Episdoe 254 - "Humanity is made in the image of God" - Genesis 9:1-7 - part 2

Gen. 9:1 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. 2 The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. 3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. 4 But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. 5 And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.

Gen. 9:6 “Whoever sheds the blood of man,

by man shall his blood be shed,

for God made man in his own image.

Gen. 9:7 And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.”

Last week, I focused primarily on the first three verses of chapter 9 and the LORD's curious and perhaps disturbing proclamation regarding the relationship between humanity and animals. What should be obvious to all readers is that through the flood, God has not reset things back to the perfect condition in which he created the earth. He’s already made it clear that the evil tendencies of humanity will continue. Yet, he still blessed Noah and his sons and gave them the same command that he’d given Adam. In other words, life is going to continue for some time, and it will not be easy or perfect. In fact, one of the sources of sustenance for humanity would be meat. There is somewhat of a paradox in that proclamation because God had created the animals and pronounced them “good.” When God made Adam and gave him responsibility for naming the animals, we get a picture of harmony between beast and man. However, after the flood, that relationship significantly changed. As we continue looking at this narrative, perhaps we can better understand what God is doing in light of what else is revealed.

After we read in verse three, “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything,” God provided a severe qualification for this provision that required they not eat the flesh with its blood. (v. 4) If I understand this correctly, the idea is that a living being’s life force is in the blood. If someone was going to kill an animal for meat, the blood must be drained from the flesh. It would be hung up, and the blood allowed to drip into the ground. The picture is that of the people respecting the animal's life and God’s provision enough to give the life force back to God.

So, as we are trying to piece together an explanation of why God is allowing this, it would make the most sense to understand this allowance or provision as a gracious act of provision for humanity. Indeed, this is not the ideal from what we know about God’s creation in Genesis 1. But absolutely nothing else is ideal anymore. The sin of people has had a devastating effect upon every aspect of life and has led God to bring this great act of judgment upon a great rebellion, and now this “reboot” of sorts is not a new creation with perfect people. God already knows that. But we haven’t yet encountered the seed of the woman that will crush the head of the serpent. Things are still messed up. Yet, the LORD is not treating Noah and his sons with contempt but mercy. He blessed them. So, he offers this proclamation as a means of mercy, grace, and provision for survival in the still-broken world.

As I suggested last week, I even suspect the LORD understood or intended this act of gaining food by the killing of an animal to remind them that it was man’s sin that brought this about. By requiring the blood to be drained would be a reminder of the cost for that person to eat the meat. It’s an act of acknowledgment that this provision came from the LORD and the life force was being given back to God.

Verses 5-6, then make a subsequent qualification. While animal life is permitted to be taken, one cannot take the life of a person except in the case where that person has taken the life of another person. Later, when the Law was given, there were stipulations that allowed capital punishment. However, the primary point of our text is the distinction between animal and human lives. Humans are made in the image of God. In other words, there is a God-designed value of human beings that distinguishes them from animals.

This section concludes with a repetition of God’s blessing upon Noah and his family to reproduce and fill the earth.

This text is not about the justification for a barbeque. This text reveals that God wants us to understand his value for us. This section begins and ends with God blessing Noah and his sons. There is a strong emphasis on the value of humanity because they are made in God’s image. If we really believed that all humanity was highly valued by God, as explained in this section, how would this world look? I think it would be radically different.

Episode 232 - "It is not good for man to be alone" - Genesis 2:18-25

Gen. 2:18 Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 19 Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh;

she shall be called Woman,

because she was taken out of Man.”

Gen. 2:24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

This is another one of those times where there is so much we could call attention to in this text. But it just seems appropriate to take it all together and focus on what is important.

The first thing is that God spoke again. To humorously borrow from an old commercial for an investment broker, the pitch line is “When E.F. Hutton speaks, people listen.” Well, it seems to me that when God speaks, we need to pay attention and listen. In this case, God, for the first time recorded in the Scriptures, expresses his assessment that something is NOT good, and he immediately resolves to do something about it. It was “not good that man should be alone” (Gen 2:18).

Before we look at God’s plan and action to resolve this, let’s consider the principle revealed here. We’ve already learned some very important God-revealed facts about humanity, haven’t we? Humans are valuable in the eyes of God. That is by God’s intent and design. This is a valuable tenet for us today. For those who claim to follow the God of the Bible, we should value other people with no regard to race, ethnicity, gender, socio-economic class, or other characteristics that may differentiate us from them based on outward appearances. The Scriptures tell us that God is no respecter of persons. (Acts 10:34, Rom 2:11) It would appear that this value assigned to us by God is related to the measure of how we bear God’s image.

Now we receive another truth about people that should inform how we live; how we think about others and interact with others. It is not good for man to be alone. What is evident in the immediate context is that God’s intent is to create the woman and the marriage relationship through which they can “be fruitful and multiply,” as was already expressed in the more general story of creation in chapter one. But at the more general level, we find the principle that God does not want us to isolate ourselves. We should not think that we can avoid people at all costs and just look out for ourselves. We need to be otherly-minded. This is not a condemnation of introverts. It is a principle that should inform us that God wants us to pursue and engage in relationships with other people.

Why would God say this? Why is this so important? We Christians understand that God is triune. There is one God, but God is three in person. Therefore, there has been fellowship within the Godhead from eternity past. Furthermore, we’ll see that as the Scriptures unfold, God doesn’t just want people to be in relationships with other people; God wants to be at the center of these relationships.

Picking up where I left off, God expressed his plan to “make a helper fit for him.” (Gen 2:18) The idea is that God was not going to make someone just like the man he’s created. However, the person he would create corresponds to the man and has similarities but is different enough to be a perfect complement to the man. In short, together, they will best fulfill the roles and responsibilities given to them by God, and they will best reflect the dignity and value of which they were endowed by their Creator.

Before God created the woman, it’s recorded that God brought every animal he had created to the man who named them. The man exercised his God-given responsibility to rule over the creatures and the earth. But the helper fit for the man was not among those creatures.

God could have formed the woman out of the ground as he had the man. But to form her out of the man himself reveals the connectedness and the intimacy they were designed to have. The culmination is when the LORD brought the woman to the man, and he was in absolute awe. He recognized that this is the perfect partner for him. (vv. 22-23)

This section closes with two important statements about this couple. First, the marriage relationship is the God-ordained formation of a new family in which the allegiances have shifted from parent-child to husband-wife. There are many people today who fail to get that. It does not mean to disregard or abandon our parents. But the child’s primary responsibility is now to their spouse and children.

The second statement says this first couple was naked and not ashamed. This is a picture of innocence. They have no knowledge of any wrong done. They have nothing to hide.

So what can we learn from this section? I would suggest that we need to embrace God’s assessment that it is not good for man to be alone. This does not mean that it’s sinful for people to be single. The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians argues for the value of remaining single so that one’s focus and energy can be on doing the Lord’s work. But, of course, that means serving others, doesn’t it? God wants us to be concerned for others and seek to serve them.

Episode 230 - "God formed . . . and breathed into . . ." - Genesis 2:4-9

Gen. 2:4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.

Gen. 2:5 When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6 and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— 7 then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. 8 And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Verse 4 sounds a little strange, doesn’t it? What do generations have to do with the heavens and the earth? The Hebrew word that is translated “generations,” can be transliterated as “toledot.” It’s often used at the beginning of genealogies. But the idea is what comes forth out of something else. Therefore, it makes sense to use that expression for genealogies. But Dr. John H. Walton, in the NIV Life Application Commentary volume for Genesis, suggests that the reason this expression is used here is a form of irony intended to be a critique, even an attack, on the views of other ancient cultures about the beginning of the universe. He argues that other ancient Near Eastern cultures believed that gods brought forth other gods. (See reference below) But what is revealed in Genesis is that the LORD brought forth the heavens and the earth, and through it, He brought everything good for life. Therefore, Genesis 2:4 is not only an introduction to the detailed account of the creation of humanity but, to the Hebrews coming out of Egypt and their descendants who would enter the Promised Land, it could be highlighting how their God, the LORD, is bigger and better than the gods of other cultures around them. Throughout the Bible, the writers want us to know the self-revelation of God. Understanding who we worship is essential to our life and walk of faith.

In verse 5, a few details are given to support the argument that the LORD is acting in a manner that reveals his good intent for humanity. The bushes and plants had not yet sprung up from the ground. Then we read, “the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land.” It tells us that God is in control of everything necessary for life. If nothing else, this is antithetical to a Deist worldview, one that believes that god is nothing but some initial cause to the universe with no intervention to sustain life in any way. This detail also raises the question, “When did the LORD cause the rain to fall?” We’ll get to that later. But verse 6 explains that “a mist” (or possibly springs) came up from the ground and watered the whole ground.

One more detail in verse 5 poses another problem; “there was no man to work the ground.” (v. 5) This creation was not an accident or even started by a god with no intent, willingness, or ability to orchestrate that which was to come forth to support life and be a place where mankind could exercise their God-design authority and privilege to rule over the earth as God’s vice-regents.

Verse 7 introduces God’s plan and solution for the previously stated “problems.” “Then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature” (Gen 2:7). The picture here is that humanity was a “hands on” project for God. It pictures both intent and a sense of connectedness between the Creator and the man.

The goodness and blessing that is revealed from the Creator God to the man is then heightened even more in Genesis 2:8, which states that God made a garden with a variety of plant food and put the man in the garden. It’s as if God is saying to the man, “I want you to have the best of what I have made for you.” These plants created a beautiful scenery in which he would dwell and also enjoy the experience of eating them. Verse 9 concludes with two trees mentioned by name. The tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Given that this is the first time “evil” is mentioned in the Scriptures, it would appear the intent is to provide an ominous tip that trouble is coming.

So, what is our “take-away” from this text? What can those of us in the 21st century glean from this text? I would suggest that we understand that the God we worship is not some force or power with no concern or ability to interact in our lives today. The God we worship values mankind and wants what is absolutely best for them. This gives us hope and a reason to worship the LORD.

John Walton, Genesis, Accordance electronic, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001).