Bibliology- Like Chapter 1, there is some dispute over how literal Chapter 2 should be taken. More appropriately, there is a discussion whether Adam was a special man that God made and formed him for God’s purpose, or if Adam was the first man and Chapter 2 takes a closer look at the creation of man. How one interprets this bit of scripture can have a big impact on how one views the rest of scripture and even the world. The implications of Adam not being the first man, but instead simply a set-apart man is twofold.
First, if Adam wasn’t the first man, then it means that men were dying before the fall. This creates a theological problem in that death is supposed to be a result of the fall. Some might argue that this is talking of a spiritual death since Adam didn’t die right away after sinning. This begs the question, would Adam have died a physical death if he hadn’t partaken of the fruit in Chapter 3?
The second implication is an argument for Calvinism, although a Calvinist wouldn’t necessarily prescribe to this way of thinking. If Adam was created apart from the rest of the world, then it implies that God has always had a separate people. While the rest of the world continued in its sin, God set apart one group of people for glory. Of course, this almost becomes a moot point after the flood since only the sons of Adam would have survived.
Theology- God is the one who sets order to all things and establishes commands. What God says is truth, let everyone else be a liar. By His commands, the natural universe is established, and what we deem to be a part of the natural universe. This is elementary but still must be mentioned because it is denied by the actions and preachings of some who would profess to know God. God the Father establishes order and commands, and He expects obedience to those commands. He gives Adam the command “Eat all this, but don’t eat that.”
The command God gave to Adam was “positive law”, that is, law that is not part of our natural understanding and must be given in order to be obeyed. Natural law pertains to that law which humans universally tend to understand such as prohibitions against murder, for example. It is this law that Paul is alluding to in Romans 1:18-20 when he discusses the invisible attributes of God. In contrast, the command not to eat from the tree was positive law. Adam would have had no innate understanding not to eat from that particular tree if God had not passed down that decree.
God takes great care in His crafting of us, forming us patiently out of the dust of the earth. This speaks boldly to the character of God in that He is deliberate in all He does, and the Lord God cannot error.
Christology- In scripture, Jesus is called the second Adam. Whereas Adam was formed out of the dust of the ground, the Earthly body of Jesus was formed from the Holy Spirit. Where the first man is corruptible, Jesus is incorruptible (1 Corinthians 15:45-47). Jesus is God, Adam was simply made “like” God. As such, Jesus is perfect. Jesus is born of Spirit, but let this not be an argument that Jesus is a created being. He didn’t come into existence in Mary’s womb, as discussed earlier. But He humbled Himself through her womb by the Holy Spirit (Phil. 2:5-8).
Pneumatology- There are multiple pictures of the Holy Spirit being depicted as wind. This can be seen in John 3:8, talking about how the wind blows where it would. In this verse, however, there is a strong connection between the breath of life and the Holy Spirit. God breathed into Adam “the breath of life” (2:7). In the same way, Jesus breathed on His disciples and gave them the Holy Spirit (John 20:22).
It can be easily said that God is the source of all life, so it would not be blasphemy to believe that the Holy Spirit is the given breath of life although this is not specifically stated. What can be stated for certainty is that the Holy Spirit is the one who brings believers into new life through Christ. As the wind blows where it wants, the Holy Spirit brings new life. The Holy Spirit convicts of sin, and calls the elect to repentance. He is the breath and the wind of all those who are saved, and His love allows the rebellious to live for a time.
Anthropology- Man is made from the dust of the earth. There are some who have claimed that the “dust” here refers to clay and that God carefully molded us. This can come from the Strongs concordance which suggests that the Hebrew word “aphar” can also be translated as clay. The problem with this understanding is that in the next chapter, God will profess that we were made of dust, and to dust we would return. This makes less sense if it were translated as clay. A better understanding is the way it’s translated in most Bibles, dust. There is a poetic lowness in the word, a symbology that we were created from nothing special. It isn’t what God made us from that sets us apart in creation, but it’s the gifts that He has endowed us with. He gave us a distinct awareness and creativity that is void in the rest of His creation. Most importantly, we are able to conceptualize God.
This chapter also confirms that man was given purpose by God. God placed Adam in the Garden of Eden to tend to it. The King James Bible said that Adam was to dress and keep it (15). To dress simply means to work it, to plant, and to grow. This is not the same kind of work that will be happening in the next chapter, but it is still a significant note that Adam worked on the garden. He was also commanded to keep the garden, which means to protect it. The man was given a place to protect creation. This can fly in contrast to how a man treats nature from time to time, we consume without regard. The earth has been given to us, and there is certainly a place where we must consume to survive, and even to thrive. But to disregard the amount of our consumption or cause permanent harm to God’s creation goes against the very purpose we were given. The work that God has called us to was never meant to be drudgery; rather, we were created to enjoy the work God has given us to do. It was after the fall that work became a drudge.
It is also worth noting that man was not initially created to know evil. He was created sinless. Sin nature will be introduced in the next chapter; but for this chapter, man is sinless. This is the state man will enjoy again when Christ brings His Kingdom back to this earth. Christ dealt with the consequences of sin on the cross so that we no longer have to work for our salvation. But when Christ's Kingdom is fully established on this earth, we will be restored to this natural state of sinlessness and eat freely from the Tree of Life.
In this chapter, we also see the marriage covenant being established. The Bible says that God took a rib from Adam, and Eve was formed for him. Upon taking a wife, that wife is to be protected as if they are your own flesh. This also establishes the model of monogamy, Eve is the only woman that Adam said, “This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.” There will be those who take multiple wives later, but this is against God’s original design. A good wife is a great comfort to a man, and if she’s treated right, she will be the soft touch and encouragement that man needs. God said that it’s not good for man to be alone, and so He created a helpmate suitable for him. This is why men need to protect their wives. Not just physically, few men have an issue with that aspect. But they are also to be protected emotionally. It’s wrong for men to abuse their authority over women. Men need to be strong enough to love and cherish their wives in all ways. The phrase “treat others how you want to be treated” has a special meaning in a marriage because the way one treats their wife is the same way they treat their own flesh.
The marriage between Adam and Eve is further reflective of the Gospel message in that Adam is called to look after his wife just as Jesus looks after the Church. The particulars of the marital relationship are found in scriptures such as Ephesians 5:22-33. There is an order established, wives are to be subject to their husbands and husbands are to love their wives, giving themselves for her. This is the established order of marriage, and so sits as a message to Adam and Eve about His nature, and a promise of His joining to mankind before the fall.
Soteriology- The Sabbath day, the seventh day of the week =, was sanctified by God at the end of creation. After He finished, He rested. This established a covenant with His people, that on the seventh day, we rest. For the Jews, this meant no work was to be done on this day. This sets up an important precedence, one that God affirms in the 4th commandment. The Sabbath is so important to the Lord that He said anyone who doesn’t keep the sabbath shall be put to death (Exodus 31:14).
There is significance in the 4th commandment when it comes to soteriology as well. Until the time of Jesus, daily sacrifices had to be made at the Tabernacle and the temple. The expectation was that we had to keep the command of God. To say that the sabbath no longer matters, or that it was done away with at the cross would also have to say the other nine commandments would have to be done away with as well. This is just bad reading. However, the nature of the sabbath is different today than it used to be.
Jesus did the work for us, and He completed that work on the cross. He affirms this when He says, “It is finished” (John 19:30). We now rest in Christ, and our sabbath is eternal. When we fall into trying to do good works to earn our salvation we are no longer resting in Christ, we are breaking the sabbath. There will be a more in-depth discussion of the different views on the Sabbath under “Ecclesiology”.
There is also an understanding of covenant theology made in this chapter. Adam was given an explicit command that could not be known through God’s natural law. Natural law is a law that humans seem to understand on an intrinsic level. For the most part, humans don’t need to be told that killing is wrong, humans simply understand that this is wrong. This plays out in Chapter 4 when Cain kills Abel. But covenantal law is law that is passed down from God that someone must be told in order to understand. This first covenant was not to touch the forbidden fruit. It was a negative command, defined as the command to abstain from a thing rather than a command to do a thing. There are similarities, and yet opposites, between the command of the first Adam, and the command of the second Adam.
Chiefly, while the command to Adam was a negative, the command to us after Jesus is a positive; that is, we’re commanded to do; believe in Jesus.
Escatology- In a certain sense, the Christian already does eat from the tree of life. We have partaken in the Gospel of Christ. Because we have partaken of Christ, we have our place in eternity with Christ.
Many theologians have said that Heaven will look and feel like the Garden of Eden. When Christ restores the Earth, it will be a perfect paradise and will be free of sin. If this theology is to be believed, it also means we will have work to do in Heaven, but it won't be a drudgery. We will live according to God in the way that God intended. Revelation 21 says that God will create a new Heaven and new Earth. What will replace this is God’s Kingdom. No matter what it ultimately looks like, some parallels can be drawn from the Garden of Eden, the biggest of which is that we will dwell with God eternally, we will never thirst anymore, nor hunger anymore, nor shall the sun beat down on us.
Ecclesiology- How the sabbath is treated or looked at is disputed among Christians. There are some who say that there is no need to keep the physical sabbath because the spiritual sabbath was fulfilled by Jesus Christ. Still, others insist that the true sabbath day was replaced by Sunday, the Lord's Day. There is also a contingency that says God never changed the Sabbath, and that we should still be keeping Saturday, the last day of the week. Finally, there are some who say that the sabbath is on your personal seventh day. The last day of your week is your sabbath. This last one mainly applies to people who work shift work as they may not be allotted the weekend.
Among those who believe that the last day of the week should still be regarded as the Lord's Sabbath are Seventh-Day Adventists, Seventh-Day Baptists, Messianic Jews, and a handful of others. Their case rests on the idea that the Lord never officially changed the Sabbath day to Sunday. To this end, scholarly work has been done on this matter. Samuel Bacchiocchi makes the case that “The Lord's Day” doesn’t refer to the day of the week Jesus was resurrected, but rather it distinguishes the day of the year, ie The Passover. Many Sabbath-keepers contend that the Roman Church changed the official day of worship to better align with the Roman calendar.
The most traditional view is that the Christian Sabbath is on Sunday. Because Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week (Matthew 28:1). The 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith says this:
“ It is the law of nature that in general a portion of time specified by God should be set apart for the worship of God. So by his Word, in a positive-moral and perpetual commandment that obligates everyone in every age, he has specifically appointed one day in seven for a sabbath to be kept holy to him. From the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, the appointed day was the last day of the week. After the resurrection of Christ, it was changed to the first day of the week, which is called the Lord’s Day. This day is to be kept to the end of the age as the Christian Sabbath since the observance of the last day of the week has been abolished.”
The primary evidence for this comes from Acts 20:7, 1 Corinthians 16:1, and Revelation 1:10, each showing either the Church itself, or just one person, observing a public worship or prayer on the first day of the week. Again, Sabatarians would contest Revelation 1:10 saying that The Lord's Day isn’t the first day of the week, but rather Passover. This doesn’t dismiss, however, the other passages of Scripture which clearly show a regular practice of gathering on the first day of the week. To be fair, these are descriptive texts and not prescriptive. There is no specific command in Scripture that says the official day of worship is Sunday.
One final view, although there is maneuverability within all these views, is the idea that The Sabbath Day is no longer a specific day at all. This day ties back to the Soteriology chapter and applies the concept that the Sabbath is fulfilled in Jesus. The Biblical case for this is found in Hebrews chapter 3 as the author, most likely Paul, asserts throughout this chapter that if you hear God’s voice, harden not your hearts, but enter into the Lord’s rest. This view asserts that the true Sabbath is the true rest we have in Jesus Christ, and that every day is now our Sabbath rest.
The most Biblical response to this conundrum is Paul's assertion, “Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master, he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand. One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord, he eateth not, and giveth God thanks” (Romans 14:4-6).
Despite this, many Christians will split over this issue. They disfellowship with each other if someone’s view on the sabbath doesn’t match their own. Sometimes, they will even call each other heretics. And to what purpose? The more important issue is how people view Christ in light of the sabbath, not how the sabbath is kept.
Angelology
Satanology
Demonology
Heresies and Hetrodoxies- Mormonism- Even though I call this heresy Mormonism, the concept that we can become gods has crept into mainstream Christianity. The idea exists in the concept that God is our father, and if He’s our father then we must be gods as well. The problem is, the scripture never calls us sons and daughters in the traditional sense, that is to say, God didn’t procreate with another god to make children who now can become gods ourselves. Rather, He created us and breathed life into us. He then condescended to adopt us. We are the adopted children of God; but, even being adopted, we are still not little gods.
Sabatarianism/Judaizing- While it can be considered a valid view by some, seventh-day Sabbath keeping can fall into the realm of legalism. There are some who would assert that one must not only believe in Jesus, but must keep the Jewish Sabbath, and some would even say that we must keep the feasts as well. If we don’t, according to some groups, we are taking the Mark of the Beast and will be cut off from God. This view denies sola fide, that is faith alone. It is by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone that salvation is won, any addition to this perverts scripture.
Final Thoughts- The most important part of this Chapter is the description of the creation of man and woman. This is where we understand how man is the pinnacle of His creation, how He has tasked us unto good works, and His planned relationship with our spouse. Recognizing that we are made in the image of God, with a planned purpose in mind. He also has a designed plan for marriage, a man and a woman. The woman was created as the perfect helpmate for her husband. As to the man, the woman was crafted from his rib. His wife is bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. He loves her and protects her as much as this, and most likely with even higher honor. He will provide for her, care for her, and protect her. It cannot be stated wholeheartedly enough the importance of the distinction between men and women. Women were created in such a way that they are the perfect helper, which means the responsibility of leadership rests on the husband, and he will be held accountable for her physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. She is under his arm, under his care, and if she wishes to stay in this protected place then she must submit to the authority God has placed in him.
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