Page 48 - Genesis: Book of Beginnings and Science Behind it

The “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” was that choice, and as long as man
obeyed God and His one command concerning creation, he demonstrated that
he chose to return God’s lavish love to Him through obedience. Throughout
Scripture (Genesis 22:18, Exodus 19:5, Deut. 11:27, Samuel 15:22, Hebrews 5:9),
God honors and rewards obedience even more than sacrifices, prayers, and
religious activities. The tree was a way that God could allow man to demonstrate
his love for God by daily choosing to obey Him in the daily presence of the choice
to rebel.

Genesis 2:18-25 – The creation of woman, institution of marriage
18 Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit
for him.” Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the
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heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called
every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the
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heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam, there was not found a helper fit for him. So

the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept, took one of his ribs and
closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man, he madeinto a
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woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones.
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.”
24 Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become
one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. (ESV)
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This is the first time that God did not finish with, “It was good.” This is not an indication that God had
made something wrong or that something was damaged; rather, it was a commentary on a lack of
completion. Everything that God does is good. Therefore, we can know that God was saying that man
being alone is not good – that is why I am not going to leave him this way.

Some people get the idea in verses 19 and 20 that God was allowing Adam to look for a partner or trying
to figure out what creature would complement Adam. This thinking causes two problems. First, it leads
us to believe that God is in a state of figuring this “creation stuff” out as if He has no plan or forethought
and is just solving problems as they present themselves. This could lead us to believe that God might
not have all the answers. If He is just figuring things out as they happen, even if He is doing it really fast
and accurately, that does not demonstrate control and omniscience. Instead, it just demonstrates fast
thinking and intelligence. While handy for man, neither of these characteristics is sufficient to be the
supreme, all-powerful God of the universe. If God is just thinking this out as it unfolds, then there could
come a problem that He can’t solve. Our God is not solving problems in real-time; He has solved them
from time eternally past, and they are just occurring and resolving according to His pre-ordained plan in
real-time.

The second problem is that it can lead people to believe that women are an afterthought of God or
maybe just the best solution to a “man being alone” problem. Neither of these thoughts give woman
her proper place in the planned design of creation. Woman, just like man, was pre-planned and
purposed by God from time eternally past. God also pre-planned and proposed the role she would play
in the relationship with man. A woman is not a second tier of human creation; she is a glorious part of

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