The Biblical origins of men
By. Matt Schiesser
Introduction
To understand why Christian men are needed in our times, we must first explore what makes men unique as male image bearers and how they differ from female image bearers. Egalitarianism, which is prevalent today, argues for the sameness between genders. However, I want to focus on the distinctions rather than the overlaps. In this post, we will examine the first two chapters of Genesis to lay a foundation for understanding Christian men.
Genesis 1: In the Beginning
Genesis is a book of beginnings. The very first line of the Bible states that God created the heavens and the earth. The following verse tells us that the earth was formless and void (Genesis 1:2). The first page of the Bible holds more significance than it initially appears. While debates abound on whether the “day” in Genesis 1 represents a literal 24-hour period or another time span, this, as one of my seminary professors termed it, is “an exercise in missing the point”
Alaister Roberts argues that the poetical structure of Genesis 1 provides key interpretive insights, illustrating how during the first three days, God forms the world (Genesis 1:3-13), and during the next three days, He fills it (Genesis 1:14-25). Roberts also suggests that the creation account reveals patterns that illustrate distinctions between men and women, with men primarily associated with forming and women with nurturing 2.
Regardless of how one interprets Genesis 1, the main point is that God creates the entire cosmos, but more importantly, He creates mankind.
Genesis 1:26-28 (ESV)
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Here, we see that God creates mankind in His image and likeness. While the text doesn’t elaborate on what "image" and "likeness" mean, it does tell us that they exist in two varieties: male and female. No other creation is described as bearing the image and likeness of God, only mankind. If the main point of Genesis 1 is that God is the Creator, its emphasis is that He created all of us as His special creation, distinct from everything else.
Genesis 2: A Closer Look
Genesis 1 provides a summary of God's creation, but Genesis 2 delves into the details. It tells us how God created mankind and the specific way He did it.
Genesis 2:5-8 (ESV)
5 When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6 and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground—7 then 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. 8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.
Genesis 2:20-22 (ESV)
20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.
Men were created from the dust, while women were created from man. These details are significant as they highlight the distinctions between men and women. God could have created the woman from dust and breathed life into her as He did with man, but He chose not to. This detail reflects our distinct roles in God’s world, further highlighted in the cursing in Genesis 3, but more on that later. Notice the different roles and kinds: man was created after the statement that there was no one to work the ground (Genesis 2:5), and woman was created after it was noted that there was no helper fit for the man (Genesis 2:20).
Before creating the woman, God placed man in the garden and gave him the command and vocation to guard and keep it (Genesis 2:15), while prohibiting him from eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:16). After this, God created the woman (Genesis 2:18-22). This sequence of events affects how we read Genesis 3, as we are not told that God gave the woman the same command and prohibition.
Conclusion
Genesis 2 ends similarly to how Genesis 1 does, with poetry and a sense of completeness in God’s world:
Genesis 2:23-25 (ESV)
23 Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”
24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
The opening chapters of the Holy Bible do more than refute the myth of evolution 3, which suggests we are merely cosmic accidents. Instead, they present us as created in the image of God, offering not only an origin story but profound insights into the nature of male and female. Genesis 2 concludes with an emphasis on the special union between the different kinds of image bearers, which Paul later describes as a picture of Christ and the Church (Ephesians 5:31-32). Although this is how the human story began, it is not where it is now. In the next article, we will discuss the Fall, its effects on men, and how grace restores them.
References
Doug Ponder, Grimke Seminary. Ponder also referenced the age-old question of “where did Cain get his wife” as a similar example.
Alastair Roberts, "The Music and the Meaning of Male & Female." Primer.
C.S. Lewis provides the terminology of understanding evolution as a myth, not as being true or false, but as an all-encompassing understanding of the origins of the world understood at the imaginative level and not clear reason and right thinking. See “The Funeral of a Great Myth” for his wonderful treatment of popular evolutionism.
Article by.
Pastor Matt Schiesser.
