Adam & Eve, the First Family

Welcome

We have been working through a series called Family! Over the last several weeks we have looked at the women that were included in the family lineage of Jesus Christ, as recorded in Matthew 1.

We looked at several women as we approached Mother’s Day. But now we’re going to begin looking at some of the Bible’s best couples and, Men, we’re going to give you a chance to hear some of these stories of fatherhood and family life.

Today we’re going back to the very beginning—in fact, the genesis of it all—as we look at the story of the First Family, Adam and Eve. In the Old Testament books, which were written in Hebrew, the books are traditionally named in Hebrew for the first words in the book. In the case of Genesis, the word in Hebrew, translates to mean “in the beginning.”

Our word “genesis” comes from a transliteration of the word from the Greek through the Latin. However, in simple terms the word has meaning rooted in the idea of “origin” or “creation.”

The book of Genesis, written by Moses, intends to document the very beginning of the family history of the Hebrew people. The entire book follows an outline that first details the Creation account and then records the family history of Adam, Noah and his sons leading to Isaac and his sons, Esau and Jacob.

Today we’ll look at the creation of man and woman and how some of the earliest words in the Bible teach us about family and marriage relationships. Let’s turn to Genesis 2...

Genesis 2:7–25 CSB

7 Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being. 8 The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he placed the man he had formed. 9 The Lord God caused to grow out of the ground every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden, as well as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 10 A river went out from Eden to water the garden. From there it divided and became the source of four rivers. 11 The name of the first is Pishon, which flows through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 Gold from that land is pure; bdellium and onyx are also there. 13 The name of the second river is Gihon, which flows through the entire land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river is Tigris, which runs east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. 15 The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.” 18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper corresponding to him.” 19 The Lord God formed out of the ground every wild animal and every bird of the sky, and brought each to the man to see what he would call it. And whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the sky, and to every wild animal; but for the man no helper was found corresponding to him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to come over the man, and he slept. God took one of his ribs and closed the flesh at that place. 22 Then the Lord God made the rib he had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 And the man said: This one, at last, is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; this one will be called “woman,” for she was taken from man. 24 This is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh. 25 Both the man and his wife were naked, yet felt no shame.

[pray]

I. God Had a Plan for Family

We read in this account the telling of how God made man.

Genesis 2:7 CSB

7 Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.

God created a garden for Adam to live in and as he assessed what he created, God determined that what he created was good. However, when he saw man alone in the garden...

Genesis 2:18 CSB

18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper corresponding to him.”

God knew that man needed companionship and a helper. He created many animals. Perhaps during this time he created many of the domesticated animals that man interacts with even still today.

Genesis 2:19–20 CSB

19 The Lord God formed out of the ground every wild animal and every bird of the sky, and brought each to the man to see what he would call it. And whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the sky, and to every wild animal; but for the man no helper was found corresponding to him.

Can you picture this? God is creating animals and he brings them to Adam to give them a name: horses, cows, sheep, dogs, and many more. Each one of them God and Adam talked about and evaluated the possibility that they could serve as a helper.

God says to Adam, “What about the horse?”

Adam responds, “Well, you know it’s friendly and you can use it to work the farm and ride it around, but I don’t know how much of a companion it could be.”

God says, “Okay then, what about the cow?”

Adam says, “Oh, that’s worse! It might pull a plow, but it doesn’t have much personality. And I doubt you could ride it. It might really only be good for a couple things really.”

God sighs and says to Adam, “What about the dog? That seems pretty good!”

Adam says, “Yeah, I like the dog. Certainly a worthy companion and always friendly when I come home. And it keeps me warm when I’m sleeping. But it can hardly hold up a conversation because it keeps running off to fetch sticks. Keep the dog around, but what else do you have?”

God says “Well… I had an idea… but it’s going to be really expensive to pull this one off. I mean, it’s going to cost an arm and a leg!”

Adam says, “Well, I don’t really want to give that up. What can I get for a rib?”

[pause]

Okay, I’ll have to admit. That’s probably not the way it happened. But it does make for a good story doesn’t it?

Even after this time of creating and naming animals, God still determined that no creature had been made that corresponded well to the man. Only then did God create woman...

Genesis 2:21–22 CSB

21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to come over the man, and he slept. God took one of his ribs and closed the flesh at that place. 22 Then the Lord God made the rib he had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man.

Actually I have heard that God, put Adam to sleep and took the rib and later, when Adam woke up, he brought out the woman and asked Adam to name the woman, and Adam was just speechless… After picking his jaw up off the floor, all he could say was, “Woah, man!” And God said, “This is good!” and man responded, “you better believe it’s good!”

With all joking aside, God made woman for man and by his design man and woman work really well together. We are made to complement and complete each other in many ways.

1 Corinthians 11:8–12 CSB

8 For man did not come from woman, but woman came from man. 9 Neither was man created for the sake of woman, but woman for the sake of man. 10 This is why a woman should have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. 11 In the Lord, however, woman is not independent of man, and man is not independent of woman. 12 For just as woman came from man, so man comes through woman, and all things come from God.

It is only when the world gets involved in the conversation that we see this idea of a complementary relationship threatened.

II. Two Joined Together

God worked the two together so well, that it became his design that they should be joined together and never separated. Adam’s first word when he saw Eve was recorded in scripture...

Genesis 2:23 CSB

23 And the man said: This one, at last, is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; this one will be called “woman,” for she was taken from man.

The Holy Spirit inspired Moses to provide the first biblical definition of marriage in verse 24...

Genesis 2:24 CSB

This is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh.

This definition of marriage persists throughout scripture. We see Jesus referring to this definition in the gospel accounts. It’s the exact same definition.

When you hear people saying that Jesus would have defined marriage differently, they don’t know what they’re talking about. Jesus defined marriage from a biblical worldview.

We can say, however, that Jesus was compassionate in talking with sinners. He never minced words with them. He let them know that their sin was wrong, but he pointed them to a better way—the way to the kingdom of God.

We see it in the Psalms and we see it in Paul’s writings, primarily in Corinthians and Ephesians.

Ephesians 5:22–33 CSB

22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord, 23 because the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of the body. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives are to submit to their husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word. 27 He did this to present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless. 28 In the same way, husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hates his own flesh but provides and cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, 30 since we are members of his body. 31 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. 32 This mystery is profound, but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 To sum up, each one of you is to love his wife as himself, and the wife is to respect her husband.

I know that this text in Ephesians has the tendency to rub some women the wrong way. Strong and independent women can sometimes bristle at the topic of submission. This is primarily because they have sometime had this text used against them like a weapon. Sometimes this is because they have had experience with men who do not treat them well and take care of them in the way that scripture teaches.

And some men will throw this idea of submission at their wives and demand that they submit.

Men, don’t fail to recognize is that husbands should love their wives in the extreme. Some husbands forget this part and they treat their wives in many ways other than lovingly.

Paul said in summary...

Ephesians 5:33 CSB

33 To sum up, each one of you is to love his wife as himself, and the wife is to respect her husband.

Remember that we can go a very long way to improving our marriage relationships if we treat each other with a great deal of love and respect.

I don’t know many women that mind submitting biblically to their husband when they know that they are loved deeply by a godly man who would willingly die for them.

And conversely, I don’t know many men who would resist loving a godly woman who treats them with respect.

However, it is not unusual to find marriage relationships that endure difficult, trying, and unloving relationships where husbands and wives mistreat each other, talk to each other in unloving ways, and could never be considered respectful by any outside observer.

I can often tell how healthy a marriage relationship is by hearing how a husband or wife talks about their spouse to others.

III. The Fall of Mankind

This kind of behavior that we see, where people who fail to commit to love each other “until death do us part” is a result of the Fall of Mankind. You all remember the story of the Fall of Mankind into Sin as the children told us a few moments ago. We can call this event the “Fall of Man” and throughout history men have tried to pass the buck by saying, as Adam said, “God, it was that woman you gave me!”

Here is the text...

Genesis 3:11–13 CSB

11 Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” 12 The man replied, “The woman you gave to be with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate.” 13 So the Lord God asked the woman, “What have you done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

Adam tried to blame the woman and Eve tried to blame the snake, but in the end God knew that it was both man and woman that disobeyed him and allowed sin to enter into his creation.

In fact, Eve was deceived by the snake, but lured Adam into joining her in sin. Paul wrote in his letter to Timothy, saying that even though Adam was not deceived, he still sinned. Adam wilfully sinned against God (1 Tim 2:14). From this event, we understand that each and every one of us is born into a world of sin and we are therefore considered sinners by God.

This sin has worked to destroy marriage relationships, families, and individuals ever since that day. Our enemy wants nothing more than to destroy good relationships.

What does the Fall of Mankind do to families?

We have clear evidence that sin:

Breaks relationships, causing conflict due to dishonesty, adultery, abuse, neglect and unforgiveness.

Breaks trust within the family because of deception, betrayal, and the distance that strained relations cause between family members.

Corrupting influence can be passed along to other family members, leading them into similar sinful behaviors and lifestyles.

Negative consequences are always to be expected when sin is present, these can include legal issues, financial burdens, emotional distress, damaged reputation and disrupted stability that can result from sinful actions.

Separates us from God, sin creates a barrier between us and God, it hinders our spiritual grown and inhibits our connection with God. Families can be destroyed by sin.

While sin can have a destructive impact on the family, ultimately sin is an individual problem that must be resolved between each person and God. However, we have a solution in Jesus Christ.

Conclusion

It was the work of Jesus Christ, that he completed on the cross at Calvary, by which God was able to offer to each of us salvation. And it is by our belief in Jesus Christ and the repentance of our sins that we are about to accept the gracious gift of forgiveness and it is by his grace that we are saved and now have free access to God, the Father without an intermediary.