Lenox Federated Church - Firm Foundations, Creation to Christ

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Firm Foundations

Creation to Christ

Lesson 6 - God Created Man

Questions for the LFC Firm Foundations Coordinator may be emailed to firmfoundations@lenoxchurch.org

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REVIEW QUESTIONS:

1. Why was God able to command the ocean to go back and stay where He wanted it? Because He is all-powerful and He created the ocean.

2. Why did God create everything beautiful, and why did He create water and all different kinds of fruit and vegetables to eat? He made them because He is loving and kind. He prepared everything on earth for us.

3. What did God say about all of the things which He created? God said that they were good.

4. Why was God able to create all things perfect? Because He is perfect.

5. How was God able to create such a vast universe, with so many stars, so far apart? God is all-powerful and He is everywhere, all the time.

6. Why did God create the sun to rise and set each day and the moon and the stars to follow the same path every year? God did it because He is a God of order. He placed the sun, moon, and stars in the sky to show us the days, the months, the seasons, and the years and to give order to our lives.

7. Upon what principles do scientists and engineers depend for everything they study and design? God’s laws, set forth in the creation of the world.

We have come to the climax of the creation story.

- God spoke into being the heavens and the earth.

He created light. He created the waters above the earth, the expanse in between, the dry land, and the oceans. He created the plants, the trees, and the flowers. He created the sun, the moon, and the stars. He filled the sea with creatures and the air with birds. He created all the animals.

- God had not done all this for Himself; God doesn’t need anything!

- Why, then, had God created all these things?

God had done all of this marvelous work of creation because He is sovereign and chose to do it for His glory.

And He did it because He is loving and kind and caring. God had lovingly, carefully, perfectly created everything in preparation for His final creation: man.

- All that man would ever need was waiting and ready.

Consider:

Think of how it is when a family is expecting their first child. They usually find much pleasure in fixing up a room for that new little baby. The mother wants to have everything ready ahead of time so she can bring the baby home to a place where all his needs can be met in a special, loving place prepared just for him. In the same way, God had prepared a place for man.

To whom do you think God was speaking when He said, “...Let Us make man in Our image...”?

- It was God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit who were talking together.

- They were discussing their plan to make man in the image of God.

- Consider:

When you are going to make something which is very important, for example a new home, you first think about it and plan how you want it to be. That’s what God did. God planned how He would make the first man.

God is sovereign; He alone decided how all things would be made.

- God decided how man would be made, just like He previously decided how the spirits, the sun, moon, stars, the earth, and all things on the earth were to be made.

- God alone decided; He didn’t ask anyone’s advice.

- God is greater than all and more important than all.

- Man was the most important thing God created on the earth, God decided to make him in the “image of God.” God made man in His image so that:

- Man would be able to know God and communicate with Him.

- Others would see God’s likeness reflected in man and praise and glorify God.

What does it mean when God tells us here in His Word that the first man was made in God’s image?

- We know it is not talking about our bodies.

God is Spirit. God doesn’t have a body of flesh and bones like we do.

- Rather, God was referring to the part which cannot be seen. The Bible calls this part of us which cannot be seen our soul and our spirit.

Man’s body was created to be the “house” of this unseen part, the soul and the spirit. God planned that the unseen part of man would have a mind, emotions, and a will, created in the image of God.

- Man’s mind—his intellect:

Because God has a mind, He planned to make people with a mind which had the ability to know God, think like God, and reason like God.

- God wanted to talk to man, and He wanted man to talk to Him.

- He wanted to be able to communicate with man, not only by spoken word, but also by written word, as He does through His Word, the Bible.

- God wanted to enable and equip man to do His work here on earth.

- Note:

We realize that God has given animals minds, too. But an animal does not have the same kind of mind that man has. Animals can be very good company as pets; they can also be a great help to us in certain kinds of work, such as the work done by horses, mules, oxen, and even dogs. But an animal does not have the ability to converse with us; it does not have the ability to share our thoughts and make the kind of decisions we make. An animal cannot reason in the way we reason; it cannot communicate with us by speech and by writing.

God decided that He would give man a mind so man could think and reason like God does, but that doesn’t mean that any man could ever think and reason exactly as God thinks and reasons.

- Consider:

Think about children. Do they know all the things that you do? No, they don’t. But because they have a mind like you, you are able to teach them. Even the wisest man in this world is like a little child compared to God. But because God chose to make man with a mind, he would be able to listen to God’s Word, understand it, and then do what God said. That is what God planned for man. God decided to give man a mind so He could talk with man, enjoy man’s company, and teach man to do God’s work.

- Man’s emotions—his feelings:

Consider:

People often think that emotions have a bad connotation. They may just think of being “emotional.” But emotions are very necessary and helpful.

The Bible shows us that God has emotions: He is compassionate and tender and is angry at injustice. We can readily see in God that emotions are good. God loves, hates, feels sadness, and also feels joy and happiness. Because God has feelings (emotions), He decided that He would also create man with feelings.

Consider:

You who have children all love your children, don’t you? But do you also want your children to love you? Of course, you do! Every parent wants his children to love him. God is like that, too. God planned to love man, but God also wanted man to be able to love Him. This is the reason God planned to create man with emotions.

- Man’s will—his ability to choose:

Besides having a mind and feelings, God also has a will; He is able to decide that He will do something or that He will not do it. Therefore, God decided to make man so that he would be able to make decisions for himself.

Consider:

When you get up in the morning, you decide what you are going to wear. You decide what you will have to drink and eat for breakfast; you decide where you are going to drive your car. When you get dressed, do your clothes have any say in what you wear? Does your food have any opportunity to say when it will be eaten? Does your car have any choice where you will drive it? No. You are the one who makes the choices about all of these and countless other things.

God could have made the first man so he would have had no choice (just like your clothes and your food and your car). God could have made man so he would have to do everything that God made him to do, without any choice. That is how God made the sun, the moon, and the stars. God made them so they have to do the same thing every day, every month, and every year. But God didn’t plan to make man like that. God has a will. God decides what He will do, and God wanted man to be able to make choices just as God makes choices.

God planned to make man so he could choose to love and obey God—a choice man could make intelligently because his mind he would know that God is his loving, kind, and all wise Creator.

Consider:

If children know and are convinced that their parents are wise and kind, then it is much easier for them to obey their parents. God’s plan was to make man so he could talk with God and come to know what a wise and loving God He is. Then man should choose to obey such a wonderful God who made him.

- Summary:

Man was given a mind to hear and understand God’s communication with him, to think through what God had told him, to learn the true character of God, and to communicate with God in return. Man was given emotions to respond to God out of love and devotion. Man was given a will so he could choose to carry out God’s plans, not as a “robot,” but as one who has listened to God, loved God, and has chosen to obey God.

- God planned for man to be made in God’s image so he could do God’s work on earth.

- God was giving man a unique role in His creation. Man was to be God’s representative on the earth. Man was to look after God’s things here on the earth and to be the leader over the animals, the birds, and the fish. God gave man a mind and emotions and a will so that man could do God’s work in just the way God wanted it to be done, which would bring joy to both God and man.

God created the first man and woman.

- God created the man first, and then, after the man was living, God made a wife for the man on the same day. Since the Bible tells us in the following chapter about God’s creation of woman, we will wait for a later lesson to read about that.

Today, we will just study what the Bible says about how God made the first man.

- God named the man “Adam,” which means “man.”

- But after God had made every part of man’s body, the man still didn’t have life. Every part of his body was there, but he was like a dead man. His body was not breathing because the part which was to be in God’s image was not yet living in his body. It was only after God breathed into man’s body that he became a living person who could know, love, and obey God.

- God alone could put life into Adam.

Neither the sun, moon, earth, birds, animals, fish, God’s angels, any man, Satan, nor his spirit followers can give life. All things received their life from God and are unable to give life to anything or anyone else. God is distinct from all created things and greater than all the things He created.

- Consider:

We all depend upon electrical power. A light bulb that is not screwed into the socket doesn’t give any light. Until the switch is turned on, our homes don’t receive any power. Not only our homes, but commerce and industry are very dependent upon that flow of electrical power. When it is interrupted, many things we are accustomed to using simply won’t work. Without power to run them, very complex, useful machines are absolutely useless. Just as the power company is our source of electricity, so also God is our source of life. All things received their life from God and are utterly dependent upon Him.

- When God breathed into the first man’s nostrils, the man was immediately alive. He was breathing, and he was a strong, healthy man. There wasn’t any sickness or death in the world.

Adam was the first and only man God created from the ground. God only made one man from the ground and one woman from him, and God told them to have children so all the world would eventually be filled with people. Adam is the ancestor of all people.

- He is the ancestor of all people, regardless of race, culture, or country. Adam is your ancestor. Adam is also my ancestor. He is the ancestor of all people. We all came from this first man.

- He is the beginning and the father of the entire human race.

God put man in charge of the earth and everything in it. God desired to help man learn to take care of all the responsibilities God had given him.

- Consider:

A wealthy man who owns many properties and businesses. He loves his son and is very pleased with him. The day comes when he decides to give to his son the management of all of the father’s assets. The father knows that his son will need guidance in this huge responsibility, and he is delighted and willing to help his son to learn all that is necessary. He is glad to entrust the work to his son; he is also glad to sit down and talk with him about each decision and to tell him all that he would like to see done in the work he has given his son to oversee. God, too, was very pleased with the first man He made. God spoke to Adam, the first man, and God told him what he was to do as God’s representative on earth. God had the right to decide to whom He would give the earth.

- He didn’t give the earth to His angels.

- He didn’t give it to Satan and his demons.

Why was God the only one who had the authority to give man control over the earth and everything in it?

God created everything.

Therefore, God could give it to whom He pleased.

- Consider:

The wealthy man chose to make his son manager. It was the father’s right to make that choice, and he did not give that responsibility to anyone else but to his son. No one else would have the right to oversee that man’s assets except the son. God is the Creator of all things, so this world and everything in it belongs to God. He had the right to decide to whom He would give the earth, and He gave it to man. God is supreme and sovereign. What a special place God gave to man! By giving man that responsibility, God gave man a great honor and privilege.

Because God is perfect and good, everything He created was absolutely right and beautiful.

- In the beginning, nothing in the animal world would hurt or harm man.

- Neither man nor animal had to kill in order to eat.

- Thorns, thistles, and weeds didn’t grow as they do now.

God is sovereign.

He is the great and only Creator of all things; therefore, He is the owner of all things. He made the first man from the dust of the earth. He created man in His own image, giving man:

- A mind so he could know God

- Emotions so he could love God

- A will so he could choose to obey God

Adam, the first man, is the ancestor of all men everywhere. As Creator and owner of man, God gave man the responsibility of being manager over the earth. In our next lesson we will study more about God and His sovereign, loving dealings with Adam.

QUESTIONS:

1. For whom did God prepare the earth?

2. What great difference was there between the creation of man and that of the animals?

3. What does it mean that God made man in His image?

4. How many men and women did God make in the beginning?

5. Who is your very first forefather and my first forefather?

6. After the creation of Adam, the first man, over what did God give him control? .

7. Why don’t Satan and his demons have the right to control the earth and the things on the earth?

8. What was everything in the world like in the beginning?

Suggested Daily Bible Readings:

Day 26: Exodus, Chapters 1 and 2

Day 27: Exodus, Chapters 3 and 4

Day 28: Exodus, Chapters 5 and 6

Day 29: Exodus, Chapters 7 and 8

Day 30: Exodus, Chapters 9 and 10