Made For Each Other....But Not Just For Each Other

  • Jeremy Erb
  • Nov 18, 2007
  • Series: Genesis

Genesis is a book of beginnings. It's a book of answers. It's a book given to give context so that a people might understand their place in the world. It's a book about identity. Moses wrote the book of Genesis after leading them out of slavery in Egypt on their way to the Promised Land. Unfortunately, they ended up with a 40 year detour, roaming around in the wilderness while God taught them to be dependent and humble before him. As he is giving them the law that they are going to live by and under in the Promised Land, he explains to them what it is that has brought them to this point.

In order to do this, he goes back to the very beginning - to the most central truth in the universe - in the beginning - GOD. Before everything that exists now - GOD. There is a creator - a sovereign, powerful Creator who can speak the very elements and powers of the universe into existence. A God who forms the land and fills it with all that is. This is the God of Genesis chapter one.
But Moses presents to us another side of this God in chapter 2. He is a personal God. A relational God. A loving God. Last week we began to in 2:4-17 to look at God's climax of creative activity - the creation of man. In fact, the argument has been made that the creation of man is the purpose of all the previous creative activity. All that comes before is declared ‘good.' This means that it is useful. Useful for who? Certainly not God who has no need of these things. When creation is declared good or useful it is declared so on the basis that it is good or useful for what is coming - the pinnacle or point of creation - mankind.
At the height of creation - God, Yahweh Elohim, the covenant relational God, forms, like a master artist - man. Man is made of the dust, like the other living animals - but for man, God does something unique. He breathes live into him - and establishes him as ruler over all of His creation. Man is to function as God's prophet, priest and King. Remember v. 15? "The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it." I suggested that a better translation would be ‘to worship and obey.' Man is a physical being, true, but he is also a spiritual being having received the breath of God. Man relationship to God is not just physical, although it is, but it is also spiritual. Man was created with intention and purpose.
This is summed up so well in Gen 1:26-31:
Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth." Then God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food"; and it was so. God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very  good.[i]

 

This takes us to our text this morning. Last week, we left off, with Adam, alone, in the garden. He is there to worship and obey, to serve God and he is given freedom to do as he pleases, with one exception. He is not allowed to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
 The inference of God's commands in Genesis 2:16-17 is that God alone knows what is good for human beings and God alone knows what is not good for them. To enjoy the ‘good' we must trust God and obey Him. If we disobey, we will have to decide for ourselves what is good and what is not good. While to modern men and women such a prospect may seem desirable, to the author of Genesis it is the worst fate that could have befallen humanity.[ii]
Having put this in general terms in verses 16-17, the author turns in the remainder of the chapter to give a specific example of God's knowledge of the ‘good': the creation of the woman.[iii]

[i] New American Standard Bible : 1995 Update. LaHabra, CA : The Lockman Foundation, 1995, S. Ge 1:26-31

[ii] Sailhamer, John H.. The Pentateuch As Narrative. Zondervan: Grand Rapids, MI. 1992. p. 101.

[iii] Sailhamer, John H.. The Pentateuch As Narrative. Zondervan: Grand Rapids, MI. 1992. p. 101.