Scripture texts
are from the King James Version of the Bible
An Exposition of Genesis 2
Introduction
Have you ever wondered
why God planted the Garden of Eden in a world that was at that time “very good”
(Genesis 1:31)? In other words, why did God bother to set up a special place on
earth when the whole creation was absolutely perfect to begin with?
Why did God put the
Tree of Life in that Garden? This is not a silly question because Adam and Eve
had no need to eat of that tree prior to their fall; they had been created
originally to live forever. And when they did eat of it - that is, after they
had rebelled against God - they could no longer get to the Tree of Life because
God banished them from the Garden.
And why do you suppose
God made Adam and the beast of the field and the fowl of the air from the dust
of the ground, but then He made Eve from Adam’s rib? What is so different about
Eve?
These are just a few of
the thought-provoking questions that this study of Genesis 2 will answer. You
see, Jesus, who is the Word Himself, speaks unto the multitude in parables and
without a parable spake He not to them (Matthew 13:34, Mark 4:34).
Hidden in the historical parable are spiritual truths that relate to various
aspects of the Gospel.
This exposition has by
no means uncovered all the spiritual truths that God has hidden in Genesis 2,
but as we study all the verses by comparing Scripture with Scripture, and as the
Holy Spirit guides and teaches us, I believe that we will begin to see the
glorious, eternal kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ pictured in the historical
Garden of Eden.
Verses
1-2: Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And
on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the
seventh day from all his work which he had made.
After having recorded
the first six days of creation in Genesis 1, God speaks of the seventh day here
in the opening verses of Genesis 2. This is noteworthy because, in a sense, the
statements made in these verses are part of the creation story. Yet, God has
purposely separated the seventh day from the first days.
Remember that while
chapter divisions in the New Testament were put in by the Bible translators (the
original Greek manuscript has no such separations), the Hebrew manuscript from
which the Old Testament is translated does come with chapter divisions. In other
words, the chapter divisions therein were made by God, not by man.
Why, then, has God
recorded the seventh day in this chapter? The answer can be found in the next
verse.
Verse 3:
And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had
rested from all his work which God created and made.
The seventh day of the
creation week is exceptionally special in that God Himself rested from all His
work on this day. He blessed it and sanctified it.
The fact that God
rested from all his work this day is all the more special when we realize that
it is directly related to the spiritual rest that believers have in the Lord
Jesus Christ.
God explains the
Sabbath rest at length in Hebrews 4. We read in
Hebrews 4:9-11:
There
remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his
rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. Let us labour
therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of
unbelief.
Thus, the Old Testament
seventh-day Sabbath pointed to the completed salvation work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. When we become saved, we rest in Christ. We rest from trying to work our
way into being right with God; we simply put all of our trust in the Lord Jesus
Christ, believing by faith that He has done all the work for us. We do not have
to work for salvation.
By blessing the seventh
day, God, in effect, blessed those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. By
sanctifying the day of rest, He in effect, sanctifies or sets apart those who
have found rest in Christ for the service of God.
From the first three
verses, we have thus gotten the first hint that, spiritually, Genesis Chapter 2
has much to say about God’s salvation plan - the Gospel of grace.
Verse 4:
These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were
created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.
In this verse, God
seems to be saying that He created the heavens and the earth in the day that He
created the earth and the heavens. When reading that, we normally just gloss
over that seeming redundancy. But I learned a long time ago that God does not
put anything accidentally in the Bible. We should, therefore, pay close
attention to every word that He uses, especially in sentences that seem awkward
at first glance.
For example, the word
“generations” here is plural; it is translated from a Hebrew word that means
“beginnings” or “births.” Thus, we know at once that this verse has to do with
more than the creation of the universe.
Searching through the
Scriptures, it is found that when God talks about the creation, He almost always
uses the phrase “the heaven(s) and the earth.” Seldom does He say, “the earth
and the heavens,” as He does in the latter part of this verse.
The only other place
where God reverses the order is in Revelation
20:11 where we read, “And I saw a great
white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face and earth and the heaven
fled away; and there was found no place for them.” Here, God is speaking
about the end of the present universe which, of course, is Judgment Day.
Judgment Day is also
the day when Christ returns to gather His elect; and the end of this universe is
the beginning of the new creation. We read in
II Peter 3:10-13:
But the
day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens
shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent
heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing
then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye
to be in all holy conversation and godliness, Looking for and hasting unto the
coming day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the
elements shall melt with fervent heat?
Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth,
wherein dwelleth righteousness.
The same truth is seen
in Revelation 21:1, “And I saw a new heaven and
a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and
there was no more sea.”
Speaking of the end of
time, Jesus says in Matthew 25:34, “Then shall
the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit
the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”
Even as Christ the Lamb
was slain from the foundation of the world, the new kingdom that the elect shall
inherit was prepared from the foundation of the world.
Thus, the word
“generations” or “beginnings” in this verse refers not only to the present
physical universe, but to the new heavens and the new earth as well. God’s plan
of salvation was developed before the foundation of the world.
Confirmation. This is
further confirmed by the fact that in this verse, God introduces a name for God
that was not used at all in the first chapter. In Genesis 1, the word “God” in
the statement, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” is
translated from the Hebrew word Elohim, which is a plural noun that means
Almighty God.
In Genesis 2:4, God
uses the name Jehovah. (In the King James Bible, it is translated LORD, with all
four letters capitalized.) In Isaiah 43:11, God
declares, “I, even I, am the LORD (Jehovah); and beside me there is no savior.”
Jehovah is thus a name that connotes the idea that God is the Savior.
That is why when God
first commissioned Moses to free the Israelites from their enslavement in Egypt,
He said in Exodus 6:3, “And I appeared unto
Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name
JEHOVAH was I not known to them.”
With all this in mind,
we can paraphrase verse 4 this way: “These are the beginnings of the present and
the eternal heavens and earth, in the day that Jehovah God prepared the new
earth and heavens for the elect.”
Thus, we can see that
Genesis 2 does indeed talk about God’s salvation plan.
Verse 5:
And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the
field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth,
and there was not a man to till the ground.
In Genesis I, God tells
us that He created vegetation on the third day and man on the sixth day. This
verse seems to say that vegetation could not be there until man was created. Is
there a contradiction here?
Not at all. In Genesis
1, God gives us the chronological order of creation. There is no confusion there
whatsoever. In this verse, He sets forth a fundamental principle: vegetation
cannot grow and become fruitful until there is rain to water it and man to till
the ground.
This fundamental
principle applies spiritually to God’s kingdom as well. In the Bible, vegetation
is a picture of that which comes forth when the Gospel is sent out into the
world. In the parable of the sower, for example, Jesus talks about the fruitful
growth of those who have truly become saved.
God paints a beautiful
picture of salvation for us in Isaiah 35:1, “The wilderness and the solitary
place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the
rose.”
In other words, to
build the eternal church of God, living water must first be poured out and the
foundation must first be laid by a man. In the next two verses, we will see how
God Himself took care of these two prerequisites.
Verse 6:
But (And) there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the
ground.
In the King James
Bible, the Hebrew word that is translated “But” at the beginning of this verse
could just as well be translated, “And,” and the latter translation makes the
verse easier to follow.
God tells us how it
rains in Job 36:27, “For he maketh small the drops of water: they pour down rain
according to the vapour thereof.” The word “vapour” in Job is the identical
Hebrew word that is translated “mist” in Genesis 2:6. Thus, God is saying in
this verse that for vegetation to grow, He provided rain on the earth.
Spiritually, God
provides the living water of the kingdom of Christ. It was poured out at
Pentecost. In explaining that unique happening, God quotes from the Book of Joel
and says in Acts 2:17, “And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I
will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh.”
Jesus says in John
7:38, “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly
shall flow rivers of living water.” The Apostle John explains in the next verse,
John 7:39,” (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him
should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not
yet glorified.)”
Verse 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 soul.
Historically speaking,
God is providing us here with a formal account of the creation of Adam, the
progenitor of the whole human race.
Spiritually, the Lord
Jesus Christ is the man God has in view in the first instance. To till and
prepare the ground for the kingdom of Christ, He had to die for our sins.
Lest you think that I
am spiritualizing too much, note what God says in Romans 5:14, “Nevertheless
death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the
similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.”
The last phrase of this verse very clearly declares that Adam was a figure of
the Lord Jesus Christ who was to come.
What was Jesus formed
of? He was born of the virgin Mary, of course, upon whom the Holy Spirit came.
Mary is of this earth, the dust of the ground. Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3
that except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God, and He
likened the Holy Spirit to the wind or the air we breathe.
Thus, the Holy Spirit,
eternal God Himself, gave Jesus the breath of life.
Verse 8:
And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man
whom he had formed.
The immediate question
that arises is the question raised at the outset of this study: If the creation
was perfect, why would God make a special garden for Adam? Surely the whole
creation could not have been more beautiful. Yet, historically, there was indeed
a special area which God called the Garden of Eden.
The
Glorious Garden of Eden
This makes sense once we
realize that hidden in Genesis 2 is God’s glorious
salvation plan. God planted the Garden of Eden to symbolize the spiritual
kingdom of God that would later exist on this earth.
In the beginning, the
earth was perfect; but after man rebelled against God, the whole earth came
under the curse of sin. God foreknew that. So, His salvation plan provides that
within the sinful world, there will exist a kingdom or a people who will again
have a right relationship with God.
Notice the Bible says
the Garden of Eden was planted “eastward.” Eastward of what? It does not say
eastward of anything. It does not have to because in the Bible, God frequently
uses the word “east” in connection with the Lord Jesus Christ. For example, He
“is a sun and shield” (Psalm 84:11), and “unto you that fear my name shall the
Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings” (Malachi 4:2). No matter
where you are, the sun rises in the east.
Ezekiel says that the
Prince will come through the eastern gate (Ezekiel 43:1-4); and the wise men saw
His star in the east (Matthew 2:2). So, the Garden of Eden, which typifies the
kingdom of God, was planted eastward.
Verse 9:
And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to
the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden,
and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
This verse mentions
three kinds of trees, which will be briefly discussed.
The Trees for Food.
These trees are beautiful and bear fruit for food. Spiritually, they represent
believers. In the Bible, God frequently pictures the righteous as fruitful
trees. Of course, we are righteous only because we have been given the robe of
Christ’s righteousness.
Psalm
1:3, “And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth
forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he
doth shall prosper.” (See also Psalm 92:12, 14.)
Believers are to
sustain others by bearing fruit. In Galatians 5, we read about the fruit of the
Spirit, the fruit by which we minister to fellow believers. Fruit can be seen in
our life also when we witness to others and share the Gospel. The moment we
become children of God, we are like fruit trees within the Garden of Eden.
Tree of Life. The
second tree is the tree of life. This is surprising because in the Garden of
Eden, there was no need for the tree of life. Potentially, at least, Adam and
Eve had eternal life, so they did not have to eat of the tree of life. Besides
that, after they had sinned, they were driven out of the Garden, so that they
could not eat of the tree of life.
Again, God put the tree
of life in the Garden of Eden to anticipate the heavenly dimension.
Spiritually, the tree of
life represents the Lord Jesus Christ. In the kingdom of God, we partake of Him
in order that we might have eternal life. Jesus says in John 15:5, “He that
abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me
ye can do nothing.”
Tree of Knowledge. The
third tree is the tree of knowledge of good and evil. A tree of the knowledge of
good in the Garden of Eden is fine; God wants man to know more and more about
that which is good, but why a tree of knowledge of evil?
Evil is entirely alien
to a perfect creation. That alone should have frightened Adam and Eve away from
the tree of knowledge. The problem, of course, is that Adam and Eve had never
experienced evil, and they did not really know how bad evil is. So, deceived by
Satan, Eve wanted to find out for herself the meaning of evil. Instead of taking
God’s Word by faith, she disobeyed God.
What does the tree of
knowledge of good and evil represent spiritually? It represents God’s program to
test the faith and obedience of those who claim to have a relationship with
Christ. This condition has existed within the kingdom of God form the very
beginning.
God tested Abraham when
He told him to sacrifice his son Isaac on Mount Moriah. Abraham obeyed, and he
passed the test.
On the other hand, when
Moses went up to Mount Sinai for forty days and forty nights, the Israelites
failed the test. They rebelled against God; they made and worshipped a golden
calf.
God’s testing program
is present in my life and your life every single day. Every time the temptation
of sin comes against us, every time trials and difficulties confront us, we are
being tested by God to see how obedient we are and where our faith stands.
Verse
10: And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was
parted, and became into four heads.
During the time of the
Garden of Eden, there was a land called Assyria, a land called Ethiopia, and a
river called Euphrates, as mentioned in the next few verses, but these have
absolutely nothing to do historically with the places and river with the same
names that came along later. Do not forget that the Garden of Eden existed
before the flood of Noah’s day, which totally devastated the earth; the Nochian
flood changed the face of the whole earth.
God assigned names in
that day that later would come into the minds of men so that those very nations
would typify some spiritual aspect of the Gospel. In the Bible, Ethiopia,
Euphrates, and Assyria relate normally to the kingdom of Satan, and that is what
God has in view here. The Garden of Eden is a picture of the kingdom of God as
it exists in this world, the kingdom of Satan.
Concerning the rivers,
first of all, we see that there was a river to water the garden itself. As we
saw earlier, Jesus said in John 7:38, “He that believeth on me, as the scripture
hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” So, the picture
here tells us that when believers produce the fruit of the Spirit, the first
blessing goes right to fellow believers within the kingdom of God. We minister
to and are encouraged by one another, and we grow in grace as we fellowship in
the Spirit.
Once living water
begins to flow from believers, it continues to flow. Hence, God says here, “and
from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.” In the Bible, the number
four, if it has any spiritual dimension, signifies universality. In other words,
the Gospel will be proclaimed throughout the world.
Next we learn what
happens as the water goes out.
Verse
11: The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land
of Havilah, where there is gold.
The word “Pison,” found
in the Bible only in this verse, meaning flowing freely. Thus it conveys the
idea of the Gospel of Christ going out freely from the kingdom of God.
The word “Havilah” is
found in six other places in the Bible. Four of them are names of people listed
in long genealogy passages. The others are I Samuel 15 and Genesis 25. In these
two cases, they are associated with Egypt, which, in turn, is associated
spiritually with being in bondage to sin.
In other words, as the
Gospel flows out freely into the areas where people are in bondage to sin, it
finds gold.
In I Kings 6, God tells
us that gold was extensively used in the temple that Solomon built, especially
in the inner sanctuary. In Revelation 21:18, we read that the New Holy City is
made of pure gold. Job 23:10 tells us, “But he
knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.”
In the Bible, gold
commonly refers to true believers; they are the temple of God.
Verse
12: And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.
The only other place in
the Bible where we find the word “bdellium” is Numbers 11:7, which describes
manna as having “the colour thereof as the color of bdellium.” Thus, God
associates bdellium with manna, and the bread that came down from heaven. God
tells us in John 6 that the Lord Jesus Christ is our heavenly bread.
The word “bdellium”
means pearl. Revelation 21 tells us that on the twelve gates of the New Holy
City are the names of the twelve tribes of Israel (verse 12), and that each of
these twelve gates is made of a single pearl (verse 21).
And then there are onyx
stones. The most dynamic place in the Bible where these stones are featured is
Exodus 28, where God describes the garments which the high priest was to wear:
two onyx stones were fastened to the ephod and engraved on these two stones
where the twelve names of the sons of Israel. So, like gold, bdellium and the
onyx stone are identified with believers, because we are the Israel of God.
What this verse is
saying spiritually is that as the Gospel goes forth into the world, where people
are in bondage to sin, it will reach those who are the Israel of God. They will
hear the Gospel, receive the bread of life, and become believers.
Verse
13: And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth
the whole land of Ethiopia.
The land of Ethiopia is
fairly easy; in the Bible, it is associated with Egypt.
The word “Gihon,” which
means stream, is found elsewhere only in I Kings 1, where Solomon was anointed
king over Israel, and in II Chronicles 32 and 33, which allude to King Hezekiah
channeling water from the Gihon spring to the City of David.
Spiritually speaking,
every believer is anointed a king by the Holy Spirit. I Peter 2:9 tells us that
we are “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood,” and Revelation 22:5 declares
that believers “shall reign for ever and ever.”
In the Bible, the
children of God are also pictured as the spiritual Jerusalem or the City of
David.
Verse
14: And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward
the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.
The word “Hiddekel,” or
Tigris, means rapidly-running water. It is found in just one other place in the
Bible - Daniel 10:4, where we read in this and the following verse that the
prophet Daniel was standing by the River Hiddekel when he received a vision from
God.
Daniel was in Babylon
then, so the River Hiddekel is identified with Babylon. God uses Babylon in
Revelation 17 and 18 to represent the whole dominion of Satan.
Like Babylon, Assyria
is also used by God to typify the dominion of Satan. Speaking of His salvation
plan, for instance, God says in Zechariah
10:10-11:
I will
bring them again also out of the land of Egypt, and gather them out of Assyria;
and I will bring them into the land of Gilead and Lebanon;
and
place shall not be found for them. And he shall pass through the sea with
affliction, and shall smite the waves in the sea, and all the deeps of the river
shall dry up: and the pride of Assyria shall be brought down, and the scepter of
Egypt shall depart away.
With the word “east”
pointing to Christ Himself, the third river is again a picture, spiritually
speaking, of the Gospel being sent into the sinful world and the elect therein,
upon hearing the Gospel, respond by coming to Christ.
The fourth river, the
River Euphrates, is the river that goes right through Babylon, the dominion of
the world. The word “Euphrates” means rushing forth.
Thus, these rivers
promise that the Gospel will be sent forth freely into the four corners of
Satan’s world, and as a result, God’s people will be saved.
Verse
15: And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress
it and to keep it.
In the historical
context, God created Adam, and Adam was given the task of caring for that
beautiful garden.
Spiritually, Christ is
the “man” in the first instance who was put in the kingdom of God. He dressed it
by going to the cross. By His death and resurrection, He laid the foundation of
the church that He came to build.
The Lord Jesus also
came to proclaim the Gospel. Believers are now continuing this work that Christ
began. John 20:21: “Then said Jesus to them
again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.”
Thus, this verse also
points to the believers. They are to till, sow, and cultivate, and God will
produce spiritual fruit.
The phrase “keep it”
means that believers are also to keep the word or the commandments of the Lord
and to keep the body of Christ in unity.
Verse
16: And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou
mayest freely eat:
This was discussed
earlier when we considered the three kinds of trees that were in the Garden of
Eden. We are to enjoy the blessings that come from Christian fellowship. There
is to be mutual encouragement and mutual exhortation from each other. And we are
to partake of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Verse
17: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it:
for
in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt
surely die.
The Hebrew actually
reads like this, “…in the day thou eatest of it dying thou shalt die.” On that
day that they ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the process of
their physical dying began.
Spiritually, we saw that
this tree represents a testing program. The day Adam and Eve failed the test,
they became spiritually dead. They were under damnation; the wrath of God rested
upon them.
Verses
18-20: And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I
will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the LORD God formed
every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam
to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living
creature, that was the name thereof. And then Adam gave names to all cattle, and
to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was
not found an help meet for him.
Historically, God tells
us that He did not want Adam to be alone, and He brought all the living
creatures, which He had created, for Adam to name. Among these creatures, none
was found to be suitable to be Adam’s helper.
In this verse saying
that spiritually God does not want Jesus to be alone? Yes, indeed. In Romans
8:29, God reveals that He predestinated believers to be conformed to the image
of His Son so that Jesus might be the first born among many brothers. Romans
8:29: “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the
image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.”
Adam gave each animal
in the Garden of Eden its name. In John 10, the Lord Jesus says that He is the
Good Shepherd who calls His own sheep by name.
Are we really
represented by animals in the Bible? As a matter of fact, yes.
In Acts 10, before Peter was sent to
preach the Gospel to Cornelius and his family God told him to eat of animals
that He has made clean. Peter later said, in
verse 28, “God had shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean.”
So the verse is saying
that the Lord Jesus Christ, looking for a suitable help, gave names to all those
whom He had elected before the foundation of the world but could not find anyone
yet qualified to be His eternal bride. They all have sinned and come short of
the glory of God. They must yet be cleansed; the salvation plan has yet to be
carried out.
In the next two verses,
God describes how that plan was carried out
Verses
21-22: And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and
he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib,
which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the
man.
Historically, we see
here how Eve came into existence. God brought her as a bride to Adam, and we
have the beginning of the human race.
Spiritually, for Christ
to have an eternal bride, He had to die. In the Bible, God frequently uses sleep
to represent death, and the word “deep” to describe hell. So, when God caused
Adam to fall into a deep sleep, it was a picture of God sending the Lord Jesus
Christ to die on the cross and endure hell for the sins of believers.
God took a rib from
Adam and made a woman. Here the woman, Eve, represents the bride of Christ,
which is the body of believers; we learn this from
Revelation 21:9:
And
there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the
seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee
the bride, the Lamb's wife.
In what manner is the
church made of something coming out from Christ? Remember that after Jesus had
died on the cross, a Roman soldier pierced His side with a spear and water and
blood came out of His side, His rib cage.
The water is the living
water, the Holy Spirit, or the Gospel flowing out of Christ. The blood is the
blood He shed for the remission of sins. Thus, had water and blood not flowed
out of the Lord Jesus, there would have been no Gospel, no atonement. The living
church is formed from that which came out of the side of Christ.
Verse
23: And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she
shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
We read in
Ephesians 5:25, “Husbands, love your wives,
even as Christ also loved the church,
and gave himself for it.”
In the intimate,
wonderful example of the church being the bride of Christ, God looks at the
physical marriage relationship, and says in Ephesians 5:28-29,” “So ought men to
love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth is wife loveth himself. For
no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as
the Lord the church.”
Now, notice
Ephesians 5:30, “For we are members of his
body, of his flesh, and of his bones.” It is the same language as that
which we find in Genesis 2. Thus, we know again that we are on solid ground to
see Adam as a picture of Christ and Eve as the whole church that is going to
come into existence.
Verse
24: Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto
his wife: and they shall be one flesh
In the human
relationship, this verse teaches that when a marriage takes place, a new
personality, consisting of the man and his wife, is formed; they are so intimate
with each other that they cannot be separated. The rib that becomes the wife is
an integral part of the man. In a marriage, therefore, the new personality is
complete only when the two are together as one.
Spiritually, of course,
Christ did not leave His father and mother to have a bride for Himself; Jesus is
eternal God. However, we can make the application that when God took a bride for
Himself, He made a tremendous commitment to cleave Himself to that bride
forevermore, which is why we have total assurance of our salvation. We can be
certain that once we are saved, we are forevermore
in Christ; we have eternal life.
Note that the flesh was
closed up (verse 21); Adam’s side was closed up after the rib was taken out,
which means that the rib is not to be put back into Adam. The process is not to
be reversed. Once Christ had committed to build a church from and for Himself,
He will never revoke His commitment to love that church eternally.
Ephesians 5 uses language
and further confirms what we have been learning. We read
in Ephesians 5:31, “For this cause shall a man
leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two
shall be one flesh.
Great Mystery. Notice the
amazing statement in Ephesians 5:32, “This is a great mystery: but I speak
concerning Christ and the church.”
When we read Ephesians
5, we often think that God is talking only about the husband-wife relationship,
but here He makes it a point to say that He is speaking about Christ and the
church. In other words, God is assuring us that He has made a spiritual
commitment that the church is to be forever the bride of Christ.
Let us also consider
Luke 24. Jesus rose from the grave and appeared to the apostles, and they were
frightened because they thought He was a spirit. Jesus then said to them in
Luke 24:39, “Behold my hands and my feet, that
it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye
see me have.”
Do you see the
significance of that remark? Jesus is saying in effect, “I have died and have
risen. I am still your husband; you are still my bride. I am flesh and bones.
You are bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.”
It all ties back to
Genesis 2. Jesus went through the whole atonement for His bride.
Verse 25: And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
The closing verse of
this beautiful chapter relates to I Corinthians 7:3-4, where God says the
husband’s body belongs to the wife, and the wife’s body belongs to the husband.
In other words, the husband and the wife are to live together in the greatest
intimacy possible. This is the way God created the marriage union.
Spiritually, of course,
God is talking about Christ and the bride. Before we were saved, we were naked
before God; we were loaded with shame. When God looked at us, He saw every one
of our ugly sins.
When we become the bride
of Christ, as noted earlier, we are covered with the robe of Christ’s
righteousness. When Holy God looks at us in our nakedness, He no longer sees
anything that brings shame upon us. That is a beautiful picture of what happened
to us once we become saved.
Summary
Genesis 2 is both an
historical record and a parable. It is an historical record because it is a true
fact of history. In the world that existed before sin entered into it, there was
indeed a garden planted called the Garden of Eden. It is a true fact that Adam
was made from the dust of the earth, that Eve was created out of the side of
Adam, and that there was a river flowing out of this garden, going down into the
other areas of the world.
God is presenting these
historical facts in the form of a parable; a parable has spiritual meaning.
Oftentimes we see a passage in the Bible and we know at once that there is
spiritual meaning. That is not surprising because Christ says in March 4 that he
spoke in parables and without a parable Christ did not speak. Of course, Christ
is the Word of God and the Bible is the Word of God, but there are passages
where the spiritual meaning is hard to discern
The Bible assures us
that Genesis 2 is indeed a parable. Romans 5 states flatly that Adam was a
figure of the Christ who was to come. In Ephesians 5, God makes it clear when He
quotes, “we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones,” from
Genesis 2, that He is speaking of Christ and the church.
We see a tremendous
statement of God’s salvation plan in this historical parable. The Garden of Eden
is a picture of the kingdom of God that would come into existence in this
sin-cursed world; the tree of life represents Christ Himself; the other fruit
trees represent the believers, who encourage and help each other; the rivers
that flow out represent the sending forth of the Gospel under the power of the
Holy Spirit into the sinful world where many will be saved.
In short, God tells us
at the very front of the Bible that before the foundation of the earth, He had
planned to save people from the sin-cursed world. Under His plan, Jesus had to
die on the cross to pay for the sins of His people; and the believers, indwelt
by the Holy Spirit, must send forth the Gospel through the world. God also
assures us that once saved, believers have eternal life, and nothing can
separate believers from the love of God. This is
the Good News of Jesus Christ.
To Him be all glory and
power and praise. Amen
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