Student Sunday School - Study of Genesis
Notes
Transcript
Youth Sunday School - Creation of Man and Woman
Youth Sunday School - Creation of Man and Woman
Last week we looked at chapter 1, and creation, days 1 through 6, and how God created all things by speaking them into existence.
There is one exception to that, and that is the creation of mankind, God created man on day six along with all the animals that roamed the earth, but the animals He spoke them into existence. Man He did not speak into existence but we will see today in chapter 2 how God creates man.
We are going to look at verses 1-3 first.
1 Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts.
2 By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.
3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.
Here we see that everything has been created, God has finished everything up and He is done.
That is in days 1 through 6, by day 7 God is completely done.
Since He was done, He rested, His work of creation was completed so therefore, He rested.
Now understand that God did not rest because He was tired, or because He was fatigued, or exhausted. But simply He rested because He was finished.
Actually God rested to teach us that rest is important.
God had no need to rest, no reason to rest, other than to teach us a valuable lesson.
Let me tell you as young people you may think you can go for hours or days on end, I was you age at one time, party all night, get maybe 2 or 3 hours of sleep if I was lucky and then go to work.
But let me tell you if you do not get rest, it will eventually catch up with you, it may take weeks, or even months but eventually it will catch you and when it does it will knock you on your butt and hard.
4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven.
This verse gives us a division in Scripture, and it is where we go from more of a summary of how God created things to a more in-depth view of creation, especially that of mankind.
5 Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground.
6 But a mist used to rise from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground.
Before Adam there was no one to tend or cultivate the ground and therefore, God had not yet allowed any plant life to sprout.
There was also no rain yet on the earth, but this mist that came up from the ground.
Today we have dew that settles on the ground, but this mist came up, it was a manner of irrigation that God used to water the earth, and the plant life before He began allowing rain upon the earth.
7 Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
Here in this verse we see how God created man.
If we remember from last week that God spoke the animals, the sea life, the bird life, and the animals on the earth all into existence.
He even spoke and the waters formed into their respectable places, the land formed into their places.
But now it does not say that God spoke and man was created, it says God formed man of the dust of the ground.
That is God took the dust of the earth and began to form like a potter takes a lump of clay into a pot or a bowl, God formed Adam into the figure of man.
Once God gets Adam into the shape He wants him, He reaches down and breaths into his nostrils the breath of life.
We cannot live unless God allows us to have breath in our lungs and He can take that breath from our lungs at any time He wants to take that breath.
Once God breaths that breath into His lungs man then becomes a living being, not before breath was in him, but only after.
8 The Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed.
Now after God had formed and created and made this man, who we know is Adam, now he planted a garden.
This garden is named Eden.
The Hebrew word that we get Eden from means a place of abundant waters. We will see in a few verses that there are four rives that come from Eden.
The planting of the garden are just by a touch of God’s hand. This is a picture of a caring and loving God.
9 Out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
This garden of Eden was characterized by many things, such as it beauty, and plants that produced food, trees that produced fruit.
Also two trees that are singled out here and are crucial to the narrative, these two trees are the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
The tree of life, the presence of this tree indicates that the garden enjoys life, and the eating of the fruit will result in continued life - a gift that only God can give.
10 Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided and became four rivers.
11 The name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold.
12 The gold of that land is good; the bdellium and the onyx stone are there.
13 The name of the second river is Gihon; it flows around the whole land of Cush.
14 The name of the third river is Tigris; it flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
The garden of Eden was rich in minerals and splendidly fertile with flowing waters.
There was one main river coming out of the Garden of Eden, that then separated into four rivers.
The first two rivers - Pishon and Gihon, these two are unknown.
The second two rivers are Tigris and the last one is Euphrates. These two are identifiable.
The point of the description of the four rivers, is the habitat God has prepared is bountiful and beautiful.
The Garden was also adorned with precious metals and jewels.
15 Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.
Here we see that God places man in the garden, He placed him there for a specific purpose to cultivate it and keep it.
As mankind, human beings we have been placed on earth to take care of the earth, not ruin it, but to take care of it.
I have heard saying, when going fishing, always came back with more than you go with, and that does not mean with fish, but if you see a piece of trash pick it up, same thing goes with hunting or hiking, or camping, always try to make the area look better than when you got there.
We are meant to work, to take care of the earth, to take care of ourselves, and to take care of our families.
16 The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely;
17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”
God gave the animals boundaries, now He gives human life boundaries, He instructs Adam that he can eat from any tree in the garden freely, but here comes the boundary, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat.
There is a consequence, a penalty of eating of this one tree, and that is Adam would surely die.
God gave this boundary, that is He gave all these trees, Adam can eat of all these trees with the exception of one tree, and the boundary here is that Adam is to be obedient.
So what is at stake here, is whether or not Adam will choose to trust God, to be obedient.
18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.”
19 Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.
20 The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.
God did not want man to be alone, then God brought all the animals to Adam and Adam named all the animals, and the birds, but out of all these animals there was not a suitable helper for him.
This was all the animals that God had created, this was birds, monkeys, dogs, cats, cows, donkeys, horses, mules, sheep, all these animals God says none of these are suitable as a help mate for man.
21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place.
22 The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.
God causes a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and God performs the first surgery on earth, so that He could create woman.
God takes a rib bone out of Adam to construct the woman, therefore, the woman is created from the man’s side to show that she was of the same substance as the man and to underscore the unity of the human family, having one source.
God then presents the woman unto the man, this suggest that she is a gift from the man’s Maker.
The garden is now complete with the presence of the woman.
23 The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.”
Up to this point only God has spoken in Scripture, but now Adam speaks for the first time in the Scripture.
Adam says, bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, he is affirming that he and the woman, indeed, are made up of the same stuff.
24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.
25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
The creation of the first couple leads naturally to their relationship expressed through marriage since it is the couple’s charge to procreate and subdue the earth.
This is not Adam speaking here, but once again God speaking, and Jesus expresses it again in Matthew 19:4-5
4 And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female,
5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?
Marriage requires a new priority by the marital partners where obligations to one’s spouse supplant a person’s parental loyalties.
Marriage also involves the two united in commitment; two parties are bound by stipulations, forming a new entity or relationship.
The two people, although freed from their parents, are not isolated or independent; they become dependent and responsible toward one another.
The final verse of 25 links chapters 1 and 2 with the chapters to come, that is with creation of the world and mankind to the fall of mankind into sin.
As we see that Adam and Eve were naked and were not ashamed of their nakedness, as being naked was their normal condition.