Genesis 2.4-25
Psalm 13 song
Call to worship / Old testamenT reading:
pastor michael champoux
Hosea 6.1-11
New tesamenT reading:
pastor zachary mcguire
Ephesians 5.22-32
song:
O church arise
Historical reading:
pastor andrew logionw
Nicene Creed
song:
Man of sorrows
Confession & Pardon:
dr. brett eckel
song:
Come behold the wondrous mystery
Sermon:
dr. alex loginow
Genesis 2.4-25
Introduction
What is the greatest film of all time? Is it Back To The Future or is it Raiders Of The Lost Ark? What? Did you maybe have a different movie in mind? I’m sure we’d all have different answers to the question of the best film ever or our favorite film ever.
People love good stories. We love good stories because they’re a mirror into our feelings and experiences. We love comedies because we love to laugh. We love romances because love and intimacy are beautiful human experiences. We love adventure stories because we love to aspire to accomplishing extraordinary things. People love horror movies because, in the same way that people love rollercoasters, they like the adrenaline rush, but people also love horror movies because they’re some of the only movies that deal honestly with death and the existence of the supernatural or the afterlife.
We love good stories that are filled with good characters – characters we can identify with, or aspire to. Villains give us someone tangible to explain the evil and brokenness we experience. We love heroes because we yearn for the aspirational and most importantly because, deep down, we know that we need salvation. We need salvation from the brokenness of the world and most importantly we need salvation from guilt and shame.
Work, Wedlock, & Worship
Humanity’s universal love for good stories can be traced all the way back to the beginning. There are universal human emotions and experiences because all humans descend from 1 man – Adam and his wife, Eve. As we’ve moved through Genesis thus far we’ve been introduced to the 1 true and living God who created all things good. Genesis 1.1-2.3 is a bird’s eye view of the creation narrative – a poetic picture of God building a cosmic temple, placing His image in this temple, and then resting because the temple is good. Now in Genesis 2.4-25 the narrative takes us from the perspective of the sky to the perspective on the ground – from the heavens to the dirt. This pericope is a recapitulation of what we read in Genesis 1 from a different perspective. Here Moses tells us how and for what purpose God created Adam and Eve.
Genesis 2.4-25 reveals to us that which is intrinsic to humanity – how did God create us and what are we to do? We know that these things are intrinsic to humanity because they have been true ever since God created the 1st man, and they were true before Adam’s fall in sin. If we are to truly understand ourselves as image bearers of God, it’s imperative that we understand that which is intrinsic to our created existence. Just as you might consider your macros when thinking through your nutrition (protein, fat, carbs), in order to understand who we are and how we are to live, we must understand how and why God created us.
Work
The 1st intrinsic image-bearing element of humanity we see is work or vocation. Notice in verse 5 that Moses notes that no plant had sprung up from the ground yet because there was no man to work the ground. Once again we’ll note that Moses isn’t concerned with literalism here. Some might argue that Scripture is inconsistent because Genesis 1 says that God spoke the plants into existence on the 3rd day but here at the creation of man the Bible says there were no plants yet. The same charge could be made in verse 19 where it says that God formed the animals and the birds from the ground, but in chapter 1 it says that God spoke them into existence but anyone who might make that charge is missing the point. Moses isn’t giving us a literalistic explanation of exactly when and how God created, Moses is teaching us that God created all things and that humanity is the most important thing He created.
Moses also tells us in verse 15 that God put Adam in the garden to work it and keep it. This is no surprise to us because we already know from Genesis 1 that mankind was created to have dominion over the world – humanity represents God to the world and rules over the world as God’s image. So what we see here is that work, vocation, is a pre-fall reality. Many from my generation are familiar with the rally cry, “work sucks, I know.” Regardless of when you were born, you’ve probably had that feeling before, but that has not been true from the beginning. Work has not always sucked. Adam was created to work from the beginning and his work was good.
Wedlock
The 2nd intrinsic reality we see from the beginning is wedlock, or marriage. God created Adam and then said that it was not good that Adam was alone then God created Eve from Adam. When Adam wakes up from his divine anesthetic he sees Eve and he speaks the 1st love song or love poem in human history. And then God marries them. How do we know God marries them? Because Moses gives us the 1st explanation about marriage in Scripture – that a man shall leave his parents and become 1 flesh with his wife. Adam didn’t have any parents to leave so this teaching wasn’t for Adam; Moses was teaching Israel that marriage was from the beginning, created by God – 1 man and 1 woman for life.
Worship
The 3rd intrinsic reality we see from the beginning is worship. God created Adam from the dirt and then breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, so from the creation of the very man we see the reality of the tangible and intangible, the body and the spirit, the dirt and the divine breath. And then God gave Adam His law – Adam was not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam was to trust God for the knowledge of good and evil and Adam was to obey God by abstaining from the fruit. Notice also that Eve was not yet created when God’s Law was given – Adam was created as the federal head of humanity and Adam was to teach his wife and children to trust and obey the Law of God.
Reformed theologians have long referred to this scene as the covenant of works, or the Adamic covenant, or the creation covenant. It’s noteworthy that it is not in Genesis 1, but here in Genes 2 that God is 1st called by the name yhwh. yhwh is the covenant name for God and Scripture refers to God as yhwh here because of the covenantal relationship Adam has with God. In our Old Testament call to worship Pastor Mike read from Hosea 6, which references God’s covenant with Adam. God was testing Adam for a period of time and had Adam passed the test – trusted and obeyed God – Adam and his offspring would have lived in sinless perfection in perpetuity, but if Adam failed, God said the day that you eat of the fruit of the tree you will surely die. Adam was created without sin but with the ability to sin and in the coming weeks we will see that Adam did sin and thus plunged all of humanity and the cosmos in sin.
Christ
And that is why we needed the last Adam to come; we needed a new federal head who could lead us out of the death of the 1st creation and into the life of the new creation and that’s what the Lord Jesus Christ came to do. The Lord Jesus is the eternal 2nd person of the Holy Trinity, the Son of God, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary, who lived without sin, passing the test when He was tempted in the wilderness by Satan, and then dying on the cross for the sins of God’s people. And when Jesus Christ rose again on the 3rd day he inaugurated the new covenant and the new creation. Jesus is the last Adam who kept the covenant of works on our behalf and earned the reward of eternal life for his posterity.
Not only that but the gospel of Jesus is also the true meaning behind the institution of marriage. Pastor Zack read from Ephesians 5 in New Testament reading, which revels to us that marriage was created as a 1 flesh and blood picture of Christ and the church – the self-sacrificial love of Jesus Christ and the resulting submission of the church is like a living sacrament in the covenant union of husband and wife. Adam and Eve’s marriage, and every marriage since, including yours, if you’re married, represents the good news of Jesus.
The good news of Jesus is that even though you have sinned against the 1 true and living God who created you – you have sinned against Him as you have inherited Adam’s sin nature and you have sinned against His Law in thought, word and deed – but even though you’re guilty and deserve eternal conscious punishment in hell, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. The good news is that because of the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ you can receive the forgiveness of your sin and the hope of eternal life if you receive Christ by faith. The Reformed tradition defines faith as composed of knowledge, assent, and trust. To have faith in Jesus means to know who Jesus is and what Jesus did, to assent to the validity of this good news, and to transfer your trust to Jesus Christ alone.
If you have genuinely received Christ by faith it will be revealed in your repentance. Repentance means confessing your sin and turning from your sin. To confess your sin means to acknowledge that you are guilty before God. To turn from your sin means to practice the self-discipline of humbling yourself and fleeing your sin by whatever means necessary. Repentance can only happen in the power of the Spirit and will only happen if God has given you faith by His grace but the responsibility lies on you – repent and believe the gospel.
Christian Work, Wedlock, & Worship
If you have repented of your sin and believed then you see with new eyes and these intrinsic human realities, these marks of bearing God’s image can be lived out in the name of Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Work
Think about work – work is intrinsic to human existence; it is a characteristic of bearing God’s image. We all have work to do and it can fall into 3 primary categories: home, marketplace, and ministry. Some of you are homemakers, others work both outside and inside the home, some of you are too young to work, or you’re retired, or elderly, regardless of where you fall there is always work to be done at home. There is physical work – dishes, laundry, etc. but there is also spiritual work if you are married, or have kids, or grandkids. Even if you’re single you have neighbors. Our work in the home is good. It is dignified because we bear the image of God when we do a load of laundry, or change a diaper, or feed someone.
There is also work outside the home in the marketplace or government. And regardless of whether you sit at the CEO’s desk, or sweep the floor, whether you have a High School diploma or a PhD, whether you’re make $15/hr or $500,000/year, work, vocation, industry is good because God created us to bear His image and just as He worked in the 6 days, we work. He created us to take dominion of the world and even when you’re doing something as simple as cleaning the toilets, or balancing the spreadsheet, or managing the team, you’re taking dominion, you’re ordering the chaos.
The 3rd category of work is ministry. Some of us, like Pastor Kevin and I do ministry full-time, others like Pastor Brett, or Cia, or Chrissy, or others who take care of our building, do ministry part-time, the rest of you do lay ministry, or volunteer ministry. But don’t misunderstand this – every Christian is called to do ministry. Ephesians 4 says that the Elders of the church are to equip the saints for the work of ministry to build up the body of Christ (Eph 4.12). We’re all called to do the work of ministry, as God gifts us.
Wedlock
Not only does the gospel reshape how we view work but also how we view wedlock, or marriage. The world views marriage as a legal contract that can exist between any 2 people and can be broken at their convenience but Scripture reveals that marriage was created at the beginning of time by God as 1 man and 1 woman, 1 flesh covenant for life. Marriage cannot exist between any 2 (or more) people who love each other. Marriage is a specific thing; it cannot be redefined because it derives from God himself and existed before sin.
Not only does Genesis 2 give us a solid foundation for marriage in this world of sand, but also the gospel teaches us how our marriages can thrive. When husbands are loving and leading their families self-sacrificially; when wives are submitting to and respecting the godly leadership of their husbands. When marriages are producing children and raising them in the fear of the Lord. This is where human flourishing begins. The health and stability of the nations and the generations start in home where dad and move love each other and are committed to each other, and dad leads the family in the way of Jesus.
Worship
And finally we see that worship was from the beginning and is realized in the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ. So the most important thing you can do is repent and believe the gospel. After that the next important thing is to be baptized and join the church. After that the next important thing is to gather with the church every week under the preaching of the Word and sitting at the Lord’s Supper with your brothers and sister in Christ. Adam broke the covenant of works but the Lord Jesus has inaugurated the new covenant. We become members of the new covenant by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone and we are sealed in the new covenant through the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist.
Conclusion
This is how we image God in this broken world – through our worship, and our marriages, and our work. But a day is coming when the new creation that Jesus inaugurated with His resurrection will be consummated. The Lord Jesus Christ will return to raise the dead, judge the world, and make all things new. And if you go home and read Revelation 21-22 you’re going to see the same realities in the future from back at the beginning: in the new creation there will be work. St. John writes of the new Jerusalem as a city with gates and walls but the gates are always open because there’s no danger and the kings and nations will bring their glory into the city. There will be commerce; there will be economy and vocation, just as before sin, after sin there will be work.
And St. John also uses the imagery of marriage when he pens that the New Jerusalem comes down from heaven as a bride adorned for her husband. He writes of the marriage supper of the Lamb, that eternal Eucharist. And John also writes of eternal worship. In this new world God will be with us and He will be our God and we will be His people and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes. So as we come to this rehearsal dinner for the new creation, it will take us back to the beginning but it will also bring us forward to the end – let’s go back to the future.