CREATED BY GOD
Adam was created by God. Succinctly and clearly the Scriptures attest: “So God created man in His own image” (Gen. 1:27), and “the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman” (Gen. 2:22). Without equivocation or elaboration the supernatural and historical manner of man and woman’s appearance on the earth are stated. God is responsible, for He created both the male and female.
The words used in Scripture of God’s creation of Adam and Eve are:
“created” (bara,
to create; Gen. 1:27; 5:1, 2; 6:7; Deut. 4:32; Isa. 45:12);
“formed” (yasar, to squeeze into shape, to mold, to form, used of pottery making; Gen. 2:7-8);
“make” and “made” (asah, to do or make; Gen. 1:26; 5:1);
“made” (banah, to build; Gen. 2:22).
“formed” (yasar, to squeeze into shape, to mold, to form, used of pottery making; Gen. 2:7-8);
“make” and “made” (asah, to do or make; Gen. 1:26; 5:1);
“made” (banah, to build; Gen. 2:22).
Bara, the most prominent word, is always used of God and speaks of something new, something that was not before, something epoch making. Even the words that are used suggest an accomplished act, and leave no room for an indeterminate period of evolutionary progression for either the man or the woman.
The rest of Scripture confirms the account of man's creation as recorded in Genesis; in all references the event is attributed to God and is treated as historical:
In the image of God He made man (Gen. 9:6);
The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life (Job 33:4);
You have made him a little lower than the angels, and You have crowned him with glory and honor (Ps. 8:5);
He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust (Ps. 103:14);
Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it (Eccles. 12:7);
Thus says Yahweh who made you and formed you from the womb (Isa. 44:2);
But did He not make them one (Mal. 2:15);
Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning made them male and female (Matt. 19:4);
the living God, who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all things that are in them (Acts 14:15);
God who made the world and everything in it (Acts 17:24);
since we are the offspring of God (Acts 17:29);
man is not from woman, but woman from man (I Cor. 11:8);
nor was man created for the woman, but woman for the man (I Cor. 11:9);
the first man Adam became a living being (I Cor. 15:45);
the first man was of the earth, made of dust (I Cor. 15:47);
according to the image of Him who created him (Col. 3:10);
Adam was formed first, then Eve (I Tim. 2:13);
With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God (Jas. 3:9).
The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life (Job 33:4);
You have made him a little lower than the angels, and You have crowned him with glory and honor (Ps. 8:5);
He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust (Ps. 103:14);
Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it (Eccles. 12:7);
Thus says Yahweh who made you and formed you from the womb (Isa. 44:2);
But did He not make them one (Mal. 2:15);
Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning made them male and female (Matt. 19:4);
the living God, who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all things that are in them (Acts 14:15);
God who made the world and everything in it (Acts 17:24);
since we are the offspring of God (Acts 17:29);
man is not from woman, but woman from man (I Cor. 11:8);
nor was man created for the woman, but woman for the man (I Cor. 11:9);
the first man Adam became a living being (I Cor. 15:45);
the first man was of the earth, made of dust (I Cor. 15:47);
according to the image of Him who created him (Col. 3:10);
Adam was formed first, then Eve (I Tim. 2:13);
With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God (Jas. 3:9).
In both the Old and New Testaments there is agreement: man was created, and he was created by God. And all the texts imply that the creation of man was an act, an act that was completed at a point in time; there is no intimation of a process involving unlimited time that allowed man to evolve from stage to stage.
Literally the text records that God made “the man” (Heb., ha adam; lit., “the man”), and the Hebrew so reads until Genesis 4:25 where adam (“man” or “Adam”) appears for the first time without the article (There is a question regarding 2:20 and 3:17, 21). Thus, the word that means “man” becomes the name of the man—ha adam is Adam, the man is named Man.
God created man because He willed to create him, not because of a necessity external to Him that required Him to so; therefore, man exists because of purpose, God’s purpose. Thus man’s place in the cosmos is not the result of blind chance or some impersonal power; man exists because God created him and had a purpose in creating him. This in itself gives man profound significance. (See: The God of Creation)
Adam was created by the Trinitarian God. “Let Us make man in Our image” (Gen. 1:26) was God's declaration prior to His creation of man. “Us” and “Our” from God’s utterance have raised much speculation as to their meaning and intent (“Our” is used twice in v. 26). Several suggestions have been made:
* A vestige of polytheistic
thinking—a suggestion totally unworthy of the text;
* God is addressing members of His royal court, the angels and other heavenly beings, collectively known as the “sons of God” (Job 1:6);
* The words speak of the fullness of Deity, a plural of majesty;
* The words reflect the deliberation of God within Himself;
* The words are an obvious reference to the Trinity, which is more fully revealed in later Scripture.
* God is addressing members of His royal court, the angels and other heavenly beings, collectively known as the “sons of God” (Job 1:6);
* The words speak of the fullness of Deity, a plural of majesty;
* The words reflect the deliberation of God within Himself;
* The words are an obvious reference to the Trinity, which is more fully revealed in later Scripture.
Of the above five suggestions, the only acceptable view is the latter, which affirms that in the words, “Us” and “Our,” there is a reference to the Trinity. Of course the fullness of the Trinity is not revealed in this passage, nor is it suggested that Moses had a knowledge of the Godhead that is found in the New Testament. But such observations miss the point, which is that the context of any text is the total text, the Canon. Therefore, in light of the total Revelation from God, it is proper and even necessary to affirm the Trinity in Genesis 1:26, confessing that here is an indication of the plurality in the Godhead.
Leupold observed:
Though almost all commentators of
our day reject the view that this is to be explained in connection
with the truth of the Holy Trinity and treat this so-called
Trinitarian view as a very negligible quantity, yet, rightly
considered, this is the only view that can satisfy (Exposition
of Genesis, 86).
Additional theological instruction is found in the two words, “His” and “Our,” a singular and a plural word. In the phrase, “God created man in His image” (1:27), the singular word “His” speaks of the unity and oneness of God—one God created. As believers we do not confess three Gods, but the one and only God, affirming the monotheism of Israel that is expressed in the Shema: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!”
The plural “Our” in “Our image” of 1:26 informs us of plurality in the Godhead, providing a foundation for the later revelations regarding Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Anticipation of the fullness and individuality within the Godhead is seen.
These combinations—“His image” and “Our image”—are not just grammatically interesting but are also theologically instructive. They teach us that the one God exists in Trinity—the God of the Bible is the Trinitarian God, and there is no other (see: Elohim-The Creator).
Adam was created by God as the first man. There were no pre-Adamite people. According to the Scriptures, before Adam “there was no man to till the ground” (Gen. 2:5), and it was after that point in time that “the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground” (Gen. 2:7). Adam was the first man, the original man. And the word “Adam” is singular; he was not only the first man, he was the only man.
Adam’s appearance was sudden and complete, not gradual and tentative; he did not slowly evolve from some brute, a stooped and grunting anthropoid, into an upright rational and moral individual—his appearance was a singular and an initial event. Creation by God, not chance development from lower life forms, explains the emergence of man.
It should be noted in a very definite manner that Adam is not merely symbolic, an ingredient extracted from an ancient story that is appropriated for today, but that he was a historical person, living at a moment in time; that is, the account of Adam is not the story of every man nor a symbol for what every man experiences. He was and is his own man—the first man.
* The idea of a pre-Adamite people was first postulated by Isaac Peyrere in 1655 in a book entitled, Praeadamitae; the pre-Adamite people were the heathen, with Adam being the father of the Jews.
Adam was created by an immediate act of God. Some, like A. H. Strong, state that the text is not definitive but leaves open the question of whether the creation of man was immediate, a direct act, or mediate, that is, through secondary means. Strong states:
Whether man’s physical system is or
is not derived, by natural descent, from the lower animals, the record of
creation does not inform us (ST, 465);
A theistic evolution can recognize the whole process of man’s creation as equally the work of nature and the work of God (ST, 466).
A theistic evolution can recognize the whole process of man’s creation as equally the work of nature and the work of God (ST, 466).
Strong is persistent in his position when he states that the text “does not in itself determine whether the creation of man’s body was mediate or immediate” (ST, 465).
For Strong, mediate creation is acceptable; but, in spite of Strong’s sentiments, the text is definite that the appearance of man was the act of God, resulting in man’s immediate presence, not the result of some natural process that God controlled over lengthy aeons. The instantaneous appearance of man is a real problem for the atheistic evolutionist or the theistic evolutionist. The text is unambiguous; it will not allow for the introduction of indeterminate time to allow for the progress of man from lower life forms into a higher, more complex form.
The creation of man was direct and immediate; the text affirms that God made man and that God made man from the dirt. God did not initiate a process that resulted in man, but God made man—He made man at a specific moment. A point in time beginning for man is the teaching of the text. An extended period of development is not found in the Genesis account or in other Scriptures, rather it is an idea from evolutionary theory that has been imported to the text, forcing the text to conform to the suppositions of science.
What was true for man was also true for the woman; her appearance was the result of immediate and direct creation by God:
And Yahweh God caused a deep sleep
to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and
closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which Yahweh God had
taken from man He made into a woman (Gen. 2:21-22).
If the text is taken seriously, then there is no way on behalf of the woman to introduce into the text a mediate creation that involves indefinite time without undermining the essential nature of the text. Like the man, the first woman’s appearance was instant and without lengthy development.
Man appeared as a result of direct creation, not by a process that elevated him from lower life forms; no gradual transition from animals to man can be found in the fossils. “The missing link is indeed missing” (Hoeksema, RD, 201).
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