Genesis 2:7 | “Life is Good”

Roe v. Wade

Forty-seven years ago this week, abortion was legalized in the United States.  On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court voted 7 to 2 that a woman’s right to privacy, as protected by the fourteenth amendment, gave her the right to have an abortion.

This history-shaping case actually began in Dallas.  In 1969, a woman named Norma McCorvey discovered she was pregnant and decided to have an abortion.  Abortions were illegal in Texas, so McCorvey tried to have an illegal abortion.  When she showed up at an unauthorized abortion clinic, she found out that it’d been shut down by police.  This led her to take legal action.  She was referred to two attorneys who filed a law suit under Norma’s alias, Jane Roe, against Henry Wade, the District Attorney for Dallas County, who was representing the state of Texas.

The district court ruled in her favor but they didn’t overturn the laws that banned abortion, so McCorvey was denied the abortion she wanted.  The case reached the Supreme Court in 1970, and on January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court voted to legalize abortion in America.  Ironically, McCorvey has since converted to Catholicism and become a champion of the pro-life cause.

Abortion in America

Since this landmark case was decided, over 60 million abortions have been performed in the United States.  By the grace of God, the number of abortions has been going steadily down over the last couple of decades.  But there were still approximately 800,000 babies killed in their mother’s womb last year.  The U.S. has the highest abortion rate of any industrialized Western nation.

Sanctity of Human Life Sunday

In 1983, President Ronald Reagan designated the third Sunday in January as the National Sanctity of Human Life Day.  Many churches across America use this Day to address the evil of abortion in our nation.  This morning, many churches across America are praying and preaching and caring enough to say something about this issue.  As long as I’m your pastor, I want you to know that I’ll lead us to pray and talk and care and act on this issue.    

Why Should We Care?

Why should we care about this issue?  We should care because life is good and murder is bad.  We should care about abortion because God creates life, therefore life is good, therefore ending a life is bad.  These are two sides of one coin.  This Sunday is worthy of our attention because life is precious and because taking life is heinous. 

This morning we’re going to focus on one side of the coin, namely, that life is good.  We should care about this issue because God created human life.  The Bible makes this clear in Genesis 1:26-27.  If God created man and woman in his image, then every embryo, every fetus, every baby, every toddler, every teenager, every senior citizen has inherent dignity and worth.  When you look at another human being, sitting next to you or via ultrasound, you’re looking at an image bearer of God.

We should care about this issue because God created human life.  This truth is mentioned in Genesis 1 and unpacked further in Genesis 2.  Genesis 2 gives us more details on what happened when God created man and woman (vv. 4-9, 18-28).

Man and Woman are Created by God

From these verses I want to draw out four things that we learn about human life.  First, man and woman are created by God.  Verse 7, “The Lord God formed the man…”  Verse 22, “And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman…”

In verse 7, it says that the Lord God “formed” man from the dust.  This word “formed” tells us that man was carefully designed and that there was great intentionality in what God was doing.  The same word is used later in Genesis 6:5 to refer to the “intentions” of man’s heart.  There was intention and purpose in what God was doing.  Like a potter that carefully molds a lump of clay into a beautiful pot, God took some dirt and carefully made it into a man. 

The Lord also created woman by taking a rib out of the man and making it into a woman.  The rib here isn’t metaphorical, but real.  Eve was made out of the same stuff as Adam – the same bone, the same flesh, the same material.  Because Eve came from Adam, she also perfectly shares the image of God. 

The text is clear: God created man and woman.  He did this amazing work.  His creative hands – not blind biological reactions and natural selection over millions of years, fashioned and shaped and molded us.  Man and woman are created by God.

From the Dust of the Ground

The second thing we learn about the creation of man in this chapter is that man was made from the earth.  Verse 7, “The Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground.”  Man (Hebrew adam) is made from the dust of the ground (Hebrew adama), so the “dust of the earth” is imbedded in his name – it’s part of who he is.

Among all the creatures of the earth, man is absolutely unique because he bears the image of God.  We should rejoice and be thankful that we have a dignity that other creatures don’t have, but we should also be humbled when we remember that we’re from the dirt.  John Calvin says, “The body of Adam is formed of clay and destitute of sense; to that end no one should exult beyond measure in his flesh.  He must be excessively stupid who does not here learn humility” (quoted in Hughes, Genesis, 52).  So next time you’re standing in front of the mirror and boasting in how great your body looks, remind yourself that you’re made out of dirt.  God made us in a way that creates amazement and humility.      

The Breath of Life

The third thing we learn about the creation of man in this chapter is that man receives the “breath of life” from God.  Verse 7, “The Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”

This word “breathed” paints a deeply intimate, warm, and personal picture of this scene.  The Lord God, who’d just used his mouth to speak the universe into existence, now stoops down and gets face to face with this lump of dust.  He uses the same mouth that created galaxies to breathe life into man. 

This reminded me of how I speak to Lidia compared to how I speak to everyone else.  For Lidia, I get down on the ground, lay beside her, and speak to her gently and tenderly.  The same voice I use to preach God’s word I also use to speak to my baby girl.  In the same way, the creation of man is a picture of how a holy and mighty God stoops down and gives himself to man for his good.  This is also a foreshadowing of what he’ll later do on the cross.  Our God comes off his throne and meets us where we are for our good.

The end of verse 7 says that after God breathed into the man, he became a “living creature.”  The animals are also called “living creatures” (1:20, 24), but notice that man becomes a living creature in a way totally different from the animals.  God made man a “living creature” by breathing life into him.  Nothing else in all of creation received the breath of life from God, so this “breathing” is what sets man apart from the rest of the animal kingdom, it’s what makes us into the “image of God” (1:26-27).  It’s what gives us a soul.  It’s where our capacity to hear God’s word, to create, to think logically, to know right from wrong, and to have complex emotions come from.  It’s why we’re given the responsibility of “having dominion” over every other part of God’s creation (1:26, 28).  The “breath of life” makes us God’s image-bearers, reflecting and representing God on the earth.

Made to Work

The fourth thing we learn about the creation of man in this chapter is that man was made to work.  Verse 15, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.”  God invented work.  God’s will for our lives is work.  Work is part of the order of creation before sin enters the world.  Laziness is rebellion against God’s design for man.

Adam was told to work for the good of creation.  Many people today champion this idea of caring for creation, telling us that we need to lower our carbon footprint by moving away from fossil fuels, that we need to recycle, and only eat organic.  Christians should care about all these things because, of all people, we know that God put us here to care for his creation.

But our culture usually stops short in caring for all of God’s creation.  As we saw in Genesis 1, humans are the apex of God’s creation.  Humans are the only part of creation that bear the image of God.  So shouldn’t we work just as hard, if not ten times harder, to care for God’s favorite part of creation?  Shouldn’t we work hard to protect babies who can’t protect themselves? 

Yes, let’s work to cut down carbon emissions, but let’s also work to cut down the slaughter of babies in their mother’s womb.  The abortion issue isn’t one you get to be indifferent about.  If a fertilized egg is a human being with their own unique DNA, which embryologists unanimously agree is the case, then millions of people are dying in our country through abortion.  And the only way to stop this evil is by working hard.  Working hard in prayer, in studying how to defend the pro-life position, in talking to friends and family members, in writing our elected officials, and in researching where people stand on this issue before we decide to vote for them. 

God made us to work, to care for what he’s made.  This starts with caring for other image-bearers, other people, no matter what stage of development they’re at.

Incredible Responsibility

Genesis 2 teaches us that God created man and woman, from the dust, gave them the breath of life, and made them to work.  God uniquely made Adam and Eve and put them in paradise.  No clothes, no sin, no shame, no guilt.  Just them and their God and his beautiful creation. 

However, their incredible position in God’s created order came with incredible responsibility.  The Lord placed two trees in the center of the Garden (v. 9), and he gave man two commands (vv. 16-17).  The first command was permissive, the second prohibitive.  One “do,” one “don’t.” 

God told Adam that he could eat of any tree in the Garden to his heart’s content.  This was the ultimate buffet.  God provided man with an abundance of extravagant food.  There was far more freedom than restriction in the Garden.  The Lord lays out a buffet for Adam and Eve, only keeping them from one tree. 

In the same way, God has laid out a buffet of grace and delight for us through Christ, but we usually think that all God has for us is rules.  The few rules God does have for us are only meant to increase our experience of joy in him.  He created us to be overwhelmed by his goodness, not overwhelmed by a sense of duty.  God is for us, not against us.

Abandoning the Word of God

We learn in Genesis 3 that Adam and Eve do eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (3:6-7).  Why would they abandon such extravagant grace for one tree?  Because they were looking for wisdom apart from the word of God.  They were seeking moral autonomy.  They wanted to decide for themselves what’s right and what’s wrong, apart from God’s word.

This same mindset still pervades the world today.  It’s the essence of much of what our culture believes.  Many of us have uncritically accepted the idea that individual freedom is the greatest virtue, that freedom of choice should be unrestrained and unrestricted.  Our culture says that authority is centered in the self, that we’re not accountable to anyone, that we’re free to live as we please.  In our hearts we don’t want to live with reference to God’s will and word.  We want to live for ourselves and what makes us feel good in the moment. 

God offers us a buffet of love and mercy and pleasure with him.  But our culture and our hearts tell us that the tree of self is better.  And we’ve believed them.

This is why we’ll sleep with anyone we have the slightest affection for and not think about the consequences.  If one of the consequences is an unwanted pregnancy, then we’ll kill the baby because we don’t want the inconvenience or the stress or the financial hardship.  In order to avoid any suffering or discomfort, we’ll resort to taking another human life.  All because we worship at the altar of self, when a Garden of Delight is offered to us in Jesus Christ.

The Second Adam

Genesis 3 goes on to say that God didn’t abandon Adam and Even when they abandoned him.  It says in verse 15 that God will send the offspring of the woman, a baby, to crush the serpent.  It says in verse 21 that God made clothes for Adam and Eves out of animal skins.  God killed something in order to cover their shame and provide for them in their moment of greatest need.  It says in verse 24 that God placed an angel and a flaming sword to guard the tree of life so that his image bearers wouldn’t eat of it and live forever in a fallen world and a fallen state.  In the middle of their sin, God comes to them with mercy, again and again and again. 

All of this points us to God’s greatest act of mercy, the sending of the second Adam, Jesus Christ, who perfectly obeyed the word of God, living a life without any sin. 

Jesus’ reward for his obedience was a violent and humiliating death.  He was tortured and crucified for crimes he did not commit.  He received the punishment that we deserve.  His death was for our disobedience.

But on the third day, Jesus rose from the grave, defeating death and crushing the head of the Serpent, proving that he was who he said he was, and confirming that his death paid the price in full for our sins. 

God can’t overlook our sin, just as he couldn’t overlook Adam and Eve’s sin.  His holiness demands justice.  As the Creator, he has every right to punish those he created who’ve brazenly rebelled against his good rule.  Our sins of pride and rebellion and murder must be forgiven if we’re going to be right with God, if we’re going to have eternal life.  The good news is that all of this is possible through the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Anyone who’ll repent of their sins and place their faith in Christ alone for salvation will be saved.

The good news is that Jesus’ death is able to give you life, even if you’ve taken a life.  His life and peace and joy and mercy and love is offered to all who know they need it. 

God created life, therefore life is good and taking life is bad.  God also gave his life for us.  Therefore working hard to save lives is good and noble work.  May we continue to faithfully give ourselves to it until he comes to bring us back to the Garden.