Just imagine it! The God who created the heavens and the earth, the omnipotent ruler of the universe, condescended to make man in a garden. The angels watched, breathless, as Adam began to take shape under the creative touch of God’s hand.
As the pinnacle of God’s efforts, destined to have authority and rule over all the rest of God’s creation, you might think that man must have been made of diamonds or precious gems or gold or silver. But no, scripture informs us that God made man from the dust of the ground. In fact, other renderings of the word translated as ‘dust’ above include ‘rubbish’ and ‘ashes’.
This thrills my heart! When God got ready to create His masterpiece, He didn’t require rare and unusual materials. The most august precious substances of the earth were all available to Him at that moment. Yet, He reached for dust---common dirt. Praise God, for He uses the ordinary! He was able to make greatness out of rubbish and ashes: as we read in scripture, “But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty” (I Cor 1:27).
Man is also distinguished from the rest of creation by the manner in which he was created. When God wanted to create fish, he spoke to the waters; when God wanted to create beasts of the field, he spoke to the soil; when God wanted to create birds, he spoke to the sky. But when God created man, He spoke to Himself! We read in Gen 1:26, “…let us make man” (emphasis added).
But wait a minute---didn’t God make man from just the dust of the earth? Oh, no! That was only the shell or the earth suit, molded from the earth and nothing more than a manikin. But to cause man to become a living soul, God had to breathe into his nostrils the breath of life. The source of life for man came from within Himself, from His own breath.
The potential of a living thing is limited by its source. This opens to man possibilities and potentials that are simply unavailable to any other created being. Man alone has a God-potential because man was not brought forth from the land, the sky or the sea: Man was brought forth from the very breath of God.
God establishes an important principle of His Kingdom in this creation account of man: He makes something great out of something ordinary. The new creation man is no different. From the refuse and rubbish of the fallen nature, which was wrought by Satan’s deceptive collaboration with Adam in the fall (Gen 3:6), God created a new man in righteousness and true holiness (Eph 4:24).
Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, partook of flesh and blood, as we presently do, and was tempted in all points like as we, yet without sin (Heb 2:14, 4:15). In His death on the cross, Jesus destroyed the carnal nature (Rom 6:6), and a new nature was created, referred to in scripture as the ‘new man’ or a ‘new creature’. Adam was terminated, and Satan was dethroned by the power of the cross. Indeed, Paul counsels us in Romans to reckon ourselves dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God (Rom 6:11).
As far as God is concerned, there is only one man on the earth. I fight to be like Christ, but Adam sometimes seems to take the ascendancy. In those moments, I say to myself, “You’re fighting a memory.” Why? Because in Christ, Adam breathed his last breath! This is why Christ is often referred to as the last Adam in scripture. As we read in Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians, “And so it is written, the first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven” (I Cor 15:45, 47).
This is the day of the One New Man (Eph 2:15) with total jurisdiction and limited sovereignty. He has total jurisdiction because he has received it from Christ (Luke 10:19), and limited sovereignty because he himself is subject to Christ (Eph 1:22).
God was also careful to put His creation in the ideal environment. We read in Genesis 2:8-10,
And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads (emphasis added).
God positioned man in an environment of glory where untold provision surrounded him. The garden was a place of abundance, wealth and beauty. No good thing had been held back or left out. There was no poverty, sickness or lack in the garden. It was pregnant with divine possibility. The garden was, in seed form, what the Lord would teach His disciples to pray for many years later: “…Thy kingdom come…in earth, as it is in heaven…” (Matt 6:10).
Adam also had a built-in ability to hear from and communicate with God in the garden. He enjoyed perfect communion with the Lord, and the voice of the Lord was clear, distinct and noticeable to him in the garden: it wasn’t vague, muted or unintelligible (Gen 3:8). Tragically, after the fall, God’s voice became progressively muffled and indistinct until it disappeared from man. Man’s eyes were closed to the spiritual, and he was limited exclusively to the realm of the five senses.
More significantly, the garden was a grace realm of finished work. It was complete and entire when Adam first awakened in it. He didn’t need to plant any of the trees, arrange any of the bushes or do any other kind of back-breaking labor; All he needed to do was maintain it (Gen 2:15). It was a literal ‘no sweat zone’.
The new creation man has been placed in a perfect environment as well. When Jesus declared the words “…it is finished…” (John 19:30) from the cross, he had procured all that was necessary for the proper functioning of the new man. He had redeemed mankind to the fullest, and not a single need was left unmet.
In James 1:17, we learn that He is the giver of our gifts: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights” (emphasis added). We see His generosity, thoughtfulness, and foresight towards us in second Peter 1:3: “According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness” (emphasis added). Finally in Psalms, God’s faithfulness to us and blessings He has in store for us is reiterated: “No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly” (emphasis added).
The voice of the Lord has also been restored to the new man. God spoke then, and He is speaking now. As we read in Hebrews 1:1-2, “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds.”
In Jesus’ day He spoke from His earthly body, but today He speaks Spirit to spirit. The voice of God is as rich now as it was then. The command of Revelations is: “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith…” (Rev 2:7). As Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice…” (John 10:27).
God commissioned Adam to have dominion over the creation in the garden. We read in Genesis 1:26,
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth (emphasis added).
Adam was created to be God’s representative on earth, wielding God’s authority over all of creation in God’s stead. Creation was perfectly submitted to Adam before the fall, and the fish of the sea, fowls of the air, cattle and creeping things obeyed him without resistance. This happy state of affairs all came to a sudden end after the fall.
We read in Romans 8:20, “For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope.” God permitted the subjection of ‘the creature’ (nature) to vanity (the law of sin and death) in hope of a day that would come when a new man, the last Adam, would inaugurate a new creature that would again rule and reign in His stead. Indeed, the creation groans and travails together in anticipation of this event (Rom 8:22).
This is the commission of the new creation man: a mandate to reclaim a ruined and perishing world for Christ. As believers everywhere, it is our destiny to grow and mature into manifested sons who will again wield the power and authority of God to subdue and bring into the captivity of Christ a warped and malfunctioning world. This action will bring about the eventual fulfillment of Revelations 11:15: “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.”
The potential of a living thing is limited by its source. This opens to man possibilities and potentials that are simply unavailable to any other created being. Man alone has a God-potential because man was not brought forth from the land, the sky or the sea: Man was brought forth from the very breath of God.
God establishes an important principle of His Kingdom in this creation account of man: He makes something great out of something ordinary. The new creation man is no different. From the refuse and rubbish of the fallen nature, which was wrought by Satan’s deceptive collaboration with Adam in the fall (Gen 3:6), God created a new man in righteousness and true holiness (Eph 4:24).
Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, partook of flesh and blood, as we presently do, and was tempted in all points like as we, yet without sin (Heb 2:14, 4:15). In His death on the cross, Jesus destroyed the carnal nature (Rom 6:6), and a new nature was created, referred to in scripture as the ‘new man’ or a ‘new creature’. Adam was terminated, and Satan was dethroned by the power of the cross. Indeed, Paul counsels us in Romans to reckon ourselves dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God (Rom 6:11).
As far as God is concerned, there is only one man on the earth. I fight to be like Christ, but Adam sometimes seems to take the ascendancy. In those moments, I say to myself, “You’re fighting a memory.” Why? Because in Christ, Adam breathed his last breath! This is why Christ is often referred to as the last Adam in scripture. As we read in Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians, “And so it is written, the first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven” (I Cor 15:45, 47).
This is the day of the One New Man (Eph 2:15) with total jurisdiction and limited sovereignty. He has total jurisdiction because he has received it from Christ (Luke 10:19), and limited sovereignty because he himself is subject to Christ (Eph 1:22).
God was also careful to put His creation in the ideal environment. We read in Genesis 2:8-10,
And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads (emphasis added).
God positioned man in an environment of glory where untold provision surrounded him. The garden was a place of abundance, wealth and beauty. No good thing had been held back or left out. There was no poverty, sickness or lack in the garden. It was pregnant with divine possibility. The garden was, in seed form, what the Lord would teach His disciples to pray for many years later: “…Thy kingdom come…in earth, as it is in heaven…” (Matt 6:10).
Adam also had a built-in ability to hear from and communicate with God in the garden. He enjoyed perfect communion with the Lord, and the voice of the Lord was clear, distinct and noticeable to him in the garden: it wasn’t vague, muted or unintelligible (Gen 3:8). Tragically, after the fall, God’s voice became progressively muffled and indistinct until it disappeared from man. Man’s eyes were closed to the spiritual, and he was limited exclusively to the realm of the five senses.
More significantly, the garden was a grace realm of finished work. It was complete and entire when Adam first awakened in it. He didn’t need to plant any of the trees, arrange any of the bushes or do any other kind of back-breaking labor; All he needed to do was maintain it (Gen 2:15). It was a literal ‘no sweat zone’.
The new creation man has been placed in a perfect environment as well. When Jesus declared the words “…it is finished…” (John 19:30) from the cross, he had procured all that was necessary for the proper functioning of the new man. He had redeemed mankind to the fullest, and not a single need was left unmet.
In James 1:17, we learn that He is the giver of our gifts: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights” (emphasis added). We see His generosity, thoughtfulness, and foresight towards us in second Peter 1:3: “According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness” (emphasis added). Finally in Psalms, God’s faithfulness to us and blessings He has in store for us is reiterated: “No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly” (emphasis added).
The voice of the Lord has also been restored to the new man. God spoke then, and He is speaking now. As we read in Hebrews 1:1-2, “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds.”
In Jesus’ day He spoke from His earthly body, but today He speaks Spirit to spirit. The voice of God is as rich now as it was then. The command of Revelations is: “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith…” (Rev 2:7). As Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice…” (John 10:27).
God commissioned Adam to have dominion over the creation in the garden. We read in Genesis 1:26,
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth (emphasis added).
Adam was created to be God’s representative on earth, wielding God’s authority over all of creation in God’s stead. Creation was perfectly submitted to Adam before the fall, and the fish of the sea, fowls of the air, cattle and creeping things obeyed him without resistance. This happy state of affairs all came to a sudden end after the fall.
We read in Romans 8:20, “For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope.” God permitted the subjection of ‘the creature’ (nature) to vanity (the law of sin and death) in hope of a day that would come when a new man, the last Adam, would inaugurate a new creature that would again rule and reign in His stead. Indeed, the creation groans and travails together in anticipation of this event (Rom 8:22).
This is the commission of the new creation man: a mandate to reclaim a ruined and perishing world for Christ. As believers everywhere, it is our destiny to grow and mature into manifested sons who will again wield the power and authority of God to subdue and bring into the captivity of Christ a warped and malfunctioning world. This action will bring about the eventual fulfillment of Revelations 11:15: “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.”
