1. Man was made with a material body
2. Man was made with an imparted spirit
3. Man was made to be a living soul
Have you ever seen any of the old Puritan sermons? They were amazing. They would preach for over an hour. And many of their sermons would have dozens of points. The sermon this morning had 5 points which is a lot for me. I feel like the old Puritan preacher who stood up in the evening service after a time when his morning sermon had so many points. He said, “Since this morning’s sermon had an excessive number of points, tonight’s message will be pointless.” Well, tonight won’t be pointless, but it is going to be a little bit different than usual. Sometimes things like this happen when we work our way through books. Especially when we’re dealing with Old Testament narrative texts. What we’ve got in our passage tonight are two parts. The first part is very informative. As a matter of fact, you need to understand its structure to help you understand the way Genesis is written. It’ll help you understand the whole book better. It’s very important, but it’s just not much for sermon material. So, rather than turn this into an academic lesson tonight and cover the sermon material in verse 7 next week, we’ll just cover the informative stuff in verses 4-6 in a long introduction to the sermon on verse 7.
GENESIS 2:4-7
When we look at our English Bibles, we automatically see them divided into chapters and verses. Those chapters and verses weren’t in the original text. As a matter of fact, they weren’t even added until sometime in the middle ages. Don’t get me wrong, they are very helpful. They’re just not always in the place where the original authors might have put them. In other words, new chapters don’t always mark new thoughts or changes in thought. That’s what has happened here in the first two chapters of Genesis. Verses 4-6 actually represent a transition from all the stuff we’ve talked about so far to all the stuff that follows. It is a divider text. Think of it like a hinge. All of the verses that we’ve talked about before, from Genesis 1:1 through 2:3 focused on God. Chapter 2:7 through the end of chapter 3 focuses on man. Some liberal scholars have tried to say that this shows these are two different creation stories written by two different people. They say they don’t even match up, because the order of things in chapter 2 is different that it is in chapter 1. It’s true that the order doesn’t match up. It’s not supposed to because the focus of the narrative is different. Chapter 1 was arranged chronologically, according to time. Day 1, day 2, day 3, etc. That, plus all the repetition that we talked about shows God’s systematic orderliness and his creative design. On the other hand, chapter 2 is arranged topically because it’s focused on man. Man thinks topically. He relates topically. It’s a whole lot easier to come up with sermon points in chapter 2 than it was in chapter 1. As a matter of fact, it would have been nearly impossible to do a verse by verse exposition of chapter 1. If I would have, it would have been a sermon with 7 points that had a lot of “and thens” in it. And then He did this, and then He did that. It would have been like one of those old Puritan sermons. So, verses 4-6 act like a hinge. But what kind of a hinge are they? Does the information in those verses attach on to the bottom of what went before, or does it go with what comes afterward? Well, understanding this gives you a key that will help you unlock your studies in Genesis. You’re going to need a pencil and a piece of paper for this one if you don’t write in your Bibles. Genesis can be divided into 11 sections. Between each of those sections, you will find the word generations. That word is always used to introduce a genealogy. It introduces something like a list of begats. Like I said, there are 11 sections in Genesis. All but the first one are introduced with the word generations. You can find them in 2:4—the generations of the heavens and the earth, 5:1—the generations of Adam, 6:9—the generations of Noah, 10:1—the generations of the sons of the sons of Noah, 11:10—the generations of Shem, 11:27, the generations of Terah, 25:12—the generations of Ishmael, 25:19—the generations of Isaac, 36:1—the generations of Esau, and the last section of Genesis begins with 37:2—the generations of Jacob. So, realizing that this is how Genesis is laid out shows us that verses 4-6 introduce the section that runs until the next generations are introduced in 5:1. If you don’t remember anything else, just remember that verses 4-6 are a hinge that links 1:1-2:3 with 2:7 through the end of chapter 4. Chapter 1 is chronological and God focused, 2 through 3 are topical and man focused. Notice that the chronological account began in 1:1 with the first thing—in the beginning. Instead of the topical account beginning with the first thing, it begins with the most important thing in God’s eyes—the creation of man. In the chronological account, God just hit the high spots about man’s creation. He said that He created man—male and female—in His own image. Here in the topical account, He goes into more detail. When a ball player goes to training camp or a young recruit goes to boot camp, the trainer or drill sergeant will run them through the ringer. They will take them to the extremes of mental and physical exhaustion. When they’re asked why the do that, they’ll say they just want to see what the person is made of. We all know what they mean by that, but in verse 7 of our passage, God clearly tells us what we are made of. By looking at this verse tonight, I want each of us to see who God has created us to be. And when we see who He has created us to be, I want each of us to live in the present, but keep our eyes focused on eternity. In order to do that, we’re going to look at three elements in the composition of man. The first element in the composition of man is his material body. Look with me at the first part of verse 7:
GENESIS 2:7a
Man was made with a material body. Well, here it is, the middle of February. Now’s the time when most of the diet and exercise programs that people started with the New Year begin to fade. I heard a comedian the other night talking about a new FDA approved weight loss pill. Apparently the FDA said the pill is effective for losing weight if it is used with a diet and exercise plan. No kidding. So are Flintstone vitamins. Why is our culture so obsessed with physical appearances? But it’s not just about looks. I would say we’re even more obsessed with our physical comfort. Why are we so hung up on our bodies or what makes our bodies feel good? Because many of us live like that’s all we are is a material body. God created us with a material body. A physical body. That can’t be a bad thing because back in chapter 1, He looked at His creation and pronounced it very good. He formed us from the dust of the earth. The word used for formed carries the picture of a potter shaping a vessel from a piece of clay. Picture that potter for a minute. He carefully selects the clay. He places it on the potter’s wheel where he spins it at just the right speed. Then he forms it and shapes it and moulds it into the perfect work of art. That’s what God did with Adam. He was a physically perfect work of art. Think about it like this. Chapter 1 indicates that God spoke the Sun, Moon and stars into existence. Look at the magnificent beauty of the night sky. God did all that just by speaking. Now look at how much more intimately involved He was in creating man. He reached down and took up dust or clay from the ground. Ground that He had spoken into existence. He took up that dust and formed the body of Adam. But a material body wasn’t all he was. His physical make up was only one element of who he was. It’s the same with us today. When we always focus on our physical needs or wants or desires, we’re focusing on only one element of who we are. I’m not saying it’s not important to take care of ourselves. God gave us a body. He took great care in designing and shaping it. And we should take care of it. But we need to remember that our body is not all we are composed of. It’s just the first element. The second element in the composition of man is his imparted spirit. Look with me at the second part of verse 7:
GENESIS 2:7b
Man was made with an imparted spirit. Isn’t that another wonderfully intimate picture? After God the potter finished molding this beautiful work of art, He leaned down and breathed life into him. In virtually all ancient languages, including Hebrew, the word for breath, air, and spirit are identical. So when God breathed into Adam the breath of life, we can also say that God breathed into Adam the spirit of life. Remember that Jesus told the woman at the well that God is spirit and those who worship Him worship in spirit and truth. God is an immaterial spirit being. And He gave Adam an immaterial spirit by blowing it into him. It wasn’t so much an act of CPR—cardiopulmonary resuscitation—as it was an act of spiritual impartation. Now, how does that translate to us? God gave Adam a spiritual component. I would say that all of us in here know that we have a spiritual component—otherwise we wouldn’t be here. Have you ever heard the phrase, “He’s so heavenly minded that he’s no earthly good.”? As Christians we can run the risk of focusing entirely on our spiritual self. Either that or separating out our spiritual self from our physical self. Once again, being spiritually minded is not a bad thing. It’s a good thing when it’s done right. But we can get off track when that becomes our only focus. When we focus entirely on our spiritual self. The extreme version of that is what the monks used to do in the middle ages. They were so worried about the sins of the flesh, they completely isolated themselves from the world. The earliest ones lived in caves and then later on they began to create monasteries. They focused so much on their spirituality that they completely isolated themselves from the world. They denied themselves basic necessities and considered any kind of physical pleasure to be a sin. Now, that sounds almost silly to us today. But don’t we sometimes do the same thing as Christians? We go to church. We only have Christian friends. We only go buy things from Christian businesses. We only shop at stores that have a little fish on the sign or a Bible verse on the marquee. Sometimes it seems like we can build a little Christian bubble around ourselves that we never leave. It’s almost like the ideal thing would be if we never had to come in contact with a non-Christian at all. Tell me something. If that’s the way we act, how will we ever reach anyone for Christ? If we isolate ourselves, how will we ever impact our community for Jesus? God is Spirit. He gave us a spirit. He leaned down, cradled the man of flesh in His arms, and intimately breathed spirit into him. He imparted Adam with a spirit. And when God joined that perfectly created body with that personally imparted spirit, a wonderful thing happened. It became complete. The third element in the composition of man is his living soul.
GENESIS 2:7
Man was made to be a living soul. The fact is that very few of us live like we are only physical bodies. For the most part we don’t live just to fulfill our physical needs, wants, and desires. And I would say that even fewer of us live like monks. Very few if any of us completely obsess on our spirituality to the point where we isolate ourselves from the world. But here is where most of us mess up. We mess up by building boxes in our lives. We have one box that’s our work box. We have one box that’s our home box. We have one box that’s our school box. And we have one box that’s our church box. People in our society are praised for being able to compartmentalize their lives. We are told to keep our private lives private and our public lives separate. It’s OK to go to church, just don’t bring your beliefs to work or school with you. Well, God didn’t make us that way. He didn’t make us only to be a physical being. He didn’t make us only to be a spiritual being. He united both of those. Verse 7 says that God formed a physical body for Adam. He took him from the dust of the earth. Shaped him. Formed him. He made him physical. And then He breathed into him the spirit of life. He leaned into Adam’s face and blew spirit into him. God who is Spirit gave Adam a spirit. He made him spiritual. But He didn’t do those two things in boxes. He didn’t make Adam with a split personality—sometimes a physical being, other times a spiritual being. He made him whole. He was whole, because when the spirit of life united with Adam’s physical body, a wonderful thing happened. He became a living soul. The King James gets it right here where some other translations miss the boat. Some others say that he became a living being. But the original combines two words that convey the idea of bringing to life Adam’s inmost being. The thing that makes him Adam. Who he was. We struggle so much with identity in our society today. For the most part men seek their identity in what they do—their profession. Then when they retire or get laid off, they tend to have what’s called an identity crisis. For the most part women seek their identity in their family—their husband and children. So when a spouse leaves or dies or a child rebels, they suffer an identity crisis. Ladies, your husband or your children aren’t who you are. Men, your profession isn’t who you are. Who you are is a living soul. You are a living soul created by God as a union between a physical component and a spiritual component. And as a living soul, you will only find meaning and purpose in life when you seek your identity in the person of Jesus Christ. You say, now wait a minute. You said that we shouldn’t only focus on the spiritual side. Now you’re saying we need to seek our identity in Jesus. Which is it? That just points out our misunderstanding of what it means to be a Christian. What it means to seek our identity in Christ. True Christianity isn’t just a spiritual thing. Jesus Christ came in the flesh. He physically existed on this earth for 33 years. He physically suffered and bled and died. He was physically resurrected on the third day. And physically walked the earth in a glorified body for another 40 days. One day, He will physically return and place His physical feet on the Mount of Olives. He will physically rule an reign on the earth for 1000 years. When He becomes our Lord and Savior, we are called to physically serve Him. To the point of our physical death if necessary. No, Christianity isn’t just a spiritual thing. When Jesus saves us, He doesn’t just save our spirit. But neither does He just save our bodies. Christianity isn’t just a good rehab program. When believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, we are born again. Turn with me to John 3:
JOHN 3:1-7
Jesus said that unless a man be born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. By water, He isn’t talking about baptism. He’s talking about the water in the womb. He’s talking about physical birth. Jesus is telling Nicodemus that being saved involves not just the physical component of man. And it doesn’t just involve the spiritual component of man. It’s a combination of the two. It’s a soul thing. So, what kind of boxes have you set up in your life? Have you got one box for home and one for work and one for church? If you have trusted in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, He didn’t just save part of you. He didn’t save you in boxes. He saved your soul. How is your soul tonight? Is it saved? Is it separated? Or is it seeking? Don’t leave here tonight without being able to honestly say, “It is well with my soul.”
