Adam made in the image of God…

Adam is missing three important things

Even though Adam is created perfect in that there is nothing wrong nor evil in him, he is still missing three very important things. Three things he lacks. One, he lacks a companion. Two, he lacks wisdom (maturity). And three, he lacks clothing.

Using Genesis we get the whole story.

Gen 1:26-27 –

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, and over all the earth itself and every creature that crawls upon it.”

So God created man in His own image;

in the image of God He created him;

male and female He created them.

Gen 1:31 –

And God looked upon all that He had made, and indeed, it was very good.

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Here we have the first mention of man made in the image of God. I have another post here covering the topic of the image of God fairly thoroughly.

We see in Genesis One a summary, as it were, of God’s creative activity from the transforming of the earth from a watery chaos to the creation of man on the Sixth Day. With Genesis Two we are given a drilling down, so to speak, into the details of God’s activity with the height of His creation, Man.

Without further ado God declares something is “not good.”

Gen 2:18 –

The LORD God then said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make for him a suitable helper.”

While God, in summary, declares everything “very good” in chapter one we see God say that something, at least one thing, is missing. God wants Adam to figure it for himself so He brings all the creatures and animals he will encounter and need (not all the animals on earth) and has Adam name them.

Gen 2: 19-20 –

And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and He brought them to the man to see what he would name each one. And whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam no suitable helper was found.

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So God anesthetizes Adam and forms a woman out of one of his ribs and presents her to Adam who says, “At last.”, as he recognizes that in this new creature, the woman, he has finally found a counterpart to himself. And he names her.

God is next going to address the maturity or wisdom issue. He again wants Adam to figure it out for himself. So God places the solution to this need into the Garden itself. The solution is for Adam to freely, and with faith in His word, eat of the Tree of Life. But God also places a choice for Adam. God plants one tree in the midst of the Garden, the Tree of Life, and one tree either next to it or in some less prominent place, the Tree of Death.

Adam can now obtain wisdom and maturity by believing God and eating of the Tree of Life or believing his eyes and eating of the Tree of Death.

The Apostle Paul tells us that, unlike Eve, Adam was not deceived by the Serpent’s words. However neither did Adam believe God. If he had he would have taken up his headship and priesthood, boldly taken of the Tree of Life, eaten and then commanded his wife to also eat and they and the whole human race would have been saved in Adam who was in Christ.

As it was, Adam shunned both his headship and priesthood, listened to the voice of his wife, let her usurp both his headship and priesthood, and acting as a priestess to Satan take of the fruit of the Tree of Death, eat it, and then offer it to husband (with her blessing) who also ate and cast the whole human race into bondage and decay.

The Tree of Life, like Christ himself, has nothing to commend its fruit to the natural eyes. It is no doubt small and unappealing and gave off a strange odor. While the Tree of Death, like the world, will appear large, luscious, and beautiful.

If Adam believes God and looks through the eyes of faith He will obtain wisdom and eternal life by eating of Christ as represented in the Tree of Life. Or – he can not believe God and looking with his natural eyes eat of the Tree of Death and obtain worldly wisdom which leads to death.

One way or the other Adam will eat, his eyes will be open to his nakedness, either in shame or in gratitude, and God will clothe him (and Eve) with either the garments of Heaven (beautiful, white robes) or the garments of earth (the hides of dead animals).