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The First Principles of the Oracles of God
(A series especially addressed to new readers)
No.8.
Man formed of the dust, breathes the breath of life.
pp. 16 - 20
The book of the generations of Adam given in Gen. 5: 1, refers back to both Gen. 1:
and Gen. 2:, linking the two accounts as of one person, act and period.
"This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the
likeness of God made He him, male and female created He them."
Here there is undoubted reference back to Gen. 1: 26-28.
(1)
The likeness occurs here, but not in Gen. ii.
(2)
Male and female created refers to Gen. 1:
The actual formation of Eve is
described in Gen. 2:
(3)
The blessing is a reference back to Gen. 1: 28, the words "bless" or "blessing" do
not occur in the second record.
The apostle when speaking of Adam in I Cor. 15: speaks of the "image" of the earthy
as opposed to the "image" of the heavenly. If he is quoting at all, he must be quoting
from either Gen. 1: 28 or Gen. 5: In the same context however, Paul quotes from
Gen. 2:, Adam is the one who was created "a living soul" (I Cor. 15: 45), and this is not
written in Gen. 1:, or in Gen. 5:, but in Gen. 2: The inference is beyond question
therefore, that in the estimation of Moses, who wrote Gen. 1: and 5: as well as Gen. 2:,
and in the estimation of Paul also, the man created on the sixth day, is the same man
whose creation is given a fuller detail in Gen. 2: We make no attempt to square the
teaching of Scripture with archaeology or with anthropology; that is not our business, the
fact that cannot be circumvented is that Adam is spoken of as the "first man" and Christ
as the last Adam and the second man. All who die, die in Adam, and no man living today
in the remotest corner of the earth is outside that all inclusive embrace. Gen. 2: does not
refer to a subsequent and second creation, but enlarges and goes into fuller detail
concerning the constitution of one who was called into being during those six momentous
days, namely Adam.
In Gen. 1: 26 we read: "And God said, Let us make man in our image." In Gen. 2: 7
we read: "And the Lord God formed man (Adam) of the dust of the ground." It is the
same God, it is the same man, the purpose of Gen. 1: 26 being to speak of man's
peculiar distinction "the image" and "the likeness", the purpose of Gen. 2: 7 to reveal
the lowliness of his origin and his dependence upon the Lord. The word translated
"formed" is used of the work of a potter (Jer. 18: 2); in fact it is translated "potter"
seventeen times. While we are fully prepared to admit that the figure known as
anthropopatheia is employed here, ascribing to God what belongs to human beings by
way of condescension, that does not remove the intimate relationship indicated between