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DISCOVER GENESIS
An exploratory Bible course for disciples of Christ
PART 2 -- The Torah of ADAM (Genesis 2:4 to 5:32)
GENESIS 2
The LORD God set up his holy order for all of mankind. -- (DATE: The year following Adam’s creation)
OUTLINE of Genesis 2
01. The land before its cultivation. (2:5+6)
02. How the LORD God made Adam from Earth. (2:7)
03. The LORD God planted a garden in Eden as a place for Adam to live in. (2:8-14)
04. Adam in the Garden of Eden and the prohibition to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. (2:15-17)
05. How the LORD God made a helper for Adam. (2:18-25)
DISCOVER Genesis 2: On a second, slightly more focused account using God’s name YAHWEH, the LORD God (i.e. YAHWEH God) formed Adam (i.e. man) from the dust of the freshly created earth, back when there was yet no rain to fall onto the land and a mist was moistening the whole face of the ground. Into the nostrils of this newly formed man, the LORD God blew the breath of life, so that he would become a living creature. -- And the LORD God put Adam into the Garden of Eden in the east, where he had planted trees in the ground, both to please the eye and to produce fruit for food. And in the midst of this garden stood the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. From the Garden of Eden flowed a river, which divided into four. First the Pishon, flowing into the land of Havilah, where gold and gemstones could be found. Second the Gihon that flowed through the whole land of Cush. Third was the Tigris, which flowed east into Assyria. The forth and last was the Euphrates. -- The LORD God placed Adam there, so that he might work and keep the garden, and told him that he was allowed to eat from each and every tree, except from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He warned that, if Adam were to eat from this forbidden tree, he would surely die. -- Now when the LORD God saw Adam working in the garden alone, he thought it would be good for Adam to have a helper. So he called all the beasts of the field and birds of the heavens, which he had previously created from the ground, and had Adam look through them. And Adam named the creatures, and God let those be the names of each of them. But among them Adam could not find a suitable helper for himself. So the LORD God put Adam into a deep sleep, and while he slept took a rib from his body and closed with flesh the place he took it from. From this rib the LORD God formed what Adam would later call woman. For when Adam saw her, after he woke up, he was overjoyed saying that she was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. And because she was taken out of him by the LORD God, he called her woman. And the LORD God proclaimed that a man would from then on leave behind father and mother to hold fast to his wife and that they would together become one flesh. At that time, both of them were naked, but neither were ashamed of this fact.
PRAYER: Thank you, holy God, for your wisdom and love with which you created Adam, planted a garden for him, gave him a rewarding task there and finally created a helper for him to better achieve this task. Thank you also for your holy order of setting limits on what Adam and his wife should do, by warning him not to know evil, but only what is good. Help us always to respect, what you in your holy understanding ask from us. Amen.
QUESTION 2: What was the task of Adam and his helper in the Garden of Eden?
QUOTES: The New Testament quoted from two verses in Genesis 2, the first verse was quoted one time and the second verse was quoted four times:
“Then the LORD God formed Adam of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Adam became a living being.” (Genesis 2:7) Part of this verse is QUOTED in
1 Corinthians 15:45 -- “Thus it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being’; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” --
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24) This verse is QUOTED four times in the New Testament. First in
Matthew 19:5-6 (where Jesus explained why husband and wife should not be divorced:) “And (Jesus) said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” -- Similarly Genesis 2:24 is also QUOTED in
Mark 10:6-9 “But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” -- The last part of Genesis 2:24 is QUOTED in verse 16 of the passage
1 Corinthians 6:15-17 -- “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, ‘The two will become one flesh.’ But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.” -- And Genesis 2:24 is finally also QUOTED at the end of the passage
Ephesians 5:28-31 “In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’.”
In addition to these explicit quotations we find 13 allusions in the New Testament to verses from this second chapter of the Bible: Genesis 2:7 is ALLUDED to in Luke 3:38 (Luke describes Jesus as being ‘... the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God’. This refers to Adam being Son of God, because God breathed into him the breath of life when creating him.) and in John 20:22 (When Jesus had said this to his disciples, ‘he breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit.’ This is similar to God breathing the breath of life into Adam.) and in 1 Timothy 2:13 (Paul wrote to Timothy: ‘Adam was formed first, then Eve.’ This takes up Genesis 2:7, where Adam was first created alone, and in a second step Eve was made by God form a rib of Adam in Genesis 2:22.) -- Genesis 2:9 is ALLUDED to in Revelation 2:7 (Jesus in a vision said to the angel of the church in Ephesus: ‘To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God’. This tree of life was in the midst of the garden, which God planted according Genesis 2:9.) and Revelation 22:2 (An angel showed John in a vision the heavenly city of Jerusalem with a river of the water of life springing from God’s throne, adding that ‘on either side of the river, (there was) the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. ...’ This refers to the first tree of life planted by God in the Garden of Eden. This Tree of Life is our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the resurrection and the life.) -- Genesis 2:10 is ALLUDED to in Revelation 22:1 (In the same vision, John saw ‘the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.’ This alludes to the river flowing out of Eden watering the Garden of Eden, including the Tree of Life in its midst.) -- Genesis 2:17 is ALLUDED to in Romans 5:12 (Paul wrote: ‘Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.’ Here Paul alludes to God’s commandment to Adam not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, lest he surely die.) and in Romans 7:10 (Paul wrote: ‘The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.’ Here he refers to God’s warning to Adam not to eat of the forbidden tree, so that he would continue to live and not die.) and in Hebrews 5:14 (Here we read: ‘solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil’, which alludes to the character of the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden, as a ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’.) -- Genesis 2:18 is ALLUDED to in 1 Corinthians 11:9 (Paul wrote: ‘Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.’ Here he alluded to God saying that he wanted to ‘make a helper fit for man’ so that he will no longer be alone.) -- Genesis 2:22 is ALLUDED to in 1 Timothy 2:13 (Paul wrote: ‘Adam was formed first, then Eve’ alluding to this second step of God creating first the man and then the woman.) -- And finally Genesis 2:22+23 is ALLUDED to in 1 Corinthians 11:8 (Paul wrote: ‘man was not made from woman, but woman from man’ alluding to God creating the woman from the rib of the man and then bringing her to him).