Creation and Commission of Man--Revisited (Gen. 2:4-17)

Creation and Commission of Man--Revisited (Gen. 2:4-17)      

1. The First Adam
2. The Last Adam

Summary: Gen. 2:4 ("These are the generations of the heavens and the earth...") serves as a "hinge" verse, setting apart Gen. 1:1-2:3 as the worldview-shaping preface to the entire Bible and providing an introduction for what the story of the Bible is all about.  It is the story about the heavens and the earth.  But mainly it is a story about the Lord God, the Covenant God who creates a place where a covenant people get to know and enjoy his presence.  In vv.5-17 we see God's good design for his kingdom in seed form: the kingdom that will fill the heavens and the earth begins in a small garden, initially with one man who is given a wonder and weighty work to do.  This man, the first Adam, the man of dust, failed in his work.  But we praise God for sending the last Adam, the man of heaven, Jesus Christ, to do the work that the first Adam and all of us failed to do.  The first Adam lead us into sin and therefore death.  The last Adam leads us to forgiveness and therefore eternal life. 

Main Point: God wants us to understand how he created the first Adam and the wonderful and weighty work he called him to do.  And God wants us to know that since Adam is our representative and since he failed in his work we have fallen with in into sin and death and are therefore in need of a new and better representative, One who can lead us out of sin and death into forgiveness, obedience, and eternal life.  No man of dust will do.  We need a man of heaven.  That man is Jesus Christ.

Discussion Questions:

• In what way is Gen. 2:4 a "hinge" verse? 
• What is the significance of the details about how God created Adam in v.7?
• What does the description about the trees and the rivers tell us about God?
• What does it mean to "work and to keep/guard"?
• What statement is one making by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?
• How might the description of the tree of life in the Book of Revelation (see Rev. 2:7; 22: 2,14) inform how we understand the presence of the tree of life in the Book of Genesis (see Gen. 2:9, 16-17; 3:24)?
• Read Rom. 5:12-21 & 1 Cor. 15:45-49.  What are the consequences of being in the first Adam?  What are the glories of being in the Last Adam?

Application Questions:

• How should the reality that I am no longer represented by the first Adam but the Last Adam shape the way that I think, feel, and live?

Prayer Points:

• Praise God for sending the man of heaven, the Last Adam to lead us out of sin and the grips of death into forgiveness and eternal life 
• Ask God to use his word, Spirit and people to remind us of the glories that come with the fact that we are no longer in Adam but in Christ
• Ask God to let the reality that many are still lost in Adam motivate our willingness to share the good news about the man of heaven with others