God formed man. In chapter 1 it says, “God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”’ (verse 26), and in chapter 2 it says that God Himself formed man of the dust from the ground. In the book of Ecclesiastes it says that both man and animals are from the dust and return to dust (see 3:19-20), and in the book of Job it says that we live in “houses of clay” (4:19). This does not mean that man builds houses of clay in which to live; it means we live in an outer shell made from the dust of the ground, in other words, our flesh.
When you read, “the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature,” you may think it was at this point that man began to breathe. This cannot be said to be incorrect. But the important point is that something else was also given to man as he began to breathe.
In Genesis chapter 2 verse 19 it says, “Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.” It says only that God formed the animals and the birds out of the ground. But that does not mean the animals and the birds did not breathe. So, when we read, “the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature,” we should not simply think that this was when man began to breathe.
We may consider that at this point something entered man, making him different from the animals.
But it is the spirit in man, the breath of the Almighty, that makes him understand. Job 32:8
Here it talks about the spirit in man and the breath of the Almighty. In Genesis chapter 2 it says that God breathed into man’s nostrils the breathe of life and he became a living being. This is a very interesting expression. This is the difference between man and animals. When it comes to the animals, the Bible does not say that God breathed into their nostrils the breathe of life and they became living beings.
When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. Psalm 104:29
When the Lord takes away our breath, our flesh dies. In the book of Ecclesiastes it says that it looks the same to our eyes when an animal dies or when a person dies. When a person or animal dies under the sun, they are buried in the ground and return to the dust (see 3:19-20). But the Bible tells us, “Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth?” (3:21). There is a difference between the spirit of man and the spirit of an animal. Since God has put something inside of us, it is our duty to live our lives connected to God through that “something.”
But as a result of the sin committed by our ancestor Adam, the living spirit that God breathed into him became disconnected from the life of God.
And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Genesis 2:8-9
Please take careful note of the words, “in the midst of the garden.” The tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were in the midst of the garden.
In the book of Ecclesiastes we find the verse that says, “As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything” (11:5). This is talking about the way in which God works. A small foetus grows surrounded by amniotic fluid in the womb of the mother. The doctors may measure its progress, but that tiny life will sprout up and grow on its own, its bones and its blood all forming while it is the womb. This all happens in the midst of a human body, in the midst of the body of a woman.
In a similar way, the seed fell into the formless and void earth, but through the power of God’s word, an environment was formed in which man might live, and God planted a garden. Then in the midst of the garden, He put the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
We can learn something about God’s secret, if we consider an egg. Inside the shell of an egg there in the white part, and inside that there i
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