STUDIES IN GENESIS

Billy Graham in his book World Aflame tells of how he sat in the office of Dag Hammarskjold at the United Nations shortly before he was killed in the plane crash. He said that Mr. Hammarskjold seemed deeply depressed, and as he looked out over New York City he said quietly, "I see no hope for permanent peace. We have tried so hard and we have failed so miserably. Unless the world has a spiritual rebirth within the next few years, civilization is doomed." Graham goes on in his book to quote leaders in every branch of life and around the world who are pessimistic about the future. Man with all of his light still lives in the dark.

Jean Paul Sartre, the French Existentialist, said, "There is no exit from the human dilemma." Sir Winston Churchill said, "Our problems are beyond us." Graham says that man is caught in a fire raging out of control, and in his first chapter he paints a picture that is frightening. Graham wrote this nearly 40 years ago, but the fact is we still live in a time where it is the dark ages spiritually. Can we be optimistic about the future? Yes we can if we know God through Jesus Christ. We know a God who from the beginning has turned chaos into harmony, and He has brought light out of darkness. God has a plan for this world and so there is always a bright tomorrow, for we look for a new heaven and new earth wherein dwells righteousness. The basis for optimism if found in man promises of the Bible, but we are going to study the first chapter of Genesis to see the method of God's creating that encourages us to be optimistic.

We find harmony and rhyme even in the very statement of the original chaos of the world. In Hebrew the two words describing the chaos rhyme. It says, "And the earth was without tohu and bohu." The word tohu describes a condition of shapelessness. There was just a conglomeration of matter. Bohu means that it was empty and void. There was no life of any kind. Our world started out as chaos. God created the raw materials just before He began to form it for the habitation of life.

God did not create all in immediate perfection. We see here a progression from the raw material to the finished product. There are some who have developed what is called the Gap Theory, which says that God created heaven and earth perfect in verse 1. Then a great catastrophe caused it to be destroyed, and so in verse 2 we have the chaos of that fallen world which God reforms again into a perfect world. The vast majority feel there is no basis for reading so much between the lines. It is obvious that Moses intended to convey no such impression, but rather, that God, like a skilled workman, began with dull and drab raw materials, and by wisdom formed them into a world of beauty.

We note that darkness was upon the face of the deep. Water was the most abundant substance that God began with as raw material. Water covered the whole earth and it was dark, for light was not yet created. it was a very bleak picture. It was a giant mud pie sunk in a cold dark world ocean. If there had been anyone around to see such a sight, they certainly would think it was a God forsaken planet. But this verse says it was not so, for the Spirit of God moved over the face of the waters. The Holy Spirit is pictured like an eagle hovering over its young. Here the object is lifeless, but the Holy Spirit is eager to give birth to life. Milton in Paradise Lost expresses it like this: "Darkness profound covered the abyss, but on the watery calm His brooding wings the Spirit of God out spread, and vital virtue infused, and vital warmth, throughout the fluid mass."

Here is a picture of the material realm identical to the chaos and darkness of the spiritual realm, which the Bible speaks of often. The wicked man is said to walk in darkness, and darkness blinds his eyes. His understanding is darkened, his heart is darkened, and he loves darkness rather than light. But in both realms the darkness is turned to dawn, for God speaks and says, "Let there be light." In both the physical and spiritual world God has turned the chaos into harmony, and the darkness into light. Paul can say that we were once children of darkness, but are now children of light, and we walk in the light. We are delivered from the power of darkness because, as Peter said, "We are called out of darkness into His marvelous light."

Bela Vassady in his book Light Against Darkness tells of how he and his family lived through the horrors of the siege of Budapest in 1944-5. For three months they were forced to stay in dark, damp, unsanitary cellars as fighting raged above them. He writes, "Even unbelievers began to pray for the arrival of the day when we could climb the stairs again and enjoy once more the brightness of the sun. In those months we had to learn in the hard way that man's most stupid sin is ingratitude. He simply takes for granted the things that supply his everyday necessities; among them light, both in the form of the physical radiance of the sun, and in the form of the spiritual blessing afforded to all in the Light of the World."

God has given physical and spiritual light, and we have the responsibility, as the hymn writer has said, of brightening the corner where we are. Those who are outside the kingdom of God fit the description of man by Louis F. Benson, "And infant crying in the night. An infant crying for the light, and with no language but a cry." God has given light, but we need to reflect that light in this world of darkness. We want to examine the two realms in which God has said let there be light in order to gain understanding of how we are to let our light shine, and to be grateful for the light God has given.

I. THE PHYSICAL REALM.

When we state here that verse 3 records the origin of physical light we must remember that this was not the origin of light in an absolute sense. Scripture tells us that God is light, and what ever God is, He is eternally. And so light had no beginning, but is just as eternal as the very essence of God. What we have here is the origin of light that is external to God. This is important for it makes clear that there is a distinction between Creator and creation. Nothing that God has created is apart of His essence. God is not anything that is made. The whole physical universe was called into being by His Word. God is in the world, but not of it. It is not God that we see in nature. It is not God we see in beauty. These things are the handiwork and wisdom of God. We only see God in Jesus Christ, and in his written Word.

This origin of physical light then is not God, but it is a revelation of the wisdom of God, for light is essential to life, and God was planning for just that. He has water and light, and all men know that these are essential for life. Commentators note the interesting fact that light was created on this first day, but the sun and stars were not created until the 4th day. There are a number of theories to explain this, and it fits perfectly into the origin of the universe held by many scientists, which is called The Expanding Universe Theory. We may have here an explanation for the mystery about the nature of light. It is scientifically proven that light is both a wave and a particle. It is possible that two-fold creation of light is the cause for this paradox.

God is the author of light, and so all of life, beauty and color are part of God's handiwork. All of the blessings of life that come through sight are by God's grace. We need to praise God constantly for all that He has given us to see. The hymn writer has written, "For the joy of ear and eye; for the heart and minds delight; for the mystic harmony linking sense to sound and sight-Lord of all to thee we raise this our song of grateful praise." It is important to see that the physical is also spiritual. There is no distinction between sacred and secular to the believer, for God is the author of all that is good, true and beautiful.

II. THE SPIRITUAL REALM.

The Bible refers to Jesus often as the Light. He was to be a light to Gentiles in darkness. His life was to be the light of men. He is called the true Light, and in John 8:12 Jesus said, "I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." If one is walking in darkness, they are not following Christ. God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. Light and darkness is just as compatible in the spiritual realm as in the physical. We need not fear the darkness as believers. When intense darkness came over Egypt as a plague the people of Israel still had light. So it is in every age. The pessimism of the world need not lead us to despair, for as children of God we are to be children of light. Darkness is the domain of the devil, but light is the land of the Lord.

The economist say if we redistribute the wealth there will be light. Diplomats say that if we improve the United Nations then there will be light. Educators say that if we teach every person in the world then there will be light. Socialists say that if we improve the environment and eliminate poverty, then there will be light. But the Bible says that all of these plans would still leave the world in a chaos of darkness. They all start with the assumption that the darkness is out there, but God says the darkness is within. You will never dissolve the darkness in your cellar by putting the most modern lights on the street corner. All of men's plans treat the symptoms and not the disease.

Jesus goes right to the source of the darkness, which is sin. He alone can forgive sin and bring man out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. He is the only answer that can bring light. The poet has said,

"The world's great heart is aching, aching fiercely in the night,

And God alone can heal it, and God alone give light;

And the people to bear that message, and to speak that living Word,

Are you and I, my brothers, and all others who have heard."

God wants to say through each of us in this dark world, "Let there be light."

2. THE MAKING OF MAN Based on Gen. 1:26-31

On July 14, 1789 the people of Paris stormed the Bastille and began to tear down this hated symbol of tyranny. So many had been brutally tortured an imprisoned there. No one seemed to know what happened to the stones until Joseph Gies in doing research for his book Bridges And Men discovered that the director of France's 18th century bridge and highway authority used the stones from the Bastille to build a bridge across the Seine River. The very same material used to build a prison to deprive people of freedom was used to build a bridge to enlarge man's freedom.

This illustrates that good or evil is not in the material, but it is in the manner in which it is used. The same knife that is used by a surgeon to save life, can be used by the murderer to take life. The same pen can be used to write the Gospel or a hate letter. The same tongue can be used to bless or to curse. Unlike many religions and philosophies of the world, Christianity believes that matter is good. When God finished the creation of the universe He said it was very good. Matter is no accident. It is God's creation. God used matter to communicate a message about His being and His love. All of the material creation declares the glory and wisdom of God.

The very concept of beauty is meaningless without matter. Beauty is an abstract concept, but matter is concrete, and if the abstract idea of beauty is to have any meaning, it must be embodied in a concrete example. The beautiful idea of any artist is impossible to see until he puts it onto canvas, or into some material form. Matter is also God's means of communicating to man the abstract message of love. God became flesh in Jesus Christ in order to communicate in a concrete way the love He has for man. We use the matter of bread and juice to convey the greatest spiritual truth in the universe, for they represent the body and blood of Jesus. When we baptize we use physical water to convey the message of being buried with Christ and resurrected to new life. We use material means to express spiritual truth.

Every spiritual message in God's revelation is communicated through matter. The Bible is written on matter. It uses paper, leather and ink, but these material things convey the spiritual message of God command. God spent the greatest part of the creative weak making matter, and all the things that are without life. Even when He made life it was combined with matter. When He comes to the climax of His creation He forms man from the dust of ground. Man is made of matter. He is composed of the same elements as the rest of creation. The atoms that God created were like the stones of the Bastille. They could be used to make a mountain, a maple, a moose, or a man. We want to look at the 3 phases we see here in the making of man.

I. GOD'S CONSULTATION ABOUT MAN. v. 26

God pauses before He creates man. All of the rest of creation He has called into existence with no mention of reflection, but before man is created He holds consultation with someone. The great debate through the centuries has been over the question of whom it was with that He had this consultation. Jewish scholars have felt He consulted with the angels, but the great Jewish scholar Cassuto has rejected this, for there is no evidence that God created with the help of angels. He feels, as many Christians do, that the plural is the plural of majesty. A king often referred to himself in the plural. This has not satisfied many who prefer to see this as a clear reference to the Trinity. This might be a hint, but in itself there is nothing triune about plurality.

The best way to see it is that it does not teach that God is a Trinity, for a plural can be two or four as well as three. On the other hand we see that the New Testament does reveal God in 3 persons. We can look back and see that in this text God was keeping open the possibility of reading the Trinity back into the Old Testament. The New Testament makes it clear that Christ was the Creator, and this plural in the Old Testament makes it possible to see how that can be so. From the New Testament perspective this is a reference to God the Father consulting with God the Son about the making of man.

The Trinity of God is not the main truth we want to see here, however, for the unity of man is even more basic to a proper understanding of biblical theology. Bernard Ramm in The Christian View Of Science And Scripture writes, "The unity of the human race is one of the most important matters in Christian theology." There have been man attempts to deny this in science and theology. Some have felt that different races have had different origins, but science has rejected this as being highly improbable. In theology there are some who believe in a pre-adamite theory that says all of the fossils of cavemen were before Adam, and they all died before Adam was created. Some like the well known R. A. Torrey believed that some of these pre-adamite people were still alive at the time of Adam. Some feel that it was from these people that Cain took his wife.

Time does not permit to show that all of this is conjecture opposed to the biblical picture. All we can do now is to point out that the whole redemptive plan of the New Testament is built on the assumption that Adam was the first man, and that all in him die, but all can be made alive in Christ. Paul calls Adam the first man, and Gen. 3:20 calls Eve the mother of all living. This makes it clear that no persons existed but those who were born from her. Cain's wife was also then a child of Eve. The natural evidence of the unity of man is vast, but if we believe the Word of God, we need no further evidence. Paul in Acts 1:25-26 said, "..He gives to all life and breath, and all things, and has made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the face of the earth."

God's consultation to make man then was a reference to Adam the first man from whom the whole of human race came. Any speculation about pre-adamites has no right to call itself biblical sense it is in direct conflict with what the Bible teaches. Mankind has one origin, and is a unity.

II. GOD'S CREATION OF MAN. v. 27

There is higher view of man in the world than the biblical view. David in Psa. 8 says that man was made just a little lower than God Himself. Here God declares without any vagueness that He made man in His own image. This verse makes it clear that this honor holds true for all females as well as males. Some women haters of the past, even in the church, have denied this and have sought to defend that only men are made in the image of God. Christians in general have recognized with Luther that women are equal in righteousness, wisdom and eternal life. Luther said, "The women should not be excluded from any honor which human beings enjoy, even though she is the weaker vessel." This is not hard to swallow for most men because they like women.

The creation of man in two sexes allows man to share in God's power of creation, but this is true of animals and plants as well. This is not a part of what makes man uniquely created in the image of God. Some have tried to defend the idea that the body of man is in someway in the image of God. The Mormons hold this view, but this is rejected by most because God is Spirit and does not have a bodily form. The body of man is just another evidence of the marvelous wisdom of God. It use to be thought that the body was only worth less than a dollar, but the DuPont Foundation has declared that man is worth 85 billion dollars in potential chemical energy. The human body can produce 100 thousand red cells in a fraction of a second. It has about 26 trillion cells all under the central control of a 4 pound brain. We are fearfully and wonderfully made, but this does not tell us what the image of God is.

The subject of the image of God in man is a vast literature. We cannot begin to get into that issue. Our text tells us nothing about the image of God. It only states the fact that man was made in God's image. We have to go to the New Testament to get an idea of what it means by comparing the description of the new man in Christ with what the first man must have been. In Col. 3:10 Paul says that in Christ we "..have put on the new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator." Adam then it is assumed had full intellectual power, and the fact that he named all the animals on the day he was created confirms this. Man's ability to think and have true knowledge of reality is part of the image of God.

In Eph. 4:23-24 Paul says, "An be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new nature created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." Calvin said on the basis of these verses: "We conclude that before the fall the image of God consisted in the light that filled man's mind, in the righteousness of his heart, and in the soundness of his faculties." This is what man was, and this is what God is working toward again in renewing man in Christ. Christians are to be growing into conformity with Christ, who is the express image of God. Christians are to be the best examples in mind and spirit of what man can be, and thereby bring glory to God. This ideal ought to drive all of us to see our desperate need for the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives. How can we dare neglect prayer and a search for God's wisdom in His Word when we know what His goal is, and also see so clearly how far we are from it?

God made Adam in His image, but he fell. Now in Christ we who are redeemed are again objects of God's creative hand. He is seeking to restore that marred image. Is our pattern of life helping, or is it digging deeper the scars of sin? God is still creating man in His image in the lives of those who have received Christ as Savior. The third step after God's consultation about man, and God's creation of man is-

III. GOD'S COMMUNICATION TO MAN. v. 28

God's first words to his highest of creatures were similar to those He spoke to lower creatures, for He said to be fruitful and multiply. The facts of population explosion indicate that this is one command that men have obeyed consistently. There have been those who taught that sex and reproduction were the result of the fall, and that they were not a part of God's perfect original creation. This is a flat denial of Gen. 1. Fertility in plants, animals and man is directly ordained of God, and it is stamped with His approval when He declares all to be very good.

God said man was to fill the earth and subdue it. Here is the great commission of the Old Testament to go into all the world and gain control and supremacy over all life. Man was made to be king of the beasts. The Great Commission of the New Testament is to go into all the world and subdue men to Christ, who is King of Kings. God's original desire to have godly men in control of the world can only now be fulfilled as the church obeys the New Testament commission. It is man himself that now needs to be subdued.

The second thing God communicates to man is in reference to his diet, and it appears from the text that man as well as all animals was originally made to be vegetarian. Many feel that eating of flesh came with the fall, and that before this there was no killing for food. Luther felt this was the case, and also the Hebrew scholar Delitzsch who wrote, "God did not originally will the violent breaking up of the life of one living thing by another for the purpose of enjoying its flesh..." Others, like Calvin, are equally convinced that flesh was eaten. Dominion over animals implies the right to kill them for food, and it is obvious that the flesh of sacrifices would be eaten. Arguments are good on both sides, and it boils down to the reality that we don't know. We do not know how many angels can stand on the head of a pin either, but we are no worse for our ignorance. The basic idea is that God had provided for all life, and from His perspective it was very good.

It was all good for its purpose. Everything God made is good in its place. Dirt is good in the garden, but in a person eye it is not good. Because good things can be out of place there was always the potential of what was bad even in a perfect world. Adam stepped out of line and started a chain reaction of disharmony that we feel yet today. If it was not for the good news of the coming of the second Adam, the perfect Son of God, to restore what the first Adam lost, we would have only a message of despair. But Christ has come, and it is possible to get back in line with God's will and plan. In Christ it is possible to be a part of the new creation wherein God is again in the process of the making of man. We who have come to the cross need to be more grateful and more dedicated to the task of becoming mature in Christ, for this is God's goal in the making of the new man.

3. CHRISTIANITY AND SCIENCE Based on Gen. 1:26-28

Jesus was a great physician who believed in preventive medicine. Curative medicine is the most spectacular, for what can compare to saying to the leper, "Be made whole!" Or what can be more amazing than to command the blind to see or the lame to rise up and walk? Preventive medicine is less exciting, for there is nothing to see, and no radical changes take place before your eyes. It keeps the limbs from ever decaying. It keeps the eye from ever going blind. It keeps the legs strong so lameness is never experienced. The result is no spectacular change, but just a plateau of sameness in good health. It is far superior to stay on that level of health than to fall and be restored to it, but it is a quiet experience that does not grab headlines.

Nevertheless, it is still true that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Jesus practiced preventive medicine whenever He could. He was constantly teaching His disciples to prepare them for what was ahead, so that they would not fall. Even some of His spectacular works were preventive. For example, the feeding of the 5 thousand was to give the crowd a meal so they would not faint by the way. He did not wait for them to faint from hunger and then revive them. He gave them food to prevent them from fainting.

The principle of prevention is so reasonable because it is the best way to deal with the reality of evil. This principle runs all through the Word of God. God's first command to Adam and Eve was for the prevention of all the evil that would result from their disobedience. All God's law is for the prevention of sin, evil, suffering and judgment. The purpose of prophecy was to forewarn so as to prevent folly and judgment. Much of the teaching of the New Testament was to prevent apostasy and the falling away during persecution.

The Bible and Science agree that prevention is the ideal. The goal of science is to be able to predict so men can avoid what is bad and gain what is good. The whole point in forecasting the weather is so people can plan to be prepared for what is coming. Prediction for the sake of prevention is of the very essence of science. Without the ability to predict what is going to happen under circumstances science could never have gotten men to the moon and back. They had to know how to prevent every possible threat in order to survive.

The ability to predict and thereby prevent is to have dominion over the forces of nature, and in this way fulfill the command of God to have dominion over all the earth. Science plays the role of aiding man to obey God's first commandment. The goal of science is to put man into dominion over all the forces of nature. Someone might get technical here and say that the text says for man to gain dominion over all the earth. It says nothing about outer space. But as Dr. Rodney W. Johnson, a Christian and an authority on lunar bases, points out, to be able to escape from the earth and be independent of it shows our mastery over it and its powerful gravity. Going to the moon is a part of man's subduing of the earth.

Science is good and has produced so many blessings for man that there is no point in trying to enumerate them. The Christian shares in these blessings and takes them for granted, but they give him the opportunity to have a richer Christian experience. Science is dedicated to truth, life, health, and it is opposed to error, death and suffering. This makes it a natural ally of Christianity, and yet there has been a whole history of conflict between science and Christianity. Christians have made many mistakes in the past by assuming that science is a foe rather than a friend.

It seems natural to us today to prove things by experiments, but his way of thinking is only around 500 years old. The age of science began in 1543 when the Polish churchman Copernicus challenged the geocentric view of the universe by suggesting that the earth went around the sun. He offered mathematical calculations, which stimulated men to develop experimental methods to prove it. This was the beginning of science, as we know it. Before this, questions were settled by authority. You didn't prove your point, but you just quoted the authority, who at that time was Aristotle. He had considered the idea of the earth not being the center of the universe, but he rejected it. His authority reigned over men's minds until the scientific method destroyed his authority.

Science from the very start was revolutionary, for it challenged authority, and when truth was on its side it toppled authority. This is where Christianity and science got off to a poor start in relationship to one another. Christians accepted Aristotle as their authority in matters of science. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest theologian of his day, used Aristotle to defend the Christian faith. Aristotle was so linked with Christianity that they were inseparable in men's minds. And so when science began to assail the views of Aristotle, the Christians felt it was an attack on the church, and so they fought science as an enemy of the faith. In reality, science was only helping to get Christianity divorced from a false worldview. Aristotle was just dead wrong, and science sought to help Christians escape the clutches of his error. The tragedy was that Christians did not understand, and they looked upon science as a foe. They had believed a lie so long that they felt it had to be true.

Where Christians made their mistake was in identifying their faith with a man made philosophy. This is done over and over again in history, and it is always a curse to Christianity. E. L. Mascall in Christian Theology And Natural Science wrote, "I can think of no greater disservice that could be done to the Christian religion then to tie it up with scientific views that are merely temporary." If you identify your Christian faith with any philosophical viewpoint, you adulterate it. You mix the pure Word of God with the contaminated words of men, and the result is a Christian faith that is always endangered by the discovery of new truth.

Christians has a tendency to link Christianity with some prevailing philosophy or authority, and then when that prevailing view begins to change Christianity is weakened. This is what happened when Aristotle's views were proved wrong. Scientist thought that they had proved Christianity wrong also because Christians acted as if their faith depended upon the truth of Aristotle. If you had been teaching something for years, and you were recognized as the orthodox authority on the subject, you would be worried sick if someone came along with proof that what you were teaching was false. That is why the church silenced Galileo and others like him. They challenged the establishment, and the church was so identified with it that they could not accept change.

Science made change inevitable, however, and masses of people who followed science became secular and deserted the church. It was the churches fault because it identified with a loser, which was Aristotle. In the battle between the new and the old the church stood with the old and lost the battle. Had Christians been wise enough not to link themselves with a man made philosophy there never would have been a conflict with science. Science only undermines those things, which deserve to be undermined because they are based on a false foundation. Science cannot be subversive to what is true in fact. Christians must have the spirit of freedom to allow for growth and change that can come about by the scientific method.

Erasmus gave this warning to Christians who fought science at the time of the Reformation: "By identifying the new learning with heresy, you make orthodoxy synonymous with ignorance." Christians foolishly put science on the side of anti-Christian forces. The anti-Christian forces were glad, for they had in science a powerful weapon. Every advance and victory of science was declared to be a victory over the narrow, ignorant and superstitious Christians. In their blindness Christians took one of God's greatest gifts to man and turned it over to the enemy to be used against them. It was one of the most dismal periods in the history of Christianity. Christians became bigoted and fell back into pagan superstition to fight science. They persecuted men of science. Non- Christians began to dominate the world of science because Christians denounced it as the realm of evil.

Jesus said that the children of darkness can be wiser in their own generation than the children of light. It is good to remember this, for we often wonder why God allows evil to triumph. The answer is really quite simple. When men of evil identify with the truth, and use it for their weapon, and children of God identify with error, and fight against the truth, then by God's own laws His children must lose the battle. God will not bless ignorance and error for the sake of His people. Christians become their own worst enemies when they identify with error and fight the truth. Back in 1840 John Smith wrote, "Evangelical castigators of science are unwittingly serving the designs of Christianity's enemies and are secret traitors to the cause of Christianity." Many zealous Christian men of the past would be shocked if they could see that history has proven them to have been subversive to the cause of Christ. Christians foolishly put the Word of God and the works of God in different camps. They ignored the testimony of Scripture that the God of redemption is also the God of creation. God's Word and God's works cannot contradict each other.

As science made rapid progress Christians were forced to modify their opposition, and more and more Christians began to see science as a friend. The pendulum began to swing to the opposite extreme. Science became a sacred cow and a new Messiah. Christian theologians identified the progress of Christianity with the progress of science. The millennium was to be brought in by scientific technology, and theology became post-millennial. This is the optimistic view that Christianity will bring peace on earth before Jesus comes again. Christians made the same mistake they had made before. They linked Christianity to a prevailing philosophical point of view, and when science failed to prevent 2 World Wars, and optimism about man turned to pessimism, Christianity was made to suffer weakness again.

Many felt God had let them down, and they forsook the church. It seemed as if Christians couldn't win, for it made a mistake of opposing science, and then made another by almost worshipping science. The only position left is the middle position, which is where most Christians stand today. They say that science can be good or evil. The Christian's responsibility is to take science as a gift of God and use it for His glory, but it is a means to an end and not an end in itself. It is to be a servant and not a master, for only God is our Master. When science is in its proper place it is a great friend of the Christian faith.

4. GOD'S DAY OFF Based on Gen. 2:1-3

I had the unique opportunity to talk deeply about biblical matters with a wealthy orthodox Jew. Among other things we talked about the Sabbath. He was a very conscientious Jew who knew his Bible quite well, and so I asked him how he reconciled operating a business on Saturday when the Old Testament forbids work on the Sabbath. He responded by saying that he does not come to his business on that day, but has Gentiles operate it. But I told him I thought the law required for you to give rest to all your servants as well. He said that it was so but that they have their Sabbath on Sunday, and so it all works out just fine. Christianity and Judaism seem to make a good team in the business world.

He did feel some misgivings about the whole thing, however, since the law forbids making a profit on the Sabbath also, and this he was doing. He admitted it was wrong, but justified it by pointing out how Christians are in the same fix. Economic factors compel them to work on Sunday, and even if they have the day off, if they have investments or stock in companies that operate on Sunday, they too are making a profit on their Sabbath. He concluded with a statement that the whole subject of the Sabbath is full of technicalities. How true he was, for the history of the Sabbath has been a history of the burden of technically. Few concepts have been as abused as the concept of the Sabbath. Time does not allow us to study how Jesus despised the abuse of the Sabbath, and of how He refused to be bound by man's burdensome additions to what God gave as a blessing.

As Christian we ought to have it clear in our minds that we are no longer under the law with all of its Sabbath regulations. If we were, we are all storing up the wrath of God for the day of judgment, for we are constantly violating the Old Testament law in ways that brought the death penalty for those under the law. If you think you are under the law, every time you turn on your oven or go out for a dinner on Sunday you sentence yourself to death. He who lives by the law is fallen from grace says Paul, and must keep the whole law or perish. Certainly no Christian has any desire to go back and live under the law after living under grace.

There are many Christians, however, who think of Sunday as just the Sabbath moved ahead one day. This has come about because the Puritans in the 16th century began to call Sunday the Sabbath. Before this the church never thought of Sunday as the Sabbath. Right from biblical days it was referred to as the Lord's Day, and it had no connection with the Sabbath. The Sabbath was instituted in Judaism to commemorate the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, but Sunday is a commemoration of the resurrection of Christ. Sunday use to be called little Easter because it commemorated on a weekly basis what Easter does on an annual basis.

The first day of the week came to have more significance in Christianity than the 7th. Old Israel had its distinct day, and New Israel had its distinct day as well. With a new covenant, a new deliverance and a new life came a new day. In Christ all things became new, and this extended even to the unique day of rest and worship. It was on the first day that God began His creation, and it was on the first day that Christ rose from the grave conquering death and became the first fruits of a new creation that would be spiritual and eternal. As the Spirit of God hovered over the waters of the old creation when God said, "Let there be light," on the first day, so the Holy Spirit hovered over the church at Pentecost on the first day of the week, and again God said, "Let there be light," and the Holy Spirit filled the church, and the light of truth of was seen by many, and the church was empowered to go forth as the light of the world.

These events on the first day of the week make it the day of eternal significance to the church. Christopher Wordsworth has put it into poetry:

On thee, at the creation

The light first had its birth.

On thee, for our salvation,

Christ rose from depths of earth.

On thee, our Lord victorious,

The Spirit sent from heaven,

And thus on thee most glorious

A triple light was given.

It was a day of light and joy on this first day of the week, and what could be more appropriate than that it should be named after the source of the physical light of the world and be called Sunday, and after the source of the spiritual light of the world, and be called the Lord's Day? From the very beginning the first day of the week became a day of fellowship, joy and worship in the church. Fasting was forbidden, for it was on the first day of His resurrection that Jesus took bread with His disciples. Because of that, Sunday's are not included in the 40 days of Lent. They are feasting days in the midst of fasting days.

The Sabbath was not just dropped by the church, however. All of the first Christians were Jews, and they continued to observe the Sabbath and worship in the temple along with Jews who had not accepted Jesus as the Messiah. Then on Sunday evening they got together for their distinctive Christian fellowship and worship. They had to meet in the evening because Sunday was just a regular workday. They had to work all day and then worship at night. A good example of such a service is found in Acts 20:7 where we read, "And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached to them, ready to depart on the morrow, and continued his speech until midnight." We see it was evening when they came together to break bread and hear Paul preach. The evening service was the original service of the church.

As the church began to grow, and as Gentiles came into the church, Sunday began to push the Sabbath into the background. Gentiles had no attachment to the Jewish Sabbath, or any of its regulations, and so it fell into disuse among Gentile churches. This did not happen without some controversy, however, for Jewish Christians felt that all Christians should be bound by the Sabbath. This is a clear indication that Jews who became Christians did not think of themselves as cut off by Israel, but rather that they were the true Israel faithful to all God's revelation. They failed to recognize that Christ abolished the burdensome observances of the law, and no longer expected men to live under the ordinances of the law.

It was the task of the Apostle Paul, whom God choose as the Apostle to the Gentiles to make this truth clear to the Christians of his day. The Colossians, for example, were being pressured by the Jews to stick to the law, but Paul assures them that they are not bound, for God blotted out the hand writing of ordinances against us, and He took it out of the way nailing it to the cross. In Col. 2:16 we read, "Let no man, therefore, judge you in meat, or in drink or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days, which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ." The Sabbath was symbolic of a greater day to come, just like the sacrifices of the Old Testament. But Christ is the real thing and not a shadow. He is the real body and since His coming we are no longer to hold on to the shadow, but give ourselves to Him to whom the shadow pointed.

The Sabbath was good, but it had to give way to the best when God gave His Son. The Jewish leaders finally saw this, and they no longer expected Gentiles to become good Jews before they were accepted as Christians. As Gentiles came into the church it became less and less Jewish, and Christ and His teachings became central rather than the Old Testament law. This process increased even more as the New Testament was written, and the church had a new guide for faith and conduct. The church did not ignore the values of the Sabbath, however, but recognized them as God ordained values. They were brought over into the observance of Sunday without bringing its burdens. As Christians gained power and influence Sunday was made a holiday, and work was prohibited. It became like the Sabbath as a day of rest and worship.

It is this principle of rest that was the main characteristic of the Sabbath. And this principle goes right back to God, as we see in our text. The Sabbath of Israel was not origin of the day of rest, for it existed long before Israel was in existence. We have records of its observance in other nations before the time of Israel, and Gen. 2 here tells us that it is as ancient as anything could be because it goes back to the time when God himself took a day off.

Let us remember that both Jews and Christians recognize the value of a day off because God ordained that one day in 7 be separate from the others. We often take for granted that this is just natural, but it is not so. If God is not acknowledged there is no reason to suppose that His concern for man's blessing is acknowledged either. Many years ago there was an article in Life Magazine titled "Red China Bids For A Future: The Great Leap Forward." It made this statement: "On the island of Lappa... China's communist masters have established a people's commune. The daily toil lasts from 5:00 A. M. till midnight when the last platoon of weary workers stumbles back to the barracks. Nineteen hours a day, seven days a week it goes on. The routine was the same, day in, day out, seven days a week. The only days off were national holidays." There is nothing natural about one day in seven for rest at all. It is a matter of revelation, and we have this concept because of God's rest on the 7th day after He had completed creation. God did not stop until He was finished, but when He was finished He enjoyed the fruits of His labor. It is an interesting parallel that God finished creation on Friday, and it was also on Friday that Jesus on the cross said, "It is finished."

The statement here in Genesis that God rested does not mean that creation was tiring to the omnipotent God. God does not need rest. The idea here is that He ceased His activity of creating. He set this day apart and hallowed it. He made it different and distinct from other days, and in so doing established the principle of rest on one day in 7. Everything God made was good, but even so, there is a point at which to stop making what is good. God introduced into the world a period of time for rest and reflection. This principle was applied to Israel in the Sabbath, and to the church in Sunday. As Christians we are not bound to any particular day to apply this principle, but it must be applied or we lose something that God intended for man's blessing. In a Jewish novel East River the central character says, "When a man labors not for a livelihood, but to accumulate wealth, then he is a slave. Therefore it is that God granted us the Sabbath, for it is by the Sabbath that we know we are not work animals, born to eat and labor; we are men. It was by the Sabbath that the Jews proclaimed that they were not slaves, as in Egypt, but free men."

So it is for us as Christians, for we declare by our day off that we are not mere animals of toil. We are made in the image of God, and redeemed by the Son of God. We alone of all creatures can think, pray, worship and grow in many ways to make life a great experience. The Christian is not just to exist, but to have life abundant, and this demands that all of his life not be devoted to work, but that a portion of it be devoted to the up building of his eternal soul. Sunday is a day to look above and beyond the work-a-day world to the greater things of life. It is to forget for awhile the necessities of toil, and to broaden your vision to see there are great luxuries of life that are free to those who walk with God.

Many men shrink their capacity to enjoy life's best because they never take time out to walk with God and seek to see life with eternity's values in view. Men can get so involved in their own goals of life that they lose interest in all of the things that do not pertain to their work. An unknown poet put it well:

If your nose is close to the grindstone rough,

And you keep it down there long enough,

You will soon forget there are such things

As a brook that babbles, and bird which sings.

Three things your whole world will compose,

Yourself, the stone, and your worn-off nose.

God never intended for man to live with such a limited horizon. Jesus had a perfect body and perfect health, and yet He recognized the need to draw apart to rest and pray. No one had a greater job to do, and no one had a greater commitment to doing it, and yet we find that the Son, like the Father, took a day off. In Matt. 11:28 Jesus said, "Come unto me ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Rest is a gift of God's grace, and like all of God's gifts it comes with responsibility. We need to ask ourselves if we are good stewards of our day off. Do we use it to grow in grace and of the knowledge of God, or do we use it to become more engrossed in the world?

There may be some who do not truly rest even when they have the chance, and they do not grow because they never submit their life to Christ. The rest of God, like the redemption of God, belongs only to those who know Jesus as personal Lord and Savior. God took a day off for our sake that we might have a day of rest, but He gave His Son to die for us that we might have eternal rest. It is sad that men loose the benefits of weekly rest, but it is the greatest tragedy when they loose eternal rest. If you have never received God's free gift of salvation in Christ, do so today and God will begin in you a new creation, for when it comes to salvation, God never takes a day off.

5. THE MAN WHO WAS NOT BORN Based on Gen. 2:4-17

An old preacher from the back woods was teaching a class of children about how God created man. He said, "In the beginning there was just nothin at all. One day God was fooling around with some mud, and before you knew it he had a man. He put that man up against a fence to dry there in the sun. God liked that man, but he looked kind of lonesome standing there all alone, so..."Just then a hand went up in the front and a little voice said, "If, as you say, there just wasn't nothin at all at the beginning, where'd that there fence come from?" The preacher paused for a moment and then exploded, "Its them kind of questions that's ruinin religion!"

So often men are careless in their understanding of God's Word. Or else they read their own ideas into it and then think the truth of the Bible is endangered because they are confronted with an unanswerable question. Questions can endanger man's subjective interpretation, but God's Word is never threatened by questions. All believers who have any contact at all with the world will have to face up to difficult questions sooner or later. Many Christians fear to face these questions, not because there are no answers, but because they do not know the answer. Lack of confidence causes the Christian to fail as a witness. He knows if he opens his mouth he will get questions fired at him that he cannot answer, and so he clams up and defends the idea of a silent witness. The silent witness is inadequate in itself, for it only calls attention to your self. It is only by word of mouth that you can bring Christ into the picture, and without Him your witness will only impress others with what a good person you are.

We need to realize that questions are often an open door to a great opportunity for witnessing. We read in I Kings 10:1 that the Queen of Sheba came to test Solomon with hard questions, and he amazed her, for he had the wisdom to answer them all. We are not Solomon, but we have access to the wisdom of Solomon, and we can seek the guidance of the same God who gave him his wisdom. As Christians we ought to take full advantage of people's questions. Youth and adults alike are questioning everything, and all that many Christians are doing is lamenting the fact when they should be searching for answers to these questions.

The question is one of the greatest factors there is in teaching and learning. In the only reference we have to the boyhood of Jesus we find Him in the temple asking questions of the scholars of His day. Jesus saw the value of asking questions, and all through His ministry He was a master at asking and answering questions. Parents so often fail to take seriously the questions of their children. Many are like the father in Alice in Wonderland who said,

I have answered three questions, and that is enough,

Said his father; don't give yourself airs.

Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?

Be off or I'll knock you downstairs!

This sounds more like Malice In Blunderland. Parents tend to go to one extreme or the other. They are either indifferent, or they are over zealous and elaborate on a subject beyond what the question was aimed at discovering. Both are illustrated by the boy who came to his father as he was reading the evening paper. He said he wanted to ask a question. The father did not care to be disturbed and said, "Why don't you ask your mother?" "Never mind," said the boy, "I don't want to know that much about it." Both in society and in our families we fail to make effective use of the question as a means of extending the kingdom of God. It is time that we wake up to the great possibilities for evangelism that are made possible through the questions that people have. We need to stimulate people to ask significant questions, and then be prepared to give an answer from God's Word.

There are limitations and dangers, however and we must be aware of them. Paul warned both Timothy and Titus to avoid foolish and stupid questions that lead to senseless controversy. There are many questions that are foolish that they deserve to be ignored. Some people have a knack of inquiring into the irrelevant and insignificant. A guide at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City took a group through and pointed out various masterpieces. He gave a brief list of the painters, and after he asked if anyone had any questions. "Yes," said one lady, "How do you get such a high gloss on your beautifully waxed floors?" I have some idea of how he felt because I was teaching a group of juniors once and I was explaining an important Christian truth when a hand went up. I thought it was a good sign of interest, but it turned out that he must have been reliving a TV program, for he asked me if I had watched Gun Smoke the night before.

Stimulating the right question is not always easy, nor is it always easy to have an adequate answer, but every believer should be conscious of the great possibility of spreading God's truth through questions. You will not always be a smashing success, but one of the principles of evangelism is: It is better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all. Jesus did not always succeed either, but He always tried. In a sense, this introduction is an end in it self, for it presents a key idea that we should carry away and seek to apply it. It is also meant to prepare our minds for the consideration of a very controversial question on the origin of man.

Can it be that all men have descended from a man who was never born? We believe that a man must be born of the flesh and then be born again to be saved. He must be born of the flesh and of the spirit. So we have some unique concepts of man and birth. We believe that all men must be born twice if they are to be saved, and on the other hand we believe that all men have descended from Adam who was not even born once. He was created and not born. Many find it hard to believe in the virgin birth, but in Adam we have one who had no mother at all. If one begins by belief in God, then the biblical record is easy to believe. If one begins with the assumption that God is not, then, of course, the biblical account is fantastic, for it is impossible for there to have been a man who was never born. This is the assumption behind the theory of evolution. Our children have pictures in their textbooks showing that man has evolved. This is far more fantastic than anything Christians believe, and it takes an enormous faith in godless matter to believe that all the wonders of the universe came through mindless evolution.

There are believers who call themselves theistic evolutionists, and they are convinced that evolution was God's method of bringing man into being. There is nothing inherently impossible about this being true. If God could make man of the dust, He could certainly make him from an ape with even less of a transformation. If Gen. 2:7 would have used the word ape instead of dust all Christians would accept evolution as orthodox doctrine. There would be nothing incompatible between the Bible and evolution if, in fact, God did make man by that process. The point is, the Bible does say dust and not ape. Neither mud nor monkey is a very flattering origin, so we do not insist on believing man's origin is from the dust because it is more dignified, but simply because this is what the Word of God says. That ought to be the basic concern of the believer. It should be to discover what it is the Bible says, and then he can considers its relation to all kinds of other questions. We want to explore several questions.

1. When did man begin? In the 3rd century Julius Africanus placed the creation of Adam at 5500 B. C. In the 17th century Archbishop Ussher placed it at 4004 B. C. His figuring really came out to more than that, but it was rounded off to 4004 because that made exactly four one thousand periods before the birth of Christ in 4 B. C. John Lightfoot, a scholar of the same century, narrowed down the creation of Adam to Friday Oct. 23, at 9:00 A. M. Being a cautious man, says another scholar, he was not willing to commit himself beyond this.

How can we begin to reconciled 4004 B. C. with the evidence of science? The most cautious of scholars have dated man back to at least ten thousand years. The first thing we need to do is to recognize that 4004 B. C. is like the fence in the story of the backwoods preacher. It is a product of man and not of revelation. It was arrived at by assuming that the genealogies of Scripture were always from father to son, but it can be shown that some of the genealogies skip many generations, and the most obvious being Jesus the Son of David, even though a thousand years came between them. The Bible does not set a date for man's origin, and so we need never feel embarrassed about bones of men being dated much further back than 4004 B. C.

First 5 simply says that man was made before domestic plants were made. Cassuto, the Jewish scholar, says the terms here refer to fields of grain which naturally were not in existence before man since they need cultivation to continue. The atmosphere was such that there was inadequate moisture for such plants. Man's food products demand rain and cultivation, and so they did not exist until after man was made. Let men cease to till the ground and all the other plants in the world will continue to grow, but mankind will soon starve, for plants of the field will cease to grow. Man was made a farmer from the beginning.

Verse 6 is added as an explanation of how other plants could grow before rainfall. The biblical answer to the question, when did man begin, is left open for a wide margin. Since scientists themselves have a multitude of opinions all the way from thousand to millions of years, we need not be overly concerned about the matter at all. We ought to be conservative and not be carried away with wild speculations, but we need not fear any question on the matter. We can move with confidence among the discoveries of science without fear that some future discovery will prove us in error, for the biblical record is such as to be not subject to error.

2. How did man begin? Verse 7 makes it clear that he was not born, but was formed. He was molded as clay in the potter's hand. He was a product of what already existed. He was a combination of earth and heaven, of the material and the spiritual. He is akin to both the animals and the angels, both of which existed before him. The text does indicate that Adam was made by a process, and he was not just called into being. This is where the theistic evolutionists read in the process of evolution. The problem is that the process here is with dead matter and not with other forms of living matter, which is necessary to evolution.

The term for dust is one that can mean loose earth, slime and mud from watered ground. Man's body is being formed from a very humble source. The evolutionist contributes to the mud itself what the Bible attributes to God. Since there is no logical reason why matter and lower forms of life should develop into such amazing patterns of beauty and design the evolutionist has to insist on millions of years of process. The assumption being that without God or any spiritual force sheer matter will produce mind, beauty and design if given enough time. The Christian rejects this as nonsense and denies it as an unproven assumption that any amount of time can produce life out of matter. The body of man came from matter, but only God could breath life into that matter.

Jewish tradition says that Adam was formed as a man of 20-years-old. The Bible does not say, but it does make clear that he began as an adult. He never had the experience of being born, or of living through childhood. Man is more than matter, for God gave life directly to that matter. We tend to read too much into this verse and say that this makes man distinct from the animals. All animals, however, also have the breath of life, for Gen. 7:22 states this. Animals have a soul as well as man, for the soul is simply the life principle. Our life is the same as animal life, and when the breath ceases the body dies. That which makes man unique is not mentioned here at all, but it is in chapter one where it is stated that man is made in God's image. Man has a spirit as well as a soul. He is spiritual in that he has the capacity to think of ultimate truths and to commune with God and know His will.

This verse is only telling us how man began and that he is composed of the dust of the earth and the breath of God. It is simple and sensible, and it is in great contrast with all the pagan myths of how various gods made man. It is also in contrast with modern myths that make man in the image of apes. If you ask enough questions about the alternatives to believing what the Bible says about the origin of man, you will discover that God's creation of Adam makes more sense than they do. We need not fear the questions of the skeptic on what we believe to be the origin of man. We can state with confidence that man began with Adam, the man who was never born. Every man since has been born, but not all have been born again. They have not begun a new life in Christ where they are seeking to know Him and serve Him. The Bible says that without this second birth we have no hope of seeing God. The only way to experience it is by trusting in Jesus as your personal Savior. Adam was not born once, but we need to be born twice to have all God wants us to have for time and eternity.

6. THE FIRST LADY Based on Gen. 2:18-25

Only one president of the United States was a bachelor as president, and that was Grover Cleveland. All others had wives, and these First Ladies of our land have had an enormous influence on history. Martha Washington was the first First Lady of the United States. She, like other wives in those early days of the Revolutionary War, spent 8 winters with her husband General Washington in the field. This included the terrible winter of Valley Forge. She helped keep the Revolutionary Army together. She sewed their tattered clothes, and she ministered to their needs, and help keep up moral.

When she was not involved in the war, she was at Mount Vernon managing their 8 thousand acre plantation. She set the pattern as a true help mate. Many other first ladies have played a major role in the lives of the men who governed our nation. Lucy Webb Hayes, wife of President Rutherford Hayes, gained quite a reputation for her influence. When she was informed of an injustice there could be quick action to rectify the situation. President Hayes once said, "Mr. Hayes may have no influence with congress, but she has great influence with me."

Women have always been a major force in history, if for no other reason, because of their influence on men. Never was this more true than when there was only one woman and one man. When we go back to the first of all first ladies, we see a woman centered world. God's attention was focused on the female, for she was the one that prevented creation from being complete. Adam was alone, and he had learned all he could about the animal kingdom, but there was nothing alive that satisfied his need. God said that it was not good for man to be alone, and so He put the final finishing touch on His handiwork, and He made Eve.

She immediately became the center of Adam's attention and affection. The very first poem ever composed on earth was composed by Adam when he saw what God could make out of a rib. He took one look at Eve and forgot all about his surgery. He said, "Now this is more like it. 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." Had Adam been an Englishman he may have put it more like this:

She, she is bone of my bone,

And flesh of my flesh is she;

Woman her name, which is grown

Out of man, out of me.

It is fitting that history's first poetry should be in celebration of a woman. Most poetry since has been inspired by the male female relationship. Woman came from man's rib, but she has never been a mere side issue with him. She has always been a central issue because of her influence on men. Not only was she the focus of God and man, but as we read on in the story we discover she was also the center of the satanic plot to destroy paradise, and bring about the fall of man. The fact that Satan chose to make Eve his first target reveals just how subtle and clever he really is. She was the only living creature that had a powerful enough influence on Adam to bring him to disobey God. The serpent would not have gotten to first base with Adam, nor would any other creature Satan might use to entice him. There was only one choice, and that was Eve.

The Genesis account makes it clear that there is one theme on which God, man, and Satan all agree, and that is that you can't win without a woman. God could not stop creating until He created a woman. Adam could not be content with a perfect paradise without a woman. Satan could not have penetrated Adam's defenses without a woman. W. B. Riley, the well known preacher back in the 1930's said,

They talk about a woman's sphere,

As though it had a limit;

There's not a place on earth or heaven,

There's not a task to mankind given,

There's not a blessing or a woe,

There's not a life, a death, or birth,

That has a feather's weight of worth,

Without a woman in it.

That poetry is based squarely on the rock of revelation. Look at the big events of Bible history, and you will see women as key characters for good or evil: The fall, of course, and the wives of the patriarchs-Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel; the mother and sister of Moses; the wives of David and Solomon; Esther and Ruth; Mary and Elizabeth; the many women in the ministry of Jesus, and the women at the cross and the resurrection. These are just some of the major women who play key roles in the history of God's plan. If we go on into the book of Acts, and beyond into the history of the church, we see that women have been, are, and will always be a key and central influence in everything that happens in God's plan.

We live in a world where some see women as inferior, and where others put them on a pedestal, and see them as superior. Still others fight to prove that above all else they are equal to men. The biblical view condemns all three of these positions if they are held as exclusive truth. No view of women can be called biblical that refuses to recognize the full revelation that they are all three-superior, equal, and inferior. All three of these categories fit the first woman. Some Bible students say if you go to the first use of a term or an ideal in the Bible, that will be your clue as to its meaning throughout the Bible. I doubt that this is a fool proof rule, but it does fit the study of women. If you study Eve, you have the foundation laid for all else that you will find in God's Word on women.

She was the first woman.

She was the first wife.

She was the first mother.

She was the first grandmother.

She was the first lover.

She was the first to entice.

She was the first person to be tempted.

She was the first sinner.

She was the first to name the name of God.

She was the first woman to loose paradise.

She was the first woman who had to move.

She was the first woman to see a baby, and watch it grow.

She was the first woman to suffer grief.

She was the first woman to see a child die.

She was the first woman to make clothes.

She was the first woman to receive hope of a redeemer.

I am sure that with some thought we could expand the list even further, for she was the first woman to experience all of the joys and sorrows of human life. We want to look at this fascinating woman from the point of view of each of the other three characters that shared the stage of history with her at the beginning. The universe was vast, and the earth was larger than it has ever been, for it was so empty of human life. The only persons in existence with Eve that she was aware of were Adam, God, and Satan. It was a small cast, and as we have said, Eve seemed to be the star, for the attention of the others was focused on her. As we look at her from the perspective of each of them, we see the three fold picture of woman. The total woman is a combination of these three views. We want to look at Eve in the order in which she is first confronted by each of these three personalities.

I. GOD'S PERSPECTIVE.