God’s Good Design

Genesis 2:4-25
Gary Wassermann | Sunday, November 21, 2021
Copyright © 2021, Gary Wassermann

I will be speaking about God’s good creation, God’s good design. But I want to begin with the question of identity. It is a big topic in the culture around us today.  To put it in personal terms, it is the question: “Who am I?”  “Who am I?” is the number one title for poems written by school-aged children in the United Kingdom, according to Martyn Iles, managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby.[1]  There might be a curriculum-based reason for this, but it is also one of the most common questions that many young people have.  It occupies their thinking and their minds directly and acutely.  And it is not just the young; it continues.

The problem today is that there actually is no answer to this question, “Who am I?”   What we hear is, “You are you.  Be yourself.  You do you.  Surround yourself with people who champion you.  Follow your dreams.”  What do you do with that?  It leaves you sprawling in space.  When the only answer to the question “Who am I?” points right back at you, there is no up. There is no down. There is no right. There is no wrong. There is no law. There are no rules.  There is just you.  And if you are anything and everything, then you are nothing.

Especially because of the disconnectedness from our past and from our God and from each other that characterizes our society, this anxiety plagues much of the world around us.  So identity is used as an avenue for power.  A menu of attributes is provided, and you can select from this trendy menu: What is your gender, what is your sexual orientation, what is your race, and so on.  That gives you your identity.  It provides then the basis for how you are to live and interact with others.  And along with power, identity becomes an avenue for sin.  A seventh-grade teacher at a public middle school in Salinas, California, recently revealed that she named the campus LGBTQ club the “You Be You” club.  Her intent in using that name was to hide the nature of the club from parents who might hear about it, so that it would be easier to lure children in.[2] It is a cover for sin.

Thank God that he has not left us building on sand or sprawling in space.  The Bible has the answer to the question of identity.  That answer begins not with us but with God.  That is why Dr. Spencer began this series from Genesis with “In the beginning, God.” God is our starting point, and God is our reference point. We must start with a knowledge of God—the self-existent, almighty, personal God.  Then we learn that God created man, and God fashioned him originally in his own image.  That is a profound statement about who we are.  The Fall has affected that deeply. But when you ask, “Who am I?” there is a profound statement. Genesis 1 also includes the cultural mandate, and God’s blessing on man.  In Genesis 2, starting at verse 4, which is our text for this morning, we learn about man and woman as created by God.  But before getting to that part of this message, I want to establish that this is real history.  If that is not understood, everything else falls apart.  My first point then is “Reliable History.” My second point will be “Creation Ordinances for Man and Woman.” There is much more that can be said from this chapter, but that is what I will focus on.

Reliable History

Genesis 2 deals with facts.  This is not myth.  This is not parable. This is not psychology or sociology.  We are not speaking here about mere metaphysical concepts and ideas, or the realm of religion as a slice of human life and culture.  These are facts.  This point has two parts which correspond to the two words of the heading.  The first part of that is “reliable”; the second is “history.”

Reliable

In reading the first few chapters of Genesis, even a sincere reader may ask the question: How does Genesis 2 square with Genesis 1?  After all, both of them speak about the creation of the first man and woman, but they are quite different accounts.  Is there an internal contradiction here?  Some critics have carried this idea further and said that the first two chapters of Genesis come from two different and incompatible sources, even two myths.

The first thing I will say about this is that Jesus did not have any problem with Genesis 1 and Genesis 2.  He considered them both the inerrant, authoritative word of God.  When some Pharisees asked the Lord Jesus about divorce in Matthew 19, Jesus replied by quoting from Genesis 1 and then from Genesis 2. “‘Haven’t you read,’ he replied, ‘that at the beginning the Creator “made them male and female,” and said, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh”?’” (Matt. 19:4–5). Since the first of these quotations is from Genesis 1:27 and the second is from Genesis 2:24, it is clear that Jesus regarded these two chapters as belonging to one harmonious account.

What do the critics have against the Lord’s assessment?  There are basically two claims that they make.  The first is that in these two chapters, two different names for God are used. In chapter 1, we have Elohim as the name for God and in chapter 2 we have Jehovah or Yahweh, which is translated as “Lord” as the name for God.

But the claim about two different names for God is, first off, exaggerated. In Genesis 2, God is called not simply Jehovah, but Jehovah Elohim, “the Lord God,” emphasizing that he is the same God as is mentioned in Genesis 1.  Furthermore, the difference in the use of God’s names is completely justified by the emphasis each chapter has. Genesis 1 is a general account of creation, so it is appropriate that Elohim, the most general name for God that emphasizes his sovereign power, should be used.  Genesis 2 gives further elaboration focusing on the beginning of the human race and on the personal relationship between God and man, so it is fitting that Jehovah, the personal name for God, should be used. It is personality that is especially in view.

The second line of argument from the critics is that the order is different in the two chapters. But surely that is to miss the point of chapter 2 particularly.  If you take chapter 2 as teaching a chronological sequence, you have first the creation of man, then the planting of the garden, then God putting man in the garden, then God causing trees to grow in the garden, then a little later God putting man in the garden again.  So chronology is clearly not what is in view here.  Everything is introduced as it relates to man. Man is the center of the focus of chapter 2 as God creates man and brings everything in relation with him.

Finally, Edward J. Young observed that if the critics were to be believed, that if indeed the Pentateuch consists of multiple documents which were pieced together by a redactor at a later date, then it is truly a remarkable work because it does not read like the work of many different authors. The man who did this must have truly been a literary genius to produce such a work.  But if he were such a genius, why would he have put such a blunder right at the beginning by putting two incompatible accounts? So, you see, this is almost reputed just on the face of it.

All of this is to say that Genesis 2 focuses on the creation of man and the beginning of the human race, and we can rely on it fully.  To paraphrase Edward J. Young from a different context, the Bible is like an anvil and the critics keep striking, but it is the hammers that break, not the anvil.

History

The second part here is that this account is not only coherent and reliable, but it is an account of fact.  It is an account of history.  Christianity is a historical religion, and the doctrines and teachings of the Bible are inseparable from the facts of history that they are tied to.  As James Boice said, “It deals with real people who lived in real places and who experienced the very real redemptive acts of God in history.”[3]

Genesis 2 tells us that God placed man in the garden of Eden.  Eden is a place, but you would not think so from looking at the Merriam-Webster thesaurus.  That thesaurus defines Eden as “an often imaginary place or state of utter perfection and happiness.”  The synonyms it lists include “Elysium,” “fantasyland,” “nirvana,” and “utopia.”[4]  That is how the editor of this thesaurus sees Eden, and, sadly, that is how many around us in the culture today see the garden of Eden.  And they want to see it that way because if the garden of Eden is a myth, then the design and mandates that we learn from this setting can also be dismissed.  We then have no authoritative pattern to look back on.  If the garden of Eden is a myth, then man never was sinless, man did not fall from perfection and blessedness, and there is not really much wrong with the human race.  Man is progressively getting better and better, and the problems that he has will be worked out over time. But if history were not enough, the Bible tells us in no uncertain terms that man’s state apart from God is desperate.

Genesis 2 gives a lot of names and places associated with Eden.  Recall that Moses was the human author of Genesis, and he delivered it to the people probably at Mount Sinai or perhaps shortly thereafter in the wilderness.  In this section, Moses sets Eden before his Israelite readers as a place that they would recognize.

First, verse 8 says that the garden was in the east. That is a directional notation.  Specifically, it is to the east of Moses and the Israelites from the point of view of Sinai.  That does not give an exact location, but it means that Eden was located somewhere across the great Arabian desert toward the area we know as Mesopotamia.

Then verses 10 through 14 give the names of four rivers.  Two of them we know today, the Tigris and the Euphrates.  The other two are unknown.  It is possible that over time the geography has changed and those two no longer exist, or it is possible that they do exist, but those names have fallen out of use.  These four rivers are associated with regions of Havilah, Cush, and Asshur.  Havilah was a region known for gold, resin, and onyx.  Asshur was Assyria.

Through all of this geographic information, Moses was telling the people that at a specific period of time in the past, and at a specific place that they understood, God placed the first man and the first woman.  Eden was a real place.  Adam and Eve were real people, as real as you and me.  This matters because it establishes everything we learn about you and me from them.

Creation Ordinances for Man and Woman

Genesis 1 tells us that man and woman were both created in God’s image, and both received God’s blessing and commands.  Genesis 2 tells us that God created the man and the woman separately and individually and with a specific purpose for each.  Verse 15 uses two words for the man that are only used for the man.  The man is a worker and keeper.  Verse 18 uses a word for the woman that is only used for the woman.  The woman is a helper.

Starting with these words, I am going to consider them under five subheadings: “Purpose,” “Constitution,” “Sins,” “Obligations,” and “Freedom.”

Purpose

These words state God’s purpose for the man and for the woman. The first word, which is translated “work” in the New International Version, is ābad.  The Septuagint translates it ergazesthai, which emphasizes the sense of “work.”  But you also hear the same Hebrew root in the name Obadiah, which is one of the most common names in the Old Testament and means “servant of the Lord.”  The Hebrew word ābad is the normal Hebrew verb meaning “to serve.”  So man was made from the beginning not to be served, but to serve.  The work that man was created to do is work that terminates not in himself but work done in service.

The second word, which is translated “take care of” in the New International Version, is shāmar.  The Septuagint translates it phulassein, which means “to guard,” and that captures an important aspect of its meaning.  The word shāmar means “to have charge of,” “to guard,” “to watch,” “to protect,” “to treasure up.”  We can see an important aspect of Adam’s sin and his failure when the serpent entered the garden bringing lies, and Adam did nothing about it. He was supposed to keep and guard and protect the garden.  Shāmar is what the cherubim did to guard the way to the tree of life after the man was expelled from Eden.  When Cain asked, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” the word was shāmar.  God commanded Abraham to keep his covenant; it is the same word.  When Jacob fled from Esau and slept, resting his head on a stone, God said to him, “I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go.” The word is shāmar.  The poetic synonym to shāmar is nātsar, which means “to protect.” So we understand what man was originally created to do.

The woman was made to be a helper suitable to the man.  The Hebrew word for “helper” is ēzer, and it means “to help” or “to succor,” which is an older word meaning “to render aid,” especially in hardship.  We may tend to think that a helper is one who is necessarily weaker or subordinate.  Parents may think of having their children help them, and, depending on the age of your children, that may or may not be a net positive.  We may think of the work world where an assistant presumably provides valuable help but is presumed not to be as capable or competent at the central task as the one that he or she is assisting.

However, that is not at all what this word implies.  In the other four verses in the Pentateuch that use this word, it is God who helps his people.  The Greek word that is used here in the Septuagint is used forty-five times throughout the Septuagint, and in all but three of them the word refers to help from a stronger one, who in no way needs help himself.[5]

This tells us three things about the purpose for the woman.  First, she was to be capable.  That does not mean strong to do everything on her own, but she was not made to be weak.  Look at the wife of noble character in Proverbs 31.  She is competent.  Second, she was made to be different than the man.  She was a helper suitable to him.  She was to be his complement, so that she has strengths in areas where he does not.  Third, she was to direct her efforts toward the man, or, more specifically, toward her husband.  “Helper” means she was not made to pursue her own ends or her own goals.

Constitution

God suited man and woman for what he made each one to be.  When God creates something to fulfill a purpose, he does not create something that is ill-suited to that purpose.  When he intended fish to inhabit the sea, he made them with fins and gills so they would be well-suited to inhabit the sea.  Likewise, he constituted man and woman such that they were suited to do what he intended them to do.  So it is not surprising that even our secular society observes some of these distinctions in how men and women are constituted and how they function.

For example, the man was made from the earth facing the earth.  He was to work and keep the land.  The woman was made from the man and facing the man.  She was to help him.  And accordingly we see that men tend to be more interested in things, and women tend to be more interested in people.  Boys tend to play with trucks and balls, and girls tend to play with dolls or play house or teacher or something like that. (GMW) Men talk about the new device that just came out or what is happening in the economy, and women will ask, “How’s your family?”  Men are more inclined to go into professions that are concerned mostly with things, such as the STEM fields.  Women tend to go into professions that are more concerned with people—nurses, teachers, coordinators, executive assistants, and so on.  This difference is amplified where people have more freedom to choose.  And the world needs both.[6] One is not less valuable or more valuable than the other. And the church needs both. The church is fundamentally made up of people. And so those who are geared to work toward people are especially needed.

Another example of where God’s original design shows up flows out of God’s design for the man to be a protector. We observe this in how boys and young men are growing up.  Across society, a lot of boys are not growing up to be the men that they ought to be and that we want them to be.  Why is that?  A big reason is that boys need role models and heroes to look up to and respect, to aspire to be like.  Boys naturally love those who are strong. Boys admire the soldier. Boys admire the athlete. Boys admire the hero. And the absence of a father throughout the growing up years is very significant.  Public school teachers will often tell you that they can often identify which boys do not have a father around.  I am not saying that failure is inevitable without a father or that success is guaranteed with one, but it is plainly true that the absence of a father is a huge factor in why many young men do not succeed in life.  This instinctual need for heroes goes back to the reality that the man was made to be a guard, a worker, and a defender.  That is why boys get excited about the strong, the athlete, the soldier, the protector, the hero.

But the best application of this instinct in men is to fight against evil in the cause of what is right.  Throughout history, men have done this.  Great men in history have stood up powerfully on behalf of what is good and changed the course of history.

Many people in the world do not understand this. They think all power is ultimately self-interested. But men were not designed that way.  And men at times have risen up and functioned for the blessing of many by defending what is good and true and right. Men are designed to do this. They are more emotionally resilient and less introspective.

We see this even in boys. Boys often do not know how to articulate what they are thinking, and if you ask them, they might say, “I have no idea.”  Boys will do things without knowing why they did them, because they are not fully in touch with what is going on inside of them.  This is actually a strength when it is directed rightly.  It does not mean that they are defective.  It enables them to face hard tasks, and not look back, and not back down.

Now, the same traits that make men suited to the task of guarding and defending, when perverted toward evil ends, can make men unemotional, oppressive, and violent.  That is why most of the worst criminals are men.  Men make up the vast majority of the prison population, because that is what sin does.

These are some of the evidences we see of God’s design. But that also brings us now to the topic of sins.

Sins

We live in Eden no longer.  Men and women do not live as we were designed to live.  I am not going to speak about sin comprehensively here, but I want to look at a few sins that reflect a reversal of God’s good design, starting with men.

I have already spoken briefly about men using their strength and disposition not to defend against evil but to become violent and abusive, to become the worst criminals.  But there is more.  Recall that the man was created to work.  A characteristically male sin is indolence.  That is the very reverse of what man was made to do.  Indolence is stubborn idleness.  It is a persistent pattern of laziness and procrastination.  Sadly, it is all too common to see young women getting an education that prepares them to do a possibly unglamorous but useful job, while their male counterparts sit around playing computer games.  It is a tragedy.

When young men get established in this pattern of indolence, they start a course and quit.  They never achieve.  In the Bible, “man” is often used in a generic sense, but it is significant that some of the classic passages that speak about idleness speak about a man.  Proverbs 24:30–31 says, “I went past the field of the sluggard, past the vineyard of the man who lacks judgment; thorns had come up everywhere, the ground was covered with weeds, and the stone wall was in ruins.”  Second Thessalonians 3:6 says, “In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers, to keep away from every brother who is idle and does not live according to the teaching you received from us.”  Then in verse 10, Paul says, “For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: ‘If a man will not work, he shall not eat.’”  And in verse 14 we read, “If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of him. Do not associate with him, in order that he may feel ashamed.”  A man who does not work and provide for his family is worse than an unbeliever, or, as Pastor Mathew has said, worse than an animal (see 1 Tim. 5:8).   John Angell James wrote to young men, “You ought not to be satisfied with dull mediocrity, much less with creeping, groveling inferiority.”[7]  Men, you must achieve something.  Finish it.  Work at it. Keep going.  You were made to work, and so you are able to do it.

A characteristically female sin is likewise in the perversion of her good design.  Women in general have more of an interpersonal inclination than men do because of the design to be a helper.  That facility can also be used to cut other people down.  That can take the form of gossip.  A woman can be sharp and cutting with her words.  In social circles, women have the ability to connect and relate, but that same ability turned in a sinful direction can divide and exclude.  Paul pled with Euodia and with Syntyche to agree with each other in the Lord (Phil. 2:4).  They could not get along. In the book of Proverbs, the word “quarrelsome” appears six times.  Five of those six times speak about a quarrelsome wife.  For example, “A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping” (Prov. 19:13), and “Better to live on the corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife” (Prov. 21:9).

In Genesis, we learn that the man was not complete by himself.  It was in the complementary relationship that he became complete to fulfill God’s purposes.  Sometimes it is when a man has a wife behind him, supporting him, that he grows and takes on the responsibility he was meant to take and thrives in doing so.  To the wives we say:  Support your husband in his responsibility and champion him.  A wife can be the greatest help, or she can be the greatest force to cut her husband down.

There are more male sins and there are more female sins. I am only dealing with a few in part because some of them will come up in chapter 3, and I am confining myself to chapter 2 here. But this gives us an understanding of how our purpose and our constitution as men and women show up even in the corruption of our fallen condition.

Obligations

Put simply, be what you are. Do what God created you to do. Be who God created you to be.  So, men, work.  The garden of Eden itself was not “Leisureland.”  The work there was not burdensome, but it was not self-oriented either.  In your home, ensure that all that is needed in the family is supplied and cared for.  Going to work and earning the money is not enough. You have a comprehensive responsibility. Use your strength to stand up for what is right and good.  Husbands and fathers, be the door to your household to prevent evil from coming in, and to drive out the evil that is in it.  If you are single, unless God has called you to singleness, seek to be married. And if you are married, treasure your wife. God delayed to create the woman at first so that the man might know and experience for himself that it is not good to be alone.

Women, you are created to be capable and competent.  Develop your abilities.  Do not let them lie fallow. Be pleased to be feminine.  The woman was created different from the man, so do not try to be like a man.  And looking to God to provide, seek to be married and then to be a help to your husband.

Headship and submission are also obligations that flow from creation.  Headship and submission are so emphasized in the New Testament that they are dealt with repeatedly and clearly, and this teaching is always specifically grounded in creation. It is never grounded in culture. Headship and submission are really the implications and fulfillment of what God made the man and the woman to be.  Even in the creation of the woman, she was made from the man so that there might be one head of the human race.  If she had been made independently from the dust, there would have been two heads.  Headship is a perfect fulfillment of man’s job to be a worker and a keeper.  If a woman submits to that, it is a perfect fulfillment of her job as a helper.

First Corinthians 11:3 says, “Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.”  Paul establishes what he teaches in this section in verses 8 and 9 of the same chapter:  “For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.”

Ephesians 5 is the classic text for the obligations of the husband and the wife in marriage, and there also it cites creation from Genesis 2 as well as the redemption we have in Jesus Christ: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh” (Eph. 5:31; Gen. 2:24).

First Timothy 2 gives instructions for order in the church, including the dynamic of headship and submission between man and woman as it operates also in the church, and we practice that.  The basis for this instruction is again not culture but first creation and then the Fall:  “For Adam was formed first, then Eve” (1 Tim. 2:13).

Freedom

With that, I want to speak about freedom, because the world objects to wives submitting to their husbands.  To them, “submit” is a dirty word. The world also objects to husbands being responsible for and being responsible to their wives.  The world calls that “slavery.”  The world calls that “oppression.”  But look at what the world calls “freedom”: You can choose your own gender. You can define yourself to be whatever you want. Marriage lasts only as long it is convenient.  You can just as well co-habit without getting married. This notion of “freedom” has ruined so many lives and produced such destruction and misery.  Here, as in so many other things, the world is completely wrong.

If submission and headship were slavery, Jesus Christ would not have practiced both. But he did. Jesus Christ fulfills submission perfectly.  He is the ultimate example of submission.  He was in very nature God.  He could have laid claim to everything. He could have asserted himself.  But he did not. In all things he submitted to the will of his Father.  The truth is that everything that Jesus has done and is an example of is actually a resource to equip us to do the same.

Jesus not merely submitted, but he is now head of all things. And Ephesians 1:22 tells us that he is head of all things for the church, not for himself, not for his own self-aggrandizement or leisure or comfort or pleasure.  In all he does, none of it is for himself.  It is at total cost to himself for others.  And he is the most highly blessed on account of it.

Further, true freedom means the freedom to be what you really are, freedom to live as you were made to live.  A fish was made to be in the water, and it cannot be free outside of the water.  It can only be free in the water where it was made to be.  That is why the law of Christ is called the law that gives freedom because by it you live as God made you to live. When you live as the man and woman God made you to be, that is true freedom.

The problem is that everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Sin has corrupted us so that outside of Christ we will not live as God designed us to live.  That life of rebellion is a life of futility and misery.  “The thief comes to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10). Jesus Christ came to set us free from all of that.  He said, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).

Through faith in Christ and union with him, you can be renewed in the new man and be what you ought to be.  That is blessing.  That is freedom.  So put your faith in Jesus Christ now.  He is here. He is presenting himself to give you liberty and to set you free. Put your faith in him, and you can be free today.

And for those who are trusting in Christ, know that living as you ought has kingdom of God significance.  If it is in Christ that we are renewed in the image of God, which is how we were originally created, then work is a spiritual discipline; headship is a spiritual discipline; help and submission are spiritual disciplines.  Do what God created you to do and what Christ redeemed you to do and be blessed in so doing. Amen.

[1] Martyn Iles, “GPS Summer 2021 | Session 1 | Who Am I? Identity,” YouTube video, January 12, 2021, https://youtu.be/VWpmdwVx1vE.

[2] Brad Jones, “Leaked Audio Reveals How California Teachers Recruit Kids into LGBTQ Clubs,” The Epoch Times (November 20, 2021), https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/leaked-audio-reveals-how-california-teachers-recruit-kids-into-lgbtq-clubs_4114896.html.

[3] James Montgomery Boice, Genesis: An Expositional Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 123.

[4] “31 Synonyms and Antonyms of Eden,” Merriam-Webster.com, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/Eden.

[5] Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis, Chapters 1–17 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 176.

[6] Martyn Iles, “GPS Summer 2021 | Session 5 | God’s Gender Agenda,” YouTube video (January 16, 2021), https://youtu.be/ZCuo9QizPU0.

[7] John Angell James, Addresses to Young Men (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage, 2020), 460.