This morning, we turned to Genesis chapter two. We begin in verse three. We left off in verse three at the end of the introduction to chapter two. Thus, we will begin anew in chapter two, verse four and verse three, we read. "So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it, God rested from all his work that he had done in creation." The institution of the Sabbath is in the very structure of creation, with God himself resting on the seventh day. But that is really the introduction to what then follows in Genesis chapter two as a theological commentary that gives this additional detail in terms of what happened in Genesis chapter one. Looking back to Genesis chapter one in the creation of humankind we have, in verse 27, "So God created man in his own image in the image of God, he created him," and the next few words are crucial, "Male and female He created them." So, from the beginning, it was intended that human beings be binary and that the relationship of the man to the woman be the very picture of the perfection of God's creation. The pinnacle of the complexity of God's creation, and the mandated context for what will be one of God's greatest gifts to humanity, which would be marriage. Then there is the command. The command that follows along with the parallel commands that are found elsewhere in scripture have to do with multiplying. We read in verse 28, "And God blessed them. And God said to them, ``Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." This new week's issue of Time magazine was released on Friday. It will be on the newsstand this week. The cover story in the current new issue of Time magazine is on couples who decide not to have children. On how increasingly married couples are deciding not to have children. Even as marriage has been transformed into a lifestyle option by our society, now, also parenthood is being defined in that same way. I'll have some articles up this week about that. I created enormous controversy, not intending to, in about 2003. I published an article on the sin of deliberate childlessness. One of the most basic biblical principles is that you do not divide the goods that God has given. That by the way is exactly what comes down at the end of the book of Common Prayer in the marriage ceremony, "What God has put together. No let no man put asunder. God's goods are not to be divisible. When God gives us a good thing, it has multiple good aspects. We're not to say I want that one and not this one. For instance, God gives us food for our nourishment. It is also for our enjoyment and in the wholeness of God's creation, the goodness, the enjoyment, and the nutrition should all come together. As God created, marriage and God gave us the gift of family—s even in the Bible family meals are well recognized as is the communal aspect of food. Even in something like the last supper, not to mention the Lord's Supper. So, you have not only nutrition, but you also have enjoyment and you have the communal or relational aspect of eating. An article that recently appeared in Great Britain, indicated that people who eat alone, eat more poorly and eat more calories. That's just a little indication that when you divide all the goods— a family meal, for instance— everyone's healthier. The dynamics in a family when you have dinner together are remarkably different than when people eat standing up individually at different times in the kitchen. It's a different kind of experience. That's what you might call a rather daily, low-level example of the fact that when God gives us something, it is best when it is undivided. When all the good aspects of it are kept together rather than torn asunder— marriage comes with procreation. Now, obviously there are exceptions. Two 90-year-old's getting married would not be expected to have children. It wouldn't be because they wouldn't want children, but because they're past the time of having children. The norm is for people to have children who are married. Marriage isn't just about the husband and then the wife. The very clear implication of the scripture as a whole, and even something as specific as the 10 Commandments, is that what is represented by the husband and the wife coming together is the promise of generations yet to come. In our secular age we're not only dividing the goods, we're denying the goodness of some of the goods that God has given us. That's exactly what this cover story indicates. What we have in Genesis chapter one is the creation of humankind as man and woman. Again, one of the great confusions of our day is the fact that gender is increasingly seen as something that is perceived rather than real. As much as, we would benefit by talking about that, and will later, at this point, it's just very important for us to recognize that gender—and by the way, if we use the word gender 50 years ago, people would think we're talking about nouns, not about people— but that word is now well understood as the replacement for the two sexes. We need to realize that gender that is being a man or a woman by God's design and decision, is a part of the goodness of God's creation. Again, you divide the goods, great moral risk, great moral injury. Now, we have more information, in chapter two, beginning in verse four. We begin reading, "These are the generations of heaven and the earth when they were created on the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens." Well, there you have a very clear indication that what's going to follow is going to be more information than we had in chapter one. " When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground." What in the world was that about? You have plants, but they're not growing. You have bushes that are not in the land. No small plant of the land had yet sprung up. Everything's ready, but it hasn't quite happened yet. What is it waiting for? In other words, it's as if your lawn is there, but it's never growing. It's waiting for something. Was it waiting for the arrival of man and woman. The arrival of the one who is going to have the responsibility for the stewardship and dominion of this creation. The one who is going to till the ground and the one who is going to receive the gifts. And that's a very interesting picture. In other words, what we have right here in Genesis chapter two in verse four, and following, is a clear indication that humanity is not only not an accident, not only not an imposition on the planet, the planet was made for human habitation. The planet itself, and even the rest of creation is waiting for the arrival of the human being in order for it to flourish. "Then God formed," in verse seven, "Then 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." The Lord God forms the man out of dust. What is the importance of that? Well, from dust we came, to dust we will return. This is a very interesting, interesting point that might not seem to be any more than perhaps some accessory poetry if we're reading too casually. What does it mean that we're made out of dust? It means we are actual stuff. We are not Gnostics. The Gnostic temptation that's—G N O S T I C— the Gnostics were identifiable groups, especially in the transition of the time, from what we would see as the Old Testament to the New Testament in the first century. In the ancient world, the Gnostics were groups that were unified by the fact that they believed in a secret knowledge. That illumination, and salvation, and meaning in life would come by being a part of their secret group with their secret gnosis or their secret knowledge. But they also had a very strong prejudice against material things, including the body. They believed that the mind was what was superior. The body was a problem. The mind, the human mind, is trapped within a body. Now, why would they think that way? Well, you might think that way, if you recognize that your brain would do things, your body is not up to doing. If you think that the moral problem of humanity is a lack of self-discipline. This is one of the major problems. In other words, if you don't have the biblical metanarrative and you don't know the Fall, and the Christian account of why we sin, then you might think we sin simply because we're trapped in a body. Because this body wants to do bad things. The Bible will have nothing of that. The Bible tells us that we are made out of stuff by God's intention. In other words, he didn't just say, "Presto, there's a man." He made man out of dirt, out of earth. The other day, I saw a cartoon, showed a couple moms with little boys playing in the playground. They little boys are covered with dirt. The one mom said to the other, "Why does this happen?" And the other one said "From dusty came to dusty will return." That's very biblical; we're made out of this stuff and we will become this stuff once again. If we die and we wait for that day of resurrection, we are real. There is no ‘unreal’ to us. God took dust and he animated it. According to what we read here, he breathed into nostrils, the breath, the nefesh, the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. We are the product of God's divine, creative and sovereign act. He did make us entirely by his sovereignty and authority, but he made us out of the stuff he had already made: out of dust. "And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree
