Creation: Day Six, Part 4
Adam’s Responsibility
Genesis 2:15 Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.
We’ve already seen that God created Adam for a purpose, to be God’s image to His creation. With that position, Adam was also given a responsibility - to tend and keep the Garden.
When we hear the word “tend”, we usually think of caring for something or working on something. The Hebrew word used here is “abad”. While it can carry the meaning of labor or work, we know this wasn’t the way it applied to Adam - hard labor came about as a result of the curse. But there is another meaning to this word...one that applied better to Adam’s situation.
You see, Adam was given dominion over creation...he was not a servant to it. Adam didn’t have to work the way we do today, laboring to scrape out a living. This is where the second meaning of “abad” comes into play. Exodus 23:25 uses the same word, but look at the way it’s used: “So you shall serve (“abad”) the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. And I will take sickness away from the midst of you.”
It was the Israelites’ service to God that brought His blessing on what they had. God blessed them because they tended to Him, meaning they served Him. In a similar way…Adam’s service to God would bring His blessing on all that he was responsible for. In this way, he tended the Garden by serving God. As long as He followed God’s command (which we’ll see later), he brought God’s blessing on what He was responsible for
Adam’s other responsibility was to keep the Garden. “Keep” here is the Hebrew word “shamar”. It primarily means to possess or have charge of. This lines up with God’s prophecy in Genesis 1:27 that man would have dominion over the earth and everything in it. Understand, this wasn’t about keeping the Garden safe! There was nothing evil to protect it from. After the creation of mankind, God called everything He made “very good”. Adam was given charge over Eden...not the job of protecting it.
“Shamar” can also mean to watch or to observe. This implies that God wanted Adam to explore and study the God’s creation. God wanted Adam to be observant, to discover how He made things to be. He was to study God’s work as a pattern to follow in his own work.
Finally, the word “shamar” also means to keep within boundaries. God gave Adam control of the very boundaries of creation! This makes sense, after all - Adam was God’s representative to the natural world. God gave Adam His own authority to say “that’s enough, no more”...How amazing!
This was Adam’s responsibility in the world God had made!
Adam’s Command
Genesis 2:16-17 “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
First of all, let’s be clear…God gave Adam every tree in the garden. This includes the Tree of Life!
Literally, every fruit in the world was on his menu…except for one tree. Whenever we read this passage, our human nature is to ignore what God gave Adam, and focus instead on what was kept from Him. We tend to get so wrapped up in verse 17, that we quickly forget verse 16. This was not primarily a limitation - it was a blessing! God only kept one harmful thing from Adam…giving him free reign over all the rest. Do you know who was the first to make this blessing into a limitation? It was the serpent!
We often shorten the name of this tree to “the tree of knowledge” - but this can lead to a misunderstanding, as if knowledge in itself is a bad thing. No, let’s call the tree what it was - the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We already know that God made everything “very good.” So what was left for Adam to know? All that was withheld from him was evil. God was giving Adam the ability to keep choosing good! It’s not that the fruit itself was evil or wicked - the knowledge of evil would come if Adam chose to disobey...that decision itself would be evil!
God let Adam know in no uncertain terms what the consequences would be if he ignored this command. “...in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
I once heard a preacher say that Adam didn’t know how to die, so Satan had to teach him how to die for 930 years. While this is certainly an entertaining idea, there isn’t any biblical support for this. To claim that Adam didn’t know what death was is to forget two important points:
One - Adam’s brain was programmed by God Himself! He was capable of doing more than we could ever do...on his very first day!
Two - God is a good God. If He warns us about something, He will let us know everything we need to about it!
No, we can be sure that Adam knew exactly what God meant when he said “you will surely die.”
The exact Hebrew phrase for this statement is “in dying, you will die.” The meaning is threefold:
First there was the immediate effect - Adam’s separation from God. Ephesians 2:1 tells us that sin keeps us in death. God warned Adam that he would step from spiritual life into spiritual death if he disobeyed this one command. Should he break this command, Adam would have to constantly try to find his way back to God! Even the thought of it must’ve made Adam shudder!
Secondly, the process of physical death would start. The human body is made to live forever. Our cells constantly replace themselves so that every few years (shorter or longer depending on which scientist you ask) most of the cells in your body have replaced themselves with new ones. Interestingly - the only cells that last throughout your lifetime are your brain cells...obviously, you wouldn’t want the specific synapses that contain your memories to die off, even if they were replaced by new ones!
This process of regeneration was at the height of perfection in the Garden of Eden. Adam was made to live forever without deteriorating with age! This would all change, God warned him, if he chose to rebel against God’s command.
Finally, this process of aging and death would culminate in the physical death and decay of the body. If Adam chose to disobey God, there would actually come a day when Adam would cease to exist on the planet...something God never intended for him!
Since Adam was the head of creation, the authoritative representative of God Himself, then this warning of death also extended to the realm of Adam’s responsibility. In other words...it wouldn’t just be Adam experiencing evil. If he chose to allow evil into creation, it would bring death, pain, and chaos to every cell of life - to every atom of matter. All of creation would have to groan under the curse of sin if Adam chose to break this one commandment!
This was Adam’s daily choice - was he going to continue in the blessing of his Creator, or was he going to disobey God and step into the curse?
One - Adam’s brain was programmed by God Himself! He was capable of doing more than we could ever do...on his very first day!
Two - God is a good God. If He warns us about something, He will let us know everything we need to about it!
No, we can be sure that Adam knew exactly what God meant when he said “you will surely die.”
The First Family
Genesis 2:18 “And the LORD God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.”
After God formed the garden, placed man in it, and assigned Adam’s responsibility – God declared that there was only one thing in creation that wasn’t good – Adam was alone. God knew that Adam was going to need help to fulfill God’s plan for him. But before He did anything, God wanted to make sure that Adam knew he needed a helper.
God created individuals of each kind of animal again, out of the earth, and brought them to Adam. This was Adam’s first responsibility, to give each creature a name
Critics might say that Adam didn’t have the time in one day to name every animal. But let’s be clear on this; this wasn’t every kind of living creature. This was only each kind of land beast and bird. Assuming that this perfect, God-programmed man could name and animal within 5-10 seconds…Adam would have been able to name them all within about 4 hours. Sure, it would’ve been a lot of work...but that was the goal! God wanted to show him the need for a helper.
After observing and naming each kind of animal, Adam noticed something was missing. He saw a buck and a doe, a bull and a cow, a boar and a sow, a rooster and a hen…each animal had two versions. But there was no female version of him – he was alone!
These two observations, the need for help and the presence of female animals, got Adam’s attention. When God saw that Adam noticed, He started work on His last creation.
Putting Adam to sleep, God removed one of his ribs, closing up that void with his flesh. Following the pattern we saw with Adam, we know that He put this rib in the dirt and formed another body around it. Then God repeated the process of breathing His spirit into this new, female body - bringing her to life. And then He brought her to Adam.
For the second time, Adam opened his eyes and saw something amazing! Imagine the joy Adam had as his Heavenly Father walked his new bride to meet him. When we read Adam’s response to the woman (in verse 23) the real meaning of it is sometimes lost on us. Let me give you a paraphrase of what Adam might have been saying:
“After all that searching, I finally see the one made for me - from me! What will I call her? She’ll be called ‘woman’ because she has the part of me that’s missing!”
And this brings us to the last creative act of God; not Eve, but the marriage of Adam and Eve! The last act of creation was when God brought Eve to Adam. You see, marriage was the crown of God’s creation!
Critics might say that Adam didn’t have the time in one day to name every animal. But let’s be clear on this; this wasn’t every kind of living creature. This was only each kind of land beast and bird. Assuming that this perfect, God-programmed man could name and animal within 5-10 seconds…Adam would have been able to name them all within about 4 hours. Sure, it would’ve been a lot of work...but that was the goal! God wanted to show him the need for a helper.
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