Print this pageTHE CONDITIONS OF ADAM AND EVE BEFORE AND AFTER THE FALL OF MAN
Gerald L. Foster
The account of God's creation of the heaven and the earth, as given to us by Moses in Chapter One of the Bible (The King James Version being referred to), has many interpretations, and probably there are as many interpretations in error as there are in truth. The events which occurred in the first three chapters of Genesis are very important in understanding other major events and doctrines taught to us in the Old and New Testaments. It is especially important that we understand the helpless condition of man after his expulsion from the Garden of Eden. The purpose of this paper is an attempt to clarify the matter and to establish that God brought man into being with two distinct characteristics:— a spiritual characteristic, Genesis 1:26, which was in the image of God (God is a spirit and has no body and is invisible to natural man, [Colossians 1:15-16; I Timothy 1:17; and Hebrews 11:27]), and God also gave man a natural characteristic, Genesis 2:7, formed of the materials He created in the beginning.
In his soul or spirit, man was created in the image of God" (C. C. Jones, quoted by Hassell in History of the Church of God, p. 48). "His spirit, like that of the angels, was an immediate creation...[It was] a rational, everenduring, and accountable spirit, now mysteriously united to his animal nature over which it was to preside and rule. The body, with all its powers and members, is but the instrument of the soul... while conversant with the lower world" (Genesis 2:7, 3:19; Ecclesiastes 12:7; Acts 7:59; Matthew 10:28).
Hassell added to the above that this spiritual charasteric was, by God's sovereign will, to endure forever [into God's eternity], and to possess intelligence, self-consciousness, free will for spiritual things, and this spiritual characteristic was attuned to the characteristics of God's spiritual and eternal realm. The natural characteristic of man, which was formed of the dust of the ground, although not attuned to God's spiritual realm, was made to endure through all time" (History of the Church of God, Hassell, p. 48), only needing to be changed by God at the end of time to be attuned to the characteristics of God's spiritual realm. God created and made man without him being under any penalty of death. Death was first mentioned in Genesis 2:17, and only then as a penalty if man should violate the only law that God gave him while he was in the Garden of Eden.
Moses tells of the six days of God's creation in the 1st and 2nd chapters of Genesis. In considering these six days, one should keep in mind that God revealed these events to Moses as occurring in six days (thought by many to be earth days); although, we know that with the Lord "...one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" (II Peter 3:8). On the sixth day God brought the beast of the earth and man into being. In thinking of the six-day creation, it is difficult to see how man and the dinosaurs could exist at the same time. However, by the time Adam and Eve were put upon the earth the ages of the dinosaurs may have come and gone, or the dinosaurs simply may not have been in the same part of the world as Adam and Eve and their descendants. If the dinosaurs were destroyed by a large volcanic eruption, would not it have eliminated man also? In either case, God did not inspire Moses to write of the dinosaurs other than the mention of "the beast of the earth" in Genesis 1:— 24, and the behemoths (thought to be elephants, or possibly mammoths) in Job 40:15. Since God was dealing with timely matters here, it may very well be that He accomplished the creation, as Moses said, in six twenty-fourhour days. Can anyone doubt that He could if He so chose? This could account for the disagreement between the evolutionist and the creationist in regard to the age of the universe. At the completion of the six days of creation God could have made the earth and the universe to appear to be millions of years old. This matter will probably be debated until the day the Lord returns.
Some theologians and historians place significance on the use of the words create, creation, made, make, and formed, as used in these verses, thinking that "create" refers to bringing materials into being, and "make" and "form" to using that created material in shaping or forming something. Genesis 1:1 seems to be related to the creation of space and matter; but the creation of time must have occurred here also because space and matter must have time in which to exist, and there is no time, as man knows time, in God's eternity. In Genesis 1:26, God said, "And let us make man in our image...." Yet in the next verse Moses said, "So God created man in his own image...." In Genesis 2:3-4, created and made seem to be used synonymously. Thus, it is left up to the reader to find any significance in the use of the words create—0i and make, but Genesis is clear in teaching that God brought everything that exists into being, and the order of "His work is related toman by the words He gave Moses to record.
The events of creation occur in Genesis 1:1 through 2:22. Read and study this Scripture.
To be continued . . .