Creation And The Fall Essay, Research Paper
?In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth?1 (Genesis 1:1).
As we look back in history we can see many beginnings, but the beginning referred to in this verse is a beginning that defies understanding to the extreme. We see one of the most amazing creations in this world in a newly born child, yet that creation pails in comparison to that of the creation on the world. Look around you and imagine nothing. That?s the way in was before the Lord gave us the first of many gifts that have been bestowed upon the human race.
When you really break it down you can see that all things are truly created by God. Some may disagree and say that man has created everything from nails to computers, but the Lord created the materials that are used to fabricate this devices, thus He has created all. ?When we know that He created all these things, we can know that He has an eternal purpose?2.
Verses 3-5 talk about the creation of light and separation from darkness and how the Lord called the light day and the dark night.
Genesis 6-7 reads, ?And God said, ?Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water?. So god made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so?3.
It is believed that the water that is spoken about that was above is no longer in existence today. This water layer that is referred to would help explain way people in Biblical times lived for so many years. ?Like the ozone layer the water vapor layer reflects short-wave radiation out of space. At the other hand long wave radiation is passing through. This long wave radiation however reflects on the earth’s surface but, going back, it reflects on bottom side of the water vapor layer. This means less long wave radiation can reach the ozone layer from the earth’s surface. The effect of this is a less degradation of the ozone layer! And, as we all know today, a thicker ozone layer means less short-wave radiation on earth. Less short-wave radiation and less ozone particles in the lower part of the atmosphere meant longevity for mankind.?4 Below is an example of what the atmosphere might have looked like after the second day.5
?And God said, ?Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.? And it was so. God called the dry ground ?land,? and the gathered waters He called ?seas.? And God saw that it was good? Genesis 1:9-10.6
Now reading this verse might not conjure up amazing images in your head, but take a look around you and you will see an amazing world that defies the imagination of mortal man. If God had just created man and placed him on an empty planet with nothing to see, no mountains, no bodies of water, no canyons, etc, and asked man to create a world, would we have anything close to what we see around us today? I dare to say that we would probably still be living on an empty world all these years later. Only the one true God could create all that we see and hear.
Genesis 1:11-13 deals with the creation of plants and trees. To some this may not seem to be all that amazing, but if you really think about it God was preparing this earth for human inhabitation with all of these creations. Plants and trees are a staple of life and without them the human race would surly parish. We receive oxygen from trees and thus the Lord has created the chemical that gives life through trees. Plants are a mainstay in all societies in that they are the primary source for food and medicine. With plants the Lord gave us the means the physically nourish our bodies and care for them with the medicines that are created from plants and vegetation. ?Plants that required cultivation either did not appear until Adam was created and could cultivate them, or they appeared but did not grow until Adam was created.?7
Verses 114-19 of chapter 1 recount the creation of day and night. This is when the Lord made the greater light (sun) to govern the day and the lesser light (moon) to govern the night. The Lord also set into place all the stars. In the creation of the greater light (sun) the Lord again put in place nourishment for our bodies through the absorbsion of vitamin D, an element needed for life to exist.
Genesis 1:20-23 records the creation of animals that live in the sea and the birds of the air. One thing that has always amazed are the creatures that live in the seas. Some might think that we have amazing creatures that live in the land, but the creatures that inhabit the seas are ones of great size and complexity. Some of these creations we may never see due to the fact that many of these creatures live at depths that humans may never explore.
The record of the creation of living animals upon the earth is given in Genesis 1:24-25. The Lord created these animals for many purposes, which included food and clothing for humans as time went by.
The creation of man is found in Genesis 1:26-27. ?Then God said, ?Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the seas and the birds of the air and over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.?8
All these things that were created ?were made for man?s use, but they were meant always to be external to the man and subservient to him.?9 ?God made man a free spiritual being, a responsible moral agent with powers of choice and action, able to commune with him and respond to him, and by nature good.?10 ?As a matter of fact God showed Himself more generous to man than to the rest of creation. He enabled him to participate in His Word, thereby making him in His image.?11 Although Genesis contains the creation of many things its most outstanding element is ?the special of man and woman in God?s image and likeness.?12
?God created mankind to know, love, and serve Him in this life, and to be happy with Him in the life to come. He formed the first man, Adam, from the slime of the earth; and He made the first woman, Eve, from a rib taken from Adam?s side. He put them in am earthly paradise and commanded them to care for the world.?13
The creation of the human body is one of the most amazing feats to ever be done in the history of the universe. It is so complex and new things are learned of its workings each and everyday. ?Some people say that all of this ?just happened? through mistakes in reproduction (mutations) and the very few beneficial ones were accumulated via ?natural selection? and chance. Yet, the more we learn about the body, the more we realize that there is much more yet to be discovered?.14
?God blessed them and said to them, ?Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground? (Genesis 1:28).15
With this charge the Lord told Adam and Eve to conceive and bear children to fill the earth, ?God has created human beings with a large number of brain cells devoted to love and sex.?16 This is another one of the amazing things that the Lord set in motion in the beginning, He created humans with the desire to procreate and to love one another in plutonic and physical relationships.
As we know Adam was created first and then the Lord caused a sleep to come over Adam and one of His ribs was removed and Eve, the first woman, was created from it. ?Before Adam was aware of his incompleteness without wife, God anticipated his need and planned for it.?17 ?As Adam named the beasts he made the simple observation that each had its mate. He had none. God deliberately awakened in Adam a sense of need, an awareness that he hungered for human companionship, and above all that he needed and wanted a wife.?18
For Adam and Eve the Lord created the garden of Eden. This was a place of great beauty and wonder. I can?t imagine any place on earth today that could resemble the perfect creation that was fashioned by the hand of God without the presence of sin to corrupt it.
?And the Lord commanded the man, ?You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die? (Genesis 2:16-17).19
?Man was warned by God that death will be the consequence of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.?20
?He could also eat of any ?herb? he wanted (Genesis 1:29).
There was not even any restriction against eating of the fruit of ?the tree of life. There was only a single minor restraint; but it would be this restraint that would test man?s love for God, giving him an opportunity to reject God?s word if he wished.?21
?God put Adam and Eve to the test, to see if they were worthy of Himself. The Devil, an angelic spirit who had rebelled when God made known to him the purpose of creation, tempted Eve and she sinned. She then led Adam into sin, and so both merited to be expelled from paradise. God punished them with the ability to suffer, to grow old, and to die.?22
?Knowing that Adam was made to be ruled from his intellect, Satan slanted the appeal quite differently to him. He made an appeal to Adam?s emotions. For Satan did not tempt Adam at all. He let Eve do that.?23
Once they ate from the fruit their eyes were opened to the fact that they were naked. ?It was not skin nakedness that they discovered, but the nakedness of their dead souls. It is more probable that they were clothed in light before the fall, and when they sinned the light went out.?24 When Eve took the bite of the forbidden fruit ?she threw away innocence for conscience?25, and ?she gave more credit to the word of the devil, than to the word of God. And unbelief brought forth actual sin.?26 ?They knew they were naked. That was the knowledge for which they had sold their place in paradise, their daily fellowship with God, and their prospects of life for evermore.?27
?They became aware of their condition and they sought to cover themselves as quickly as possible, fig leaves were a substitute for righteousness.?28
Shortly after the fall of Adam and Eve the Lord was walking in the garden, as He often did, but Adam and Eve hid themselves from His sight because of their shame for their nakedness and sin. ?For the first time in their lives they feared God.?29
?But the Lord God called to the man, ?Where are you?? He answered, ?I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.? And He said, ?Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?? (Genesis 3:10-11).30
?Worst of all, they hid themselves from the presence of the Lord. This is the worst of all sins. A sin against one?s own heart and life is bad, very bad. A sin that involves the soul of another is worse, much worse. But a sin that is an affront against the majesty and holiness of God is worst of all.?31
?The test of a man?s religious life and character is not what he does in the exceptional moments of life, but what he does in the ordinary times.?32 This is a good example of how Adam and Eve made unwise decisions in one moment that resulted in a major change for all mankind.
?It?s our job to hate sin. But it?s God?s job to deal with the sinner. God has called us to despise evil, but He?s never called us to despise the evildoer.?33
This is the same approach that the Lord took with Adam and Eve. He did dismiss them from the garden, never to be able to return, but he had already set in motion events that would help them provide for their needs through hard work and physical pain that had not been known prior to the fall.
?After He drove the man out, He placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.?34
A short time after their banishment from the garden Adam and Eve had a child and they named him Cain. A short time later a second son was born and he was named Able.
?Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast. Then the Lord said to Cain, ?Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.? Now Cain said to his brother Abel, ?Let’s go out to the field.? And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.?35
This was the first recorded murder and thus we refer to people as ?raising cain? when they are causing trouble because of the fact that Cain was trouble.
?Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” “I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The Lord said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.” Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is more than I can bear. Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” But the LORD said to him, “Not so; if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over.” Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him.?36
This account of Cain is a perfect example of sin nature. The sin that was founded in Satan at the time of his fall and then passed on the Adam and Eve was that which Cain fell into when he was bitter over the expression of gratitude that the Lord shown to Able and this same sin was present at the time of Abel?s death at the hands of Cain.
Bibliography
Creation and the Fall
Bibliography
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8. Buckley, Rev. Thomas. Introductions to the books of the Bible. Boston: Daughters of St. Paul, 1982.
9. Troward, T. Bible Mystery and Bible Meaning. New York: G.P. Putman?s sons, 1988.
10. Packer, J.I. Knowing God. Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 1993.
11. Chambers, Oswald. My Utmost For His Highest. Ohio: Barbour and Co., 1963.
12. Kelly, J.N.D. Early Christian Doctrines. New York: Harper and Row, 1960.
13. Ryrie, Charles C. Basic Theology. Colorado: ChariotVictor, 1981.
14. Lucado, Max. In the Grip of Grace. Texas: Word, 1996.
15. Tozer, A.W. The Pursuit of God. Pennsylvania: Christian Publications, Inc., 1982.
16. Fee, Gordon & Stuart, Douglas. How to read the Bible for all its worth. Michigan: Zondervan, 1981.
17. Morris, Henry M. The Genesis Record. Michigan: Baker Book House, 1976.
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