Summary of passages: Genesis 1:26-2:25: Finishing up the sixth day, God made man in our image (our being God the father, Son, and the Holy Spirit) and let man rule over the fish, birds, livestock, and all of earth and its creatures. He created both male and female. God blessed man and told him to be fruitful and multiply.
God gave man every seed-bearing plant and every fruit for food. He gave all the other living creatures green plants for food. God saw all He made and it was good.
By the seventh day, God had finished his work so he rested and blessed the day as holy.
After God made the heavens and the earth but before plants had sprung and only streams had watered the earth, God made man from the dust of the ground and breathed life into his nostrils and man became living. He put the man in the garden of Eden. He made all kinds of trees for food and in the middle were the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. A river watered this garden.
God put man in charge of the garden to work it and take care of it. He warned the man not to eat from the tree of knowledge or he would die. He brought the animals to Adam to name. When God did so, He noticed no helper was found for man; so He created woman from Adam’s rib while he was sleeping so man would not be alone.
This is why man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife and become one flesh. They were naked and felt no shame.
Psalm 8: David sings God praises, saying how majestic He is. God set His glory above the heavens. The praises of children silence God’s enemies. David asks the question many of us ask: when we consider all you have made (the heavens, moon, and stars), why do you care for insignificant man so and crown him with glory and honor by making him ruler over everything?
How majestic is your name!
Hebrews 2:6-9: Psalm 8 is quoted, “what is man that you are mindful of him…a little lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honor and put everything under his feet.” Everything is subject to man, even things we do not see. Jesus, who himself was made a little lower than angels, is crowned with glory and honor (the same as man’s) because he suffered death for everyone.
Questions:
3a) Adam: The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being (2:7)
Eve: The Lord God caused the man (Adam) to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man (2:21-22)
b) Personal Question. My answer: We wouldn’t exist without Him. And He made us companions for one another so we wouldn’t be alone. I couldn’t make it in this Fallen world without help from God and humans.
4a) God took Adam in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. (2:15)
b) Personal Question. My answer: Yes. We are the top of the food chain, the pyramid, the most intelligent beings, and we are formed in God’s image. It is our responsibility to take care of our planet Earth and everything in it and to work it as God intended.
c) In putting everything under him (man), God left nothing that is not subject to him. Yet we do not see everything that is subject to him. But we do see Jesus who has come to defeat death.
Main truth from these passages: God originally gave man dominion over this earth (and the one to come) NOT angels even though man is a little lower than angels. Man was created to rule earth.
This brings up the question: how can Jesus rule and reign if he is not human? Thus, Jesus became human so he (and we while Jesus is gone) can rule and reign over this world.
Thus, God gave man dominion over the earth; however, when man sinned and brought death (Romans 5:12), he gave up that power (but not the right) to rule. The sin and death took away that power. Thus, Jesus was sent to conquer death and restore God’s promise that humans will have dominion over the earth (Romans 5:21). Because through Jesus man reclaims the dominion that God had originally intended for Adam (Revelation 5:10; Matthew 25:21).
Credit given to Enduring Word for explaining this to me!
5a) To work and take care of Eden. Basically, to care for God’s creations.
b) Personal Question. My answer: To care for my family and husband; raise my kids in God’s ways. For the world, I hope it’s through my novel. But that’s just a hope. At times, a very discouraging hope. Something in my heart I can’t shake. But one I believe is from God.
Conclusions: Question 4c needed more background information. I wouldn’t have been able to answer it without reading commentaries. Piecing together the fact that one reason Jesus came as a man is to fulfill God’s promise of man having dominion over the earth is one I’ve never considered or heard of before.
In church, it’s all about how Jesus came to save us from our sins; to take them upon himself. But this implication goes far beyond that. Jesus came for us to rule. Because God deigned us to (for some unknown reason). Again, as in Psalm 8, I feel like David: “what is man that you are mindful of him?”.
We are so little and insignificant. But only in our eyes. To God, we must be 10 feet tall!