Genesis 2:4-25

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Genesis 2:4-25

“These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, 5 and every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the ground. 6 But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. 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 soul. 8 And 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 made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 10 And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. 11 The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; 12 and the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. 13 And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. 14 And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth is Euphrates. 15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. 18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. 19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. 20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. 21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; 22 and the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. 23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman [Isha], because she was taken out of Man [Ish]. 24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. 25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.”

Introduction

[Audio version: https://resources.ccphilly.org/detail.asp?TopicID=&Teaching=WED517]

“Genesis chapter 2, we came as far as verse 4, the first three verses kind of sum up the weeks that we spent in the first chapter, “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.” (verses 1-2) again, we talked about this, not in the sense that he was weary, it’s that he ceased, creation was completed on the seventh day “from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” (verses 2c-3) So we have come that far, not a commandment and establishment of the Sabbath here, certainly, not I believe until Exodus 16 does the Sabbath take on a national commandment with the nation of Israel. But certainly the seventh day here, it says that God blessed it, but as he gives commandment in chapter 2, there’s no commandment here in particular in regards to the Sabbath, the seventh day as a rest. Jesus would, remember, tell us man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was made for man, and certainly we see that here, as we look at these verses. [Comment: This brings us to the other big question, which is, Has the observance of the literal Seventh Day Sabbath been abrogated in New Testament Scripture? (for an interesting article exploring this question, see http://www.unityinchrist.com/wwcofg/Has%20the%20Sabbath%20Been%20Abrogated.htm)] Now, Moses through God’s Spirit, writes “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,” (verse 4) Now it is the first time in the Bible you have that compound name “the LORD God,” you’ll notice there capital “L” capital “O” capital “R” capital “D”, that’s always Jehovah [Yahweh] in the King James. When you have capital L, small o, r, d, that’s Adonai, this is Jehovah [Yahweh] God, in the day that Jehovah God made the earth and the heavens. And we have this interesting phrase, “these are the generations,” the “teledoth,” eleven times in the Book of Genesis, and it kind of reminds us of Luke chapter 1, first few verses, where Luke says ‘You know, I talked to eye witnesses, I gathered together my material, the things that were written, I checked all of these things, and then I was guided from above, to put all of these things together, like a catechism, I put all of these things in order.’ It seems as we go through here, when we read about these “teledoth,” these generations, that possibly these are records that Moses had access to, as he recorded the first five books, as he wrote them, some of them certainly, the story of his own life he lived through. But this is ante-diluvian, this is before the Flood, and it seems that Moses possibly had some records. Now, you have to realize that, in the day that Adam was created, he was created a genius, he had ability to read, to write, all of that, there was no learning curve, he wasn’t created as a child where he grew into those things, he was created in God’s image, in God’s likeness, he was able to name all of the animals, we’re going to see some of the mental capacity and so forth that he has to care for the Garden and so forth. So possibly there were some records of these things. One of the interesting things as we move through this chapter, in verse 10 things are being written in the past tense, this is what happened, and the Garden was watered and so forth. But as he moves into verses 11 and 14 they’re written in the present tense, that gives us very much the sense of an eye-witness, having been the one who recorded these things. So there is a possibility Moses, like Luke, had gathered together the records of the things that he had, and as he was certainly guided by God. Moses did write the first five books, and he wrote them under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Recap Of Genesis 1, First Plants & Animals Created Before Man

But it says here “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, and every plant of the field before it was in the earth,” before its roots touched down “and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the ground.” (verses 4-5) The Garden was there, there was no rain to water it, there was no man to till the ground, “But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.” (verse 6) So, as we study through the Book of Genesis, we won’t encounter rain until Noah’s flood. That is when rain is experienced for the first time. And until then, it seems there was a vapour canopy around the earth, tropical vegetation is found on both the North and the South Pole, things that never could have grown there, there seems to have been, before the Flood, a constant climate around the world, there seems to have been a vapour canopy filtering infrared and ultraviolet light, because even after the Fall, Adam and his descendants are living to be 800, 900 years old, the aging process very much slower until the Flood, and then man’s age is shortened dramatically after that. So it seems that, at this point in time, there is longevity, certainly this is before the Fall, there is a vapour canopy, there is a remarkable flora and fauna covering the whole earth, all of these different plants, it says, going around the earth. And there was no rain, “But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.” (verse 6) So this remarkable scene must have been there, kind of like you’re in the supermarket and all of a sudden those sprayers go on, they spray this mist on all the vegetation keeping it fresh there, it’s kind of a mist going up from the ground.

Man Created From The Chemicals Of The Ground, Then Becomes A Living Soul

“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 soul.” (verse 7) and it’s the plural here, “the breath of lives.” And man became a living soul. Now we had been told back in chapter 1, “let us make man in our image and likeness,” and so forth, and now as we come to chapter 2, it kind of looks back and gives us more details of the things that we had given to us in a briefer form in chapter 1. It’s kind of fleshing out the story here a little bit, and he says “the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground,” same 17 elements that are in the ground in you and I. “formed man of the dust of the ground,” it didn’t say ‘let the earth bring forth’ like he had with the animal kingdom back in chapter 1, verse 24, this is vastly different, God is intimately involved here, and it says he personally now forms man of the dust of the ground, “and breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives;” everybody tries to make this “ruach,” “spirit,” it isn’t, it says literally that God puffed, that he actually stooped down, he created man’s body, inanimate, no life, perfect, way more sophisticated than any of the animals in the animal kingdom, he formed the physical frame, the spacesuit that we wear, of the dust of the ground and finished it. And then it seems that he stooped down and actually puffed, blew into his nostrils “the breath of lives.” Now that word “breath” is not ruach, it’s used about 24 times in the Old Testament, one time it’s translated “inspiration,” twice it’s translated “spirit,” once it’s translated “soul,” twenty times it’s translated “breath.” And that’s exactly what it means. In chapter 7 of Genesis, you don’t have to turn, it says “All in whose nostrils was the breath of life,” (verse 22) It says in Job, chapter 27, and again you don’t have to turn, I’ll try to do this and make it easy, it says “All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God in my nostrils,” it’s a very interesting idea, Job 33 again, says “the Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life.” Again, “If he set his heart upon man,” it’s one thing, “if he gather unto himself his spirit and his breath,” so this gives us a very remarkable picture of man, being formed by God, the body, God’s not just speaking to the dirt now, he’s intimately involved, and then God stooping down and actually puffing, breathing into his nostrils the breath of lives, plural, your life and my life, animating the physical frame, your DNA, my DNA go all the way back to the Garden of Eden. The miracle that happened on the ascension, when Jesus ascended, was he took this DNA, the same DNA that Adam had, back into the glory, the fellowship, open fellowship with God for the first time since Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden. He breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives, it tells us at conception is when life begins, the breath of lives, of all human lives, breathed into his nostrils in this scene. “and man became a living soul.” and that’s emphatic, there’s no room for evolution here, man became, when God breathed, a living soul, the King James says. It’s “nephesh,” it’s “he became a being, living being,” it’s a compound idea, he became “a being living being,” he became conscious [“spirit in man”], soulish, spiritual, he became what he was when God breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives. Great intimacy here in this scene as we look at it.

The Garden Of Eden

“And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.” (verse 8) Now I like gardens, I like trees, I like Japanese gardens, I love ornamental plants, I love weeping trees, most of them, some of them are too sad for me, I like some of them, they’re beautiful. Imagine what this garden looked like, because you have to imagine the Gardener, the LORD God it says planted a garden. Oh man, if you’ve ever looked in Gardener Magazine, there’s nothing that would ever compare. “the LORD God planted a garden” I’m just reading today about some of the fossils they’ve found, and there’s one article I read that said they found fossils of moss. Now I like moss, Irish moss is sometimes beautiful, but they found fossils of moss three foot high, instead of an inch and a half or two inches, the moss, imagine Irish moss three foot deep. It would be fun to jump into that, wouldn’t it? It says they found fossils of these asparagus-like stalks, that looked like asparagus, 40-foot tall, with a very small root system, which made them think there was no wind, nothing to try to knock it over, the roots weren’t deep, so the soil had to be rich and it had to be watered. They found horsetail reeds, you know what they are? 50-foot tall, fossils of horsetail reeds. Couldn’t get a shot off at a duck with reeds that tall around you. And ferns, different varieties of ferns, over 50-foot tall. [The fossil record he’s talking about, those fossils have been accurately dated to pre-Adamic times, probably dating from the Carboniferous Period (359 million years ago to 299 million years ago) through the Mesozoic era (which was from 252 million years ago to 66 million years ago).] What was it like when the LORD God planted a garden? We would have felt like Ewoks walking through that garden, just everything would have been huge and beautiful, I can’t imagine the colours. The Smithsonian Magazine has written articles on floral therapy, they’re discovering now that the smell of flowers is therapeutic to a human being. I’ve gotten off the plane in Israel sometimes, right in the end of February, beginning of March, and all you can smell is orange blossoms when the door opens, it’s just remarkable, and you say ‘What is that?’ it’s shocking. What did a rose, if a horsetail reed was 50-foot tall, how big were the roses? Imagine bringing home a long stem rose for your wife, ‘Alight boys, back it in.’ she’d have to be happy for months. The LORD God planted this garden, and it says he planted it eastward in Eden, so that gives me the idea that Eden is a larger area, and on the eastern side of it he plants a garden, which of course is the Garden of Eden, a specific garden that’s in Eden, “and there he put the man whom he had formed.” (verse 8b) So he takes him and puts him there. Imagine this garden, no pollution, no beertops on the ground, no trash, not a cigarette butts, just try to imagine, I mean, you can’t, what that must have been like. “And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” (verse 9) “every tree that is pleasant to the sight,” what is that all about? When the LORD planted this garden he put every tree that’s pleasant, we’re looking at a creation now that Paul tells us (in Romans 8) that’s groaning and travailing, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God again. You know, when you look at some of the beautiful trees that are around today, what was it like before the Fall, when the LORD God put in the garden “every tree that was pleasant”? He actually planted things that were a treat to man’s visual capacities, just to enjoy. Just try to imagine that. Every tree that was pleasant to the sight, “and good for food;” What was that like? The day Adam got put there in the Garden, all of these trees were just filled with ripe fruit. None of them were overripe, there was no rotting, because there was no death. When a piece of fruit got ripe, did it hang there for months till somebody picked it, for years? There was no rotting, there was no death. What was that like? Imagine, just every piece of fruit, there’s no worms in it. None of them are marred. Every apple must have been about that big. “the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” (verse 9b) we’ll talk about that, a little further on. “And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.” (verse 10) Now it seems like it’s a single river, it seems like it’s coming up from the ground, there’s no rain, there’s no pressure from the plates in regards to rain the way we have it today. There’s 1.5 trillion tons of rain that falls every day on the surface of the earth right now, and some of that pushes down, and it causes pressure, which causes water to rise. This had to be water that is driven up from the heat of the core of the earth, and as it’s expanding, it’s coming up to the surface in a continual flow. It seems that in Eden, in this land of Eden, not in the specific Garden, but in Eden there’s a huge river, it says, that went out of Eden to water the Garden, “and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.” (verse 10b) So it comes up one master river, and it divides into four different rivers to water the Garden of Eden, so there must have been these four rivers running through the Garden itself. “The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;” (verse 11) Some try to say it’s the Ganges, they try to come up with all of these conjectures, we don’t know. Verse 10 says “they watered,” past tense, “the Garden,” verse 11 says “the name of the first is Pison” it’s like Adam’s standing there writing, it’s present tense, “is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;” “where there is gold” he happens to mention. “and the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.” (verse 12) “and the gold of that land is good,” I guess in comparison to rotten gold I guess, any gold that you would find would be good gold, but Adam was picky. “the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.” You want good bdellium, if you’re going to have bdellium, you don’t want none of that bad bdellium, which evidently is some kind of a resin, all the scholars I read, it’s just some kind of a resin that was there, that was sweet-flavoured, “and the onyx stone.” Now we wonder about that, it was a semiprecious stone, what did it look like before the Fall, what was an onyx like that is was so prevalent that he mentions it here? [Onyx is a type of chalcedony, which is itself a form of microcrystalline quartz. Onyxes have straight, nearly parallel bands or layers of color, which allow skilled gem carvers to cut away material to create cameos and intaglios with extraordinary depth and contrast.] “And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.” (verse 13) Some try to say this is the Nile, because it says “And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.” or Cush, “And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth is Euphrates.” (verse 14) And we know from Daniel 10:4 that that was name for the Tigris River in his day, “that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria.” which is running in a different direction, evidently, than the Tigris is running today. “And the fourth is Euphrates.” Now, there are problems with this, because we’re told in 2^nd Peter, that, talking about “those who are willingly ignorant, that by the Word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water, and in the water, whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.” So what we have from Eden are the names, Assyria, Ethiopia, the Tigris, the Euphrates, but they’re not the rivers, any land or any river, any geography today, those names are not at all a reflection of what it was before the Flood, because it says that world perished. So what came to us from the other side is remembrance of some of those names. There was a land in the pre-Diluvian world that was called Assyria, there was a land that was called Cush or Ethiopia, there was a river that was called the Euphrates, and after the Flood, as man started to name, from the Tower of Babel or something, some geographical locations, some of that was still memory, and he named some of those places after a situation that no longer existed. We can’t figure out where Eden is today. There is no place where these four rivers flow from, and people try to point to northern Iran, people try to point to Kurdistan, people try to point to all different places, Armenia, to come up with where Eden is. But the problem is, the whole world, geographically, changed in the Flood, so we don’t know. But we do have names that came to us from before the Flood. Four rivers, coming out of this one main spring, huge, going forth and watering the land, how beautiful it must have been.

God Instructs Adam About Taking Care Of The Garden--And About Two Special Trees

“And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” (verse 15) Work, here Manard J. Krabs, work!? this was Paradise, there was work? Well it says we were created in God’s image and likeness, and God works. [Comment: God also creates, he is a creator. Mankind, one of the main proofs that we are created in God’s image is not in our appearance, that we may look physically like God, body appearance for body appearance, but in the creative powers mankind possesses which those in the animal kingdom have never been able to display. At Creation mankind, man was given by God what the Bible calls “the human spirit,” “the spirit of man,” or “the spirit-in-man.” The apostle Paul talks of this human spirit in 1^st Corinthians 2:9-13, that this “human spirit,” being a non-physical spirit that imparts human intelligence far, far beyond that found in any animal on Earth. God said in Genesis that he created man in his own image, “in the image of God created he him.” What makes a man a creation of God in the image of God, is the undeniable fact that mankind, Homo sapiens is the only species on Earth that “designs and creates” creations created out of the chemicals found on Earth. We’re “creators” on a far lesser level, but just like God. No other animal, even the most intelligent have that ability, they don’t even come close to that mental output of the human mind contained in the human brain (combined with the “human spirit, the spirit in man.”) We can understand myriad languages, science, mathematics, physics, astronomy, history, literature, poetry, using the written word, which we created as well. We have created modes of locomotion, first sail, then steam engines, gasoline and diesel engines, steam and jet turbine engines, aircraft from glider to propeller to jet and rockets, and then spacecraft flying to the Moon, printing presses, books, newspapers, magazines, radios, tape-recorders, phonographs, televisions, cameras, motion picture and television cameras, video cameras, computers, cell-phones with miniature computers in them, scuba gear taking us underwater, submarines, ships, automobiles (both gasoline, diesel and electric), buildings (both high-rise and low), cities, railroads, and street-highway infrastructure. The list can and does go on. The point is, man is a “creator” just like, to a far lesser degree, the Creator God who created him and all lifeforms, past and present.] Jesus said “Hitherto my Father works.” God is not idle, it is against his nature to be idle, he can’t be static. He can’t foreknow without involvement, or it would deny his own nature. So, Adam is given, what was that like here? It says ‘he had to dress it and to keep it.’ Now he doesn’t have a chainsaw, cutting deadwood out of forest, there was none of that. Is he transplanting, is he arranging, what is he doing? We’re not sure. It wouldn’t be like a gardener today because it was before the Fall. [Comment: I think maybe way too much is being read into “the Fall” where nothing can die. I think maybe death was not coming onto mankind, Adam and Eve, maybe that applied to them before they partook of “the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” but death itself is part of the living environment God created, bacteria and microbes, living and dying in the soil. Just imagine insects, what the pyramid of life on earth is based on, the bottom 2/3rds of life is insect and microbic, just imagine all reproducing insects and microbes never dying, the rest of life on earth would be crowded out by insects. No, this doctrine of the Fall, carried down to all living creatures to the very insect and microbic level would not work, it would bury the earth in insects and microbes. The religious folk, wonderful as they are, haven’t thought things out enough when they formulate their doctrinal interpretation of Scripture. Sometimes it’s better to say ‘We just don’t know how all this worked, we weren’t there. We’ll find out at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb (cf. Revelation 19:7-9).’ If the herbivores, reproducing at their normal rates had no one to cull their herds, even in the wild, by way of carnivores, they would have crowded themselves off the planet, used up their food sources, just the way we know with herds of wild deer. No, just better to say “We don’t know,” than to try to interpret every single verse in the Bible and end up being wrong.] But there was work, there was responsibility. You know, it says in heaven, when we study revelation, that his servants will serve him, the purpose of man, to fellowship with God, for God’s pleasure. And certainly part of that is serving, part of that is owning him as Lord. [In Revelation 21:1-23, we see what most think of heaven, the New Jerusalem, comes down to the new earth, so heaven ends up on earth, throwing the concept of ‘Going up to heaven’ on it’s ear. Right now, for the present, the New Jerusalem, where God’s throne is, is somewhere either in outerspace, or outside of Space-Time itself, in another realm, dimension. But heaven, in the form of the New Jerusalem, will end up on earth.] But this had to be with complete delight. After the Fall it’s going to say that man has to eek his living out of the ground with the sweat of his brow, there’s no indication of that here. This is not a drudgery, this is not the kind of work that you and I understand, that nobody would want to get up to on Monday morning and go to. [I don’t know, when you pick a career, you should enjoy it. It’s why we send our kids to school, and try to get them to see different fields of endeavor. But that’s the ideal, because there’s tons of manual labour jobs that are pure drudgery, brought on by big business, mean, lean capitalism run amuck. That will not be a part of the economic system of what the Jews call ‘The World To Come,’ when Jesus, the Messiah comes back to earth. As Isaiah 11 shows, after Jesus’ 2^nd coming the pre-Fall idyllic world will be restored on earth, and that will include a system of labor and work that doesn’t exploit people. Agriculture itself will be made up of small farms, as each family will be given an inheritance of land they can farm and live on, just as it was in ancient Israel during the time of Joshua--that will be the time of ‘The World To Come,’ or ‘The World Tomorrow,’ as one church denomination called it. What will that world be like? see https://www.unityinchrist.com/kingdomofgod/MillennialKingdomofGod.pdf] This is something of co-labouring with the LORD, something of walking, it tells us, in the cool of the day, with God, in the Garden. What was that like? He put him there, it says, in the Garden of Eden, to dress it, to keep it. Adam is brilliant, he’s not walking around with a club like some caveman, he’s a brilliant man. “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (verses 16-17) Interesting. And of course Adam and Eve got involved with that one tree, didn’t they. You know, ‘Here’s acres and acres and endless acres of the most beautiful trees planted, pleasant to the eyes, fruit trees unimaginable, just acres and acres and endless acres, just enjoy yourselves, go and eat and enjoy the garden, but there’s just one tree you can’t eat of,’ and just like us, ‘Eh, where’s that one?’ I mean, just, it’s the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, what is that? God doesn’t say ‘I don’t want you to know because I don’t want you to know,’ it’s a tree of knowledge, of good and evil, God doesn’t say ‘I don’t want you to know,’ did Adam know what evil was? There was no evil, there was no Fall, I don’t know that, he was genius like God. He didn’t say ‘I don’t want you to eat it because I don’t want you to know,’ he said ‘I don’t want you to eat it, because I don’t want you to die.’ He didn’t say ‘If you eat that tree I’m going to kill you.’ He said ‘If you eat it, on the day you eat it, you’re going to die.’ That would have been spiritual death, it would have been being cut off from God. Man needs to be born-again by the Spirit, to re-enter that fellowship with God. Adam didn’t die physically, he lived 900 years [and then he died—God didn’t say when Adam would die, just that he would]. He didn’t die emotionally, mentally he could still think and function, he died spiritually, something happened. And certainly the spiritual part of it is what animated his physical frame, his emotions, so that the body then, corruption was there, he began the process of physical death also. But he was cut off from God, “in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (verse 17b) Now, why did God put it there? To tease him? You know what it’s like if you have kids. In fact, somebody asked me about this the other day, and it was a story that Gail Irwin told us years ago, and he said when his kids were little and he was leaving the house, and he said, and I don’t know why, I have no idea why, he said my wife and I hadn’t been out to dinner for a good while, and for some reason, he said, he said the devil made me do it, he said right as I was walking out the door, I don’t know why, I turned around and said ‘Don’t put beans up your nose.’ And he said we got the call in the middle of dinner, and had to take them to the emergency ward, because they put beans up their noses. Why ever say it? You’re going to see that if you see a sign that says “Please Keep Off The Grass,” there’s a muddy path right next to it. Here it’s “Don’t eat, here’s the one.” I think that the knowledge of good and evil came in the Fall, I think the tree was named in the Eternal Counsels of God, because of what it would produce, I don’t think there was a bacteria, I hear all this stuff about a type of carcinogenic. That’s not the issue at all, man died spiritually because it was disobedience in that act and they were cut off from God. But that had to be there. Man is created in God’s image and likeness, that means that man had the capacity to choose. We’re told in Revelation chapter 4:11 that we were created for his pleasure, Jesus said the greatest commandment is that you love the Lord with all your heart and soul and strength, and your neighbour as yourself. What does God want from you? he wants your heart, he wants your heart. You know, just imagine, you guys, you find your wife, the girl of your dreams. And you’re the only man on the planet, and she decides to marry you. You’d really be depressed if you’re the only man and she says ‘No, I’d rather die than marry you,’ but no, you’re the only guy on the planet and she marries you, that means one thing, but if there’s two other guys on the planet, Larry and Moe, if there’s three of you, and she chooses you, that means something. She’s made a choice, you feel a little better about that. For man to be created in God’s image and likeness, he had to be a free moral agent, he had to have the ability to choose. If man has the ability to choose and there’s no alternatives, he can’t exercise choice. Without choice there’s no real love, there’s no fellowship. You know, if you have children at home, if they were robots, if they were just androids and they said ‘I love you Daddy, I love you Daddy,’ or if your wife was just a robot ‘I love you Honey,’ that would get old after awhile. You might enjoy it at first, but it would get old after awhile. My point is, that’s not a real relationship. A husband can be very discontent if a wife just does her duty and there’s no intimacy, if there’s no love, no attraction, she’s not tender with her husband because she wants to be with him. That means everything. And there had to be choice or else we’d just be robots. And God said, ‘ok, here’s the garden and everything, look what I’ve made, everything that’s pleasant to the eyes, everything that’s good to eat, everything’s at your disposal, look at the rivers, listen to the sounds, look at the animals, look at everything, it’s all yours. And to prove that you love me and that you want to walk with me, here’s the choice, there is one tree, if you partake of that you’ve disobeyed, it’s prohibited. Because I want to hold out on you? No, because I know the day you eat of it, you’re gonna die, death will enter in.’ How many things in God’s Word does he tell us now, ‘If you do this, you’re gonna injure yourself, if you give yourself to this, it’s gonna kill you, it’s going to destroy your marriage, it’s going to destroy your home, destroy your physical frame.’ How many warnings does God give us. Because he is trying to withhold something? No, that’s the oldest lie in the book, that’ll be in the next chapter, it’s because he loves us, he gives us parameters because he loves us. You raise children, you say ‘Don’t play in the street, don’t put your hand on the stove while it’s on,’ because you’re just trying to keep them from having fun, getting burned and crushed? No, because you love them. You establish parameters for their safety and for their well-being. “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (verse 17) Now here’s the wonderful thing, because we’ve been saved, you have the freedom, now, to go to God and say ‘Lord, I’m a sinner, save me, forgive me, I want this corruption to put on incorruption, I want you to put me in a state where I can no longer be corrupted anymore, I want this mortal to put on immortality, I want you to take me to heaven [into the Kingdom of Heaven], change my nature, so I can no longer sin, I want you to remove the alternatives, and cause me to be eternally secure,’ and you’re doing it of your own will. Adam was placed in the Garden, and it wasn’t of his will, and there had to be choice. The wonderful thing for you and I now, in redemption, we can go to him and say ‘Lord, take those choices away, I’m sinful, if you leave them in front of me, change my nature, let me be born-again, let the Spirit of Christ dwell in my heart, and Lord in your time, take me to glory. Let this corruption put on incorruption, let this mortal put on immortality, and put me in heaven [into the Kingdom of Heaven, which as the New Jerusalem, will end up on earth] where none of those choices are available, where Satan is bound, temptation is gone.’ Because if he didn’t do that, how long would you be in heaven [the Kingdom of Heaven] before you blew it? [nano-second anyone?] But now the wonderful thing is, we can ask for the very thing God wouldn’t do against our will, in some ways, I think, you can think about it.

“And The LORD God Said, It Is Not Good That Man Should Be Alone”

OK, Marriage, Mawedge, verse 18, “And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.” Now I have the King James, that’s not “meat,” now that’s help for a man too, that’s not what it’s saying, it’s “meet,” “suitable, corresponding.” Now I love to use these verses at a wedding because it describes the perfect marriage, before the Fall, it gives us God’s design. And as I look at it too, you know, you watch God through the days of Creation, everything’s good, behold it was good, very good. The first time we hear something’s not good is when God says ‘It’s not good that man should be alone.’ Now I’m assuming then that this takes place before chapter 1, verse 31, where it says “God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” or “exceedingly good.” So it had to be before that, because he’s saying something’s not good. And it has to be before verse 27 where it says ‘So God created man,’ chapter 1, ‘in his own image and likeness, created he him, male and female created he them.’ So somewhere it’s telling us, it tells us that in chapter 1, and chapter 2 kind of gives us the process. God looks at Adam, says ‘You know what, it’s not good for you to be alone.’ And I’m assuming for all you married men in this room, as some point God looked at you and said, ‘You know, it’s not good for this one to be alone, he needs a helper.’ Now this helper, it says, is suitable, meet, co-responding is the idea. You wife, gentlemen, is your co-respondent. In our immaturity, particularly earlier in our marriage, we’re offended by all those, there’s certain differences we enjoy, certainly physically, but there are emotional differences we don’t like, because she wants to worry about something you don’t want to worry about. You say “north,” she says “south,” she’s your corresponding partner, you say “ping,” she says “pong.” That’s her job. God made her that way, that’s by design. My wife is like that. I walk through church sometimes, and she’ll say ‘Did you see this? did you see that? did you see the tear in that person’s eyes? did you see that? that person had a cast on,’ and I’m thinking, ‘Man, I didn’t see none of that, I can’t believe I was in the same place she was, I didn’t see none of that stuff.’ And sometimes at the end of the day she’ll sit down and look at me and think ‘This is amazing, a human being can live being completely immune to their surroundings, you can get through a day and God will take care of you, even though you have no idea what’s going on.’ There’s a design. Now Adam didn’t know what alone meant, ‘I’m not alone, God, it’s me and you, we’re here, we can go fishing, we got four rivers, got the Garden, got the animals, we got everything, got the fruit. What do you mean I’m alone? What do you mean, not good?’ ‘No, no, you need a corresponding partner,’ ‘Aren’t you and I partners, God?’ So to give him a visual demonstration then, it says then, “And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.” (verse 19) Now I’m not assuming that is every species on earth, evidently the ones that were in the Garden, but here’s Adam, and God’s saying ‘Now what do you call these now?’ By the way, when it says “the name thereof” it seems to indicate, you know like Isaac was named Izaak, because Sarah laughed, so the boy was named “laughter.” You know, as you look at some of the names in Scripture, there’s some sense to them, it kind of gives that here. So I don’t know what giraffe meant in Adamese, you know, but it must have meant something with a long neck, ‘What do you call these, Adam?’ ‘Aah, giraffe,’ ‘there’s two of them,’ ‘oh, there’s Mr. and Mrs. Giraffe,’ ‘And what do you call these, Mr. and Mrs. Goat, Mr. and Mrs. Cow, Mr. and Mrs. Hippopotamus, wow, that’s something.’ So he goes through this process, “And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field;” notice, this is what God’s trying to show him, “but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.” (verse 20) God is saying, ‘Adam, you notice anything? Do you think that cow was attractive?’ ‘Not really, cows are nice, enjoy talking to them on my day off.’ “And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;” (verse 21) Now it’s an interesting picture, it’s not a rib, the Hebrew is literally “a side,” in fact it seems to indicate “a curved side.” We’re not sure what that is. It’s something from Adam’s side. He caused a deep sleep, now you would think in Paradise that’s the only kind of sleep you would have. It’s picturing something else. It’s picturing Christ and the Church, wherein his death, his Bride was brought forth, wherein his death his side was opened up and pierced. Is it a picture of Christ and his Church, as Paul says? I think there are some remarkable things here. You guys that are single, I think this is what you should pray, ‘Lord, put a deep sleep on me, until you bring the one you’ve made for me, that you keep me and everybody else out of trouble, just put a deep sleep on me.’ It’s a great plan here. “the LORD caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam,” just interesting emphasis, “and he slept: and he took one of the ribs,” one of the sides, whatever that is, “and closed up the flesh instead thereof;” Now this is not anesthesia, there’s no pain before the Fall, so it’s something else. it’s something else, it’s something interesting, I think it’s got more depth. [I think Pastor Joe is over-interpreting here, we just don’t know, we weren’t there.] “and the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.” (verse 22) Now, this is very interesting. It says over in verse 7, “The LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground,” from the dirt, the dust of the ground. It says in verse 19, “out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field,” But he made Eve from Adam, not from the dust of the ground. It says with the rib the LORD God had taken, King James says “made he a woman,” it introduces a word for the first time here, it says “builded he a woman.” He took something from Adam, something of his side, and with that “he builded,” it insinuates involvement, it insinuates orchestrating, it insinuates ingeniousness, and I think it’s part of why marriage is sacred. I don’t care what the culture says, I don’t care what they legislate, God’s design from the beginning was a man and a woman. Was it perverted through the days of David and Solomon? sure, they took more wives than they should have. Homosexuality, or lesbianism, adultery, there’s all this aberration of something that God sanctified and set aside, and did in his genius. He “builded” Eve from Adam, not from the ground. So that when a man and his wife are joined together, there is some completeness that goes back to Eden. [In reality, yes it goes back to Eden, but when God placed the human spirit, “the spirit in man,” or “spirit of man,” inside the human brains of humans, of both men and women. The apostle Paul alluded to how the “spirit in man” of a woman is intertwined with the spirit of man in a man in 1^st Corinthians 6, in his reference to uniting to a harlot and her spirit then mingles with the Spirit of Christ that is in you because the Spirit of Christ is “mingled” with your human spirit. If our human spirits actually mingles with the Holy Spirit upon and after being saved, then the human spirit of a man and a woman, being sexual partners, be it husband and wife, or not, also mingles or intertwines. It is what is the real part of being “one flesh.” It is a human brain-software connection between a married couple, that brings a sense of completeness beyond the mere sexual part.] The only institution that comes to us from the other side of the Fall, is marriage, is marriage. With the rib the LORD God had taken, builded he a woman, “and brought her unto the man.” Imagine the delight God had, he’s thinking ‘When he really wakes up and sees this, wait till he gets a load of this.’ So he brings her, ‘Wonder what that was all about, that was the best sleep I ever had, I only had one night’s sleep before this, that was the best sleep I ever had,’ and God now brings Eve. “And Adam said,” verse 23, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” He said ‘Va, va, va, Voom! Now I understand, this is what I’ve been looking for! This is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, what will we call her?’ he’s still naming now. “she shall be called Woman,” ‘she shall be called Isha, because she was taken out of Ish,’ and he actually uses the word here for husband and wife, not Adam for Man, but Ish, Husband, and Isha, Wife. Isn’t that interesting? [Here’s one to twist your brain, “Brit” in Hebrew means “Covenant,” and “Ish” in Hebrew means Man, or Husband. So “British” in Hebrew means “Covenant Man.”] Isha is taken out of Ish, and the husband and wife coming together, there’s something divine in that. Paul tells us in Ephesians 5 it’s a picture of Christ and his Church [and if you get into the spirit in man intertwining, at the spirit level, it is an even more accurate picture that is invisible to the five senses, and yet is there.]

“Therefore Shall A Man Leave His Father And His Mother”--Three Points

Now, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” (verses 24-25) We come to this “Therefore.” Spoken by God? Well it’s in God’s Word. Not applicable to Adam, because he didn’t leave his mother and father, neither did Eve. It’s sighted at least four times in the New Testament, and it’s “therefore.” What do you mean “therefore”? Because it isn’t good for man to be alone. It still isn’t. And because he is willing to involve, notice, God doesn’t parade in front of Adam all the animals and Adam says ‘That’s it, I can’t take the frustration anymore, I’m going hunting for a woman!’ he’s not climbing the trees, digging holes in the ground, no, God does this. I believe, if you will be patient, please, you single people, do not go hunting, pray, it’s so important. It’s so important that God would bring the right person. I am actually naïve enough to believe that God involves himself in our lives to that degree, that he has the right person for us. [Now that we’re on the subject of husband-wife intimacy, I just found an excellent YouTube titled, “Does Sex Before Marriage Affect The Relationship?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD29x4u-RhM] Adam sees Eve and says ‘Whoa!’ He thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world, and she was the only woman in the world, so he was right. But when you get married, your wife then is the only woman in your world. “He who has found a wife has found a good thing,” no offense there, “and has found favour from the Lord.” ‘Silver and gold are the heritage of the parents to the children, but a prudent wife, who can find?’ something from the Lord. Therefore, because it’s not good for man to dwell alone, and God sees that, and God has a design. “Therefore shall a man leave his mother and his father,” severance, certain things here that are very important. When you get married, your parents ought to change the locks, if they care about your marriage. You’ve made a choice, hopefully, if you’ve been raised in a Christian home you’ve honoured the thing’s they’ve taught you, and there’s no going home to mom and going home to dad. It says, first there’s severance, there’s leaving the mother and father. Because in Biblical times the groom would build an addition on his father’s house [poor bride], but the idea is, when you enter into marriage, marriage is more sacred than the parent-child relationship. The best thing you can do, for your children, is to side with your spouse, when there’s a struggle or difficult situation in the home. It’s the most sacred of all human relationships, “for this reason shall a man leave,” to have severance, there has to be this sense that ‘Now I’m marrying you, you are the most important of all my human relationships,’ I love my parents, grandparents are a great thing when grandkids come, family is so important, holidays, Christian family, wonderful thing, but now there is a preference, a priority, ‘You are the most important human being on the planet to me.’ That spouse has to know that on both sides, it’s health. Second, Leaving his mother and father, “cleave unto his wife” that speaks of oneness, there has to be severance, then there’s a oneness. It’s the word in the Book of Job, where it says “Job’s tongue clave to the roof of his mouth, it was dried, it was stuck to the roof of his mouth. Some try to say it means “glued.” God says to the children of Israel, ‘None of the diseases that clave to the Egyptians shall come upon thee,’ a disease is woven into the fabric of your being. There has to be severance, then there has to be oneness, you’re becoming one. Third, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” (verse 24) certainly, intimacy, one flesh is the most often repeated phrase throughout the Bible relative to marriage. It is in the one-fleshness that marriage is established. That is why when the one flesh is broken, Jesus gives the one option in regards to divorce, is when there’s adultery, the one fleshness is broken. One fleshness certainly reflected in intimacy, and reflected in your kids, I mean, remarkable to look at children, and just think. You know, it’s funny, when Mickey was 6 my wife was pregnant with Josh, and we’re sitting around picking names, and everybody had different ideas, and I wanted to call him Ezekiel, she said ‘I’m not naming somebody Ezekiel, I’m sorry,’ he became a Joshua, that’s what he should have been, he’s a Joshua. But Mike, he was just turning 6, he said ‘I know.’ I said ‘What?’ ‘Wife-man,’ I said ‘What?’ he said ‘He’s half wife, he’s half man, wife-man.’ [laughter] very basic, true there, out of the mouth of babes and sucklings, so wife-man came along. They shall be one flesh, and then it says “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” (verse 25) now that word “naked” is also used of a tree opening its branches, it has more than just the idea of physical nakedness brought in front of us. “they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” They were not self-centered, there were no defenses up, there was something else going on here that was very, very remarkable. They weren’t naked in the sense that you and I think of nakedness, they were clothed with something, because in the next chapter when they fall, it says “then they knew they were naked,” they lost something. It says “our bodies shall be fashioned” in Philippians, “unto his glorious body,” it says that we know, in 1^st John 3:1-2, “when we see him, we will be like him, because we will see him as he is.” [And how is he? Revelation 1:13-18, he has clothes on, and he is glowing like the sun, it’s not some special “light-clothing” Pastor Joe is implying, Jesus’ body itself is glowing, giving off intense light. But he also has clothes on. This extra-biblical interpretation sometimes goes too far. When John wrote 1^st John 3:1-2, he had not yet seen Jesus as he appeared to him on Patmos in Revelation 1:13-18. John literally saw Jesus as he is.] It tells us in the Book of Revelation chapter 19 that the saints are clothed with the righteousness of the saints, which is fine linen, clean and white. It says that we’re lit up [yes, our bodies themselves will be lit up (cf. Daniel 12:1-3) but we’ll also have clothes on, just as Jesus appeared in Revelation 1:13-18, that’s letting the Scripture interpret itself]. We’re lit up with these glistening white robes that are the righteousness’s, certainly those are the imputed righteousness’s from Christ. Well in the beginning if we were created in his image and likeness, we were clothed then with his righteousness, we were clothed with something. It’s interesting that when Jesus was risen, in Luke 24, and this is just conjecture, you can do with it what you will, he said ‘Touch me, doth the spirit hath flesh and bone,’ he didn’t say anything about flesh and blood [this now is one of those strange Calvary Chapel doctrines I don’t necessarily agree with, as I believe Jesus and God the Father are composed of pure Spirit, whatever that is, more solid than physical matter], the blood was drained out on the cross. Doth the spirit hath flesh and bone? Our bodies shall be fashioned unto his glorious body It says “flesh and blood,” 1^st Corinthians 15, “cannot inherit the Kingdom of God,” evidently flesh and bone can. [i.e. the spirit body of Revelation 1:13-18, composed of pure spirit, not flesh and blood, not flesh and bone, Jesus can transition from physical to spirit and back again at will, just as he did as Yahweh meeting Abraham, and eating with him, Yahweh and the two angels with him in Genesis 18 appeared to him as physical beings, and Yahweh actually sat down and ate with Abraham. In my personal estimation, an angelic sword, like the one that guarded the Garden of Eden after the fall, was composed of pure spirit, more solid than matter, and that this sword has the ability to slice through matter, even that of a Russian titanium submarine’s hull, like it was going through warm butter. Our physical matter is like a cloud that true spirit-matter can pass through like an aircraft flying through a cloud. Jesus passed through walls like they weren’t there after his resurrection, because as he was doing so, he disappeared, obviously transitioning back into spirit, and phasing through that wall. We don’t know anything about spirit verses matter, so it is truly useless to speculate until we’re resurrected in the 1^st Resurrection to immortality, instead of forming a doctrine on insufficient Scriptural data, knowledge.] Before the Fall, Adam said this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh, Ephesians 5:30 says, we are, this is a mystery, Christ and the Church, we are his flesh and his bone, no blood mentioned [that is an analogy, being his flesh and bone]. Just an observation. Before the Fall, did we have the same drive system that Christ had after his resurrection, when he went through the walls, when he appeared and disappeared? He body was not sustained by blood then, the blood was drained, it was spirit-drive [yes, because the body itself was and is pure spirit, somehow, Jesus and yes, angels, can transition back and forth from flesh to spirit and back again at will—we’ll find out later], it was spirit-drive. Were Adam and Eve before the Fall like that? I have the sense they walked in open fellowship with God, how did that relate to time, did they step in and out of another dimension, I don’t know that. That they were both naked, they weren’t ashamed, they were in the Garden in the presence of God. When they sinned, the light went out. Did they then switch to blood-drive, the life, it says in Leviticus, was in the blood. Was it in the blood before, it was not in the blood in Christ’s resurrected body. Does the shedding of blood have something to do with the curse and sin? I don’t know. Isn’t it going to be amazing when we get to heaven and see the things that God reveals to us and shows us. [I think the Calvary Chapels are overthinking this particular set of verses, adding to them their own interpretation, when we just don’t know, and should wait until we do, at the Resurrection, when all things will be made manifest at the Wedding of the Lamb (cf. Revelation 19:7-9).]

In Closing

The problem for you and I is, there hasn’t been a perfect marriage since Adam and Eve. I know you think yours is. You voted on it. It’s two-to-one, God wins. There hasn’t been a perfect marriage since the Garden of Eden. It’s wrong for us to expect perfection from one another. God doesn’t expect perfection from you, we know that, because we see his Son on the cross. He expects appropriation, he’s given you his Spirit, he’s given you his grace, his Son, his Word. He does expect us to appropriate that which he has given to us. The Psalmist says this, “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him, for he knoweth our frame, and he remembereth that we are dust.” he remembereth that we are dust. Some of us take better care of our dust, some of us take more care of our dust than others. Some of us look dustier than others. He knows the story. The Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world. He knew the Fall would come [he also knows mankind was placed on a planet that was or would become infested with Satan and his demons, depending on one’s interpretation of when Satan was actually cast back down to earth, as Jesus said he saw Satan being cast down, like lightning falling from the sky (Luke 10:18)]. He made provision before he started the process. And as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pities those who fear him, you know, you sin, you make a mistake, do something wrong, you think ‘Oh Lord, here I am, I’ve compromised, I’m trying so hard,’ you know, you’ve got children at home, you raise children, if they come and they admit they’re wrong, they ask forgiveness, that’s different. By the way, asking for forgiveness is much different from saying ‘I’m sorry,’ those are two different things, Judas was sorry. But to come and say “forgive me,” means you’re owning something. And you don’t want your children groveling for the next five years, ‘Oh, I’m not worthy, are you going to let me go in the refrigerator again, can I turn the faucet on and drink water, I’m not worthy,’ you know, as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth us, because he remembers, he knows our frame, and he remembers that we are dust. What am I saying? Do your best, and commit the rest. Relax, he loves you. He’s paid the price, he knows what we’re made of, he knows about the Fall, he knows about redemption, do your best, and commit the rest. Do your best, commit the rest. And, read chapter 3 for next week. Let’s stand and pray. And if you’re here tonight and you don’t know this God, you don’t know Christ, you don’t know your sins are forgiven, at the end of the service get up here, we’d love to pray with you, give you a Bible, give you some literature to read, just give you that opportunity to this evening ask Christ for forgiveness, to make him your own…[transcript of a connective expository sermon on Genesis 2:4-25, given by Pastor Joe Focht, Calvary Chapel of Philadelphia, 13500 Philmont Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19116]