Dr. Bradford Reaves
Crossway Christian Fellowship
Hagerstown, MD, USA
www.mycrossway.org
View this and other messages at: https://mycrossway.churchcenter.com/channels/8118
I want to go back for a minute and review my message from last week. This is so incredibly important, especially as we move on next week into the fall of man.
First, I showed you how some have erroneously reasoned that Genesis chapter 2 is some kind of epilogue to Genesis chapter 1 or another version of creation. We learned that, unlike western thought which is more linear, Hebraic thinking will often circle around after a narrative to zoom in on an important thought and this is the case with Chapter 2. Moses, the writer of Genesis, is taking us deeper into Day #6. All of Genesis Chapter 2 after the Sabbath discourse, is a more detailed event of Genesis 1:26-31.
Now, the other thing I shared with you is how God created everything man needed to thrive in creation and specifically the Garden. We’ll go a little deeper into that today, but what I wanted you to see is that everything in creation was in perfect order for man to live and live abundantly. We didn’t have to till the land or plant a seed to survive; that came after the fall. That’s the meaning of verse 5; that the ground was not yet cursed.
God also gave man full dominion over God’s creation on earth. As the pinnacle of creations, man was appointed as managers, if you will, over God’s beautiful creation. It was man who relinquished that dominion over to Satan, by the first sin. Through that, Satan became a perverted viceroy of this world.
And listen to this, we continue to relinquish that dominion today through our sin and rebellion. We subjugate our family, our lives, our jobs, our churches, our marriages, whatever it is through our continued transgressions and wherever we fail to place Jesus as Lord of our life.
So there are a few more important points in Genesis Chapter 2 that I want to cover today and then we will go pretty deep into Chapter 3 and we’re going to pick it up here at verse 8 with the description of the Garden
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Genesis 2:8–17 ESV
8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 10 A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. 14 And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. 15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
I. Man’s Location
Now, there’s a much we could get into here, but I want to focus on what is central to my point - that man surrendered his dominion and continues to surrender his dominion under the deception of Satan. God created all the vegetation needed for the earth on day 3:
Genesis 1:11–13 ESV
11 And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. 12 The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.
And in all of this, God planted a garden for man to live. This was not just a beautiful garden like Jerry and Brenda have in their backyard, or a park. This was an expansive area of lush constant fruit-bearing trees. There were two special trees here, look at verse 9:
Genesis 2:9 ESV
9 And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
These were supernatural trees. Apparently, it had special properties to sustain life eternally. As long as one ate from that tree, they would live forever. This tree was so powerful in sustaining life eternally that even after Adam fell and Eve fell, they would have continued to live eternally.
Genesis 3:22 ESV
22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—”
Everything that man needed to live and live abundantly in eternal relationship with God was there. The was not sickness, danger, war, strife, crime, hunger, or anything else that would even remotely threaten the well-being of man.
Abundance isn't God's provision for me to live in luxury, but his provision for me to give Him glory and help others to live. How wonderful to know that when Jesus Christ speaks to you and to me, he enables you to understand yourself, to die to that self because of the cross, and brings the real you to birth to live life in the abundance that God created you to enjoy.
So many people are constantly living on the premise that their purpose in life is to enjoy as many pleasures in life as possible. I want to tell you though that pleasure without God, without the sacred boundaries, will actually leave you emptier than before. And this is biblical truth, this is experiential truth. The loneliest people in the world are amongst the wealthiest and most famous who found no boundaries within which to live. And even in the Garden of Eden, God gave man boundaries.
II. Man’s Prohibition
But there was another tree in the garden called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It was not a poisonous tree. Gen 2:16-17 “16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Now, eating could only occur under one premise. The only way man could possibly eat of that tree was if he directly disobeyed God; and if he didn’t disobey God, he would never know evil. But as soon as he disobeyed God, he would experientially have come to the knowledge of evil, because evil is disobedience.
The tree was a test. It wasn’t that there was anything in the tree that was toxic, the tree was just a test. And if man ate, the act of disobedience would be the evil that he experienced; and God would then curse him for that disobedience, and he would die. So in the whole created earth, in the magnificent Eden, the garden of God, there was just one test, one test.
And we know the sad story in Chapter 3. They had everything else. Satan who was an angel in the garden of God, who was there in all his beauty tempted Eve; and she fell, and Adam followed, and they knew evil.
Man was happy in the garden that God made for him. And God gave him the most wonderful environment, and fed him with the most credible array, and loaded that garden up with the jewels, and the wonders and the beauties of that place were staggering.
Adam knew God as generous. God didn’t make an earth full of riches so that everybody could be poor. God loaded this little planet with so much wealth and so much wonder and beauty. It was all there for Adam to enjoy with just one warning: “Don’t eat of that tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
In the day that you define the one mandate of God- not to define good and evil- everything wrong ensues. So, all that happened in that garden when Adam and Eve defied God was simply the denial of God’s prerogative to be the definer of good and evil. And when you look at the world now, with thousands of laws for nearly every circumstance. What’s really happened, ladies and gentlemen, we are living in a time in where our moral definitions have gone.
Malcolm Muckridge talked about this years ago, "It is difficult to resist the conclusion that 20th-century man has decided to abolish himself. Tired of the struggle to be himself, he has created boredom out of his own affluence, impotence out of his own erotomania, and vulnerability out of his own strength. He himself blows the trumpet, which brings the walls of his own cities crashing down. Until at last, having educated himself into imbecility, having drugged and polluted himself into stupefaction, he keels over a weary old brontosaurus and becomes extinct.” (Zacharias)
So ultimately we are looking to define 4 things in our society: evil, justice, love, and forgiveness. And we have come to a place in our culture where instead of turning to the One that has already defined them in undeniable terms, we are attempting to define them ourselves; the very ones that have perverted God’s definition of good and evil. It’s like asking your 3-year-old to pay the bills: “Do you want to pay the mortgage or the electric bill this week?” and he says, “let's buy paw patrol.”
Do you know of the one place in history where these 4 converge? The one place in history, where evil, justice, love, and forgiveness come down to a hill called Calvary. The evil that is in the heart of man, the justice that God has, the love that He portrayed to the very end, and forgiveness even in his words, ‘Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing
III. Man’s Association
Now, I want to spend most of my time here with the creation of woman. Please understand that this is not something that is in the realm of political correctness. Let’s look at it honestly and biblically and apply to our lives carefully.
Genesis 2:18–22 ESV
18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 19 Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.
Remember we are still on Day 6, chapter 1, verse 27 – “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” So God has finished making Adam and God says, “It is not good that the man should be alone.” We can take this statement in a couple of ways. First, it could mean that God has some sort of ‘aha moment’ and realize there was something wrong in his plan. I think we can agree that isn’t the case with an all-powerful, all-knowing God. So that leaves us with another explanation and that is God is stating the facts and this is not how God intended man to live - alone. God created man to live in partnership with women. In other words, there is a Divine design in marriage.
1 Corinthians 11:7 (ESV)
7 [man] is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man.
Now, what does this mean? Well, first notice that Adam was created from the dust of the ground, while Eve was created from the flesh of Adam. Man is created and given dominion to be sovereign ruler over all the created world, to care for the creation according to God’s divine plan. Man was given rulership of the world.
he bears the role of ruler in this world. The fall didn’t change any of that. The man still bears authority even after the fall. “Your desire shall be for your husband,” – says God to the woman after the fall – “and he shall rule over you.”
And so, man there’s the glory of God because he’s given headship, he’s given the responsibility to rule. And that takes you back into verse 3: “Christ is the head of every man, the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.” There is even responsibility of headship and of rulership within the Trinity as well as within human creation.
Woman is described here then in verse 7 as the glory of man. Man was made to manifest God’s authority; woman was made to manifest man’s authority. The woman is a vice-regent, if you will, who rules in the place of man, as it were, or carries out man’s will, as man rules in the place of God and carries out God’s will. Man in a sense shines with the direct light of God, while woman shines with the derived light from man. She comes along to help man.
Man is the image and glory of God. Woman is also the image of God, but she is the glory of man. A man is essentially incomplete without a woman. God can make man out of the dust to reflect His glory, and He can also make something wonderful out of the side of man to be his helper to man.
“As far as saving grace and sanctification goes, a woman comes as deeply into communion with God as a man. She is made equally in the image of God, and that image is equally restored through faith in Jesus Christ. She is as much capable of being like Jesus as any man is capable of it. She is capable of an eternal reward like any man would be in the spiritual realm; there is no difference. But in the human realm, she bears a position under the authority of man; therefore she reflects the glory of man. I want you to understand, she is intellectually, morally, spiritually the equal of man. But she is unique with a womanly distinctive that no man can claim and every man is incomplete and this is what was not good." (MacArthur)
So God starts parading in front of him all of these animals and Adam’s job is to give all these animals a name. It probably wasn’t too far into the process when Adam begins to see a pattern here. There’s a male dog and a female. There is a male giraffe and a female giraffe. There’s a male lion and a female lion. But “for Adam, there was not found a helper suitable for him.” There was nothing in that entire creation that went by him which he noted was suitable for him.
God is the original anesthesiologist, and God is the original surgeon, and He caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam because God was going to do an operation. And it says, “He slept.” He slept while God operated. And here was the operation. “He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place.” After that, God sewed up his side by some divine miracle, He brought the woman to the man in all her perfection. Now he’s ready, because he’s seen the parade of creatures who all have partners, and he’s come to this clear conclusion that none of them are suitable for him.
I like the fact that God made Eve from Adam’s side. That to me says quite a bit. God didn’t take Eve from man’s head in order that she would lord over him, nor did Eve come from Adam’s foot, for him to trample over her. But He took Eve from man’s side, under his arm so that she could be his partner. I also think it is critical that God considers the woman a suitable helper for him. There is nothing else in creation that is capable of the role that is given to woman. Man is given dominion over the earth, but that mandate to rule and be fruitful and multiply is only found and competed with woman.
And now God brings the woman to him and he gives the first love poem:
Genesis 2:23 ESV
23 Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”
This is absolutely incredible to pull apart here. This became a common expression to speak of family relations. In fact, in the Jewish society, they use it very often, in fact, still do to refer to someone who is in the family. Laban says to Jacob, Gen 29:14 “14 and Laban said to him, “Surely you are my bone and my flesh!” And he stayed with him a month.” But Adam is recognizing that the creation of woman was characteristically different from anything else in all of creation!
Remember, he was going through the animal kingdom and naming all the animals, buck and doe, stallion and mare, bull and cow, and so on. All of these animals, God created with a command. When God created Adam, he created Adam out of the dust of the earth and breaths the breath of life into him. Now God makes woman and he does so in a way in a completely unique way; he creates woman from man. That’s not a creation of inferiority, but of honor and for a unique and critical purpose.
When God brings Eve to Adam, Adam looks at her and she is doesn’t exactly look like him but what He sees, he adores. And notice, she hasn’t even done anything or said anything. Her very presence is an overwhelming gift to Adam. I want you to remember that, folks. Your spouse is a gift. Your marriage is a gift from God. Because she came out of him, there is a deeper longing for connection. There is an instinctive unity that exists that isn’t found with a rooster and a hen, or a ram and a ewe. Adam recognizes this and so he doesn’t name her Eve, he says her name will be ishah because she came out of ish.
I want you to realize that the word ishah is not rooted in the word ish, which means man. Even though it sounds like it, the words are similar but different - kind of like man and woman. The word is a beautiful word and it is rooted in the word “soft.”
That was his first impression about a woman: she was soft. And that was by God’s design; she was soft. When he came down to one word to define her, it was “soft.” “She shall be called soft,” – and a little play on words – “because she was taken out of man.” Man is ish, she is ishah: she came from man, she is soft.
IV. Man’s Unification
Then there is a final comment in verses 24 and 25: Gen 2:24-25 “24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” That is a comment from the Creator establishing the foundation for marriage and sexual behavior. There’s only one kind of sexual behavior that God recognizes in the human realm, and that is the sexual behavior between a man and a woman who have left father and mother, and cleaving to each other have become one flesh.
I think this one flesh concept is critical to understanding marriage. It first refers to sexual union. That was God’s first mandate to man and woman, “be fruitful and multiply, filling the earth” (Gen 1:27). By the way, filling the earth goes beyond procreation like rabbits. We are to be part of glorifying God by creating other image-bearers. But the one-flesh relationship, especially in a post-fall world refers to recognizing the essential partnership of man and woman and also recognizing that when you do not agree, you are not enemies. Let me say that again to you folks:” Your spouse is not your enemy.”
1 Peter 3:7 ESV
7 Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.
Proverbs 31:10 ESV
10 An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels.
The other important part of this portion of Scripture is the concept of leaving and cleaving. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother” must be understood relatively and as a prescription for the loyalty and intimacy that a man must give his wife—he must “leave” his family. The union with his wife is so profound that he leaves his family even though he remains with them. His first obligation and loyalties are to his wife. So many marriages fail today at precisely this point: Husbands and wives fail to leave their parents.
The following requirement, “and hold fast to his wife” has been made much too tame in our translation. The exact sense is, “and sticks to his wife,” even as Israel was repeatedly urged to stick to the Lord in a covenantal relationship (cf. Deuteronomy 10:20; 11:22; 13:4). The term “cleave” (“stick”) here indicates that marriage is to be viewed as a covenant. Leaving and cleaving involves a public declaration in the sight of God. Marriage is not a private matter. It involves a declaration of intention and a reorganizing of relationship.
The creation of Eve and the command to leave and cleave occurred on the sixth day as the culmination of the creation process. This is radically primary to creation and civilization. Jesus himself called on this passage to establish the fact that marriage is an ordinance of God
Matthew 9:4–6 ESV
4 But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts? 5 For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? 6 But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he then said to the paralytic—“Rise, pick up your bed and go home.”
So you have not only the creation of man on day six, but you have the creation of marriage and the definition of sexual conduct. Everything after that is a result of the fall and a perversion of God’s definition. Genesis 2:24-25 will be quoted by the apostle Paul and Jesus Himself. This establishes God’s design for man, made in His image, to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, and rule over it. He does it through marriage.
Two women do not make a marriage. Two men coming together, that is not a marriage. Any sexual conduct outside of marriage is also a violation of God’s design. Culture does not define marriage or sexual union. The gay marriage debate is really a battle between Satan and God. God’s idea of marriage is good and always works if we follow His plan but satan’s ideas for marriage are to counter God’s ideas for marriage and to cause strife and discord in the world at the same time. The state is not the definer of marriage. It is part of the creation. It is designed by God given to man for God’s glory.
I know there are some here who have loved ones who are engaged in lifestyles that are in opposition to the biblical pattern of marriage and sexual union. And this creates some conflict within you. How do you reconcile the dichotomy of your faith and your family member’s choice? There’s no easy answer to that, some people have chosen to break fellowship with those people and I think that’s a mistake. Nor is the answer to go along like nothing is wrong. But you can still love your cousin, or sister, or child who is making these choices, while at the same time model a godly marriage that will be a witness to the people you know.
And then there’s an interesting final comment in verse 25: “And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” D you know why they weren’t ashamed? Well, they weren’t ashamed because they didn’t know any evil. They didn’t know that sexual desire could be used for wicked purposes. They didn’t know that sexual desire could be perverted and twisted. They didn’t have any wicked thoughts running around in their imaginations.
They had no capacity to feel shame because they didn’t know evil existed. Shame is produced by the consciousness of the evil that may exist in a thing. We feel shame in our lives as sinners because we have evil thoughts because we have evil desires.
Hebrews 13:4 ESV
4 Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.
So the woman was made for man, and there is where the relationship begins. This is the greatest and most blessed relationship that God has ever given. It doesn’t say God created man, then He created woman, and then He had man a club or any other kind of relationship. The relationship for a man in which he finds his greatest fulfillment and in which righteousness is passed from one generation to the next is marriage. And that is the defining relationship for man. And immediately after the fall it just gets assaulted. Conflict comes into it, and then you have polygamy, wickedness, adultery, homosexuality, fornication, rape, incest, prostitution, seduction; and that’s the story of the rest of history. And then you can add divorce.
Love is a commitment that will be tested in the most vulnerable areas of spirituality, a commitment that will force you to make some very difficult choices. It is a commitment that demands that you deal with your lust, your greed, your pride, your power, your desire to control, your temper, your patience, and every area of temptation that the Bible clearly talks about. It demands the quality of commitment that Jesus demonstrates in His relationship to us.
Jack Benny was rather shy when he was young. One day at work he saw a young lady that greatly attracted his attention. But he was too shy to speak to her. So he went to the florist & ordered one red rose to be sent to her without any card enclosed. And every day he repeated that order.
Well, after 4 days of receiving one red rose each day, the young lady went to the florist & asked who was sending them. The florist told her that it was some guy who worked where she did by the name of Jack Benny. “Yeah,” she said, “I think I know who he is.”
So she searched Jack out & asked him why he was sending her those roses. He told her that he wanted to ask her out, & she accepted his invitation. And other dates followed that first one. But still, every day, she continued to receive one red rose.
Then Jack & Mary got engaged, & Mary figured that the red roses would stop. But still, they came. Finally, they were married, & even on the honeymoon she continued to receive one red rose each day. But once the honeymoon was over, she figured that the roses would stop.
But month after month, then year after year, all their married life, every day without fail she received a red rose. Finally, Jack Benny died. But the very next day, here came another red rose. Thinking that maybe the florist somehow hadn’t heard, she called to tell him of Jack’s death & that he could now stop sending the roses.
He answered, “But you don’t understand. Before he died, Jack made all the arrangements. You’ll receive one red rose every day for the rest of your life.”
