Monthly Archives: April 2022

God’s Special Creation

Man, God’s Special Creation

Genesis 2:7 “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”

For all the rest of creation God said and there was. God spoke all other parts of creation into existence, but not man. He formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. God was much more intimate with the creation of man. The creation of man was not simply a word. God took time to form man, and the biggest difference between man and the rest of creation, God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. This is not simply life, but the spirit of man was breathed into him. His soul was given to him at this point. This is the part of man that is not shared by the rest of creation, man’s spirit, man’s soul. Man’s spirit is what really sets him apart from all other created creatures. It is the spirit of man that is the image of God.

It is because of this spirit that we are able to commune with God. It is this spirit that gives personality. The spirit that allows us to form abstract thought. To ponder the meaning of life. It is this spirit in fact that gives us meaning of life. It is why when we talk of the deep things of life, we speak of spiritual things. It is on the spiritual level that we meet with God, that we commune with God. The spirit of man is the eternal part of man. The spirit of man is what makes us know that there is more to existence than simply this short life. The spirit of man is eternal, our spirit will always exist!

Man’s Task

God planted a garden, a special place with all the things that Adam would need for life. The garden was planted with all the trees that were pleasant to look at, and all the trees that Adam would need for his life. God Mentions two trees in particular: 1. the tree of life, and 2. the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. These were both in the center of the garden. Man was put in the garden according to vs.15 to “tend and keep it.”

As a bit of a side note, God gives a bit of a geography lesson of the land around the garden, it’s rivers, and where they went. All of this geography is not the same now as it was then. We will look at an event later on that would reshape the face of the earth.

For now we need to know that God had created His master piece of creation, man, and had given to him all that he would need for life.

The Commandment

Adam was given the task of keeping the garden in which he would live. God also gave him one single rule, or commandment.

Vs. 16-17 “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Talk about a truly simple life! Adam has everything he needs, and every beautiful plant on earth surrounding him. All he needs to do is tend to the garden, and obey God’s one commandment to not eat that one fruit.

Adams Companion

vs. 18 God said “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.”

God would make for Adam a companion like him, to complete him. It is worth noting here that God did not say that He would make a companion to serve him, or who was lesser than he. God said that He would make a companion “comparable to him.” God created them equal, but not the same.

For the remainder of chapter 2 God goes through an exercise with Adam. He made from the ground all the creatures of the earth to have Adam name them, so Adam did. He named all the animals, but vs. 20 says “But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.”

God then went on to take a rib from Adam, and from that rib He would make a companion for Adam. Adam called her woman because she was taken out of man.

She was literally a part of him. Woman was created to be man’s companion, of all the other creatures of creation, there was no other animal that was comparable to man. Because of this when a man and woman are joined in marriage they are considered by God to be one. The bond of marriage cannot be broken in God’s eyes. He sees a husband and wife as one and the same.

In these days of confusion it is also important to note that the God prescribed marriage is one man with one woman for life. To deviate from this plan is to deviate from God’s plan, that is called sin.

God’s Creation Narrative

The Beginning of All Things

God starts Genesis with the words “In the Beginning.” Before this there was nothing. Only God existed and nothing else. No earth, no space, no light, no darkness, no sun, no stars. You get the picture. There was only God!

There are several important ideas to take away from the first chapter of Genesis. The first being that God, the almighty created everything that we see and know. He created the soundness of the earth that we walk on. He created the depth and vastness of space. He created time and the ways that we track time and seasons.

The Creation Timeline

He is also very careful to announce through His narration of the events of creation a time period for each creation event. Each creation event is marked by the phrase, “So the evening and the morning was the first day.” “So the evening and the morning was the second day.” And so on. There is no room for believers in God to accept anything other than God created everything in 6 days. He made sure to explain this very clearly.

God is Plural

We learn another important piece of information about God during this narration. Genesis 1:26 God said “Let us make man in Our own image, according to Our likeness…” God somehow exists in multiple persons! But He, God is one, vs. 27 says “so God created man in His, own image; in the image of God He created them.” God refers to himself in the singular.

Man

It is also important to note that the creation of mankind is different to the creation of all the rest of creation. There is nothing else created according to God in the same way He created mankind. All the other living creatures are simply spoken into existance. For example vs. 20 says “Then God said “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.””

In one statement God created all the creatures that live in all the waters of the earth, in multitudes. The waters teamed with life and the skies were filled with every species of bird. In the creative awesomeness of God His word is enough to bring all of the variety we see in the waters of the earth as well as all the varieties of bird we see covering all the earth.

Man, however is different. Man we see is created in the very image of God. He is also created to have dominion over all of creation. Man is God’s special part of creation!

The Goodness of Creation

Genesis 1:30 says “Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.”

God created a perfect work. A thing of beauty. He was very pleased with all that He had created. There was no flaw in it, no disease, no evil… So what happened? Why is our existence now difficult, full of disease and disappointment?

Who Is God? And Why Should I Care?

Who is God

Here we are sitting and pondering the most important questions of life. Who is God? I suppose we really need to start from a question of, who are we?

These days we find ourselves confused about who or what we are. We are being told that we can be whatever we think we want to be. Is that true? I believe to answer who God is will put into perspective the question of who we are, and what we are.

We are being taught things like there are no genders, that the human species is going to cease to exist because of overpopulation of the earth, that there are no absolutes. We are observing a world where there seems to be no justice. People who are trying to play by the rules seem to be getting squashed. The wealthy seem to be getting more wealthy, and those who are not a part of the wealthy club seem to be struggling more and more to be able to make ends meet.

We are taught that our existence has come about by a great accident and all life, kind of generated itself over billions of years, totally on its own, and by total accident. So because all of life is an accident, there is therefore no god.

The more we accept these thoughts the further into chaos society gets. The more we accept these thoughts, the more confused we get. Each day there are more children who have decided that they should just end their lives, life is not worth living. Why? All of these thoughts are contrary to God and His purpose for our lives! The more we accept the things that are contrary to God the further we get away from normal, the more depressed we get, the more chaos surrounds us. Just what does God expect of us?

According to NASA planet earth is rotating on its axis at a speed of more than 1000 miles per hour. Earth is also at the same time making its trip around the sun at a mind blowing 67,000 miles per hour, that is 87 times the speed of sound. Beyond that our solar system is hurling through space at a mind bending 448,000 miles per hour. They tell us “speed kills,” well our planet is doing some serious speed, and without incident. How is this possible?

How is it possible that we can count on things like the length of our days? We can count on things like the seasonal calendar? We can count on knowing when the next eclipse will occur. The Mayans had predicted the position of constellations a thousand years into the future, and made record of those calculations. None of these things allow for chance, they are all predictable, Why? The answer is pretty simple. There are constants. There are rules that govern our solar system. The whole thing was designed by God, and is governed by Him.

God set about to tell us who He is. He set about to tell us how we got here on planet earth, how the stars came to be, how earth was formed with everything on it. He even took the time to tell us the exact amount of time it took Him to make all this stuff.

Simply look around you at all the wondrous bits and pieces of the world we live on called Earth. All the growing things, the mountains, the seas, the animals and bugs. Look at the way all these things work together. There is no way all of this is an accident. Order never comes from disorder, an accident never produces a new thing, just a mess.

God through His profit Moses introduces Himself to us. Genesis 1:1 says “In the beginning God created…” In the beginning of all things there was only God. Everything else was created, made by Him. He takes the time to lay out briefly how he created the world and universe, and how long it took Him to do it. We will look at God’s account of the beginning of all things to attempt to learn what He would like us to learn from the creation account. Obviously He had it written in order to introduce Himself to us, we, His creation.

Is There A God

I believe all of creation points to God as the maker of all things, as the origin of all things. I believe there has to be a God because it is impossible for anything to exist otherwise. Look at our world hurdling through space at nearly 500,000 thousand miles an hour, without impacting anything else around us. This in itself is impossible. The scientists know this. That is why they spend so much time tracking comets and the like. Just one stray rock impacting earth at these kinds of speeds would be the end of all things, with no way to escape. Those scientists, most of them, would not admit there is a God. Because they don’t believe that there is a God, they stress about the precarious nature of earth moving through space at such ludicrous speed.

If our atmosphere would change in any way, we would probably be poisoned and die. This is why the scientists stress so much about any changes to our climate. They are worried that we will destroy ourselves by changing the climate. Life goes on today as it has for thousands of years, we are living in the very same atmosphere, regardless of the horrible things we have done on this earth. God is the sustain-er of our world, of our atmosphere. This is why life continues on. There is for sure a God! We are not an accident, our world is not an accident.

Why Should I Care If God Exists

Well, if God truly does exist. What does He want from us? Why did He make us? Why are we so different from all the other living things around us?

Why should I care if God really does exist? If God does exist, wouldn’t we do well not to offend Him? If God does exist, would we do well to acknowledge Him, if that is what He wants? If God does exist, what is He going to do with us, with earth?

The mainstream idea now is to erase the idea that God does exist. What if God is offended by that? What if the creator of the world, the universe, decides to deal harshly with those who try to do away with Him? If God is creator of all things doesn’t He have the right to do with all created things what He sees fit to do? If God does exist what kind of arrogance does it take to think we can erase the very thought of God?

If God does exist, I think we had better care! We had better find out what He expects of us. We had better shed our arrogance, and humble ourselves before God, the almighty creator of all things.

X Gospel

Just the Gospel!