God, Creation and Man

Transcript

GRS 2-1
10/27/2004
God, Creation and Man
Genesis 1-2
Gil Rugh

I want to begin an overview of the Book of Genesis with you. So our goal will not be to work through the details of the book or its specific passages, but to move through the book in the coming weeks and gets a grasp of the overall flow of the book, of the content of the individual chapters, how the book fits together as you move from chapter to chapter and so on. And I think that will be a help as on different occasions in Bible studies or in your own study, you get into the details of the word. Alright, the Book of Genesis the one book or one of two books that everybody can find in their Bible, the Book of Genesis and the Book of Revelation. Start at the beginning and you start at Genesis. Close with the ending and you end with Revelation. Let’s talk about the title of the book first thing, it’s called Genesis.

The Hebrew title of the book is in the beginning and I just take it and from the introductory words “in the beginning.” We get our title from the Greek it means origin. You have on here on the screen that LXX and many of you are aware of that that stands for the Septuagint, means the seventy. So the LXX is simply the Roman numeral for seventy. And if you read the Book of Commentary is a material for the Old Testament, you will often see the LXX and that means it is referring to the Greek translation of the Old Testament, why the seventy? Well, a very rarely Jewish writing much of it fanciful as you will hear said that the Hebrew member of original Old Testament was mostly written in Hebrew. It was translated into Greek and this writing, which much of it is fanciful from early Jewish times said that there were seventy two Jewish scholars who in seventy two days made a perfect translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew to Greek. Now that’s probably not the way it happened, but that’s where the title the seventy comes from because it was about seventy scholars who made the translation in seventy days, according to that account.

Reality, this translation was made somewhere between 250 years before Christ down to about a 100 years before Christ. And the whole Old Testament probably was done and not all at one time, but during that period of time. It becomes very important because of how early it is. In fact the New Testament writers use the Septuagint as the Old Testament that they refer to. It would have been the Bible of the day because Greek was the language of the day. So the people of New Testament times, the Jews even would have been basically using the Septuagint, the purposes of the book. You know a little bit of knowledge background on the Septuagint where we got the name? What were the purposes? Well the first purpose is to introduce the sovereign God. You start with Genesis, you start with God, in the beginning God created. And through the book of Genesis, we will see God in different aspects of his work. But it introduces the Sovereign God. And that such is stayed for the whole rest of the bible. Secondly, it introduces the beginnings of everything. You come to the Book of Genesis to find out how everything begin and will say more about that as we move along. And thirdly and very importantly, it introduces the beginnings of Israel because remember from Genesis Chapter 12 all the way through your Bible through the four Gospels until Acts Chapter 2, the Bible focuses on the nation Israel. So Genesis introduces the Sovereign God, introduces the beginnings of everything, but then very specifically introduces the beginnings of the nation Israel.

The theme of the book, the main theme or subject matters the book is origins and in the Book of Genesis we find the origin of the world, naturally how everything was created, how the world came into existence. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and then some of the details that we are referred to in the origin of the human race, how did we get here, did we evolve even though God created this, so the origin of the human race. The origin of the various nations. What about the nations of the world? Where do they come from? How did we get the nations of the world? You find that out of from the Book of Genesis and the origin of the nation Israel. The nation of all the nations that God is directly working with in his redemptive plan the nation, Israel. So those four themes come out of the book four main areas of subject matter. The human author of the book is Moses. And let me just mention, when we talk about authors I may not always clarify the human author, but I think we are clear.

The author of scripture ultimately is God. All scripture is God-breathed. So when I make reference to the author, you understand. I am assuming you understand that the author of all scripture is God. The human author, the human instrument the God used to write the Book of Moses as well as the rest of the five Books of the Law; Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy was the man Moses. So he is the human author. That would have been somewhere around 1450 down to 1400 years before Christ. Somewhere in that period of time, the Exodus would have occurred about 1445 BC. The Moses is writing this than long after these events occurred. But the Spirit of God directed him in the writing other, there would have been other records and so on, perhaps kept traditions passed down and then the Spirit of God guided him, though we do have an accurate record. But you understand, it was committed to writing in the form we have it preserved for us by the direction of the Holy Spirit through the man Moses and then subsequent man who passed it on that Moses committed it to writing.

Two major divisions of the Book, the first 11 chapters, we could call about the nations. And then from Chapter 12 to Chapter 50, it’s about the nation. So general creation coming to the development of the individual nations of the world through the first 11 chapters. Then fall in discern we focus on the nation Israel in Chapters 12-50. The general breakdown, how do these chapters flow? The general breakdown of the nations. First 11 Chapters: Chapters 1 and 2, you have creation. I will give more the detail on Chapters 1 and 2 in a moment. General kind of creation in Chapter1 and Chapter 2. The fall in Chapters 3-5. The actual fall in discern occurs in Chapter 3. That will put the Chapters 3 to 5 together because they are connected and you have then the climax of the fall and its impact on the human race with the flood in the Chapters 6-9. And then the Tower of Babel in chapters 10 and 11. Chapter 10 about the nations, the vision of the world into nations and then with Tower of Babel, you have the division in the languages. Security through the first 11 Chapters, you note there are four events there; Creation, Fall, Flood, and Babel. We can breakdown the first 11 Chapters.

Then in Chapters 12-50, it’s about the nation, not the nation’s plural, but the nation singular; the nation is Israel. And you have four men that are key. Abraham Chapters 12-24, a Genesis or about Abraham. Isaac Chapters 25-27, Jacob Chapters 28-36, Joseph Chapters 37-50. So key man in the early years of Israel’s history as a nation, Joseph becoming a key player here because it is through his positioning by God that the nation will descend in the Egypt and spend 400 years there in bondage. This is where the Book of Genesis will end with Israel; the family of Jacob. Joseph is a son in prison or in Egypt. Exodus will open up with him having been made slaves and we move into the Exodus. Alright, let’s look at some of the overview of the details in the first 2 Chapters of Genesis. Genesis one is about the creation of the world and everything in it. So in a summary fashion in we what have as 31 verses, you have everything that exists brought into existence, so the creation of the world by that I mean, the world in everything in it. The prologue is the first 2 verses, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void and darkness was over the surface of the deep. The Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. And I will call that the prologue to the Book, the first two verses and verse 1 is an absolute statement of the beginning of the world. This is when it all was called into existence.

Now God has no beginning, no end. Then our finite minds cannot grasp that. To us everything we think of in the context of having a beginning and an end. There just no way for my mind to grasp eternity that God has always existed, how I do get a handle on that? I mean, I have to measure with time and think well, multiply trillions of years ago, yes he is existed and I just cannot, you know grasp that. But we get to the beginning, we are talking about the beginning of the creation, that’s where John begins his gospel remember. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. Literally, you can translate John 1:1 in the beginning the word already was, because when you get to the beginning as we know the beginning Genesis 1:1 Jesus Christ already existed. Because he not only was with God, he is himself God. Remember, Moses is writing this and it be in the time of the Exodus from Egypt and the 40 years wilderness wanderings because remember Moses led them up until the time they would go into the Promise Land, but he didn’t take them in there. And as he commits this to writing, it is a reminder to Israel that the God of Israel is the God who created the world and everything in it. So he is sovereign overall. And this one verse in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth refutes atheism, polytheism, pantheism, all those ‘isms’ because here we have the living God with an act of creation.

Verse 2 expands on verse 1 and this is going to be pattern, we will see later. So he created the heavens and the earth. At this stage the earth is without form, its void, its empty. Darkness was over the world as it existed, then the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the water. How we have the world created, covered with water and prepared now for God to act. Somehow there is gap between verses 1 and 2. This view is perhaps more popular in a previous generation or two ago. I don’t think that there is anything to indicate that there is a gap between verses 1 and 2. I think that gap was created in the way it is as people believe well the original creation is Genesis 1, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Then verse 2 and the earth was or became formless and void. And so they like to put the fall of Satan between verses 1 and 2 and then all the dinosaurs and everything else in that gap as well, that creates major theological problems. I think formless and void just describes the condition of the world as God initially created it before he creates the order in it that he wants. And that would be developed in the coming days of creation.

Obviously, he could have, if it had been planned called it all into existence immediately, but he chose to unfold it over a period of 6 days. And that will be significant as we will see. You have some verses there, formless and void without form, that does have to mean judgment. And I have put some verses down there for you, we want turn you to job 2:67, job 6:18, 12:24, Deuteronomy 32:10, Solomon 7 verse 40, where you can see Hebrew word Tohu without form and it’s not necessarily indicating judgment because some people say well if the earth was formless. God wouldn’t create something formless unless He was going to create it. It was out the following 6 days that bring form and order, what would it be? I mean what we are saying is God could have created all on the first day immediately in its finished form, but he didn’t. Here’s how he did it. He called into existence the basic material and then he proceeded to work on it. You say, well what about darkness. Darkness was moving over the surface of the deep. Well, darkness doesn’t always symbolize judgment and you have to know through this section darkness is part of what God calls is good in his creation. We will look at what he says is good, but just look down in verse 31 of Chapter 1, There was evening and there was morning the sixth day. We create this out at the end of the creating days and seventh day he will rest.

Look at the first part of verse 31. “God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good”. The darkness was part of his intention. Psalm 104, if you want to turn there, you can, otherwise I will read it for you, you may get there before me. Psalm 104, you see that God’s purpose included the sun and the darkness, verse 19 of Psalm 104, He made the moon for the seasons; the sun knows the place of its setting. You appoint darkness and it becomes night in which all the beasts of the forest prowl about. The young lions roar after their prey and seek their food from God. When the sun rises, they withdraw and lie down in their dens, man goes out to his work and his labor until evening. It’s part of a pattern the God has created for his creation. So darkness doesn’t necessarily refer to a judgment. This is part of with God created. Back in Genesis 1, the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters and here you have the presence of the Spirit of God. God has always existed as one god, but three persons. Not one God manifesting himself in three forms. One God manifesting himself existing eternally in three persons. And so here you have the Spirit of God hovering over the waters that got the sun has called into existence. Because remember John 1 tells us that all things came into being through Jesus Christ and nothing was created apart from him. So he is the creator acting here. We move through the days of creation now.

Now we have set it up. God’s created the heavens and the earth His initial creation of the heavens and the earth are they are formless and void and enveloped in darkness, but the Spirit of God is hovering. We have that note there that moving over the waters, hovering over the waters are used of the eagle hovering over her young in Deuteronomy 32:11 indicating we are ready now for the progression of creation and the Spirit is there prepare to act. The days of creation and four reasons were listed here: why the days are 24-hour days? You know, with the development of science and really with the development of the thinking that we have to explain the existence of all things without reverting to God. We have adjustments made by people who want to try to wedge science in the bible0. So some would say let’s put a gap between verses 1 and 2, that way we can put millions of years in there and the dinosaurs and all of that. And then the earth is destroyed because of fall of Satan and we have the situation of verse 2. But you wouldn’t get that idea just reading the first 2 verses of Genesis. Another view is let’s make the days of Genesis 1 Ages, so it is called the Day-Age view, is in one day with the Lord as a thousand years and thousand years as one day, so maybe these creations days ten thousands of years, millions of years, and we are not going into the details of all of that. That creates all kinds of problems because if you are going to create and go through each day and say now that was created, then you have to wait millions of years for the next creating day, and the next and the next to find out you have more problems in your soul.

Four reasons why I have think the day is 24-hour days. Morning and evening are used after each day. On the first day, there was evening and there was morning one day in verse 5. Verse 8, there was evening and there was morning, the second day. That patterns follow through all the days. It is a normal way of talking about what we have as a normal day, 24-hour day, morning and evening. Secondly, you have a number preceding day and in the Old Testament that always means a 24-hour day. You have one day, you have two days, you have three days, you have four days, and throughout the Old Testament when you have the word Day preceded by a number, it’s always referring to a normal 24-hour day.

In Exodus chapter 20, there is a parallel between the seventh day and the Sabbath, the seventh day as we know as seventh day. And there it’s connected to God resting on the seventh day and that has not made an endless age or an indefinite period of time that was a literal 24-hour period. We will go to Exodus 20 in a little bit, so we are not going to go that passage right now. And the normal reader as you read, this you would think well, he did this on the first day, he did this on the second day, that’s what it would mean. You didn’t solve anything by trying to make adjustments in interpreting the Bible to fit the thinking of where men are, who are trying to come up with answers to the basic issue of something is rather than something is not, I mean, look around things exist. How do they get here? Well, we have to explain it, but you cannot use God in your explanation. Well, then you have to have come up with some or other way, what they have come up with it just happened, in all given long enough time, it just evolved. We are not going in all the flaws and that and I wouldn’t be the most capable person to go into that. But I can tell you a theological reason why you can’t put the dinosaurs, cavemen and all of that into either a gap between verses 1 and 2 or into an extended period of time making these days ages in length and that is Roman Chapter 5 verse 12 says By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin. So it’s not until the fall occurs in Chapter 3 that sin enters the world and as a result of sin, death enters the world. These views are tried to put a gap between verses 1 and 2 or makes the days of Genesis and age of Adam and Eve living on a graveyard, but Roman says there was no death until Adam’s sinned.

We say he is talking about this present world, not the one that existed. Yes, the one that you made up in your science fiction mind. Where do you get that previous world in the Bible? Well, we have to be able to fits on it, there is no problem. Hebrews chapter 11 verse 3 says by faith we understand. Turn there, Hebrews 11 verse 3 not understand this is a matter of faiths. That doesn’t mean that what the Bible says is not consistent with true science, not falsely named science, but true science. Hebrews 11:3, by faith we understand that the worlds, the ages were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things, which are visible. Very simply God called into existence, how do you know that? By faith, you mean by faith.. Well, I believe what God says, I believe the account of Genesis. Also you just fly in the face of science, not true science, not the facts of science which are consistent with what the Bible reveals, not with what evolution would claim. It’s takes great to faith to be an evolutionist from the little bit that I would understand. I believe the God did it the way He did. Now if there is a God, there is nothing inconsistent. Inconsistent with what the Bible says and with science, but what you have to do is believe what the Bible says and that God did it as the Bible says. The person who chooses not to believe that, then has to come up with another explanation. But you will understand that’s just their own creation.

Alright, so my understanding is the account flows just as we have it in Genesis 1. I think we have those with in the evangelical camp who claim otherwise. Just a little aside. You remember they say there are different genre of literature. For example, you had what they call apocalyptic literature. Apocalyptic literature like the book of Revelation dealing with future things. Well, that they say, you don’t interpret literally because that is its own genre of literature, its own kind of literature. So there are special ways you interpret that. Well then they say the book of Genesis is a creation genre. And so we don’t interpret that literally and it was never intended to be interpreted literally. Thus reading the writings on this of one man who begin his teaching career and perhaps the most well-known evangelical seminary in the country is now wandered into this kind of academic foolishness. This argument is Genesis 1, 2 and 3, never was intended to be accepted literally. It is creation genre. Well says who? Now I have got a problem because Paul in Roman chapter 5 is taking it literally. One man Adam sinned, literal sin and literal death come into the world and second Adam Christ literal man brought the solution to the problem caused by the first Adam, but the first Adam is fiction. So Christ is bringing an answer to fiction, now all theology begins to unravel.

Now there is what they call wisdom has not worked at all to tie it all together, but normal people reading their bible would never ever, ever, ever be able to track it. So we just take it as it is and it explains everything we need to know. Alright, let’s look at the days of creation briefly. First day verses 3 to 5, that’s light and darkness and darkness was present at the beginning, you know why? God haven’t created any light. It happens when all the lights are gone in this room, we have darkness. Verses 3 to 5, we are going to correct that. God’s going to create light. And as I mentioned darkness was part of that, which is called good. Then God called, verse 3, God said let there be light and there was light that calls the light into existence that shows His sovereignty, His power, He gives the name, God called the light day. The darkness He called night. So now is divided light and darkness, now we don’t have a sun yet, we don’t have a moon, and we don’t have the heavenly bodies. Where do you get light? God said let there be light, there was light, yeah, but he doesn’t have a sun. Oh boy! That’s a problem. Is it really a problem? I mean, so God said let there be light, there be light, that’s it. Not so difficult for God, is it? What is not present or the heavenly bodies that will end up being, well we will talk about what they are here for in a moment. So God’s sovereignty in bringing on light into existence dividing the light and the darkness. Alright, that’s the first day. The second day, verses 6 to 8 He creates the sky and the water.

Some of the creation research, John Whitcomb, who was here recently, and Henry Morris have written extensively on this in their book, The Genesis Flood, and in other writings. They indicate that probably a canopy enveloped the earth that accounts for the tropical atmosphere of the earth and incidentally didn’t I just hear that they had found vegetarian dinosaurs that eat vegetation in summer, the ice caps, that they didn’t know they were there and some kind of dinosaurs they just found. Any rate, He separated the sky and the water. Verses 6 to 8, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, let it separate the waters from the waters." So you know, He separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse. So the indication seems to be you have the sky separating waters up here and waters down here. The earth is covered by water and then there is sky and the then there is water above the sky, that’s what we talk about the canopy of water that envelope the earth above the sky because the waters are divided by an expanse of sky. Alright, the third day verses 9 to 13, you have land and vegetation. You have a repeated expression, it was good and I noted here that it was good refers two things, the aesthetic beauty of what God had created and it was good because it fulfills God’s purposes and that will be the aspect we would look and see somebody is good enough. You know you get landscaping done, you say, oh, that’s good. It’s beautiful and also fulfils the purpose. You wanted that bush there to cover that defect or whatever. Wouldn’t be what God is doing covering defects, but it fit his purposes, this is why He brought it into existence. So you have land and vegetation created on the third day.

On the fourth day, He creates the heavenly lights, verses 14 to 19 and you have the expression that it was good in verse 4 and verse 10, verse 12, verse 18, verse 21, and verse 25, verse 31, I may have these listed for you later and they will be up on the screen. Heavenly lights are created, three purposes of lights given in verses 14 and following to divide the day and the night. So now you are going to have the sun and the moon to control day and night. Establish the pattern of day and night as we know, that’s why some people say oh, we could haven’t had morning and evening, we didn’t have the sun and the moon. Because God created the day and operated on that, but now the way of going to function for us in our time is it is going to be controlled by the heavenly lights. The sun ruling the day, the moon ruling the night as we might say. So one of the purposes of light was to divide day and night. Verse 14 to separate the day from the night. Secondly, was to divide time. You have seasons, years, etc. Let them be for signs, for seasons, for days, for years and to provide light. Verse 15 let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth. It was so. We say oh wow, we have got a lot of lights out there and now and all the universes would discover. Well that all reveals the glory of God, something of His majesty and infinite sovereignty and power, but with the hard of His creation of everything is the earth. So lights were seen in that context.

The fifth day verses 20 to 23, air and water creatures. The sixth day, land creatures, that is going to bring us the man. Verses 24 and following and you note the amount of space given to that, because obviously man is the climax of God’s creating work. But verse 24, the earth brings forth living creatures after their kind, cattle, creeping things and verse 25 God made the beast of the earth after their kind. God saw that was good. Then God said "Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness, verse 26, so man is created in the image of God. Human beings share in God’s image as personal beings. We reflect the character of God, he is a personal being, involves the spiritual quality shared by God and Man, the capacity for self-consciousness, speech, moral discernment and those things that God make us persons distinct from animals. Now for those committed evolution they can’t make a distinction and yet they do in reality, they don’t live in the world they claim to be. I saw one recently believe it was a well-known media person remarking they didn’t know what they could make a choice as if came to the death one of their children or one of their animals.

You know, we say what kind of moronic statement. But when you came down to it, probably it could make the choice. It’s easy to say oh, I wouldn’t know what choice I would make, because he is not called to make the choice. But in our hearts we know there is a difference. We are created in the image of God. The particular area he picks out here is Man is created in the God’s image to serve as God’s regent ruling over all the rest of creation, you know how it goes, you let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, verse 26 and let them rule over the rest of creation. So the Sovereign God was overall has created a being in His image to function of you will as his representative ruling over the creation that He has established. Verse 28, God blessed them, He created them in His image male and female. He created them. You note in the beginning he gives the title man, this is taken as a put down today. But for us you believe the Bible, it goes back the generic use of man to refer to the human race. Verse 27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God he created Him male and female, He created them. Male and female as man, as mankind. God has created them in the woman as well female, as well as male as in God’s image and likeness in that sense. God blessed them; God said to them, "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it; and just a side note, but having of children and the propagating of the race was part of God’s intended purpose from the before the fall because they were to fill the earth, produce, have children, and so on. That word “subdue” in verse 28 implies their sovereignty, their ruling over something controlling it, directing it. Man is the rule in every sphere of God’s creation, he is over it, he is the peak of God’s creation. He alone of all the God has created is in the image of God. So man is unique. Male and female created in His image.

Conclusion of all this, God saw all that He had made, behold, it was good. There was evening and morning the sixth day and we noted good pronounce in verses 4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, and now in verse 31. So there is no flaws. I think that there is no room for any defects, any problems, no room for any dinosaurs staring people apart, cavemen beating up people with clubs, half men - half ape creatures, just like everything is good, exactly as God wanted to be for the accomplishing of his purposes. A true reflections of Him as the God who has created all things. We have a chart that you can see there is a parallel here a pattern on the days. Day one you have light generally created, just light called into existence. On day 4, you have lights, the heavenly bodies created. On day 2 you had air, sky, and water. You have the flies that fly in the air. You have the water, you have the fish that exists in water. So you see the parallel what happens in day 2, day 5, day 3 you have the lion, you have the animals that live on the land on day 6, and land and plants, then you have man who lives on that. So there is an order developed if you will things are prepared for what will then take place more specifically within those areas.

And that brings us to Chapter 2 which opens up the God rested on the seventh day. What Chapter 2 does is elaborate on the creation of mankind. A numbers of commentators write divide between the creation of Genesis 1 and the creation of Genesis 2 and say Genesis 2 is a different account of creation than Genesis 1. They use that because they want to make their own purposes out of different events. They say well Genesis 1 is the original creation, we believe that there male and female are seen is equal. Genesis 2, the distinctions made between the man and the woman and the woman made as the man’s helper and all of that the man naming the woman, that’s a subaccount that’s not on the same level of Genesis 1. You begin to tear the scripture apart like that you end up with nothing and people with those kind of views should not be viewed as evangelical because you can’t just give yourself a title and then tear the scripture apart. Evangelical as I would understand those who believe the inspiration of scripture and submit to the authority of the word. Don’t dissect the word and tear it apart and discard it; redo the way they would like it to be.

Very simply, Genesis 2 is elaborating on the creation of man in details of that. Now we are going to go back and go into further detail of what was involved and what takes place with a creation of man and the development out of that. Verses 4-7 creation of Adam, Adam is formed, this is the account of the heavens and the earth and they were creating the day when God made the earth and heaven. And now verse 7 the Lord formed man of dust from the ground, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; man became a living being. The Lord formed man, built, developed. He was one who constructed the man. His skill, His sovereignty are both involved in bringing into existence of the man. This whole work of God as the sovereign creator is absolutely essential. We have some verses listed there. I want to take you to some verses that aren’t there. Look at Isaiah 44, in verse 6 I am the first and the last, there is no God besides Me. The end of verse 8 is there any God besides Me or is there any other rock I know of no one? He is the only God. Jump down to verse 24, thus says the Lord, your Redeemer and the one who formed you from the womb, "I, the Lord, I the Lord and the maker of all things, Stretching out the heavens by Myself, spreading out the earth all alone.

Look in Chapter 45 verse 5, I am the Lord, there is no other besides Me, there is no God. Verse 6 that men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun, there is no one besides Me, I am the Lord, there is no other. The One forming light and creating darkness, causing wellbeing and creating calamity, I am the Lord who does all these. Verse 9 “Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker-- An earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth! You question the clay, question the potter. Look down to verse 12 "It is I who made the earth, created man upon it. I stretched out the heavens with My hands, I ordained all their host. Jump down to verse 18, For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens. He is the God who formed the earth and made it, He established it. He did not create it to be a waste place, but formed it to be inhabited, "I am the Lord, and there is none other. Down the end of Verse 21 “There is no other God besides Me, A righteous God and a Savior; There is none beside Me, except Me. "Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; For I am God, there is no other. To me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance. Its pervades what I say are right.

Go over to chapter 48, look at verse 12. In verse 11, he says “I will not give my glory to another”. Verse 12 “I am He I am the first, I am the last. Surely My hands founded the earth, and My right hand spread out the heavens; When I call to them, they stand together.” You see that, emphasis that “He is the sovereign God who created everything. He is also the Savior, that is the creation that is rebelled against Him. There can be no compromise on this point. Well, there is room for different interpretations, there is no room for different interpretation on the matter of creation. So it God says to Isaiah, and Isaiah’s writing almost thousand years after Moses. And nothing has changed what Moses was given to record 700 years 800 years later Isaiah reinforces it. This issue of what is being recorded in Genesis is absolutely imperative. Come back to Genesis 2, I can’t get on these rather truly. We are doing survey I remind myself. God breathe in the man, the breath of life. That’s his life all that he is as man in the image of God. His spiritual and moral capacities as one created in the image of God. Man’s environment is the beautiful Garden of the Eden, where he is there to serve the Lord. You know even before the fall man was not created to be idol. Now before the fall man’s work was not wearisome, but he was created to serve God, be about the work that God gave him to do, but that was not work as we think of it, wearisome, toilsome, we don’t understand he was created to do something tend the garden and so on. So he has cared for the Garden in verses 15 to17 and he is not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Now man needs a partner. In Verses 18 to 25, verse 18, the Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. And note that with the creation of the male God’s intention for man was not complete. So the man is male is not all that I intend him to be. I intend the man to be male and female. So man can well then be both male and female so that the purposes of the God can be accomplished. It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make a helper suitable for him. Then the helper is one corresponding to another. And then noted the word helper is used of God in The Old Testament. We think it is always the meaning we call the woman, the helper of the man. But God is called our helper and in Psalm 33:20, Psalm 46 verse 1 that is not to mean God that is how he reveals himself. He is the one who helps us, corresponds to us and so on. So the man is not complete in the purpose and plan of God just as male. So out of all the other creatures that have been created, there was none that would be a fitting companion to the man. None that correspond to the man, that could be a helper fitted to the man. His complement and the one that would complete him in the purpose of God. So God puts man into a deep sleep, takes one of his side parts and then fashions or builds it into a woman. So the Sovereign creator exercising his skill again to make a female for the male.

Verse 22 “He created the woman from the man.” So you note this is not a direct creation from the dirt like God created Adam, but now this is creation out of Adam. All uses this when he writes to the Corinthians. And he brings to the man, and the man immediately recognizes and knows from God that this is God’s plan for him. "This is bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, for she was taken out of Man." For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother shall cleave to his wife and be joined to his wife. They shall become one flesh. So foundationally the purpose of God is recognized and the basic unit from the beginning in God’s creating plan was to be a man and a woman. That supersedes all other human relationships. That supersedes the parent-child relationship, which we need to keep in mind. The leave and cleave is usually refer to leave in verse 24 for sake abandoned that does not mean we do not have responsibility to our parents, but the relationship I am now responsible for is the relationship with my wife. And you are joined to the wife, you are glued to, you are cleave to. This is more than just a sexual. The sexual relationship expresses the oneness. But there is a joining together I say spiritually, By God of the man and the woman and that part that was taken from him now brought back to be joined to him. That oneness is expressed in sexual intimacy in marriage. But there is more to that oneness than just sexual intimacy. Remember when Jesus addresses the subjected divorce in Matthew 19, He says, What God has joined together, let no man put asunder. Let God has joined let no man divide. So the joining here of the husband and wife is an action that God is involved in that brings them into a relationship of oneness. The expression of that physically is the sexual intimacy of marriage. But it is more than just to that. And that’s why you just don’t move on from one sexual partner to another because God has joined the husband and the wife in a relationship of oneness that you can’t just walk away from and or in the other unions that way.

So very foundation of the word goes on, so you see here we are just in Chapter 2 and that which affects our lives so dramatically. Husband wife relationship, families God’s purposes and this established at the very beginning. There is no guilt, no shame verse 25 “they are naked, but there is no guilt, no shame and people say well in a written article about a Christian nudist camp, if that is a note we do not see more on a Christian nudist camp, that is like your friendly killer oh I see, I am sure there is something there. They were not ashamed here they are now because the fall has not occurred yet. There is no sense of shame and St. Antony’s picture all that will change.

All right, let’s wrap this up with some summary lessons and we will be done. The lessons first about God that come out in these 2 chapters. 1. He is the Sovereign, the Creator designer of all that exists. Evolution is an attack on the very character of God. Denial of who he is? Secondly, He is omnipotent. Thirdly, he has a purpose for man. He has created man in His image to accomplish His purposes. Fourthly, He is distinct from His creation get involved with it both transcendence and eminence of God involved. He is distinct from his creation and separate from it. Because He is the creator but he is involved with His creation and so intimacy that involved when preparing the wife with a man and giving her to the man so on. That’s the lessons about the God.

Lessons about creation:
(1) God created and designed all that exists.
(2) The creation reflects the God’s character as developed in later in like Psalm 19.
(3) The bible leaves no room for evolution or any other alternative explanations of our existence.

What are the lessons about man, while he is the crowning achievement of God’s creation, the climax of creation. Secondly, he is God’s personal agent who reflects his image and is to rule over his creation. He is created in the image and likeness of God and he is God regent to rule over the creation that God has brought into existence. He is responsible to God. God will call him to account for what he does. And the man and the woman are complementary to one another. The world was created to complete the man. There is an order from the beginning the New Testament very clearly develops. As the rest of the Old Testament recognizes there would have been the order, if there had never been a fall. Because very fact that the male was created first then the female the Spirit of God says through Paul indicates an order that been established. That will be recognized also by the fact that Adam gave the name to his wife Eve, the mother of all things what you saw as an indication of authority and rulership even the God demonstrated it in His work of creation. So 2 chapters, full are the sensuous materials for us to understand. God has revealed himself revealed what he has done and this lays the foundations for everything that is going to happen from here on.

Chapter 3, will bring sin into the picture, that is even a follow on from the basic plan of God in the first 2 chapters, which is where we are ultimately going if I can say if that way when all we have said and done and our redeemer rules in eternity and rule with him the purposes of God is expressed in these opening Chapters of Genesis will be ultimately realized that the way has been sinned that brought rule into the picture that necessitated the coming of the redeemer, all part of the sovereign plan of our God.

Let’s pray together. Thank you Lord for the revelation you given of yourself. Although the simplicity of what is recorded our minds could not be ginned to grass the awesomeness of God you called all sins into existence from nothing you created to the world, you brought such orders such beauty, such clarity of purpose and plan all within a period time that would reflect to your plan for us as we live out even to this day. Seven days of a week how blessed we are to know you the Redeemer who is the creator what display of greatness of your grace in providing redemption for the creation that rejected you. Rebelled against you. You have provided the provision made a way for us to experience reconciliation and ultimate realization of your purposes for good in creating all things. They are service to you be a testimony before the world watches that we know in love the living God and serve Him and we pray in Jesus name Amen.