Did God make man out of nothing? Did he simply guide evolutionary processes? Did he only create the necessary preconditions for life?
Q: Of what were our first parents made?
A: God made the body of Adam out of the ground, and formed Eve from the body of Adam.
(Genesis 2:7; 21–23; 3:19; Psalm 103:14)
Our first passage in this study, Genesis 2:7, affirms what we have stated before, that man is both physical and spiritual. Here we see God, the master artisan, crafting man from the dust like a superb work of pottery. Then when he has completed his work, he breathes life into the physical body. Once the physical body and the breath of life are joined together, he becomes man, a living creature. There is nothing spectacular about the material God chose to use in making man, just dust of the ground. Yet, when God breathes life into him, man becomes the pinnacle of God’s creative work.
The creation of man from the dust is not a fictional poem, but the Scriptures present this as a true accounting of history. When God utters the curse against Adam after the fall, he says, “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19). The introduction of physical death is identified as returning man to the dust from which he was taken. God does not disdain man for being made of dust. After all, he knows we are dust, because he made us from dust. When the psalmist desired to explain God’s compassion for weak people he says, “For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:14). God has not forgotten how he made man, and he has compassion for us in our weak and limited nature.
What of woman? Genesis 2:21-23 records the creation of Eve. Once it was apparent to Adam that there was no other creature among all creation that was a fit helper for him, God made woman. He did not go to the animals and change one of them into a woman for Adam. He did not go again to the dust and start from scratch. Instead, he caused Adam to sleep and took what he would use to make the woman from Adam’s side. He does not make two, or three, or more Eves for Adam. He made only one. He did not make for Adam another man, a mirror image of himself. Instead he made one woman, not a mirror image of Adam, but a corresponding image-bearer of God.
In seeing How God made our first parents, it is both humbling and encouraging. Humbling, because being from the dust is really nothing special. In and of ourselves there is really nothing commendable about man at all. Apart from the animating power of God, we aren’t just unwashed. No, we are dirt! It is humbling to see we aren’t self-made, so we do not have the right to determine our function and purpose. God as the master craftsman does.
However, what an encouragement to see the care of God for his lowly creatures. He sustains us who are but dirt. He needs nothing from us, yet cares for us. In the greatest act of condescension (that is, voluntarily descending from his extraordinary dignity to relate to inferiors) God the Son took on a body of dust just like ours. He identified with us in our weaknesses. He suffered all the pain and misery of a body of dust in a fallen world. He did it so that he might be glorified in reconciling for himself a people from the dust for himself, giving life to their bodies of dust.
Yours in Christ,