Genesis

Genesis 2: God gives life its good order

Begin in prayer

Before we enter Eden and see how God gives people life and orders it for His glory, let us ask for His help. Please pray that our family would receive His gifts with thanks and listen to His word with trust.

For with you is the spring of life. In your light shall we see light.

Psalm 36:9

Father in heaven, please open our eyes as we read Your Word. Show us Your good design for the life You give. Help us see Jesus, who gives life to sinners, and make us more like Him. Please bless our family as we worship You together. In Jesus' name, Amen.

See where we're going

After six days of creation, God rests, blesses the seventh day and makes it holy. Then Genesis takes us into the garden He planted in Eden for the man He formed from dust. The man receives life and food from God, so his work of cultivating and keeping the garden is service to its Giver. God gives freedom to eat, with one forbidden tree and a warning of certain death. Yet among the creatures he names, the man finds no helper comparable to him. God supplies that companion from the man's own rib, establishing marriage between a husband and wife who have no shame.

As you read Genesis 2, look for the answers:

Reflect together

Key truth

God gives people life and orders their work, rest and marriage for His glory.

The seventh day is blessed and made holy, meaning God sets it apart for Himself. His rest means that His work of creation is complete, while He continues to care for what He made. The story then brings us closer to the people God made during the six days. He forms the man from dust and gives him breath, so human life is received from Him. In Eden He plants trees that delight the eyes and give food, with a river watering the garden. Its river became four, and Israel knew the Euphrates, so Eden was a real place on this earth. Here the man must cultivate and keep God's gift, with freedom to eat and one command that brings death if broken. His need for a human companion is answered when God makes the woman from his rib and brings her to him. Paul explains that their marriage points to Christ and His church, where God's faithful love reaches its goal (Ephesians 5 verse 32).

How does Genesis 2 show us that God gives people life and orders their work, rest and marriage for His glory?

God finishes His work and makes the seventh day holy.

God made all things from nothing by His word in six days, and His work was good. On the seventh day He stops creating and sets the day apart for Himself. The Creator never grows tired, so His rest marks the completion of His work (Isaiah 40 verse 28). Hebrews connects this seventh day to the rest believers enter through Christ (Hebrews 4 verses 3 and 4).

God gives the man life and work under His word.

God forms the man from dust and gives him breath, so every breath comes from his Maker. Paul shows the risen Christ giving life where the first man received it (1 Corinthians 15 verse 45). The garden is God's gift, and cultivating and keeping it is good work before sin enters. God permits its food, yet forbids one tree and warns that eating from it brings certain death.

God makes a woman and joins the first husband and wife.

The Bible calls God Himself a helper (Psalm 54 verse 4), so the “helper comparable to him” is no lesser person. She is made from the man's rib, sharing his nature and his equal worth before God. Paul teaches from this order that the husband is head of his wife (1 Corinthians 11 verses 3 and 8). God brings her to him, and they become one flesh in a lifelong marriage of one man and one woman. Husbands must love as Christ loved His church and gave Himself for her (Ephesians 5 verses 25 and 32).

Memorise

Yahweh God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Genesis 2:7

Looking to Jesus in my life

Ask yourself in your heart, where am I resisting God's good word and needing Jesus to change my heart?

The man in Eden receives his first breath from God, and “man became a living soul.” God gives him food, work and a wife, and sets a holy day apart. Life in God's world has a good order, and the man must trust the One who gave it.

Our sin has broken that trust, and we cannot give ourselves the life with God we have lost. Paul calls Jesus the last Adam, the One who gives life (1 Corinthians 15 verse 45). Jesus obeyed His Father to the end, then died for His people, bearing their sin under God's judgment. God raised Him from the dead. His completed sacrifice supplies everything needed for forgiveness and peace with God.

So come to Him. Turn from your sin and rest your hope on Jesus. All who repent and trust Him receive forgiveness and lasting life. He will never turn away anyone who abandons sin and rests in Him. You cannot earn this life by working harder or keeping a day. Receive the Savior who has done what guilty people could never do, and learn to live under His good rule.

Parent's note

Tell your children that God gives life and defines its good order, and that Jesus saves people who have broken it. Please teach marriage as God's lifelong gift of one man and one woman, without shaming children for their family's circumstances. Please do not tell them they are saved just because they grew up in a Christian home. Call each child to turn from sin and trust Jesus, and pray that God would give them a new heart.

Pray together

Now please close your time together in prayer. Thank God for giving life and ordering it in goodness, and bring the heart question to Him. Every child can pray, so let each one name a gift and ask for help to trust Him if they want to.

So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

1 Corinthians 15:45

Father, thank You for giving life and for Your good design for work, rest and marriage. Please forgive our rebellion and lead us to trust Jesus, who gives lasting life. Teach our family to receive Your gifts with thanks and obey Your Word in our duties and our rest this week. Amen.