ADAM: God’s Plan for Man - Part 1
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ADAM – God’s Plan for Man
As we look at Adam we are looking at likely one of the greatest men who ever lived. Of course, Jesus Christ was the greatest, John the Baptist was second to Christ, but Adam in his own rite was the greatest of men after that because he was the perfect creation of God.
Adam is great because the man firsts that he represents:
I. The firsts he represents
I. The firsts he represents
He was the first Adam (this will matter later in our study)
He was the first man
He was the first husband
He was the first father, grand-father, great grand-father, great, great grand father
He was the first farmer
He was the first scientist; especially a zoologist
He was the first of thousands of things.
On the other hand, he was the first one to at some sinful things as well.
But his life, can teach us some amazing things about God, about our lives and what they can be potentially.
As we look at Adam, we are going to look at some straight from the record accounts of his life and then make application to our lives as well.
Consider this thought, Genesis means beginnings. As is true in most things in life, beginnings also mean foundations. We will be learning foundational truths that help us to develop principles for today. The careful student will take heed to the things that God will teach us through this character study of Adam.
First, let’s take a quick overview of creation. Genesis chapter one, verses 1–23, describes the first five days of creation. In these verses, God creates
• light (day 1),
• He makes the sky (day 2),
• He provides dry land with plants and trees (day 3),
• He creates the sun, moon, and stars (day 4),
• He fills the waters and the sky with fish and birds (day 5),
• and in day 6, He makes “the beasts of the earth after their kind.” All creatures, so far, were made alive by the simple declaration of God—He spoke the animals, birds, and fish into existence (Genesis 1:20–24).
• His next and final creation would be different. Up to this point, God had not created anything that could personally relate to Him. Later on the sixth day, God created man.
So Today we are going to look at Adam: God’s plan for man
I was going to call it perfect, but I left it out because if it is God’s plan is always perfect, there may be things that seem to go wrong, but God’s plan is always in action.
Gen 1:26a
It is a wonderful thing to truly consider that God has a perfect plan for our lives. His plan is always good, right, blessed, and best. If we follow him in willful submission then we are promised His blessing. Isn’t funny how often we rebel against this; how that we think we know more than God. It is silly isn’t it? But God created man. He started with Adam. As we read in Gen 1:26a God had a perfect plan and:
II. Adam was made by “Us”
II. Adam was made by “Us”
Remember as we said a little bit earlier, how that Genesis is a foundational book to so many things, here we see one, where the Bible says, God said, “Let us make man.”
Every word of the Bible is perfect and proper and purposed. God said Let us make man:
This means that we see the trinity clearly all the way back to Genesis chapter one; throughout the Old Testament all the way to the Revelation.
The work of the creation involved the trinity.
• God the Father was involved
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
God the Spirit was involved
Genesis 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
God the Son was involved
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
III. God made man in His own Image
III. God made man in His own Image
Image means - a shade; a phantom, i.e. (figuratively) illusion, resemblance, a representative figure
Image is shadow or form. Image is important, we are going to talk a lot about image today.
You might have heard the saying, “Image is Everything.” This is a motto people often go by to try to portray an image of someone they are not. They are trying to portray elegance when they are trailer trash; they try to give the image of toughness while they are really shaking in their boots.
I remember when I was in the Marines and I had a bug bite of some kind in 29 Palms and my forearm swelled up like Popeye’s forearm. I had cellulites and I went to the dispensary and a doctor had be put a warm compress on it for an hour or two, can’t quite remember, but then he lanced it and then took a swab and put it in the hole and started swirling around under my skin. He is looking at me smiling, at me, well I was a Marine, I had an image to uphold, I didn’t flinch, but you can’t usually stop your eyes from watering. He finally asked me if it hurt, I had to answer yes but as smoothly as I possibly could.
We were made in the image of God, we are not God, He is everything and we are nothing, he is all powerful and we have no power, but he did make us in his image, in his resemblance, with a shade or shadow of what he is.
As believers is only more true. We are bear His image truly.
Think about it like this. We identify coins by size, weight, and color, but also by whose image is on it.
Now lets test you all.
Who is on penny - Lincoln
Who is on the quarter - Washington
Who is on the nickel - Thomas Jefferson
Dime - FDR
Hald dollar
Dollar - Sacajawea - before that Susan B. Anthony, before that, Eisenhower.
We should be identified by whose image is stamped on us.
For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.
Man is not God but he is a reflection of God.
A. In His image as a trichotomy
A. In His image as a trichotomy
You will read, if you study this out - a lot of opinions is man one, is he a dichotomy; is he a trichotomy. Some argue that we get our views for the trichotomy of man from Plato - and that is a hellenistic Greek philosophical view. You all know me, I don’t read the early church fathers and I do not study Greek philosophy to understand the Bible. We understand the Bible with the Bible.
As God is a triune God, so man has three distinct parts.
Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Man was created as a trichotomy
1. Adam had a physical body
1. Adam had a physical body
– he was made from the dust of the ground
2. Adam had a spirit within him
2. Adam had a spirit within him
He was been given the breath of life, his instincts, his awareness to live life, this involves his mind and his heart.
3. Adam became a living soul
3. Adam became a living soul
Showing the eternal soul that exists within every man, to think and to know to make decisions and even accept or reject the Word of God.
At creation, only man is created this way.
The Spirit is capable of God consciousness.
The soul is who you are - your personality - self consciousness.
The Physical is senses conscious.
Some people argue against Gen 2:17 saying Adam did not die when at the fruit, so the Bible is wrong.
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
He did not die physically, but he did die spiritually.
Spiritual death is the spirits separation from God.
That is why if you are not saved you are on your way to hell already, because you spiritually separated from God.
You were born with Adam’s sin nature.
Less quoted than John 3:16 but every bit as important:
He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
B. He made man in his image in nature and constitution
B. He made man in his image in nature and constitution
We are made in his nature as we have mind, body, and soul
We often think of God as the divine law giver – the mind
The Son as the Word in the flesh – the body
The Holy Ghost as the Convicting and Comforting Spirit – the Soul.
We have his constitution as we have his features
God has a face
God has a back
God has hands
God has feet
God has eyes, he has fingers
He has throne in which he sits
It has been estimated that the most brilliant geniuses use but one tenth of 1 percent of their total potential brain ability. This means Adam was at least one thousand times superior to today’s intellectuals. Some estimate that we are probably, 95 percent blind to the total color scheme displayed by nature and 98 percent deaf to her many sound patterns. But Adam’s five senses were tuned to absolute perfection.
Man is not God but he is a reflection of God.
C. He made man in the image in place and authority
C. He made man in the image in place and authority
Did you know that God has a place, that the Son has a place, that the Holy Spirit has a place.
There was never an argument from the Son over his place on this earth and suffering on the cross.
There was never any questions from the Spirit is to ultimately bring glory to the Father through the Believers – his roles is very actionable, working in the hearts and lives of mankind, yet that is His place in the Godhead – the Trinity.
Adam had a place – in the Garden of Eden.
You have a place as well.
God is the Supreme ruler of the universe – he has all authority. We don’t have much but we have been given some authority because we were created in his image
Adam was steward of God’s creation, commanded to subdue the earth, to name the animals, and to care for his beautiful home in Eden’s garden
(Gen. 1:28-31; 2:8-15, 19, 20).
We too are to realize our responsibility in God’s creation to be wise stewards of it, to use it to with wisdom and discretion