Back to the Beginning No.2 Is man God-like

Our Heavenly Father, we have sinned against you and against our fellow men, in thought and word and deed, through negligence, through weakness, through our own deliberate fault. We are truly sorry and repent of all our sins for the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, who died for us, who died for us, who died for us. Forgive us all that is past and grant that we may serve you in newness of life.

Amen, amen. So, Father, we come before your throne, thanking you that, in your grace, you seek and save and come amongst the refuse of humanity and call for yourself a people, filling them with your Spirit, making them distinct. We thank you for the purposes of God for Israel in the Old Testament, the wider purposes that we find anticipated there and standing out in full relief in the new.

We praise you that sons of Abraham are those who are sons by faith, exercising a kinship with the belief which he embraced your word and acted upon the revelation of God. So we embrace an even greater knowledge than he had, for he did not live to see the day of your son, although he anticipated it. We thank you, Father, that we look back, not upon a God who created the world alone, though that in itself is so memorable and humbles us as we try to, in some measure, weigh up the greatness of your splendid acts of creation.

But we thank you that, beyond that, you have stepped into time and space, and the word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us, and we have beheld the glory of your Son. We've listened to the distillation of his wisdom as he has spoken down the ages. We have seen a man who was a man's man, who was prepared to seek out men and women and bring them from their defilement and from their disgrace and from their failure.

We thank you that he never turned anyone back. We thank you that he was the savior of children as well as one who could relate to the bereaved. We thank you, Father, for our Lord Jesus, for his life, for his death, for his resurrection.

We thank you that in the glory he remembers us, sits by your throne, waiting until that final moment when the trumpet sounds and when he shall step back into the world that he created and has recreated through his word of salvation to bring to perfection all the achievements of his life and death and resurrection. We thank you for our Savior. We're proud to be Christians, not proud of ourselves, not proud of what we have done.

Some of us want to find a corner and hang our heads in shame. We thank you, Father, for him. We're proud of the captain of our salvation.

We salute our Lord Jesus. We again affirm our allegiance. Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.

If you did not deal with sinners, then we of all people would be most miserable. But we bless you, beloved God, that your arms are open and you receive such as us and you make us more like your Son through that work of sanctification. Continue the process, speed it up, deal with the edges of our lives, the grit within our personality, those things which displease you, and help us to see you more clearly, to love you more dearly, and to follow you more nearly.

Now be with us as we come around your word. Speak to our hearts from this book, we pray. We thank you for its timeless truths.

And Father, we pray for our world, our world with so much need, our world which languishes in so many areas in the depths of sin, our world which reaps the harvest that has been sown. Oh God, have mercy upon man, have mercy upon those who suffer, those who seem to suffer at the human level innocently, inasmuch as they're not the cause of the deprivation that is theirs. We bring to you the primitive tribes of Zaire.

We bring to you the African men and women whose pictures so often are seen on our TV sets and we feel so helpless. Lord, we bring to you simple village folk, elderly people, boys and girls who do not know what is happening. Have mercy upon them, we pray.

Have mercy upon all the troubled areas in our world. Be with the people of Hong Kong as they worry as to what the future holds. Oh God, may your church know there that you hold the future.

Now Lord, in that assurance, we come to you again and ask you to speak to us from your most holy word, pleading once more the forgiveness of all our sins. In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen. Well, let's turn to the word of the Lord.

As found in the second book of the second chapter of the book of Genesis. One of the things that I've done in recent months is to take a hundred, maybe more copies of a remarkable systematic theology that is a book which contains, condenses the doctrines of the Bible and makes it easy for us to digest. I've taken quite a lot of these across to Africa and to Asia.

It's written by a colleague of mine, Dr. Wayne Grudem, who did his Doctor of Philosophy at Cambridge University and lectures in the seminary known as Trinity Seminary over in the States. It's a book I recommended before and if you're not used to reading heavy tomes, I do tell you that each small chapter is so simplistically or so simply put together that there's not one of you here who couldn't make your way through this book and be blessed as a result. It's an expensive book, but it's a good book.

It costs 27 pounds, but then it goes to about 1,500 pages. And I have managed to do a deal with the publisher that any copy that is bought here, I can also give a copy to an Asian or an African pastor. Let that be your inducement and by the welcome desk as you leave, there are copies of this book.

If you took it on approval and didn't find it as helpful, I've suggested then bring it back next week and we'll still love you and let someone else have the blessing. But do leave your name if you take it, please. Genesis chapter 2. Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing. So on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created. When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. The Lord God formed the man.

From the dust of the ground and breathed in his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being. Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east in Eden and there he put the man he had formed and the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground, trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

A river watering the garden flowed from Eden. From there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first is the Pishon.

It winds through the entire land of Havilah where there is gold. The gold of that land is good. Aromatic resin and onyx are also there.

The name of the second river is the Gihon. It winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris.

It runs along the east side of Ashur and the fourth river is the Euphrates. Now the translation for Ashur is Assyria. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

And the Lord God commanded the man you are free to eat from any tree in the garden but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for when you eat of it you will surely die. The Lord God said it is not good for the man to be alone. I will help make a helper suitable for him.

Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them. And whatever the man called each living creature that was its name.

So the man gave names to all the livestock the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. We take up the latter part of this chapter next next week.

And this is the second address in a series which I've entitled back to the beginnings and I quoted last week from The Sound of Music Julie Andrews that it's not a bad thing to start at the beginning. That's a very good place where to commence. And in the beginning the first chapter of Genesis we discover that God in a successive series of creative acts brought life as we now know it the universe as we perceive it and the universe is behind this universe into existence.

And every epoch of his creative activity passed the God test. He said it is good. It is very good.

Now here is my argument. The reason why you need to study the opening chapters of Genesis and one of the reasons why I wrote a book which is largely taken up by expounding these chapters is because it seems to me that you can never understand God and you can never understand yourself outside the compass of the revelation that is here contained. You can't understand man without God and you cannot understand God unless you appreciate that God is the creator of this world.

You are dependent on him for your life. Listen to G.K. Chesterton. Whatever else is or is not true this one thing is certain.

Man is not what he was meant to be. Now that's perfectly obvious. Watch the television.

Listen to the news. Have a dose of panorama week by week and you will agree with Chesterton that man is not what he should be. Life is not as it ought to be ideally.

And so in the first two chapters of the book of Genesis you find differentiations set up. The difference between man and God. The difference between man and the animals.

There was a noble woman who lived in this country not that long ago called Lady Astor. She was an Anglican by denominational affiliation and on one occasion she was talking to the head of the Roman Catholic Church in this country who was then Cardinal Heenan. And Lady Astor said to Cardinal Heenan what really sir is the difference between you and me.

And he said Madam I can't conceive. What is the difference between God and man. What is the difference between man and the inhabitants with whom he shares this planet and the inanimate world which God has caused to come into existence.

This person man you you looked at yourself in the mirror this morning presumably. Who is he. What are you.

How do you understand yourself. Now I argue that you can only find the answers to these questions in the chapters the first two chapters of the Bible which are then followed by many more chapters in the book of Genesis and all the books of the Bible which are contained within this library which tell you more and more about yourself and about God and the man and the woman and the media that says that this book is irrelevant is actually turning its back on the only source of information which will answer the puzzle why is man as he is a genius and a fool with great potentiality for good and equally great potentiality for evil. Is man God like will man as the misnamed Church of the Latter Day Saints says eventually be subsumed into the Godhead and become God himself is all our world part of God as Hinduism would tell us.

Well these are contemporary questions which find information that form an answer in the early chapters of this book and it seems to me that once you've looked to the first chapter and you move into the second chapter you can dictate what I have called certain movements certain movements. The first chapter for example speaks generally about the creation of the world but the second chapter moves from the general to the particular and later on you'll see how in the second chapter you get an even greater cameo on the work of creation of man. Those of you who are into computers God bless you they still remain in part a mystery to me will find sense when I say that a window opens up on the 26th and 27th verse of Genesis 1 as you move into chapter 2 of the same book and you find another movement from the dust of the earth to the breath of God's nostrils.

And when you conclude this chapter you'll find that there is another aspect of revelation that is brought to bear and that is how the grace of God the generosity of God in making this world in forming Adam is also coupled to a law there will be a test that is brought to bear and Adam will be responsible in a way that no other creature is as to the fashion in which he lives out his pilgrimage on this planet we call the world. So let's look at that first movement from the general to the particular from chapter 1 where we've got the story of the creation of the universe narrowed down to the world to the seas to the fish to the land to the grass to the flowers to the trees to the animals to man. We move from the globe to a garden and man who was the climax in the creative work in the first chapter now becomes pivotal to the story that follows in the second chapter man the climax becomes man the pivot.

The scene has shifted from the globe to the garden and from the poetry that indisputably there is in the first chapter to the historical narrative that constitutes the second chapter. Poetry I concede even in the second chapter to a degree and in the first chapter in some measure but not poetry in the sense of mythology not poetry in the sense of legend poetry in the sense of God trying to convey to men thousands of years ago and to modern man today that behind the universe there is God in all his awe in all his majesty in all his splendor. But from the information and the poetry and the symbolism of the first chapter you move into the particular into a real world where reference is made to geography.

Verse 10 a river waters the garden that flows from Eden. The river is referred to in terms of its four main streams and you hear the familiar words of the Tigris and the Euphrates. Not only are rivers referred to but the emerging of nations as Syria not only is geography referred to but also the metals and the precious substances in our earth gold and one does not need to go far into the Old Testament to realize that the river Euphrates will have significance the country of Syria will also be important in the developing history of God's own people and it will be gold over which men will fight and do their fellows to death.

God anchors historically the account that he causes to be written which describes man in a pivotal position in the world that he has made and you will discover just justification for this modern comment man's conquest of nature has been astonishing his failure to conquer human nature has been tragic. Here is man in a natural habitat man who later on will get into a into a spaceship and land on the moon causing President Nixon's lack of care in his immediate remark this is the greatest day since creation and it took Billy Graham to ring him up and say hey what about the cross and the resurrection. Here is man in his natural habitat.

It's a wonderful place fresh from the hands of God it's paradise it's parkland and God places man centrally in this paradise and it seems that all of creation has as its goal to help man for him to feel comfortable. It goes from the general to the particular from the world at large to man as an individual man with an intellect or mythology is referred to the birds a man who has an ability to relate and to classify the animals references to zoology reference is to botany. Here is man as God intended him to be in Eden in bliss.

Some people are getting a little bit upset possibly even in my audience this morning. By the Bible's use regular use of the word man or Adam in this opening part of the word of God. What about women don't they also feature are they not also of equal importance.

Indeed we have seen recently come off the presses a sort of unisex Bible where instead of just brothers you have imported also sisters and it is quite correct of course to say that very often in the New Testament when reference is made to brothers it's a generic term that involves the ladies. But let me teach you this from the Hebrew language just for a moment to make you ladies feel comfortable when the word man is used in the opening chapters of the Bible it also embraces woman you say what do you mean. Well look at the fifth chapter and the first and second verses God gives you the explanation when God created man he made him in the likeness of God he created them male and female and blessed them and when they were created he called them man.

You see it's a generic term here is Adam at the beginning and Eve is going to come along but that as far as we're concerned is next week and I don't want to encroach on the territory of those particular verses but here is Adam and even when he's on his own there is a femininity there it will be from Adam that Eve will be birthed as a result of a remarkable operation in which a divine anesthetic is used by the Lord to bring about the creation of this partner for Adam. But when you read man in scripture you also read woman God relates to humankind from the general the magnificent work of creation from the globe he comes to the garden and there he has a man and there long from that man will come the woman humankind God relating to them from the general to the particular but even more narrowing it down there's another movement I call it from the dust to the breath look at verses 5 through to 9 in Genesis 2 the scene is being set a greater description of Eden no shrub of the field has yet appeared on the earth no plant of the field has yet sprung up for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground but streams came up from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground then the Lord formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being and after that God plants this garden in the east of Eden for the man that he has formed this is a wonderful account you see there is insight given into man's creation and man's calling and the creation of man as you find it here is both leveling and also ennobling leveling why because the same methodology as was applied in Genesis 1 for God to bring the animals into the being in a similar fashion but with one distinction he employs the same process for man God speaks to the earth and tells the earth to bring forth its animals its livestock its wild beasts and so forth and he takes the dust of the earth the Adama is the Hebrew word which has the connotation of red for the soil in this area has a red tinge he takes the Adama and from the Adama he makes man man and the animals that are the same chemistry you can get a blood transfusion going from a gorilla to a human being the DNA is so very close animals are to be respected as part of the handiwork of God pronounced good but we say to the animal rights philosophers who are so critical of the evangelical church and the reason why I wrote that book we say to them but there is a distinction there is this common denominator man needs to be leveled man needs to recognize his dependence upon natural forces which are in effect the forces of God but God has ennobled man in a way that he's ennobled no other creature he breathes into man the breath of lives and that is computed to be in Genesis 1 26 and 27 the fashion in which God makes man in his own image in his own likeness so he creates Adam so he will create the woman who will come from Adam male and female he created them man is animal yet he bears the divine image and it is brought about by an act of creation which is coupled with the act of giving and self giving at that God forms the act of creation then he gives breath but self giving he gives his own breath so there is that of man that he has in common with the animals but there is that in man which he has in common with God so the potentiality of man is remarkable both ways the potential for good and the potential for disaster I speak with reverence almighty God is taking a risk he is causing to be from this world someone who will bear his own image why he does that the answer is not supplied within the Bible it has something to do with fellowship it has something to do with God determining though he's fully satisfied in himself in his tripartite nature has something to do with himself wishing to bring onto a universe narrowed down to a globe that he has caused to be someone who in many respects is like himself did you look into a mirror I'm not joking go by home and look you may be 70 or 17 you may think yourself beautiful or handsome or ugly you make you like yourself or dislike yourself but look in that mirror and I tell you in the name of God you are in his image and he counts you valuable from dust to breath man's creation but man is created not to do anything Martin Luther was quite right when he said God will not have man inactive with the creation there is a calling man is made a living being a living soul I think is the authorized version and here I must step in just for a moment and clear something up and draw a distinction if you will follow me and you can if you will concentrate between Hebrew thought which is biblical thought and Grecian thought which is European thought the Old Testament will not allow for this distinction between the man and the soul man and the soul are interrelated you see in Greek thought the idea was salvation would be best if you could only get away from the body you don't find that in the Old Testament I am fearfully and marvelously made David glories in the handiwork of God in giving him a body the Hebrews would thank God for everything about the body even the way the body will evacuate itself the Hebrews will praise the Lord for body functions the Greeks they thought that was awful and even some of the Puritans didn't get back to the Bible as they thought that this was just part of man's animality no everything about man his body his spirit it is all wondrous it comes from the Lord and when you talk about Adam you talk about this complete man body and soul this man who is called not to be idle he has a body therefore he will be physically occupied he puts man to work in that garden says this chapter he has a soul in which he will be decisively engaged he will have some understanding of good and the converse of good and he will have a mind that is intellectually alert this is man physically occupied as far as his body is concerned decisively engaged as far as his soul goes intellectually alert in respect of his mental capacities Adam is a genius Adam is brilliant zoology biology botany geology it's all there it's all more than hinted at in scripture man has a garden man has an environment and man will use the intellect man will use the very body that God has given him for God's honor and for man's satisfaction noble man fresh from the heart from the hand of God called son of God in the Bible so the second chapter takes you from the general to the particular and from the dust to the breath but finally it takes you from grace to law Adam was put into the garden and which has been planted for him verse 8 the Lord has caused all things to be for Adam's pleasure and equally for the Lord's enjoyment trees pleasing to the eye good for food God has got it all there he takes great delight in his handiwork I know I keep saying this but I say it because somebody has to bring a balance into evangelicalism I had a letter from Dr. John Stott the other day and he was talking about this need for us to recognize that these contemporary issues in terms of the ecology and the environment these are things to which the church should be addressing itself here is God whose earth is always his and the fullness thereof delighting in Adam and having put Adam into this paradise man in the divine image has the opportunity to rise to his potential and as it is with God to live is to love so it will be with Adam he will need to love to live to the fullest extent and God ultimately will bring to Adam one who will share his life and that we look at next time but here in the world in which Adam finds himself there is satisfaction. I was reading the Reader's Digest the other day I know many of you are subscribed to it and let me recommend a little essay it's called Farewell My Good Companion it's written by a man who has a pet that's a Jack Russell and the name of the pet was Heather and he said at the end of Heather's life she caused less pain and gave more pleasure than most humans.

Adam in a pleasurable environment with the flora and the fauna with the animals and with the Lord there are trees two are special verse nine they're sacramental in the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil how do you understand that literal trees I don't think there's any problem here at all nothing magical or mystical about the flora and the fauna and the animals and with the Lord there are trees two are special verse nine they're sacramental in the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil how do you understand that literal trees I don't think there's any problem here at all nothing magical or mystical about the flora and the animals and with the Lord there are trees two are special verse nine they're sacramental in the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil how do you understand that literal trees I don't think there's any problem here at all nothing magical or mystical about the flora and the fruit it's what it did they denotes like the bread and the wine nothing magical about the bread and the wine which will take in a few moments time but it's what it conveys and here Adam in Eden is not only given a world from the hand of the Lord he is also given a word and that word conveys the will of God it's decisive and it is also a explicit the Lord verse 16 it commands the man you are free to eat from any tree in the garden but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for when you eat of it you will surely die it's not so much the quality the sacramental fruit possesses but the opportunity it offers God gives Adam a word a word which he can assent to or reject he can say yes and he can say no and he can say it with the totality of his heart and that word later on will be repeated but refined in the gospel a double-edged sword you can affirm it or you can negate it you can receive it with the totality of your being or you can reject it and you will discover it will have exactly the same effect here is one permission you are free to eat here is two prohibition that you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and here is penalty when you do you will die and the serenity of Eden for a moment gives place to a sobriety Adam distinct from the creation distinct from the animals because he has the breath of God in him and made in the image of God is called to book by the Lord this is how I want you to live and Adam with his reasoning ability can make his decision to his eternal advantage or to his disadvantage here is Adam and Yahweh Elohim for that is the Hebrew expression for God which is used consistently throughout this chapter and they are engaged in interaction Adam this is for you but this is my prohibition this is my test how Adam responds you know and we will be unpacking this in the weeks that are to come if it be asked what death God threatened whether bodily or spiritually or the second death says Augustine we answer it was all some have asked would Adam have died had he never sinned and I think the answer is you cannot say definitely that Adam would have lived forever for only God has immortality possibly Adam would have been received at the end of his time span from the garden of Eden into the immediate presence of God but this is idle speculation the fact of the matter is that God had that Adam had the potentiality for God likeness was made in the image of God had all these benefits has reasoning ability has emotions and has a greater and infinitely greater responsibility than the animals or the inanimate world and the tragedy is that that image of God will be shattered by his rebellion you can respond to me with a yes with the totality of your being or you can deny me with the totality of your being and you know what the outcome was but let me conclude with this God who creates always in the work of creation gives some hint as to what he could do if things go wrong and now here is God and he makes Adam it's a gift he shows his love and John 3 16 will tell you God so loved the world that he gave he gave his only begotten son here God so loves this world that he has created that in a personal intimate fashion he not only forms the body of Adam from the red soil of the ground he breathes into Adam he gives of himself to Adam this is always God you find him giving and loving and even sin does not stop God from still loving even though he despises sin and later on in John's gospel having read that God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son what do you find the disciples of Jesus experiencing before our Lord is taken from earth to heaven one of his final resurrection appearances Jesus has his church those who are born again embryonically standing for all those who will come in faith to him and what does Jesus do? he breathes on them the Holy Spirit and the process continues the changing of Peter the changing of Andrew the change that will be brought into your life into my life when we embrace the creative the recreative powers of God in the gospel change from glory into glory till in heaven we take our place Adam's image is bespoiled and we bear the fragments and the consequences of Adam's sin and image we bear the image of the earthly but don't you see brothers and sisters the glory of the gospel is this we will bear we're beginning to bear the image of the heavenly as what is lost in Eden is restored at the cross God who breathed once into Adam from God's nostrils breathes again into the church via his son and the benefits of the life and death of Jesus are credited to you and we find ourselves although linked to Adam at the human level marvelously linked to Jesus Christ the last Adam at the divine level how God like can we be? we can share the love of God we can share in the holiness of God we can become as tender as God there are certain aspects of God that we can reproduce in ourselves by his grace but he will always be the awesome omnipotent God behind everything that there is who brings significance to you and to me because he loved us so much that he sent his son to recreate us in the power through the power of the gospel let's pause and let's pray now musicians will pick up on a tune that a melody that speaks of the creative handiwork of our Lord