Sermon Tone Analysis

*The Making of Man (Gen 2:4-15)*

/Preached by Pastor Phil Layton at Gold Country Baptist Church on 9-23-2007/

www.goldcountrybaptist.org

/ /

Genesis 1:27 tells us in one verse that God created man and woman in His own image, and now Moses devotes a whole chapter basically to tell us /how/ God created man and woman in His own image.

The first chapter of the Bible gives us the overview of the six days of creation and most of the 2nd chapter focuses on one part of Day 6, how Adam and Eve were created by God in a special way

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Genesis 1 begins with a focus on the entire universe and all of creation, and now in chapter 2 the attention shifts to the centerpiece of God’s creation, which is mankind.

The attention will continue to be on humanity rather than the heavens or the animals because it is through this race of humans that God’s plan of history will unfold.

Genesis 1 gives the overview of the opening week of the universe and our planet and all its creatures in a brief chronological day-by-day progression to the climax, it’s like a panorama camera or high-level filming or like a trailer or preview of coming attractions.

Now Genesis 2 will slow down the picture and use a zoom lens on the final act in this drama of creation, setting the scene, and putting the spotlight on the central actor and supporting actress, but ultimately we know that God is the director and God is the chief character and God is the ultimate hero in every scene of the saga of God’s gracious dealings with humanity.

His name is in the credits.

In college I was interested in going into broadcasting and media or journalism – and in that field there is a series of questions that most if not all of us learned in school, questions that help us understand what happened at a given scene or story.

In your note sheet, our outline will follow /who, what, where, when, why, how/

* *

*Q: Who Was Man Created By? A: The LORD God (v.

4-7)*

 

A shift is signaled in Genesis 2:4 with a change in the name of God used – until now /Elohim /has been the exclusive name of God and has been used 35x.

/Elohim /is a general name for God the Creator and omnipotent deity, the mighty One of majesty.

At the end of 2:4, however we see “the LORD God” – also v. 5, 7, 8, 9, etc.

This is YHWH-Elohim.

YHWH may be pronounced Yahweh, it emphasizes God’s covenant-making, covenant-keeping role, His personal involvement with His people and it is a name only His people used.

This is similar to Psalm 19 which begins with how the heavens declare the glory of God (root /El /– creator God) and it’s only in verse 7 that David uses the name YHWH because of the shift towards the relationship with this God through His Word (“The law of the LORD … the testimony of the LORD …” etc.)

 

YHWH is used nearly 7,000x and is related to “I AM” – emphasis on self-existence and eternality, and it may be that this name is used in this section as it will contrast with man’s fall and death

 

The combination YHWH-Elohim is used about 20x in Genesis 2-3, but is only used 1 other time by Moses in the rest of the Torah or Pentateuch (Exodus 9:30 during plagues).

This is very important.

It’s also significant that the only time in chapters 2-3 where the name is absent is during the temptation by the serpent.

Genesis 2:4 speaks of a God who is both sovereign and majestic Lord of creation, but who is also the covenant Lord, the eternal “I AM” who deals personally and intimately with man and who created and cares for details and man’s welfare.

*Q: What Was Man Created From?

A: Dust from the Ground*

In verse 7, we read that the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground.

There’s a wordplay in the Hebrew – man is /adam /and ground is /adamah /– there is intentional association with the earth or the ground and man.

Man is made of the same basic materials and minerals as the earth, which can be shown in creation as well as in cremation.

Animals are also made up of similar elements biologically, but it is only humans that have the “image of God” or as this verse says “the breath of life” (both are not used of animals)

 

We are from the earth, so we are earthy, but we are more than just a natural body, with mankind there is a spiritual component, a soul, and we earthly people will also be transformed to eternal people

 

1 Corinthians 15:40-53 (NASB95) \\ 40 There are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one, and the glory of the earthly is another.

\\ 41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.

\\ 42 So also is the resurrection of the dead.

It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; \\ 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; \\ 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

\\ 45 So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul.”

The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

\\ 46 However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual.

\\ 47 The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven.

\\ 48 As is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy; and as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly.

\\ 49 Just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we will also bear the image of the heavenly.

\\ 50 Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

\\ 51 Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, \\ 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

\\ 53 For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality.

\\ \\

We will all spend eternity in one of two places: heaven or hell.

The key question: are you ready to meet your Maker if you died today?

*Q: Where Was Man Created?

A: Eden (v.

8-15) *

 

The commentators spend a lot of time saying ultimately that no one knows for sure were Eden was, but one thing that is clear is that the text goes out of its way to take several verses to describe Eden as a real historical place, this is no myth like other ancient cultures had.

The exact location of Eden is unknown; if “eastward” was used in relationship to where Moses was when he wrote, then it could have been in the area of Babylon, the Mesopotamian Valley.[1]

Two of the rivers names we recognize today (Tigris and Euphrates), and some would suggest that Eden was somewhere in the vicinity of modern day Iraq or near the head of the Persian Gulf – it’s suggested that its location was somewhere in the general area of the promised land, which to the original audience in the wilderness was to be a partial picture of God’s original Eden.

We can’t be precise on the location, though, because a global flood had a radical impact on geography, rivers, and topography, so there’s no sense in trying to find the garden of Eden because it was destroyed by God along with the whole earth in Genesis 6.

 

‘Genesis was originally written, not to those who live in lush climates, but to people who lived in extremely arid or desert countries and for whom a garden was therefore an exquisite delight – virtually a symbol of heaven.

To say that God prepared Adam a special garden complete with trees (not merely shrubs) and rivers (not merely brooks) was to say to the near-eastern reader, clearer than anything else could possibly say, that Adam was beloved of God and was the receiver of his bounty’ (Boice, 1:112)

 

The Bible begins with a garden and ends with an eternal garden city that contains the tree of life and is in some ways paradise restored.

But the only way to be in these new heavens and new earth was revealed in a third garden – Gethsemane – were Jesus prayed His high-priestly prayer, submitted to the will of His Father, and gave Himself up to those who would crucify Him.

To those who would repent like the thief on the cross, He says “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

Paradise lost is paradise regained to all who are in Christ.

*Q: When Was Man Created?

A: Day Six (v.

4-7, Gen. 1)*

 

The verse says “This is the account” – your Bible may have “history” (NKJV), literally “generations” – this is a heading referring to what follows.

Some of your Bibles may say in verse 4b “in the day that the LORD God made” - this Hebrew phrase /be’yom /is a Jewish idiom meaning “when”[2] – it’s a summary of the time of creation of heavens and earth, or it could refer to the day when God had created everything except man and woman (Day 6).

Verse 5 speaks of certain types of shrubs or plants of the field that had not grown yet in the “land” (ESV better than “earth” in other translations)[3] because man wasn’t created yet and apparently God hadn’t caused it to rain yet at this point in the creation week.

This has confused a lot of people, because Genesis 1 has plants created on day 3 and man on day six, but 2:5 speaks of plants that hadn’t grown because there was no many yet to till the ground.

/IS THIS CONTRADICTORY OR COMPLIMENTARY TO GEN.

1?/

 

The phrases used in verse 5 are not the words used in Genesis 1 for the plants God created earlier in the creation week.

The first word means “shrub” or “bush” and is only used one other time in the Bible for the desert shrub or bush that Hagar hid Ishmael under in Genesis 21:15.

Apparently this type of plant was not in Eden and developed later – Moses is writing to the Israelites in the desert wilderness seeing those gnarly shrubs and bushes, and perhaps he wants to remind them that what they see here is a different picture than God’s original creation in Eden of a lush watered paradise?

Cassuto, a great Jewish scholar of the Hebrew text,  explains: ‘These species did not exist, or were not found in the form known to us, until after Adam’s transgression, and it was in consequence of his fall that they came into the world or received their present form.’

The first term he equates with weeds and explains, ‘In areas, however, that were not tilled, the earth brought forth of its own accord, as a punishment to man, /thorns and thistles/ – that … /siah of the field /that we see growing profusely to this day in the land of Israel /after the rains./’[4]

The second term referring to field plants can be translated “herb” (NKJV; Barrick); or even “edible crops” (Kidner, 59)

 

~*Note that this phrase is repeated in 3:18-19 describing plants and verse 19 speaks of eating bread.

Cassuto says that this second phrase refers to barley, oats, wheat, any cultivated grain that you make bread out of.

Adam is told “you're going to sweat tilling the ground to bring forth crops, and making and cultivating food, unlike the fresh fruit and easy pickings  you used to have so easily and readily available in that orchard I made you in Eden.”

See also 3:23 and 4:2-3 – tilling of ground ~/ crops was done later

 

So the plants in Genesis 2:5 are not the same vegetation or trees or plants of chapter 1, it’s speaking of the world known to Moses’ readers after the fall with desert shrubs and weeds and thorns and thistles, as well as the post-fall cultivation of grains and crops

 

Delitzsch writes ‘The world of nature was … designed to be tilled and tended, it runs wild without man, who can and ought (as is shown, for example, by corn, vines and date palms) to make it more useful and habitable” (137).

This fits with the end of Genesis 2:5 because it says the reason these things hadn’t developed yet is that there was no man to till the ground and cultivate these types of crops

 

Verse 6 says there was a mist that watered the ground, or the NIV gives an alternate translation  “streams came up from the earth and watered.”

It may be understood as an underground spring or artesian or subterranean flowing water that thoroughly irrigated Eden – whatever water cycle God used, the point is that he was making a lush and green and vibrant and fertile flourishing garden for man to be his home.

* *

*Q: Why Was Man Created this Way?

(v.

7)*

* *

#. /To teach us about God/

 

In Genesis 2:7 the word “formed” includes the meanings of intent or design (ex: Gen. 6:5).

The noun form of this word is translated as “frame” and combined with “dust” in Psalm 103:14 “For He Himself knows our *frame*; He is mindful that we are but *dust.*”

This word for God forming man speaks of framing, fashioning us

-         It is used of an artist or craftsman with his material, indicating great skill (ex: Ps 94:9 ‘he that formed the eye’)

-         It is used of God forming the delicate unborn child in the womb (Jer.

1:5, Isa.

44:2, 49:5) as well as all the days God has planned and created for our lives

Psalm 139:16 (NKJV) \\ 16 Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.

And in Your book they all were written, The days *fashioned* for me, When as yet there were none of them.

-         This Hebrew word translated “formed” in Genesis 2 is also  used of the potter and clay, emphasizing God’s sovereignty over His creation

 

Jeremiah 18:1-6 (NASB95) \\ 1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying, \\ 2 “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will announce My words to you.” \\ 3 Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something on the wheel.

\\ 4 But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make.

\\ 5 Then the word of the Lord came to me saying, \\ 6 “Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does?” declares the Lord.

“Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.

\\ \\

Isaiah 29:16 (NASB95) \\ 16 You turn things around!