Genesis 2:4-17

I wonder if you’ve ever noticed that the advertising in our world tells us a lot about ourselves, after all they spend hundreds of thousands of pounds to make the advert that will get the money out of your pocket. And down through the years one of the things I’ve noticed more than anything else is the way that the dream of paradise is used to sell.

You get it in the holiday adverts. The untouched beach, without a cloud in the sky, food and drink a plenty: Paradise. Care home adverts painting their resort as a place of tranquil rest and relaxation. Peace and joy and pleasure all in one place. Even perfume adverts are always set in beautiful places with beautiful people, without a wrinkle or blemish in sight to sell the idea ‘use our product and it will make your life perfect like this.’

Once you spot it, you’ll see its everywhere, but its not an accident that it’s used so much, because they are picking up one of the big longings of our heart. Because we all long for paradise. We long for a world that is perfect, that is peaceful, that is free of ageing and queuing and sweating.

Now different people will have different ideas as to how we get that world, whether it’s through making money and building wealth, or throwing off all authority to be finally free to rule ourselves, or humanity getting out of the way to let the world thrive without us. But at the heart of all of that, is the very clear idea that this world isn’t how it should be. We long for paradise. And as we come to Genesis 2 today, we see where that longing comes from, as we see the world we were made for. Actually Genesis 2:4 marks the start of a new section in the account of Genesis. And we can tell that by the first words in verse 4:

This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. 

 As we go through Genesis we’re going to see that phrase this is the account of again and again to mark a new section. So we get it at Genesis 5:1:

 This is the written account of Adam’s family line

Genesis 6:9

This is the account of Noah and his family.

And so on, but it tells us that what we have here in Genesis 2:4 to the end of chapter 4 is a very clearly marked section of Genesis.

Genesis is a very ordered account. And in this section there is a very clear pattern. So it starts with our ideal home, and then the perfect marriage next week. And then at the end we have the ideal home ruined and lost, and a broken marriage. And right in the middle of this section is what went so badly wrong. Why paradise was lost. The fall of man and woman. And so as we look at this section, we’re looking at the world as it should be. Our ideal home. And we’re going to see 3 things:

God the life-giver

God the provider

and God the ruler

So firstly we see God the Life-Giver.

Now we might be confused as to why we have the account of Genesis 2 at all, after all in chapter 1 we’ve already had the creation account. Well we shouldn’t see this as a rival account, and our aim isn’t to try and perfectly marry these two accounts and get tangled in differences. No, if Genesis 1 was a Google Earth picture of the creation account, well this is a Street View. We’ve zoomed right in to mankind who is at the centre of this account. He’s the focus of this whole section. So to use a football analogy just as when VAR use a different camera angle to check a goal, they will spot different things. So this account has a different focus to pull out more wonderful truths for us. And we see that straight away with the name given to God here. it’s so subtle that we can easily miss it. And yet it’s massive. Genesis 2:5-6:

Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground.

Up until this point in Genesis, God has been simply called God, that is Elohim. The Creator God of power and authority. And yet from this point on, He is spoken of as the LORD God again and again. 16 times in 2 chapters, and word translated here LORD is Yahweh. Which is a name packed with meaning. It’s the name God gave to Moses when he met with God at the burning bush. And it speaks of the God of relationship, the God who reveals Himself and has come towards His people to know them and be known, the God who draws near.

So in our language today, a silly example might be, one of the Dad’s at the school gate has taken to calling me ‘Your Eminence’ when he heard what I do. That’s like the name God here – it’s a title: Creator God. But LORD – Yahweh is like me saying ‘call me Simon, because I want to know you, please be my friend!’ So straight away we see here a God who relates intimately with those He has made. Verses 5 and 6 speak of an unfinished creation because there is someone missing, someone to work the ground and tend to it. And then Genesis 2:7:

Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

That word formed here is pottery language, of taking clay and forming something. And so God here takes the dust of the ground. And there’s something humbling about that isn’t there. As Calvin puts it:

‘he must be excessively stupid, who does not hence learn humility.’

 They have a way with words don’t they, the Old greats! But like animals we are formed from the dust which speaks of our creatureliness, our frailty in many ways. And yet there is something gloriously different with the creation of man:

Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

The image of a potter gives the wonderful picture of the care and creativity and intricacy with which we have been made. And as God breathes life into Adam, there is such an intimacy to it. The language is almost that of the kiss of life. With great care God is pictured as stooping down to breathe life into lifeless bodies. Elsewhere that breathing is spoken of as the spirit of God coming to bring life. Here we see that we are bodies given life by God. Intricately formed by Him and precious to Him. You get that same picture in Psalm 139:13-14 when the psalmist sings:

For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made

Here we see that our bodies are given to us by God, formed by Him and they are good. God made you exactly the way you are. The real you is body and soul. And so our physical body isn’t something we are to despise or want rid of, but to rejoice in and give thanks for. That doesn’t mean we won’t ever struggle with how we look or the body we’ve been given.

And yet our bodies and our lives are given to us by God. He made us male and female. He made us how we are, carefully and lovingly knit together by the God of the Universe. Each of us different. So we won’t all be Doctors or Pilots. Some of us don’t have the eye-sight or the stomach for it. We all have different gifts and abilities as those lovingly created by God, and we can embrace that difference and give thanks to God for it. Accepting the God givenness of who we are as those lovingly made by Him. Because our life is given to us by God to enjoy in His world. God is the life-giver.

Well secondly we see God the provider. The more that you look at this passage the more you see the wonderful provision of God. Genesis 2:8-14:

Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 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.

What does God do with the people that He has made? Like a clockmaker wind them up and leave them to their own devices? No He is a God who provides for their every need. Here we see His physical provision, the word Eden literally means paradise. As we see God lovingly plants a garden for the man and woman as we’ll see later, to live in. A place filled with all kinds of trees that are good for food – they’ll never go hungry in this place, and that are good to look at. Notice this isn’t just a place of survival. It’s a place of beauty of wonder, a place to be enjoyed. It’s a long way away from how God is often viewed in our world isn’t it . The mean God who is out to spoil our fun and ruin our lives. Well that’s not the LORD God, not the God of Genesis 2. No He is a God who provides.

I think that’s also what’s going on with these rivers. Here we see where Eden probably was, given the Tigris and the Euphrates and the places mentioned it was probably somewhere in the Middle East. But it was a real, physical place, this isn’t make believe. And yet more than anything these rivers speak of life.

Living where we do we can take water for granted, almost resent the rain and wish it would give it a rest. And yet live in the Middle East and you know water means life, and no water means you’re in big trouble. And here there is more water than you know what to do with, plenty to leave a land fertile and blossoming and exploding with glorious life. That is the picture we have of Eden. And it’s a place of riches too: Gold, good Gold, along with aromatic resin and onyx, whatever they are. But they must be precious as we see them again in the Tabernacle pointing us back to Eden, the world we all want. And that speaks of the other provision we see here, because it’s not just a place of physical provision. But also we see God providing for man’s greatest need, that of spiritual provision. And we see that with the two trees at the centre in Genesis 2:9:

In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Now we don’t get much here on the significance of the tree of life, and yet as you follow the language of the tree of life throughout the bible we see that it becomes synonymous with that of spiritual life with God. So in Proverbs and Revelation it becomes a picture of relationship with God and wisdom from God and eternal life given by God. Here we see as we’ve seen a few times already. That life is about far more than survival, far more than work, far more than holidays. Life is about knowing God and enjoying life with Him forever. Actually the language here of Adam and Eve being put in the garden is the same language of rest as we last week. They were placed in the garden to enjoy life to the full, life with God. That’s what Jesus means isn’t it when He says in John 17:3:

Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

That’s why it’s possible to have everything in this world, all the riches. Everything this world has to offer. the cars, the houses, the holidays, the men or women, and yet be thoroughly miserable.

One of the best interviews I’ve ever seen was Gary Neville with Tyson Fury. And in it Fury talks about the Paradise syndrome, of having the dream of getting everything you ever want and yet you get it and you’re left saying is this it? Robbie Williams told him about it because he experienced it too. Having the dream, and yet realising it doesn’t satisfy. Fury goes on to say this:

The most unhappy people are the richest ones, that’s a fact. All you people out there, listen to that, I’ve got billionaire mates and they’re unhappy. If they found £100k on the ground they wouldn’t be happy, they’d be looking for the next one because enough is never enough, they’re always chasing more. It doesn’t matter what they achieve, they always want to go again.

I’m sure we’ve seen it ourselves. Well here we see why. Because to have it all and yet not have life with God is to be poor and penniless where it really counts.

We were made for relationship with God. Here we see God the provider: Both physical and spiritual, which speak of His goodness and His grace to those He has made. Not a stingy God but a generous giving God.

But we also see here God the ruler. And that is this business with the other tree, the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil in Genesis 2:15:

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; 

Notice first of all, the generous freedom God gives. So easy to skip past it to the one rule. But God gives all the food of the garden to be enjoyed, except one, with very good reason:

‘but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.’

Growing up this always confused me because I thought well why is it bad to know good and evil? But actually the idea here is not just knowing good and evil. But deciding for ourselves what is good and what is evil, that is what is represented by this tree. The idea that man might seek wisdom outside of God’s will and commands. To be completely autonomous.

And the consequences of breaking this command cannot be overstated: ‘You will certainly die.’ And as we read on we see that is not only physical death, but spiritual death. To be separated from God the giver of life. To be outside of His loving rule, and cast out of this garden. Everything about this one single command speaks of God’s loving and good rule. A command not to spoil their fun but that they might enjoy the world that God made in relationship with Him as He always intended. God knows what is best. He alone has the right to say what is good and what is evil. And His desire is their flourishing under His good and loving rule.

And so here we have it. The Original Eden project. Man and soon woman, given life by God, enjoying His provision in His glorious place, under His loving rule in an intimate relationship with the LORD God. It’s a wonderful picture isn’t it, the world we all want.

But how do we rightly understand this passage? See as we come to apply it I could easily go off about the work of caring for our world, or about moral absolutes, why do we have that inbuilt sense of right and wrong? so many ways we could take this, and none of them would be bad.But as with all of the bible we have to ask why is this bit here? And in doing that we need to remember that this passage is part of a bigger section as I said at the beginning. That begins with our ideal home and a glorious picture of marriage. And ends with our home lost and the marriage broken, all because of man’s rebellion against God. And when we get that then we start to see that this is here not so much to make us marvel at creation, but to long for redemption.

So a small illustration of what I mean, keeping with the garden theme. My wife, Jenny is a big lover of a good garden. With our house in Kendal she spent a long time trying to make it look good and be fruitful. She tended to it, we put in raised beds and grew all sorts of wonderful things and it was pretty good I thought. But I always knew that when Jenny started watching gardening shows, ideas of grandeur and renovation weren’t far behind. Because what those shows do really well is show you what your garden could look like, as they walk round the Chelsea flower show or a National Trust property and see a pristine garden. You realise that you had got used to horticultural mediocrity! In other words when you see perfection, you long for it for yourself, and you realise what you’ve got isn’t it. And that is what I think is going on here.

Here we see God giving life to be enjoyed in intimate relationship with Him. We see God providing for everything man needs, a physical paradise, a spiritual home with God and enjoying life under His good rule. And we see what is about to come in Genesis 3, the fall that ruined it all. That cast us out and broke every aspect of that ideal home. And so like gardeners world, this makes us long for the way things should be. 

Doesn’t this explain why our world longs for paradise? Why so much of our marketing is aimed at it? Might that sense of longing be because deep down we know that is the world we were made for? That somehow we know we were made for more than this?

CS Lewis puts it better than I ever could, when he says:

If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.

And having realised that, the other thing this passage should do is help us see afresh just how awful and offensive our rebellion against God is. It is like entering a perfect garden in the Chelsea flower show and tearing it up, snapping every head off every flower just because we can. To treat God the giver of life, God the provider, God the ruler with distain and to wish He would just leave us alone. So that we can get on in His world our way without any reference to Him. I mean who do we think we are? That we should treat this God, the LORD God like we have. Like we do again and again.

 Sin; rebellion against God is a wretched and wicked thing.

And yet the wonder of it all is that it doesn’t finish at Genesis 3 isn’t it? That would be justice. That would be right and fair, getting what our sin deserves. Yet in the goodness of His grace and mercy somehow our longing is not in vain now. Because the God of the Bible, the LORD God, is a God of redemption and restoration. Isn’t that incredible!

And nowhere is that more clear than in the Lord Jesus, our great redeemer. Who showed Himself to be God the life giver as He took a little girl by the hand and said little girl I say to you get up. God the provider as He met physical needs far beyond anything you could imagine, feeding 5000 with 5 loaves and 2 fish. And spiritual needs as He said I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.

Who showed Himself to be God the Ruler as He spoke with the authority of God to say what is right and wrong. Who showed His rule to be loving and life giving again and again, not harsh or cruel. And all of this to give us but a small taste, a Gardener’s world trailer of the world that He came to bring in, the world we all want.

And it would all be possible because of His death and resurrection. Such that as He hung on the cross, taking our sin upon Himself. The punishment our rebellion deserves. He might turn to that thief on the cross and say ‘today you will be with me in paradise’.

Because in Jesus that longing for paradise is not a pipe dream, it is a sure and certain hope if we are trusting in Him. Of living in a world like Genesis 2, when God will once more get close and intimate, this time to wipe every tear from our eyes, in His glorious New Creation. A place pictured in Genesis 21-22 full of life, beauty and riches, and a place where God rules over His people by His loving word. A place where we will walk with God, see Him face to face, and enjoy eternal life in His presence. It is the ideal home that we all long for.

And so like Adam and Eve in Eden, we too have that same choice. Will we take God at His word and accept the life He gives, eternal life through His Son, Jesus as we come to Him in repentance and faith? Or will we decide that we know better, go our own way and face spiritual death, separated from God for all eternity.

lets pray