Passage: Genesis 2

The Big Idea

The pinnacle of creation is mankind, made in God’s image, with His moral law written on our hearts. In Genesis 2, God gives us a day of rest as a step of faith, forms man from dust, plants two trees that represent every choice we face (God’s way of life, or our own way), and then performs the very first wedding. Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed, with nothing to hide. God still sees everything about us, and He still loves us.

The Moral Law Points to God

We saw that the pinnacle of God’s creation is mankind, made in His image.

We have this thing called morality: a moral law implanted deep in our hearts. Even atheists and naturalists will admit that love is the greatest ethic.

Morality has no physical substance. It isn’t made of DNA or cells. It could never have been produced by purely natural forces. So the fact that a moral law exists points to God.
Morality isn’t a list of rules God made up. It’s an unwritten reflection of His very character and nature.
Since we’re made in His image, that nature is imprinted inside us.

So the fact that people everywhere know that murdering or abusing a child is wrong, that rape is wrong, points to God. So does the fact that we wear clothes and feel shame. We instinctively know we’ve failed the moral law.

It shows you’re made in His image.
It shows you haven’t lived up to His moral standard, even by your own knowledge and judgment.
And if your conscience tells you you’re guilty before God, it also tells you the value of love and sacrifice.

The fact that you can understand love and choose to be loving shows that God would be perfect at it. Which means that, by His own character and nature, He would provide salvation for people who would choose Him, even if it meant sacrificing Himself for those who were weaker.

The Seventh Day (Genesis 2:1-3)

The heavens and the earth were finished. On the seventh day God ended His work and rested. He blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because in it He rested from all His work of creation.

During the French Revolution, leaders tried to change the week to ten days. Why does that seem crazy to us? Because God set the rhythm of time: seven days, six of work and one of rest.

When I was growing up, I didn’t understand why God rested. Surely He wasn’t tired! It wasn’t until much later that I realized it was for us.

It’s a step of faith. God says, “I can provide all you need for seven days of living with only six days of work.”
Every week of your life can be another line on the résumé of God’s faithfulness.
It takes trust to relax for a day.
It’s how we’re built to operate. People run around wondering why they’re so stressed. “I can’t take a day off! I have to work, work, work!” And then they burn out.

A picture of Jesus

Don’t let anyone judge you about food or drink, or about festivals, new moons or Sabbaths. These are a shadow of things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ (Colossians 2:16-17).

We aren’t legally required to keep the Sabbath, because in Christ every day is a Sabbath.
We’re freed from our work, from working hard to try to please God.
Some groups insist Christians must still keep the Saturday Sabbath. But the Sabbath was always a shadow pointing to Jesus.

There remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. Whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his own works, just as God did from His. So let’s be diligent to enter that rest, so no one falls by following the same example of disobedience (Hebrews 4:9-11).

There’s no work left for a believer to accomplish to be made right with God. Jesus said, “It is finished” (John 19:30).
He offers rest to anyone who will stop trying to do it on their own and turn to Him in faith.
We enter it by faith, and we need to be diligent about that.
If we stop trusting the Lord, if we start thinking we have something to offer, if we turn our hearts from Him and refuse His rest, we’ll fall. We’ll be doing exactly what Israel did in the wilderness.

The LORD God (Genesis 2:4-6)

This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day the LORD God made them. No shrub or plant had yet sprung up, because the LORD God hadn’t sent rain, and there was no one to work the ground. But a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground.

This is the first time we see the name LORD (Yahweh), God’s personal covenant name.

Here’s a fun bit of English history: our word “lord” comes from the Old English hlaford, meaning “loaf-keeper” (related to our word “loaf”). A lord was the one who provided bread for his household. What a picture of our Lord, the Bread of Life!

Formed from Dust (Genesis 2:7)

The LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.

Man wasn’t made of anything special. God took the most ordinary stuff there is, dirt, and made man.

He knows how we’re formed; He remembers that we are dust (Psalm 103:14).

God isn’t disappointed with you. He doesn’t expect you to keep His law in your own strength. He makes provision for you!
So don’t be disappointed in yourself. Being disappointed in yourself is actually a form of pride: “I should have done better.”
The better attitude is humility: confessing your lack of ability and trusting His work and resources on your behalf.

Humility and faith, yet again.

Andrew Murray beautifully described humility:

Humility is perfect quietness of heart. It is to have no trouble; never to be fretted or vexed or irritated or sore or disappointed. It is to expect nothing, to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing done against me. It is to be at rest when nobody praises me, and when I am blamed or despised. It is to have a blessed home in the Lord, where I can go in and shut the door, and kneel to my Father in secret, and am at peace as in a deep sea of calmness, when all around and above is trouble.

Two Trees (Genesis 2:8-14)

The LORD God planted a garden in Eden and put the man there. He made every tree grow that was beautiful and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river flowed out of Eden and divided into four: the Pishon, the Gihon, the Tigris (Hiddekel) and the Euphrates.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil versus the tree of life. That has always been the choice before every person.

God’s way is life:

Walk with Him and live.
Obey Him and live.
Trust Him and live.
Abide in Him and live.

Man’s way is rebellion: making our own decisions about right and wrong.

“I don’t need to just follow You and listen to everything You say!”
“I can figure this out on my own.”
“I don’t want anyone holding me back.”
“What if it’s fun? What if I’m missing out?”

Is following God missing out on something? Never! It’s the fullness of joy and life.

God makes known to us the path of life; in His presence is fullness of joy, and at His right hand are pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:11).

Following God is the most joyful thing you could ever give yourself to.

The psalmist says of the Messiah that because He loved righteousness and hated wickedness, God anointed Him with the oil of gladness above His companions (Psalm 45:7; Hebrews 1:9). Jesus was the most joyful person who ever lived, even while giving His life for miserable sinners who didn’t even like Him, even while suffering.

Eating from the forbidden tree would give Adam the experience of evil in addition to his experience of good. That was the temptation. It was also a way God could test what was in man’s heart.

As for the rivers, we can’t map them precisely today. The world described here was reshaped by the flood.

The Command (Genesis 2:15-17)

The LORD God put the man in the garden to work it and take care of it. And He commanded him: “You may freely eat from every tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day you eat from it you will surely die.”

God gave Adam responsibilities on the very first day:

Work and keep the garden.
Eat freely from the trees. (Great job!)
Don’t choose your own way; it only leads to death.

Death? Spiritual death happened the moment Adam chose his own way, and physical death followed. We’ll see more about this later.

“But how could a loving God tell me what to do, and set consequences if I break His rules?”

God created us to connect with Him in a way no other creature can, in His image.
Along with that powerful ability comes free will: the choice to go our own way.
But if we choose our own way, we’re literally leaving the source of everything good.
It’s like leaving the air and going to the bottom of a lake. You’ll die, because you’ve left the environment that gives life.
The consequences God describes are simply the natural effect of leaving the source of life.

He loves us, so He warns us and tells us the truth. It’s an act of love, not restriction. He wants us happy and satisfied. He still says, in effect, “Stay close to Me, or you’ll mess everything up.” Or as Jesus put it, “Abide in Me, for apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:4-5).

Not Good to Be Alone (Genesis 2:18-20)

The LORD God said it isn’t good for the man to be alone; He would make a helper suitable for him. He brought every animal and bird to Adam to see what he would name them. (Another job!) Adam named them all, but for Adam there was no suitable helper.

Everything was good, until God looked at Adam alone.

So God decided to give Adam a gift: a helper, someone perfect for him.
I love the way God worked in Adam’s heart to make him aware of his need, and then met it.
God still does this. He lets something happen that makes us think, “Something’s missing here. I need something. I’m incomplete.”
Adam starts naming all the animals and notices: they all come in pairs!
All the while, God knows exactly what He’s going to do. He knows how He’ll meet Adam’s need before Adam even knows he has one.

What if Adam had panicked and settled for a monkey, a sloth or a pig? (Some of you ladies are thinking, “I can tell you what that’s like!”) No matter how “good” any of those options were, they weren’t what God had planned to bless Adam with.

Adam could have been impatient, not trusting, trying to fix his own problem. But instead, he rested.

The First Wedding (Genesis 2:21-25)

The LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh. From the rib He made a woman and brought her to the man. Adam 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.” That’s why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and they become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

The rib comes from the side, near the heart.
Then the Lord brought the woman to the man. God performed the first wedding!
Adam was so excited about God’s gift that he broke into the first love poem.
He declared that this relationship, marriage, is even more central than your relationship with your parents. (Not sure how Adam knew that, since he didn’t have any!)

One flesh

“One flesh” speaks of sexual union, a physical and spiritual oneness.

Paul says that whoever is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her, because “the two shall become one flesh.” But whoever is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. So flee sexual immorality. Every other sin is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body (1 Corinthians 6:16-18).

The consequences of misusing God’s amazing gift of sex are self-destroying, no matter what the culture says. However loudly the world insists you can sleep with whomever you want with no consequences, the truth won’t change. God says you’re playing with your soul, and your soul is what suffers.

Stay pure. Let God give you the right gifts at the right time. It will be a blessing to your life.

Slightly soiled

Two seminary students were walking through the Whitechapel district of London, where old and used clothing was sold. One pointed to a suit hanging in a window with a sign: “SLIGHTLY SOILED. GREATLY REDUCED IN PRICE.”

“That’s it exactly,” he said. “We get soiled by a vulgar picture, a crude book, or a little indulgence in dishonest or lustful thoughts. And when our character is appraised, we’re greatly reduced in value. Our purity and strength are gone.”

Small, continual compromises can weaken our character so that when a moral crisis comes, we can’t stand. We go down in defeat because we were careless about little sins.

And when we have fallen, the good news is that Jesus doesn’t mark us down. He washes us clean.

Naked and unashamed

They weren’t just unclothed; they were completely exposed and at peace with it. They had nothing to hide. There was no shame, because no wrong choice had been made.

Why are we uncomfortable when someone stares at us, let alone the thought of standing exposed before them? Because there are things we don’t want revealed. There are hidden things we’re afraid for people to know. We want to control how people see us.

Even with God, we try to run and hide, just as Adam is about to do. But no creature is hidden from His sight; everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account (Hebrews 4:13).

He sees everything. And He still loves you.

He sees the ugly things and the selfish heart, and He still loves me! God demonstrates His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).

Grace Takeaway

God planted two trees, and every day we choose between His way of life and our own way of knowing better. His way is never missing out; it’s fullness of joy. He gives rest as a gift of faith, gifts we couldn’t arrange for ourselves, and a love that sees us completely exposed and still stays. Rest in Him, trust His timing, and come out of hiding.

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Two Trees and a Wedding