THE ORIGIN OF MAN-ADAM

Remember that it was God who leaned down and breathed the breath of life into Adam’s nostrils. As Adam stirred and slowly opened his eyes, I believe he saw the glory of God hovering before him…watching…waiting for His creation to become aware of His presence. I wonder about the look of expectation on God’s face…the anticipation of seeing His creation come to life…the joy of watching His creation look upon His glory for the first time.

It had to be a moment of indescribable wonder for both! And I believe they were captivated by each other for a time… whether for moments, hours or days…each one mezmerized by the existence and the presence of the other.

Keep in mind, that this was before the fall of man. In a sense, a spiritual sense, God and Adam were one…both of the same Spirit. (This is not intended to imply in any way that Adam was a divine being, because he wasn’t. But he was created a perfect being!) And though Adam would
eventually severe that spiritual connection, at the moment, they were both one. While the seedlings in the ground (that God had created on the third day) sprouted and grew, Adam was getting to know God… and the Teacher was teaching His creation about life…about Himself (God) and about himself (Adam). It’s quite possible that Adam even moved freely between earth and heaven…that he conversed with angels.

In the paradise in which he lived, I don’t believe Adam had to eat to stay alive, just as I don’t believe we’ll have to eat in heaven. I believe he was welcomed to eat… even invited to eat… perhaps at God’s own table…but I don’t believe he had to eat. Nor did the animals that had been created on the fifth and sixth days. Remember, this is before the fall. Sin, death, decay, even hunger was somewhere in the future.

“Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.” (Gen. 1:20,30).

The plants that were given for food were still seeds in the ground. The “meat-eaters” weren’t “meat-eaters” yet…not until after the fall. For now, they were still vegetarians waiting patiently for their first salad. Adam, when he wasn’t hanging out with God, was naming the animals (Gen. 2:19,20). Somewhere along the way, Eve was taken from Adam’s rib (Gen. 2:22), the Garden of Eden was planted by God (Gen. 2:8), and Adam was put in the garden to take care of it (Gen. 2:15).

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THE ORIGIN OF MAN-ADAM

Continuing discourse on the origin of man…

Most people have the mental picture of Adam being formed from dirt, God breathing into his nostrils, Adam coming to life and sitting up in the middle of the Garden of Eden and looking around in astonishment. For years I thought the very same thing. Until I read, for the umpteenth time this verse…and when I read it on this particular occasion, for some reason, something I had never noticed jumped out at me.

“This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created. When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens- and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground- the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” (Gen. 2:4-7).

Before any shrub had appeared…before any plant of the field had sprung up… “the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”

Now, God had already created the plants and shrubs…He did that on the third day.

“Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds…” (Gen. 1:11,12).

But those plants had not yet appeared or “sprung up”. They were still seeds in the ground when Adam was created on the sixth day. When Adam opened his eyes for the first time, he opened them to a barren landscape…nothing but dirt. In fact, the same dirt that he, himself, had come from.

“Let the land produce vegetation…”

While the land produced vegetation, God produced Adam.

The first time Adam opened his eyes, he saw dirt. Dirt everywhere. There were also streams because it was the streams that came up from the earth and watered the ground (Gen. 2:6), but at the moment, there was nothing else but dirt…as far as the eye could see, in every direction.

Dirt.

The dust of the ground sitting there looking at the dust of the ground. He’s bound to have had some interesting thoughts! At the same time, I wonder if Adam even noticed the dirt. For there was one other thing I believe Adam saw when he opened his eyes for the very first time.

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THE ORIGIN OF MAN-ADAM

Thus continues the story of the origin of man from the Biblical perspective!

Think about Adam for a moment. God made a mud pie and breathed into it…and it came to life! But this mud pie wasn’t like the kind you and I whipped up as kids. This mud pie had literally miles of blood vessels and nerves and several feet of intestines all crammed into a frame that was roughly six feet tall and a couple of feet wide. This doesn’t include the muscle tissue and the bones…and all the other stuff that’s inside us. All held in place by skin not much thicker than a sheet of paper. It’s amazing to me, that all that stuff can fit in there! But that was Adam. That was man.

But even more amazing is that God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life! Why? So Adam could be alive! God’s very own breath jump-started Adam’s lungs. God’s own Spirit. God’s “life” or breath…shared with Adam, so that he, too, could live. That very same breath that we, even still today, find our very life in. That very same breath has been passed down and
multiplied through the centuries…but it’s still the same breath…the breath of God. The breath that gave Adam life, gives us life. If that single breath of God has given life to so many for so long, is it any wonder that God is eternal?

You don’t believe that the same breath that God breathed into Adam is the very same breath that gives you life? Then answer this: What makes your heart beat just one more time? The breath. But where does the breath come from? Not the oxygen that you breathe in…but the breath itself? Every human being on this planet is one heartbeat…one breath…away from death. Where does it come from? It’s the eternal breath of God. The breath that we pass to our children…that they pass to their children. And when your portion of that breath has been used up, you go home to be with the Lord…assuming you are one of His.

Adam. The very first man. What do you suppose was his first thought? With that first breath, what went through his mind? Do you suppose he sat up and looked around in wonder? Or did he just lie there for a few minutes trying to absorb the magnitude of his existence? Was he aware at all of what had just happened? I mean…he’s not there, then all of a sudden he is!

Think about babies. Babies are formed in the womb. They have a growing awareness of their existence, there in their little world. We can’t know what they think about, of course, but we do know they are aware. Moms-to-be can feel them kicking inside. When they come out, they experience a dramatic change, but they are still aware. But Adam was just jolted into existence from nothing!

He wasn’t there….and then he was! He wasn’t anywhere….and then he was! What in the world could have been going through his mind? And whatever he was thinking…what language was it in? How did he even understand his own thoughts? Was he given a degree of instant knowledge?
Or was he taught by God?

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THE ORIGIN OF MAN-ADAM

Let’s move along a little in our look at the origin of man. Because of the length of this post, I’ll be breaking it up into a couple of different sections. A couple of my latest posts were a bit lengthy…(sorry bout that!)

“Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him…” (Gen. 1:26,27)

Adam was created in the image of God…in His likeness. Many assume this means that man looks like God and God looks like man. That may or may not be true, although I’m sure that there is a family resemblance for those of us in Christ. :0) More than the physical appearance, though, Adam was created after God’s image in that Adam, like God, is a three-part, or triune
being. A trinity. Like God. A body, a soul and a spirit.

God said, “Let us make man in our image.”

Who was He talking to and about? He was speaking to Himself…God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, and He was speaking about Himself. All three were present and all three took part in creation because all three are One.

An interesting point to make here might be that God never intended for Adam to be the only man on earth. When He said, “Let us make man in our image”, He also said of man, “let them rule over the fish of the sea”, the birds, the livestock and over all the earth. He already knew the earth would be full of humans. And He already knew that Adam would fall. Likewise, He already had the plan of redemption in place. But for now, we’ll just ponder a bit on Adam.

“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” (Gen. 2:7).

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The Tongue

“And how about ships? They are very big. They are driven along by strong winds. But they are steered by a very small rudder. It makes them go where the captain wants to go.

In the same way, the tongue is a small part of the body. But it brags a lot. Think about how a small spark can set a big forest on fire.

The tongue also is a fire. The tongue is the most evil part of the body. It pollutes the whole person. It sets a person’s whole way of life on fire. And the tongue is set on fire by hell.

People have controlled all kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea. They still control them.  But no one can control the tongue. It is an evil thing that never rests. It is full of deadly poison.

With our tongues we praise our Lord and Father. With our tongues we call down curses on people. We do it even though they have been created to be like God.  Praise and cursing come out of the same mouth. My brothers and sisters, it shouldn’t be that way.” (James 3:4-9)

Ah, the tongue! There is so much that can be said here. About each of us. In fact, there’s enough to say that this space might not hold it all. I think we’ll focus on just one aspect of the tongue in this section, and maybe hold the rest for a few other spots!

James didn’t have anything flattering to say about the tongue, and if you think about it, rightly so. But one of the things you’ll want to look at a little closer is this… “It pollutes the whole person. It sets a person’s whole way of life on fire. And the tongue is set on fire by hell.”

Again, there are an awful lot of different angles we can take on this thing, but the one we’re going to look at here is what your own tongue can do to you. Before we go any farther down this path, let me say that we’re not believers in the “name it and claim it” philosophy…at least generally speaking. (There are specific instances, however, where we do believe that it has a place…which would be where God’s promises are concerned. That’s a bit much more than we want to get into here though.)

What we want to look at here, is how your tongue affects you…how it pollutes you and sets your whole way of life on fire. As noted from the verse above, “With our tongues we praise our Lord and Father. With our tongues we call down curses on people.” Ironically, just as we unknowingly call curses down on others, we also do the same to ourselves. Think about this…

The most important decision you can ever make in this life, is to become a believer in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Now let’s look at something very interesting Paul had to say concerning your tongue and your salvation.

“That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Rom. 10:9)

If you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart…you will be saved. That’s the single most important decision you will ever make. Now, if it’s true that “if you confess with your mouth” and if you “believe in your heart” that you will be saved, how true must those statements be about other things we so carelessly confess?

For instance:

“I don’t have enough money. I guess I’ll always be poor.”

You’re right. You probably will be.

“I have cancer.”

“My husband is worthless and my kid is even more worthless than his daddy.”

If you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart…

Wow! How many times have we said (or heard) something like the following…

“My arthritis is acting up today.”

Not to make light, by any means, but if you’re confessing it to be yours, and you’re believing it in your heart to be yours…guess what? It’s yours. Maybe you’ve prayed for healing and you still don’t have it. How come?

Because it’s yours. God’s no thief. He won’t steal it from you. You have to give it to him before he’ll take it. And we’re so selfish with our stuff, that often, we’ll give it to him and pick it back up again before we leave…even if it’s stuff we don’t especially care to have.

How about this one?

“You make me sick!”

Or

“You’ll never amount to anything!”

Not only do you believe it, but others will believe it as well. And they’ll start confessing it and believing it…and before long…well…just remember…

“…if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

And if your confessions and beliefs can affect your salvation, how much do they affect the little day to day things we endure (and put others through)?

Maybe that’s why Paul says, “we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”(2 Cor. 10:5). If we can figure out how to take all of our thoughts captive to make them obedient to Christ, then maybe we’ll have the chance to swallow back some of those words we speak that shouldn’t be spoken. Then maybe we won’t be poor…or sick…or damaging someone else.

“But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.” (Matt. 12:36,37)

There’s so much more…so much more…

What are you confessing and believing?

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THE ORIGIN OF MAN-ADAM AND THE DINOSAUR (PART 2)

Let’s take a closer look at what the Bible says about the origin of man…

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Gen. 1:1)

Somewhere back in eternity past, millions or billions or trillions or gazillions of years ago, God created the heavens and the earth. Noone can really say how long it did or didn’t take, because it’s not recorded anywhere. It does seem, though, that God created the heavens first, because according to Job 38:7, the morning stars sang together and the angels shouted for joy as the earth’s foundations were being laid and its dimensions being marked. So, we can reasonably gather that the heavens were created to give the angels a home, then the angels, and finally, the earth.

There’s an interesting passage in Ezekiel (28:12-19) that seems to describe Lucifer…”the model of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.” Lucifer was “anointed as a guardian cherub.” It’s generally accepted that at some point in time, back in the beginning, Lucifer was highly favored in God’s sight. As such, it’s perfectly reasonable to gather that, just as God created Adam and gave him the gift of dominion over the earth in Gen. 1:28 (until his fall), it’s also reasonable to conclude that as God’s greatest creation (up to that point) ,Lucifer too, was given dominion over the earth until his fall. The difference being that Lucifer’s domain existed eons before Adam’s.

As previously mentioned, God didn’t create the earth to be empty, but to be inhabited. Now, while I do believe that Adam was the first and only man created in the image of God, I also believe there were other “men” here before him. Those that we call prehistoric man. I also believe that they existed right along with dinosaurs, in a time that we’ll never fully understand. It can be safely assumed that God created both dinosaurs and the cave man for Lucifer to rule over, just as He created the animals that Adam would rule over in a later age.

Depending on which translation of the Bible you read, you will stumble across a couple of passages that speak of “behemoths” and “leviathans” which could very easily be describing what we, today, call dinosaurs. In the book of Job (chapter 40), God describes creatures that we’ve never seen or heard of as described…unless one considers the dinosaur. Verse 19 even says this creature ranks first among the works of God!

Then somewhere along the way, Lucifer’s heart became proud and wickedness was found in him (Ez. 28). There was a war in heaven and Lucifer and a third of his angels were cast to earth. In all likelyhood, the people of earth at that time also sided with the creature that we’ve come to call satan…much like they will do when this present age ends. It’s interesting to note, that in several passages of the Bible, we’re told the heavens will be shaken, the stars will fall from the sky, the sun and moon will cease to give light to the earth, earthquakes beyond human imagination…all will befall man at the end of this age. It’s not unlikely, then, that the same fate was shared by our predecessors, prehistoric man to an even greater degree.

Scientists believe that at one point in time, the earth’s axis was perpendicular to the sun. Now, it’s slightly angled. They believe that’s what caused the ice age that wiped out the cave man and the dinosaur. But what caused it? Perhaps, just like in Is. 13:13, the earth was shaken from its place by the Lord’s wrath! Lucifer was defeated, his “dominion” was left void and without form…a barren, empty wasteland.

Then sometime later…how much later, we’ll never know…”Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” (Gen. 1:2)…and God began to restore the earth. In verse 3, God didn’t “create” light. He simply said, “Let there be light.” Let the light penetrate the darkness that had been caused by the catastrophic destruction of the earth…the pitch black cloud of debris that had been caused by the tilting of the earth during the Lord’s wrath.

Verse 6. God didn’t create anything. He seperated what was already there. The waters from the waters that He had created eons before. He restored the expanse between the waters and called the expanse “sky”.  Then He gathered the waters and let dry ground appear. He simply restored what was already here until we get to verse 20, when He created the creatures of the air and water. The same species that we have today. And God told them to fill the earth. It’s interesting that in the KJV, He told them to FILL the earth…but He told Adam to REPLENISH the earth. And you can’t REPLENISH unless there was something there before.

There are a few other passages scattered around that hint of the prehistoric time. God knew that we, “modern” man, would be needing and using fossil fuels for almost everything we do. How did we get them? From the prehistoric age. There was no magical compression of time that started with Adam’s creation. Nor was there a creation of dinosaurs during Adam’s time followed by some mysterious disappearance. It was all in God’s plan. From the very beginning.

The one thing above all others that we need to realize is this: whether this is how it happened or not, has no bearing on His plan of salvation. It simply helps us to understand a little more of what He had planned for us from before the beginning of time. The important thing is that according to 1 Peter 1:20, Jesus was chosen before the creation of the world to be your Savior and mine…regardless of when or how that creation took place! He was chosen for you…and for me. Before the creation of the world. God wasn’t surprised that Adam fell…or that we do. That’s why He provided for us when He did!

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