Genesis 2

Genesis 2 – January 3

In a chapter with as much depth as this one, it is a true challenge to determine which angle to set our focus on today. So, let’s contemplate two.

Rest

What does it mean that God rested on the seventh day? Normally when we speak about needing to rest, we are speaking about the need to recharge our depleted energy. Our proverbial batteries run low, so we need to cease our current trajectory and temporarily pause for food, sleep, or mental renewal. God is not like us in this way. He never gets tired. (Isa. 40:28) He doesn’t sleep. (Ps. 121:3-4) He does not need food. (Ps. 50:8-15) He is omnipotent and does not require rest in order to recover. God’s rest is a rest of purpose. He rested when His job was completed.

Notice that God does not rest from everything that He does. The text explicitly tells us that the particular work from which he rested was the work of creation. Jesus highlights the fact that there are other aspects of God’s work that He has never put on pause. “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” (John 5:17) This concept of rest is going to be incredibly important for you to grasp as you make your way through the Bible. When God gave Moses the Law, He reached back to this point in Genesis 2 to remind the people that He rested on the seventh day. It was at that point that God told them that there was a kind of rest that they were also to practice on the seventh day of the week. (Ex. 20:8-11) As New Covenant believers, we are also called into rest, but not of the ‘once-a-week’ sort. We have been given rest from our “So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.” (Heb. 4:9-10) From the very beginning of creation, God was pointing us to the perfect rest that we have in Him if we come to Him in saving faith. If you are a Christian, you can rest in the finished work of Christ because it is finished and it is good.

Marriage

Starting at verse 4, God rewinds the tape a little bit in order to zoom in on the particular manner in which Adam and Eve were created. It is notable that after every single creation, God said that it was good, except for one. After creating Adam, the Lord sent the man into the Garden to name/classify all of the animals. From the outset, God has made us to be workers and surveyors of His design. But, in carrying out His responsibilities Adam made a scientific discovery. Every creature had a male/female partner, but there was no female human to be found.

In all of the “good” creation, God Himself makes note that, “It is NOT good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” It is only after God performs the world’s first surgery and formed Eve out of Adam’s flesh and bone that the Lord declares that creation is “very good.” (We know this because Gen. 1:31 tells us that the Lord said that at the conclusion of the sixth day.) God did not make men and women identical (thankfully). Tomorrow we will take closer note of the authority structure of marriage. For now, I simply want to point out what it says in vs. 24, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” We live in a society that is increasingly confused about (or even openly opposed to) a biblical notion of marriage. When Jesus speaks about marriage, it is no surprise that He grounds His message in this creation order of God’s plan for husbands and wives.  

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