A is for Adam. In fact, A is the first letter is nearly every known human alphabet because it is the first letter of the first name of the first man ever.
On the 6th day of creation, God formed Adam from the dust of the ground. Here’s a little tidbit that reinforces that point: the name “Adam” is not even a word in the original language of the Old Testament, Hebrew. But if you rearrange the letters in the Hebrew word for “ground”, it spells “Adam”. Adam was formed from the ground. The word picture created by the original language is that of a potter forming a masterpiece from clay.
Have you ever considered that man, and woman, are the only things in creation that God formed with his own hands? God is so powerful and strong that His very words were enough to bring things into existence. God spoke and this planet, with its unknowable mysteries and complex simplicities, came into being. God spoke and the sun, the moon, the stars, the planets and “only-He-knows-how-many” galaxies spontaneously existed. Water, Air, plants and all animals—except one—were spoken into being. That one is man.
God formed man with His very own hands. He formed the man in His own image. We are not made of the same stuff as God, but we have much in common with Him. If we consider that our purpose in this life is to let others see God in us, it makes sense doesn’t it, that we need to get rid of all the things that aren’t of God so that what we’re left with is the purest form humanly possible of the image of God.
It’s only my opinion, but I think God used His hands to form man because of the importance of touch. We are tactile beings; we like to touch things. Every parent knows that. If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a million times, “Don’t touch that.” We connect with things because of touch. Newborn babies bond with their parents through the sensations of touch. Hugs, handshakes, kisses and cuddles are important, because they involve touch. God wanted man to have that bond with Him.
And as if God’s handiwork weren’t enough to make the creature special above all other created things, God blew his very own breath into the man. Donkeys, Giraffes, Walruses and Duck-Billed platypuses all breathed on their own because that is what God spoke them to do; but not man. We have within us, the very breath of God.
Well, back to the story…
God created the world and everything in it and said, “it is good”. But then, he formed Adam and said, “it is very good”. Then God placed the man in the garden center of this created world, specifically noting that man was in charge of all of it, responsible for all of it. The garden was for the man and the man for the garden. He would tend the garden, but he would be fed by the garden. Everything in the garden was his and yet, he, himself was of the garden, because he was formed from the soil.
Specifically, God gave man two to-do’s and one to-don’t. There were only three things that Adam had to remember. He didn’t have to remember his wife’s birthday, for he didn’t have one yet. He didn’t have to remember to pay the water bill, for there were four rivers running through the garden where the man lived. He didn’t have to remember to pick up his dirty socks, for he didn’t wear socks—in fact, he didn’t wear anything and didn’t feel any shame about it. Though I suppose if I was the only person on the planet, I might not be such a prude regarding public nudity.
For the first to-do, Adam was to name all the animals. This doesn’t seem like it’d be hard to cross off the list because there wasn’t a committee involved and there weren’t any groups like PETA to question the ethics of the animals’ treatment when given any particular name. And to make the task even easier to accomplish, Adam didn’t have to go find the animals to name them; God brought the animals to Adam.
The second directive was more involved, that is to say, more on-going. God told man to tend the garden where he lived. Essentially, Adam had to do yard work.
Some people love yard work, others do not; some of us don’t do much of it because of allergies. But, I can’t imagine that it was hard work. I mean, everything in this place was…well…perfect—exactly as God had created it. And figuring that even back then, God would not give more than could be handled, Adam was perfectly suited for the work he was given. And so, the point to be made is that man was not created to be idle or inactive or unproductive—neither in the physical realm, nor in the spiritual realm.
God gave Adam freedom—freedom to move about the garden as he willed, freedom to eat all the food in the garden, freedom to eat as much food as he wanted (how i wish i had that freedom). But, as we Americans are acutely aware, freedom comes with a boundary.
God spoke to the man and said, “You are free to eat from any plant in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”. There were thousands, millions, maybe even billions in abundance on the buffet, but only one tree of which he was not to eat. To don’t. Don’t do it. No exceptions, no provisions, no worst-case scenarios, no “but-what-ifs”, no wishy-washy moralities—only one absolute: do not eat of that tree.
Have you ever heard the expression, “didn’t know any better”? Adam fell into that category. He was living life to the fullest that he knew existed. And even though God is all that man needed, God knew the man would benefit from a helper. And among all the animals that God had created, no suitable helper could be found, so God formed another creature.
God gave Adam some anesthesia and performed a rib-ectomy closing that place with flesh. From that rib, Scripture says, He built a wo-man, so called because she came from man. And boy was she built!
I don’t know that Eve was necessarily the “perfect woman”, but I know she was perfectly suited for Adam. The original language gives us some beautiful word pictures of their relationship. It says they were “corresponding parts”; they “fit together”. She was taken from his side so to be by his side, a helper. She was to help do the to-do’s and help don’t the to-don’t.
Here’s another little tidbit that speaks to the man-woman relationship. In Genesis 1:27, there is a well-known phrase that says “in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them”. I don’t want to come across as crass, but this is true. The Hebrew words for “male” and “female” are not what we see in the text—a literal translation of the passage would better be rendered as, “in the image of God he created them; stick and crevice he created them”. Is there any question that we are created by God to enjoy sexuality within his plan?
Here’s where the story gets sticky and feels a little bit like Narnia. There was a serpent--a snake, but not just any snake, a talking snake. The woman was living up to her purpose, tending the garden alongside her mate when she hears a voice. “Did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden?” In the garden, there are seeds of doubt.
“We can eat from any tree, except God specifically mentioned not eating from that one. In fact, He said not to even touch it or we will die for sure.”
We need to clarify for the record that is not exactly what God said. God said, “Do not eat from it or you will die”. We have no written record that He said not to touch it. Eve added to the story. She made the to-don’t even stricter than God originally intended.
“You will not die”, the serpent lied. “God just doesn’t want you to eat because He knows if you do, you’ll have knowledge like Him.”
Have you considered that the serpent tempted Eve with truth? That is exactly why God didn’t want them to eat from that tree. The temptation seemed right and good because it enticed the woman to be “even more in the image of God”. How can something so good, so in-line with the basis of humanity be so bad?
It’s bad because it’s the only to-don’t. She was doing the to-dos: naming the animals and tending the garden at the side of her husband, but now she totally to-did the to-don’t. And then Adam totally to-did the to-don’t.
In the aftermath, there are all kinds of problems. I probably don’t need to tell them to you, because I’m pretty sure we’ve all done the same things:
- Hiding from God – “But the Lord God called to the man, ‘Where are you?’”.
- Masking the sin – “so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.”
- Shifting blame – “The woman gave it to me to eat.”
- Playing the victim– “The serpent deceived me.”
And then come the curses.
- The serpent, as a species, was cursed to crawl on the ground and to lick dust (ever seen a snakes tongue?); humanity will fear snakes and consequently be stepped upon and killed by humanity.
- The woman was cursed. Pain in childbirth and the whole “female thing” are products of the fall.
- The man was cursed, specifically mentioned because he listened to his wife instead of the Word of God. Now, men have to work harder to provide for their family. We have to remember that we were already created to work, but the curse of man is that it takes more work to get out of sin than to stay out of sin.
Who’s the innocent victim in all of this? It’s not us. Eve was the first, but she wasn’t the last; we have our own sins. The Bible says very clearly that planet earth and everything that touches it is cursed because of humanity’s choice.
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