# 26 2022 Dev. Genesis 2:18. The Answer to Loneliness! Read chapter two first. We invite you into God’s space, to read His Word, to think on and interact with. This is God’s story. How will it affect your story? All passages are taken from the NIV.
Genesis 2:18 “The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
A little history. We have finished the new Testament and are close to finishing the Psalms. Week by week it has taken five years. You many see all of our post at heavenhigh.org. We hope and pray these devotionals are and continue to be a blessing,
Back ground: We began at the beginning. A lot can be unpacked from the first sentence of scripture, perhaps a whole book. But we will give only a short introduction: whatever people perceive the scriptures to be it is first and foremost an account of God’s love seen in His relationship with people. That first sentence also confronts us with a decision: will we accept this as the Word of God? Will we accept God’s Word by a function of our faith? The world, of course, accepts non of this and even many theological commentators do not accept the first eleven chapters as historical, not to mention the evolution issue. Today, even the most secular scientists admit creation has intelligent design, of course it has, followers of Jesus know that. The first three chapters of Genesis corresponds with the last three chapters of Revelation.
Intro. Gen. 2:4 seems to start over, after the initial introduction of the 7 days of creation. That 7 days’ summary appears to be a mnemonic device (a memory aid), 7 is a perfect number that could be a much longer length of time.
Vs.1-3 God sets aside the 7th day, blessed it, proclaimed it holy, and designated it as a day to rest. Christians celebrate rest and worship on the 1st day of the week, the day Jesus rose from the dead. In the Old Testament, Saturday is designated as the Sabbath. God designates earthly rest as a precursor to God’s eternal rest in the New Heaven and the New Earth.
Vs.4-7 In these verses God details for us the creation process. “God spoke and it was so” and God used the natural processes He put into nature, that He continues to use today. God watered the earth, springs, dew, no rain at that time. Growth came up at God’s direction. He “formed man from the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” We do not agree with the idea of evolution, however, there is microevolution, not a crossover from one species to another but changes within the species to accommodate the environment.
Vs.8-9 God “planted a garden… for the man he had formed.” A sanctuary of fruit trees, pleasing to the man’s eye and for food. But there is a catch: “in the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” In the sanctuary, as in life, there is a place to choose good and evil.
Vs.10-14 “A river watering the garden flowed from Eden;” There are four headwaters to this river, The Pishon; we do not know this river, the Gihon; flowing from the south, we do not know this river, the Tigris; flowing from the north, and the Euphrates; flowing from the north east. Given the size of the rivers we know, the river in the garden was large, indicating a very large garden. In Rev. 22 we see a restoration of the garden: “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be any curse.”
Vs.15-17 God “took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” And God set a limit for Adam, do ‘not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.’” Jesus, recreates us, we who believe on Him, will certainly not die, but live forever. Praise God!
Vs.18-25 The Lord God said, ‘it is not good for man to be alone I will make a helper suitable for him.’” God also created all the animals and all the birds, Adam named them all “But for Adam no suitable helper was found” … Man was lonely. “Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib[h] he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said,
“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”
24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.”
God created men and women, in His own image, equally created to complement each other. Someone said to me once, Husbands and wives are like “Lego” they work together, they fit together, they hold together.
“Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame” This is a fantastic story, it is not scientific, nor does science discredit its validity, it is a story of God’s love for His people and God’s desire for fellowship with all of His creation. I hope Adam and Eve lived a long time in the garden in peace and harmony before Satan came along. We thank God!
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