In the Garden with God

31 January 2021 PM – Genesis 2 – Gen2021 – Scott Childs
Introduction: God created man that he might fellowship with him in the garden. Adam and Eve enjoyed that perfect existence for a brief time.
Transition: Tonight, we are going to focus on Adam, Eve, and marriage.
  1. Adam
a.         His creation
1)         God created man in His own image and in His likeness (1:26-27). He gave man dominion over all living creatures (1:26).
2)         Allow me to read Matthew Henry’s lengthy description of this. “God’s image upon man consists in these three things: 1. In his nature and constitution, not those of his body (for God has not a body), but those of his soul… But it is the soul, the great soul, of man, that does especially bear God’s image. The soul is a spirit, an intelligent immortal spirit, an influencing active spirit, herein resembling God, the Father of Spirits, and the soul of the world… The soul of man, considered in its three noble faculties, understanding, will, and active power, is perhaps the brightest clearest looking-glass in nature, wherein to see God. 2. In his place and authority: Let us make man in our image, and let him have dominion. As he has the government of the inferior creatures, he is, as it were, God’s representative, or viceroy, upon earth; they are not capable of fearing and serving God, therefore God has appointed them to fear and serve man. Yet his government of himself by the freedom of his will has in it more of God’s image than his government of the creatures. 3. In his purity and rectitude. God’s image upon man consists in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, Eph 4:24; Col 3:10. He was upright, Eccl. 7:29. He had an habitual conformity of all his natural powers to the whole will of God. His understanding saw divine things clearly and truly, and there were no errors nor mistakes in his knowledge. His will complied readily and universally with the will of God, without reluctancy or resistance. His affections were all regular, and he had no inordinate appetites or passions. His thoughts were easily brought and fixed to the best subjects, and there was no vanity nor ungovernableness in them.”
3)         God formed man from dust of the ground, just as He formed all the beasts of the field and foul of the air (2:19). Man is from dust and will return to dust (3:19).
4)         God breathed into man the breath of life just as He did to other creatures (7:15), but uniquely, God gave man a living soul (2:7; 1Co 15:45).
5)         Man is unique to animals. Each animal and bird has a life cycle similar to that those of his kind. Not so with man. Every man has a unique life story.
6)         God called man “Adam”, meaning “man” or “red”.
7)         Very likely, Adam was the most brilliant man who ever lived. God created him with a perfect brain.
b.         His duties
1)         God put man in the Garden of Eden (2:8).
2)         God instructed man to dress the garden and to keep it (2:15).
a)         Dressing the garden was tilling it or working it. Did overripe fruit fall and decay? Did leaves fall? Did the ground need cultivation? Did Adam replant fruits and vegetables? These are unanswerable questions.
b)         Adam was to keep the garden. This means to guard. Did he have to fence off his part of the garden to keep out the cows, kangaroos, elephants, and dinosaurs? Did he have to keep the birds from eating his fruit? Remember, he had full dominion over all the creatures. We do not know exactly what keeping his garden meant.
3)         Adam had permission to eat any plant he desired except for the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (2:16-17). If he ate of that tree, he would die.
4)         God had Adam name all of the animals (2:19-20). Each had a help meet, but Adam found no help meet for himself.
2.        Eve
a.         Her creation
1)         God’s creation of Eve was not an afterthought. He wisely waited until Adam discovered that he had no help meet.
2)         The words help meet come from two Hebrew words meaning one who helps and corresponding to (as to show yourself in front of another). He had no like kind to help him. She is not a slave or a servant, but a completer.
a)         Eve was formed after Adam, evidently later on the 6th day of Creation (1Ti 2:13).
b)         Eve was formed of man and for man (1Co 11:8-9). She fulfilled Adam’s deficiency.
3)         God saved the best of His creation until last when he created man, and better still when he created woman.
4)         Adam slept while God created woman from one of his ribs. Matthew Henry states, “That the woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; 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.” Amen!
b.         Her role
1)         God created woman to be man’s help meet.
a)         Man without a woman is alone (2:18), which God said is not good. I agree!
b)         Man without a woman is lacking and deficient.
2)         One of the woman’s roles was to give life. Thus, Adam named his woman, Eve, meaning life.
3)         God created woman for motherhood. God has equipped her alone to carry a babe in her womb and to nurse that babe on her breast. God placed within Eve a love for her children. Since sin entered the world, Satan has sought to turn women away from motherhood. Sadly, our world sanctions the abortion of millions of unwanted babies each year.
3.        Marriage
a.         Purpose
1)         The therefore in Genesis 2:24 tells us that God created marriage for a purpose and points us back to (2:18). God knew that it was not good for a man to be alone.
2)         However, God did not intend that man’s need for a help meet be fulfilled with any woman that came along. God did not create man as an animal. He created man with holy morals. God wants each man to have his own wife.
3)         God never intended for couples to live together outside of marriage. God commands that all sexual relations be kept within marriage. Marriage is not out-of-date, old-fashioned, obsolete, and just a piece of paper. It is God’s divine plan for controlling lust, populating the earth, for nurturing children and for equipping the next generation for God’s service.
b.         Plan
1)         A man, God’s appointed family leader, is to leave his father and his mother. This is the first requirement in marriage. The family must be an independent unit.
2)         A man is to cleave unto his wife, bonding with her for life. Whether the choice of her is made by the parents or the couple’s freewill, both must be selected prayerfully and prudently based on internal character, virtue and holiness not on external beauty and charm. (Proverbs 31:30) “Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.“
3)         God makes their union a one-flesh union for life. (Matthew 19:6) “Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.“
Conclusion: We have learned much about God’s original plans for the human race from Genesis. All that God made was perfect. Adam and Eve had perfect bodies, perfect minds, a perfect marriage, and perfect fellowship with God. One day, we too will be able to enjoy these blessings in heaven if we know the Lord as our Saviour.
Song: when We All Get to Heaven 498 #2-3