you’ve probably ever read and yet it’s one which is more than likely correct based on patterns in the rest of the Bible, including the very last page in Revelation 22.

What was the reason God created man? Was it to work the ground of the earth as most Bibles indicate? Or was there a completely different reason which is actually reflected in the Westminster Shorter Catechism’s first tenet and which we’ve looked at before –

What is the chief end of man?
Answer: Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever.

If this is true, and it is, then it only makes sense that the Bible would proclaim this as well – and actually,it does.

Introduction: We need to remember that God is complete in and of Himself. He lacks nothing and therefore anything that He has created is a demonstration of His own goodness and should reflect His infinite worth. Man pursuing works doesn’t fit this particular picture very well and so what we need to do is look deeper into God’s intent for man in the Garden of Eden – the spot where God dwelt and fellowshipped with him.

Text Verse: Oh, worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness!
Tremble before Him, all the earth. Psalm 96:9

May God speak to us through His word today and may His glorious name ever be praised.

I. Man Became a Living Being

This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

Liberal theologians claim that Chapters 2 and 3 of Genesis are a completely different account than Chapter 1 and were written by different people at different times. Their claim is that the two accounts just don’t fit.

The obvious reason why someone would come to this conclusion is that they don’t want to believe that the Bible is really what it claims to be – God’s word to mankind. If different people wrote the two accounts, then by implication God didn’t author the Bible and it is just a book, like any other – full of myths.

Instead of this, all one needs to do is simply evaluate the chapters to see that they are merely a detailed insert into what’s recorded in Chapter 1. Imagine getting instructions for assembling something, say a computer. There will be general instructions of how to put everything together and then there will be separate instructions for specific parts – like the printer. Chapters 2 and 3 are simply these finer details inserted into the larger overview of Chapter 1.

Because this is God’s word, then the account is included to give us specific insights into something that must be rather important for us to know. A jillion unimportant details weren’t recorded, such as the height of Adam or the color of Eve’s hair. They’re not recorded because they have no importance to the story and no bearing on what would occur later. The name of Adam’s first puppy, which could have been Fido, is irrelevant…

Remembering this is a good lesson for each of us. When you’re reading the Bible, always ask yourself why a particular passage is included. If God included it, then it has importance to the plan and relevance to the story.

In the verse we’re looking at we see a new name of the Creator – the LORD God or Jehovah Elohim. In Chapter 1, only the word “Elohim” was used, signifying the God of Power – He’s the Creator. Elohim is what’s known as a “majestic pronoun.” Here in Chapter two, the title Jehovah Elohim or the God of Power and Perfection is seen.

Matthew Henry describes Jehovah this way, “Jehovah is that great and incommunicable name of God which denotes his having his being of himself, and his giving being to all things; fitly therefore is he called by that name now that heaven and earth are finished.”

We continue with verse 5 and onto 6…

…before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown. For the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground; ⁶ but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.

In what I just read, it appears that man’s purpose is to “till the ground.” From this verse it would seem hard to assume otherwise. Why else would tilling the ground be included here? And so, it’s from this perspective that later verses in the same account have been translated, even though there’s a large problem with this.

⁷ And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

A few weeks ago, we looked at what it meant to be created in God’s image. We bear His image mentally, morally, and socially, among other ways, but in this verse we learn that Adam consisted of both heaven and earth. Man was formed out of the dust and then the divine Creator breathed life into him.

This doesn’t imply that he or we are in any way divine, but that the life of man came from God, not by random chance. The spark of life which quickened the clay jar was none other than the breath of the Creator. The man has become a living being. He is the final act of creation. He is the highest form of what has been made. And he is fearfully and wonderfully sculpted.

From God’s hand and His breath
Is how man came to be
From an act of His wisdom and love
Man came not from the slime or from the sea
Nor from a meteor that rained down from above

In His image He created the man
And for His glory and praise
This was for us the original plan
To see Him face to face all of our days

To worship and serve in eternal peace
Was God’s intent for us from the start
Our days were intended never to cease
This was the desire of the Creator’s heart.

God created the heavens and the earth out of nothing on the first day of creation. Five days later, on the sixth day, He created His final and most stupendous work of art – in fact a masterpiece – out of the simplest and most common part of the creation, dust.

First there was nothing, and then there was dust. God took this “next to nothingness” material and after forming it, breathed His life into it. If we jump ahead just a little bit we’ll see that Adam disobeyed God and died spiritually at that moment. Because of this, the thing that made us most like God disappeared at that moment too. Isn’t that a humbling thought?

We walk around as if we’re pretty big stuff when in fact we are as close to nothing as the breath in our lungs. From the dust we came and to the dust we shall return… Without a new birth, our next to nothingness is all we have to live for. Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.

The dust of the earth is what man was created from; the most common stuff on earth. He didn’t use gold dust, He didn’t use silver dust, He didn’t even use zinc… Instead, he used the earth. And to this day we are of the dust of the earth.

Paul explains this in 1 Corinthians 15, but so does the psalmist in the 139^th Psalm. He says there, “My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.”

We are so closely tied to the earth that David describes the womb in which we’re formed as eretz, or “the earth.” In the same way, Job calls the place where we’re going back to our “mother’s womb,” meaning the earth.

The word for womb in Hebrew is behten and is comprised of the Hebrew letters Beth, Teth, and Nun.

The meaning of the Beth is “house.” The meaning of the Teth is “mud.” And, the meaning of the Nun is “heir” as in continuance into the next generation. The womb then is the house where the one of mud continues on. Even in the word itself we see our lowly state. Mix a little water with the dust and you have the man…

On our own, we simply can’t get away from the dust from which we were created. We live by what it produces and when we die we will return to it.

However, and despite the unappealing material, the Bible says God “formed the man.” The Bible uses the Hebrew word yatsar and it implies a careful and attentive shaping of him. This same word is used in the books of the prophets when describing a potter shaping a bowl from the clay. In the case of man, the Latin phrase rings true –

Materiam superabat opus – “The workmanship exceeded the materials.” We marvel at the detail of a watch made of intricate tiny pieces of metal; we look with wonder at sand sculptures and finely constructed artwork of hand blown glass. And yet nothing man has ever made comes even close to the intricate beauty of the human form.

Thus the man became a living being. God shaped man into the form He determined and we are as He decided. In the New Testament Paul asks the obvious question –

Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” Romans 9:20

Oh, but question we do! But God formed us for His purposes.

The book of John records two wonderfully beautiful parallels to the passage we’re currently looking at where it says, “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life..”

“When He had said these things, He spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva; and He anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. And He said to him, ‘Go, wash in the pool of Siloam’ (which is translated, Sent). So he went and washed, and came back seeing.” 9:6, 7

And again…

So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 20:21, 22

This God, Jehovah Elohim, who created the heavens and the earth and who formed man out of the dust, breathing into him the breath of life, also formed new eyes for a man to see and gave the same breath again to His apostles in the regeneration of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus, God incarnate, gave both instances as a confirmation of who He is and the power He displays in creation and in the regeneration.

II. The Garden of Eden

⁸ The LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. ⁹ And out of the ground the LORD God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.

After creating man – only after creating man – does it say that Jehovah Elohim planted a garden eastward in Eden. Eden means “delight” or “pleasure” and was, if man obeyed, a place not for work, but for a different purpose.

This is an important point to consider when looking at the previous verse that said there wasn’t yet a man to till the ground. This garden is something special and something intended for the man He formed. The ground which needed to be tilled was outside of the Garden, not in it.

If you stand back and look at the larger picture of the Bible, it’s clear that God knew before the fall that man would fall. And so the garden, despite being made as a place where God would fellowship with man, didn’t fill the entire earth. Instead, the Garden was a localized place of grace, of abundance, and of provision from God above, not from the ground below.

It was, as God knew from the beginning, a temporary place for Adam to dwell. This isn’t readily apparent though. In this verse the word “put” is translated from the Hebrew word sum, but as we’ll see in a little while, a different word is used later which is also translated as “put.”

Appreciating the garden meant they would need to leave the garden. This is how we learn to appreciate anything, by contrast. If there is no contrast, then we have no ability to appreciate our current state.

God knew that we would start in a garden and then be removed from that garden because of our interaction with, believe it or not, a tree. But God’s plan is that we are to be restored to the garden because of our interaction with another tree. The plan is so intricately woven and presented in the Bible that it’s almost beyond imagination. Everything fits so beautifully.

III. A Tale of Two Trees

The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Of the many plants of the garden, only two trees are named and there they were, right in the midst of the garden. And of these two trees, the fruit of only one is forbidden. As we’ll see next week, the LORD said to Adam, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

More than a little is tied up then in these two trees. Choices are tied up in them, conditions are tied up in them, blessings and curses are tied up in them, life and death are tied up in them, the law and grace are tied up in them, and even the Lord’s Supper, our Holy Communion is tied up in these two trees.

As a choice:

The tree of life – you may eat of it.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil – you shall not eat of it.

It’s important to note that although Adam was told to not eat of this tree, the choice was still his. God placed the tree in the Garden when he could have simply not have placed it there at all. By placing it there then, it was possible for Adam to eat it even though he was told not to. Obedience is always a test of our priorities and allegiances.

**I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live. Deuteronomy 30:19

As a condition:

The tree of life – Life is granted through its fruit.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil – Death results from its fruit.