Man's Purpose; The Fall; Gen. 2-3

 

Genesis 6:18 NASB “But I will establish My covenant with you; and you shall enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.” The question is, is God establishing a new covenant with Noah or is this a reference to an older covenant? Following the flood God enters into a new contractual arrangement with the human race. We see this in Genesis chapter nine. In Genesis 9:1 we see the provision of the Noahic covenant laid out by God.

Notice some of the provisions here because we are going to see the parallel in Genesis chapter one. Just as God told Noah and his sons to multiply and fill the earth so God tells Adam and Eve in the garden before the fall to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. [2] “The fear of you and the terror of you will be on every beast of the earth and on every bird of the sky; with everything that creeps on the ground, and all the fish of the sea, into your hand they are given.” This is going to be a slightly different view of man’s relationship to the animal kingdom than what we find in the pre-fall perfect environment of the garden. There Adam was to rule but there was no hint of fear. In Genesis 9 there is also the institution of meat eating for the human race which was not true prior to the flood. [3] “Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; I give all to you, as {I gave} the green plant.” The clause “as I gave the green plant” goes back to what God said in Genesis chapter one: “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you.” Genesis 9:7 NASB “As for you, be fruitful and multiply; Populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it. [9] “Now behold, I Myself do establish My covenant with you, and with your descendants after you.” So this is a world-wide covenant between Noah and God, and this covenant is still in effect today.

Genesis 1:26 NASB “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Notice here it is “rule over” instead of fear being upon the fish of the sea, etc. [27] God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. [28] God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth’.” If Genesis chapter nine is a covenant then Genesis 1:26-30 is a covenant, even though the word “covenant” is not used. Because of the similarities and parallels and terminology what we have here is the first covenant between God and man; it is a contractual relationship that God enters into with man. This is a conditional covenant based on man’s obedience to the prohibition. Man is to rule the earth and to subdue the earth. That puts man is a unique relationship to everything else in the created order. Why is that significant? The reason that it is significant is that it tells us that everything on the earth was made for man. Man is not just another cog in the animal kingdom, everything was made for him. This sets man up as distinct from everything else in the created order.

Genesis 1:29 NASB “Then God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you.” This shows that God has supplied abundantly for man. God in His grace always supplies everything man needs. This is a principle that we will see again and again and again throughout the Scriptures. God is sufficient for man, He always supplies for everything man needs. The problem is not that God hasn’t supplied everything man needs but that man continues to reject that provision and wants something else; he wants to redefine everything.

The creation account of man as the image of God in Genesis 1:26, 27             

The creation of man occurs on the sixth day in Genesis chapter one and that six days is then picked up as the theme for chapter two. Chapter two focuses on everything that takes place on that sixth day. This is a stylistic device in Hebrew narrative that is very common, it is called pearling. It is like a pearl that is found in an oyster. There will be a series of events, a strong of events like a string of pearls, and then you’ll go back and pick one of them and that becomes the subject that is expounded upon and developed in more detail in the next section.

Gen 1:26 NASB “Then God said, ‘Let Us [plural] make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth’.” What is going on here is crucial to understanding the unique position of man in the created order. The term for “image” is from the Hebrew word meaning image, representation; “according to Our likeness,” and the question we have to ask when we look at this is in what sense are we in the image and likeness of God? Is this an immaterial, shadow image or is this a physical image? Is this saying that man looks like God? Or is the answer a little bit of both? 

We are helped a little in this by understanding some of the verbiage that is used in the suzerain-vassal treaty form. What we discover in that treaty form is that vassal is described as an image and likeness of the great king. What does that mean? That means that this vassal, the king, set up to rule his country is the representative of the great king. He represents the king in all that he is. So if you want to know what the great king is like then you look at the vassal king. He is to be the image, the reflection of the great sovereign. So man is to represent God. All of this is part of this package of image and likeness. So image, first of all, is going to describe man’s immaterial make-up: his soul, his mentality, everything that comprises the immaterial nature, because that is what makes man unique from all the other creatures. The image is a little bit of both. Primarily it is in the immaterial aspect because that relates to who man is. But what we are also going to see is when you look at the text, look at Genesis 1:26, 27, the image is specifically related to function, to what man does. So image and likeness is not just a static concept of his immaterial but it is that immaterial soul as it relates to its function, to what man is to do in relation to the creation, why God has placed him on the earth. There is a specific purpose.

Image describes man’s immaterial make-up, the composition of his soul. Support for this is found in the fact that Adam’s descendants who have been marred by sin are said to be in the image of Adam. In fact, when we come to Genesis 5:1 and begin to see Adam procreate and he and Eve have descendants, then those children are said to be in the image of Adam and according to his likeness. Then when we get to Genesis chapter nine and God gives the reason why a man who kills someone, someone who commits homicide, is to be punished with capital punishment and have his life taken. It is because man was created in the image of God. Think about this. Man is said to be created in the image and likeness of God in Genesis 1:26, 27. Then in Genesis 5 when Adam procreates, his children are in the image and according to the likeness of Adam, not God. That emphasizes the fact that something happened to this image. It has been marred by sin but it is still the image of God, and that is the reason why murder is wrong and why capital punishment is necessary in Genesis chapter nine. The image is not lost by sin, it is simply marred.

These terms, image and likeness, explains not merely that man is in the image of God but that he is the image of God. One term that is used is that he is the vice-regent, he is the representative of God; he is to rule all the created order on the earth as God’s under-lord. This is typical terminology in the ancient secular treaty.

Man was thus created to fulfill the role of God’s vice-regent, God’s personal representative and ruler over creation. That is why man is created higher than all the other creatures and what sets him apart. So what man is in terms of his immaterial make-up is inseparably linked to what he is to do. Man is to rule the creation; he is set over creation; he is distinct from nature. God created everything to be utilized by man—responsibly. As Christians we should have a biblical view of ecology and nature, not a pagan view. There is a difference.

In looking at the image one of the things we need to notice is that man is created in this image to perform his role as the vice-regent, and the physical body is to house the immaterial representation of God. What we are getting at here is that it is not just an immaterial image, not simply the soul, but the physical body, the way that man is made in shape and form physically is related to his function. God designed man to be the perfect physical machine in order to fulfill the responsibilities of being in the image and likeness of God. To clarify, in order to have a creature to fulfill responsibilities as God intended God could not devise a better way to do it than the way you and I look. God created us this way for a reason, so the physical body is not just by chance.

Our physical body was known by God to be what would eventually house the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity. Therefore for God, eternal, infinite God, thinking in eternity past: Now what is the best physical form for me to best express my nature to mankind? So when God designs the human body he knows that eventually He is going to be incarnate in that human body, therefore it is going to be the best physical form and representation of His essence. Once again, we don’t look the way we do by chance. There is specific design to it.

Conclusion: Human physical design is not by chance or simply a functional design, but is specifically designed the way it is to express God’s will, to house God’s Son, and to fulfill man’s destiny. God is intimately involved in not just the immaterial creation of the soul but there is purpose and significance to the physical house in which the soul lives.

We are told that man is to rule. The word “rule” comes from the Hebrew word which means to have dominion, to rule, or to dominate. This is not a passive term; it shows that man is supposed to take initiative. He is to plan, he is to develop, he is to utilize nature for his own purposes. The word “subdue” is from the Hebrew word which means to subdue and is used later of kings who subdue a foreign army, it means to bring something under control, to bring it into bondage. What man is to do is to go out and bring nature under his control. This is in contrast to pantheism which says that man just lives and goes with the flow; he just lives with nature, is part of nature. But we are to control it and that means that we are to learn everything there is to learn about the creation. All of science should have its roots in understanding the environment, and that includes, of course, theology and doctrine.

In conclusion, all pagan thought is inherently pantheistic, making man a part of nature. Thus man stands in nature and is not to harm nature. In fact, man begins to worship nature. That produces a static culture that goes nowhere. That is why aboriginal cultures never advance from century to century; there is no technological development. It is because of their religious view. Religion makes a difference. This is why these original chapters of Genesis are so foundational to our thinking. Christianity says that man is over nature and is to utilize nature in order to improve his life. Only on the basis of Christianity can we produce a dynamic growing culture. Culture doesn’t just happen; culture is the result of religious and philosophical assumptions.

In the image of God it is man and woman together that represent God on the earth. God makes the image male and female. This shows that there is an essential identity and equality between male and female, so this destroys any kind of view of male dominance in terms that a man is inherently better. He is different, he has a distinct role; the woman has a distinct role; but as image bearers of God they are to work together as a team to fulfill the dominion mandate. But in that team, just as in any team, there is a distinction of role.

The believer being conformed to the image of Christ is to represent Christ as an ambassador on the earth. What has happened is that man was created in the image of God and then that image was marred and distorted by sin. So man just procreates and replicates according to the image and likeness of Adam. Then when we come into the New Testament with regeneration and sanctification by means of the Holy Spirit we are being renewed according to the image of Jesus Christ. As a believer grows and matures on the basis of doctrine and his thinking is transformed he is back to where he can have that same kind of divine viewpoint look on history and on nature that characterized Adam, so he can begin to fulfill the role that God originally assigned to man. The human race moved from normality before the fall to abnormality after the fall and it is only through sanctification that we begin to return to normality and begin to fulfill the original conditions that God laid out for the creation of man. In the church this defines man as the image of Christ as the ambassador. Just as Adam was to represent God in the creation as the vice-regent so the believer is to represent Christ to the earth as the ambassador.

Genesis chapter two is going to expand the concept that we see hinted at in Genesis 1:26, 27. Genesis 2:15 NASB “Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.” In vv. 19, 20 “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. 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.” There is a method to the procedure here and that is not only to give man the opportunity to start fulfilling his role as the ruler of the earth but he is to realize that there is something missing, that there was a pair of everything; that there was no creature that corresponds to himself. So God is creating in Adam a sense of absence, a sense of need, and will prepare for the creation of the woman.

In the first nine verses of chapter two we see the vegetative condition of the earth. There was no rain on the earth at this time, the plants had not sprouted yet, and we are told there was no man to cultivate. We see right away that one of the things being emphasized is that man is designed to work. Work is not a consequence of the fall. Work changes its nature after the fall but from the very beginning man was to cultivate, he was to work in the garden. We see in vv. 7, 8 the creation of man: that man is made from the dust of the soil. The chemicals of the ground are mixed together and God forms the physical house of man. Then God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Here that emphasizes the impartation of soul and human spirit. God take the immaterial part of man and breathes it in. There are two factors: biological life and soul life. But it is not until the two come together in one that there is full human life. The Scriptures teach us that God immediately or directly creates the soul of each individual and imparts that at the moment of physical birth. God immediately or directly creates the soul and He indirectly creates each human body through procreation. Through procreation there is the development of physical life from that point on but not soul life. Soul life cannot be created through a physical process.

In verse 8 God plants a garden toward the east in Eden. Notice there is a distinction made in the text between Eden and the garden. Eden is where God dwells; the garden is separate, a distinct area. Then there is the planting of two trees; the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We see these themes throughout Scripture. In fact, when we come to the end of Scripture and we see the new heavens, new earth and the new Jerusalem in the center is the tree of life. Ultimately this foreshadows the cross which is the tree of life, of salvation.

Verses 10-17 describe the geography. The rivers flow out of Eden and divide. There are four rivers and they don’t convert, they divert. There is no place like that on planet earth. There is a rich mineral deposit there. It is thought that the geography, the structure, some of the physical laws that characterized the pre-flood earth would make us think that we had gone to another planet if we were to go there today. It looked different, in some ways it functioned differently; it was a perfect environment beyond anything we could ever imagine and that was completely destroyed with all traces of it (except for fossil remains) were eradicated by that one year deluge of the water judgment in Genesis 6-9.

Then the prohibition is given in vv. 16, 17 NASB “The LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 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’.” Instant death indicates that what happened when they disobeyed God was spiritual death and separation from God.

In verses 18-25 we see the creation of the woman who was designed to be a helper to the man. The word for “helper” is the Hebrew ezer. God is considered an ezer to man, a helper to man. This is not an insignificant role. If God takes on the role of helper then we can’t ever think that it is in any way less significant. Verses 19, 20 go on to describe the function of man in terms of the work that he is carrying out. But we want to go back and look at verse 15 NASB “Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.” The word for cultivate is the Hebrew word abad. It means to work, to serve, to carry out responsibility. Incidentally, the same word is used of worship, to serve God. So their entire life was in service and worship of God. The starting point of worship is Bible study; them outwork of worship is fulfilling our responsibilities in terms of the plan of God. A second word that is used here is to “keep” the garden, the word shamar in the Hebrew. It also means to guard or to watch. So man is to work the garden and to guard the garden. He has a watchman’s position here. Part of our responsibility is guard, to be a protection over that which God has delegated to us. Conclusion: Work itself is not a curse, it is the essence of what man is supposed to do. This leads us to develop the idea that worship means fulfilling God’s role as He has intended. It is only after the fall that work became toilsome and laborious. Prior to the fall it was wonderful and formed man’s basic purpose on the earth. It only becomes toilsome when the creation itself is cursed because of man’s sin.

The first role function of the image of God is when Adam is naming the animals. In the ancient near east naming was tantamount to exercising control and dominion over something. The way to control things was through classification and categorization.

The fall of man: Genesis chapter three

In this chapter we see the test that they have to face: whether they will obey God and not eat from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good an evil or whether they will disobey God. Genesis 3:1 NASB “Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” Satan comes in the form of a serpent. He understood all of the implications of what he was doing and knew just what to do in order to trap the woman. He raises the question in such a way that however she answers it she is wrong. If she answers the question she has to make a judgment on the truthfulness of God. It isn’t sin until she starts to think, but once she starts to think independently the die is cast. They fail the test and the result is a knowledge of sin. They are told they would know good and evil. This is human good, not good in terms of righteousness; it is good in terms of counterfeit good, not good in terms of perfect righteousness.

Genesis 3:7 NASB “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.” Now they are exposed and vulnerable and they try to solve their problem on their own by sewing fig leaves. This is typical of mankind which tries to solve problems by his own resources rather than by God’s resources. Then when God comes to walk in the garden they hide and the Lord seeks them out. Again we see this consistent pattern that God seeks out man. This is the grace of God, He does not leave man in his fallen condition but continually reaches out. God does everything necessary for man all the time. The issue is man’s volition.

Then God pronounces the curse. We see this laid out in Genesis 3:14-18. In vv. 14, 15 we see the curse on nature. NASB “The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle…” What is the implication there? The cattle are cursed too. All nature is going to be cursed. “… And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you will go, And dust you will eat All the days of your life.” The implication from that is that the creation moves from perfect environment to fallen environment. “And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.” Her seed is an allusion to a future savior, the Lord Jesus Christ who would be true humanity and undiminished deity. This is the first mention of the gospel.

Then the woman is cursed. The curse of the woman is related to her function in the Adamic covenant. She was to be fruitful and multiply. Genesis 3:16 NASB “To the woman He said, ‘I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you’.” So there was now going to be pain in childbirth, and not only that but the second aspect of the curse is also related to her role and function. She was created to be an ezer, a helper, an assistant to the husband, but now her desire—Heb. teshuqah, which does not mean sexual desire but a desire to control—was to have her way and do things and go in her direction and set the agenda for the marriage. So this sets up the whole pattern for the war between the sexes and the only way to reverse it is through regeneration and sanctification. As a result of learning and applying doctrine the elements of the curse begin to be thrown back as we walk by means of God the Holy Spirit.

Genesis 3:17 NASB “Then to Adam He said, ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life.’” This hits man right in the arena of his original covenanted responsibility. Nature is going to fight him. Before it was cooperative; now it is going to be antagonistic. There was work before the fall but it wasn’t toil. [19] “By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.”

The man was to cultivate the garden; now the land is hostile. The man’s responsibilities have become burdensome to him. The woman who was designed to help him now desires to control him. Painless procreation becomes painful labor. The animal kingdom is affected and transformed, and the botanical kingdom is affected. But God is still redemptive. Genesis 3:21 NASB “The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.” The Lord killed the first animal to indicate the seriousness and the devastating consequences of sin, and to give the visual image picture of what has to be done to solve the problem. He killed the animal and He clothed the man and the woman, just as we are clothed with the righteousness of Christ that we might have salvation.