Divine Formation
Notes
Transcript
Genesis 2:5-7 ESV
5 When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6 and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— 7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
Whenever I think of God, my first thought, I believe is a right thought as when I think of God, I initially think of splendor, glory, majesty… magnitude.
I believe that I rightly view God as high, mighty, majestic. Yet indeed, even such high and lofty views of the majesty, purity, and excellence of God are not adequate, are nowhere near as high as Who God actually is.
Thus, my views of God, high as they may be, do not begin to adequately define the eternal majesty that He is. But though my view of God is nowhere near being adequate, still I, a great many times feel as though God is too high, too mighty, too majestic to ever even give a passing thought about someone like me, or about anyone really.
You see, I’m sure that I and a great many other people have a hard time with fathoming that God, the Almighty One could ever take very much interest in anybody at all. Indeed, we know that He does, but it is not easy to fathom.
And the reason why that is, I believe, is because when we think of someone or something being high and mighty, we naturally think that that one who is high and mighty doesn’t have the time of day for underlings such as us. And as has been said, God, of course, is the highest and mightiest. Therefore, many of us naturally think that He probably doesn’t think too much of us.
But what is so precious, so amazingly awesome about God is that He is while He is the highest, the mightiest, He also takes great care of and is extremely interested in His creation.
Now, God’s interest, His care for His creation is of a purely gracious nature. There is nothing in all of creation that in any way deserves God’s care and sustenance. No, God cares for His creation, God sustains His creation for no other reason than because it pleases Him to do so.
Now, there are obviously many, many, many examples of God’s gracious provision found all throughout the scriptures, indeed, all throughout our everyday lives.
And of course, the greatest of these gracious provisions is found in God providing His elect people with the righteousness of Christ. Never was there such a gracious provision as that which was made through the blood of Jesus Christ.
But another exceedingly gracious provision that God made was in creating man. As we will see in this message, God created man in a way that was different from the way that He created every other part of His creation. Indeed, God created man as a peculiar creature, one whom He would relate to much differently than any other part of His creation.
And this special interest which God had and has of man was and is accomplished not because of anything naturally great about man, not because God is impressed by man, but simply because it pleases God to take a special interest in man.
In our message for today we will see the special interest that God has in man and the parallels between the gracious provision that He made when creating man and the gracious provision that He continues to give to His elect people.
Now, back in the first chapter of Genesis, we see a rather brief account of how God created man, but for the remainder of this chapter we are going to examine a more detailed account of how God created man.
We look first though at some details which led up to the creation of man.
Let’s look first at verse five of our reading, where it says:
Genesis 2:5 ESV
5a When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up— for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground,
Bow, back in the first chapter of this book, in verses 11 and 12, we read of those events which took place on day three of the creation. In that day, God had commanded the earth to sprout and bring forth.
And indeed, it did just that, but as we see here, at this time there had been no growth of vegetation.
And the reason why there had been no growth of vegetation is twofold. The first reason, Moses tells us is because by that point in time, God had not caused it to rain on the land. The second reason why there had been no vegetation was because there was no man to work the ground and cultivate the plants.
Now, of course, it’s not as though God needed rain and needed man in order to cause vegetation to come forth. God is need of nothing. Rather, these were the two means in which God chose to bring forth vegetations.
Of course, He could have used anything that He wanted to use, but, in accordance with His own good pleasure, these were the means which He chose to use. But at this point, the point in time which the author speaks of, these means have not been made readily available.
But when we look to verse six in our reading, we begin to see God remedy this problem, when it says:
Genesis 2:6 ESV
6 and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground—
Thus, here we see the aquatic element provided, and the way in which this aquatic element was provided is really very interesting.
Of course, when we think of the earth being watered we think of the rain falling from the clouds, but as has been said, at this time God had not caused it to rain. Thus, in order to water the earth, God had caused a mist to come up from under the land which in turn watered all plants.
Thus, we see the great mist as a remedy to the lack of vegetation, we also see the creation of man serve as a remedy for this problem.
We begin to see this creation in the first part of verse seven, where we read:
Genesis 2:7a ESV
7a then the Lord God formed the man
God formed man… but man was made for much more than cultivating plants.
Like we said earlier, when God made man, He done so in a way that was unlike His creative process of everything else that He had made.
When you look at the first chapter of Genesis, the phrases that you consistently see repeated throughout that chapter is “God created” and “God made”. God created this; God made that.
But now here, in the second chapter, when the author goes to tell us in detail the account of the creation of man, he does not say, “the Lord God created the man”. He does not say, “the Lord God made the man”. No, what he says is, “the Lord God formed the man”.
God had made everything; He had spoken it all into existence. He had said, “Let there be!” and there was. But man, our text tells us, was not simply spoken into existence as everything else was. No, man was formedby God.
Man, you might say was carefully, intricately sculpted by God. He the potter, man the clay, and that which He carefully creates is His masterpiece, the pinnacle of everything that He has created.
Now, once again, we see that this in itself is an extremely gracious act of God. It’s not as though God foresaw what man would be after He created him and said, “Wow! That really impresses Me! I need to do that!”.
God was under no obligation to create anything at all, and creating did not add to His being. Like we said before, God didn’t become “more God” by creating. And as He was under no obligation to create anything at all, so much more was He under no obligation to form, to carefully sculpt man, and to make man the pinnacle of His creation. No, this was all accomplished because it pleased God to do so.
This, I believe is emphasized in our reading as we see that which God chose to form man from when it says:
Genesis 2:7b ESV
7b the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground
So, here we see the material from which God formed man. He formed him from the dust of the ground. This, I believe, reveals to us the natural lowliness of man. Thus, that part of us, which is naturally us, apart from any kind of special intervention on the part of God is dust. And there is nothing special about dust…
But there are three details in this verse which show us that because of God’s intervention and good pleasure in the creation of man, he was different than any other creation.
One of them we have already spoken of in that while God made man from the lowly dust of the ground, it was he who was formed. Thus, God took this lowly dust and out of something that was lowly, God intricately, intimately formed it, sculpted it.
Thus, there is at this point the form of man. And this form, God carefully crafted, most certainly putting a touch upon it that He had not put on any other thing which He had created.
And while God had simply spoken everything else into existence and they were at that time given life, man, on the other hand first received his form, but at that point he had no life. That’s because the way in which God gave life to man was much different, and as God forming man was personal and intimate, so was His giving of life to man.
We see the manner in which God gave man life in the next part of this verse, where it says that He:
Genesis 2:7c ESV
7c breathed into his nostrils the breath of life
We see man, carefully crafted, skillfully sculpted, intimately formed with a frame, yet without life. But this all changed when God took this creation of His, when He took man who at this point was a lifeless form and He breathed life into his nostrils.
That is the second detail which reveals to us that the creation man was different than any other creation. God had not breathed life into anything else, but rather, as was said, He spoke, and they were. But man, was breathed into.
And what this breathing into accomplished is described at the very end of our reading, where it says:
Genesis 2:7d ESV
7d and the man became a living creature.
He became a living creature. This obviously indicates that man became a living object at this point, he was conscious, he himself breathed, his heart pumped blood, he lived. But the massively greater reality is that when God breathed into man the breath of life, man became a spiritual being with a capacity for serving and fellowshipping with God.
This was the result of the gracious good pleasure of God. It was His will for this to be accomplished. It was according to the good pleasure of God that we are created as spiritual beings.
Now, one thing that we need to realize here is that man did not ask to be created they way that he was created. When God formed man, he was a lifeless form until God willed to breathe the breath of life into him and thus make him a living creature, a spiritual being. Thus, it was God’s will, God’s gracious good pleasure to make us with the capacity to serve Him, to fellowship with Him.
Since the fall of man though, which we will speak of in greater detail in later sermons, man has naturally not been able to truly serve God and fellowship with Him, because since the fall of man, man has been born spiritually dead.
But as our text reveals to us, man was created to serve and fellowship with God. But because man can no longer naturally do this, the only way in which man can legitimately serve his purpose is if God graciously makes him able to serve this purpose.
Now, there are many in this world who are actively serving this God-given purpose of theirs, but I believe that there are many more who are not.
Now, for those who are not, they are doing what they naturally do, rebelling against the One Who lovingly formed them. But for those who do serve this purpose, what it must indicate is that God has given spiritual life, spiritual rebirth to such people.
And as man had no say so on being formed and having the breath of life breathed into him, so does man have no say so in having the Spirit of God breathed into him and receiving new birth.
We call it new birth, or rebirth, because, as we see in our reading, that which God graciously gives to those whom He chooses to save is what man once possessed but then lost.
Thus, God giving this life to us once again is in and of itself such an amazing reality. But what is more amazing is that God gives this new life, this rebirth to those who are not able to receive, seek, or even desire it without His intervention.
Beloved, man we ever praise our God not only for making man a spiritual being, but for remaking His elect that we may truly serve His purposes and fellowship with Him again!
Amen?