Alright, first of all, in chapter
1 we have an account of the creation of man, a general account, and
then more specifically, in the second chapter, of the creation
of man. So, in Genesis 1, 26 and 27,
God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,
and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the
fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth,
and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. So God created man in His own
image. In the image of God created He
Him. Male and female created He them. Now look at chapter 2 and verse
7. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and watch, and
man became a living soul." Or you might have it in the margin,
a living being, as we'll look at it later in our study. We shall begin our study this
morning on this matter, where the race of man actually began. And that is with the first man
and the first woman, the first pair, Adam and Eve. The first man being Adam. And
we notice something about God creating Adam, that Adam was
given both a body and a soul. and that the two together make
up the whole of the person. And we notice something else,
that the body was made first, and that for a while was lifeless. And then God gave a soul to that
first man, Adam, which then activated the body, and he began to act
and reflect and such like. Now, no question about it, The
first man, as to his body and his soul, is very unique. It is unique in the fact that
unlike us, Adam was not born. He was created. And Adam was
not born, but created. And created, says the Bible,
from the dust of the earth. Our text says the Lord God formed
man of the dust of the ground. God tells Adam again in chapter
3 and 19, after the fall and the sinless has passed, that
in time Adam would again return to the dust of the ground. And He adds this, for out of
it were you taken, dust you are, and unto dust you shall return. That's 3 and 19. And let us remember
that the later writers also confirm the fact from Genesis that the
first man was created of the dust of the ground or the dust
of the earth. That later writers also acknowledge
that this was the beginning or the origin of Adam. Let us remember, for example,
in Job 4.19. And Job chapter 33 and verse
6, the account is confirmed that man is made of the dust of the
earth. The psalmist 103 and verse 14
said, He knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust. Solomon in Ecclesiastes chapter
3 and verse 20, all go unto one place. all are of the dust, and
shall return to dust again." Again in Ecclesiastes 12 and
verse 7. Then he said, shall the dust
return to the earth as it was. That is, after the death of the
body. Way over in 1 Corinthians chapter
15 and verse 47, in that chapter on death and the resurrection,
Paul writes there that the first man, he means of course Adam,
is of the earth earthy. Not earthly, but earthy. Now this debunks any theory of
evolution. Man came neither out of a slimy
swamp, nor up from the monkey or the ape family into his present
state and condition. God created Adam's body of the
dust of the earth." Now some commentators note the resemblance
of the word Adam and also the word ground or dust, being Adamah,
made him of Adamah, of the dust of the ground. And as the footnotes
in the New Geneva Study Bible underscore Paul's teaching that
the body of Adam was fashioned from an earthly existence and
for an earthly existence. And as the natural descendants
of Adam and of Eve, we receive a natural body, and especially
since the Fall, that is also, quote, fashioned for an earthly
existence. This body that we now dwell in
is fashioned only for an earthly existence. This body is also
called a fleshly body, a body of flesh, and such things in
the Scripture. But God is not done yet with
Adam, for the body of dust in and of itself was yet a lifeless
clay up to a certain point in God's work upon Adam. We remember
from chapter 1, verse 26 and 27, The Holy Three, the Divine
Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit said among themselves,
let us make man after our image and in our likeness. And so in verse 27, God made
man in His own image. And He made man in two genders. male and female. But the particulars
are not given there in Genesis 1, 26 and 27. The particulars
of it, Moses says, who wrote Genesis, says for chapter 2. And that is that the human species
were not spoken into existence when God would bring forth man
and woman. He did not say, as He had said
at other times, let there be, and it was so. Some sprang up
out of the earth, Genesis 1 and verse 24, but not Adam and Eve. Instead, God personally formed
the first pair. And the man He made of the dust
of the earth, if you believe, and accept the Scripture, and
I do. And the woman He made, not of
the dust of the earth like Adam, but of a rib taken out of the
side of Adam. And when Adam saw it, he said,
this is bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. She shall be called
woman, female man, Isha, because she is taken out of man. A few short applications now. or in order before we proceed
on our way. Such as, again, man and woman
came by creation, not by evolution. We believe in direct creation. Almighty God created the first
pair by His own hand and by His own power, so that evolution
had absolutely nothing to do with the origin of humanity. And here also, from this first
pair, we find the pattern for marriage. One man and one woman. And we find here also a most
outstanding and grand type of the Lord Jesus Christ and His
church or bride. that in the wounding or opening
of his side there was the blood that flowed for his church. But let's go back to the second
part of the creation of Adam, and the most important part of
all, and the one that answers, I believe, to the image and likeness
of God. That would not be found in the
fleshly body of Adam, would it? In Genesis 2, verse 7, the last
part again, and the Lord God, the God of heaven, the sovereign,
almighty, eternal God who is creating. And the Lord God breathed
into his nostrils, careful with every word, the breath of life,
and man became a living soul. Now consider for a moment the
first, the breath of life. God breathed into Adam and that
through his nostril, the breath of life. That is, God energized
or God quickened the fleshly body of Adam to life, which at
first was a lifeless body. Then God gave him breath, which
entered in, as the Scripture said, through the nostril. And is it not reasonable to think
that Adam then began to breathe in and out? Gil said, it is in
the plural number, the breath of lives in the plural, which
he thought included, Gil did, the vegetative, the sensitive,
and the rational life of man, breathed into him by the Almighty
God. Now, the breath of life. We meet
this phrase or saying in other places in the Scripture. For
example, in Genesis 6 and verse 17, we meet with it again. When
God, upon that occasion, announced unto Noah that he, the God of
heaven, by a flood would destroy all flesh, quote, wherein is
the breath of life, unquote. Wherein is the breath of life? In Job 33 and verse 4, they said,
the breath of the Almighty has given me life. And Paul said
in Acts 17 and verse 28 to the Athenians there on Mars Hill,
for in Him, meaning in God whom he had just mentioned, we live
and move and have our being. So we want to notice all three
of those words. We live and move and have our
being. Remember this was said, not to
Jews, but to heathen philosophers there. The word being in Acts
17 and verse 28 is a word, the Greek word, which is many times
over in the New Testament. But the word is almost always
translated R-A-R-E in all the other places in the New Testament. It is the word Eshmin, and as
one called it, it is the verb of ordinary existence. It is used in many places in
the New Testament, such as John 9 and verse 28. when the Jews
said, we are Moses' disciples. Or, we being Moses' disciples
is also the meaning of the word. Romans 8 and 16, we are being
the children of God. Again, in Galatians 4 and verse
28, we are being the children of promise. So the word being
in Acts 17-28 often translated are in other places. Paul uses three words in Acts
17 and verse 28 to declare the real imminence of God toward
the human family. Now in the King James Version,
the three words are live, move, and being. Live, move, and being
are literally They would be life, movement, and existence. In Him we have our being, we
are, we have our existence. And Paul declares to the heathen
what he means by God not being very far from every one of us
since in Him we live and move and have our being, our existence. no matter were they worshippers
of other gods or no gods at all. We live, we move, we have our
being, our existence is dependent upon the Almighty God. It is the teaching of Scripture
that God not only created the first pair, Adam and Eve, gives
them their being or their existence, but that He also preserves and
exercises a sovereign providence over all men and women. But let's go back to the matter
of the immaterial part of man as seen in the first man, Adam,
in our original text. And let's consider the word that
as a result of God breathing into Adam the breath of life,
Man became a living soul. Now, we want to look at that
and keep them distinct. God breathed into his nostrils
the breath of life and man became a living soul. In that, he is
now alive. He is living. Whereas before,
he was a lifeless body of clay or dust. The body is now animated. by the breath of life that God
has breathed into him. Is there a resemblance or an
analogy between that in Genesis 1, 1 and 2? The world was without
form and void, and God, or the Spirit of God breathed or brooded
upon it and put it into its order. However, man began to live. Now he has also a soul and being. He is not elevated. However,
He is elevated among the other creatures that God has made,
the animals and such like. God has given Him an excellence
with which He did not endow the other creature. So that there
was a threefold stage in the preparation of man and the making
of him. There was A, his body was formed
from the dust of the ground. B, his body was endued with the
breath of life that God breathed into him. And C, that soul as
the substance was immortal and in a wonderful way bore the image
and the likeness of God. Remember Genesis 1? 26 and 27
says in part, let us make man in our image and after our likeness. So God created man in His image. In the image of God created He
Him. An old writer, Abraham Kieffer,
wrote in his book, quote, next to being God Himself comes the
glory of being created after the image and the likeness of
God." Only man of all creatures has that privilege. To man alone
belongs this blessing, for none others were created in the likeness
and the image of God, saving Adam and Eve, our man. And yet, this image or likeness
of God in Adam did not consist in his bodily, or in His fleshly
frame, the very image and likeness of God dwell not there in the
outward visible body, Scripture is clear that God exists as a
pure, uncreated, eternal Spirit without bodily form or shape
or multitude or similitude, that He is not a man. And on the other
hand, man is not God. God is not a man that we should
think of Him like that, nor is man a God. Man never was, never
will be, never shall be as long as He exists. Only Adam has had
the image of God to the extent he experienced it at His creation
and until His sin. Only Adam has experienced this
blessed state from creation unto his sin. Adam had a soul as pure
as could be from his beginning, from his creation until he disobeyed
God and sin. Now regarding Adam's soul, as
stated in Genesis 2 and 7, and the words are simple, and man
became a living soul. Paul wrote, In 1 Corinthians
15 and verse 45, he has a passage there comparing Adam and Christ. He says, And so it is written,
The first Adam was made a living soul, a living being, which makes
up the whole man, the totality of the man, with personality,
which the dictionary defines as a collection of emotional
and behavioral traits that characterize the person. And Adam, with intelligence,
now Adam has affection, Adam has emotion, and as to his original
state, Adam had no sin in his soul. He was created upright,
as says Ecclesiastes 7 and verse 29. Man was created upright. So the conclusion is, All of
Adam's being and makeup, body and soul as well, his material
as well as his immaterial part, came directly from God as a creation. He was created, not born, not
propagated from previous beings. Had you thought Adam and Eve
were without parents? They had no father or mother,
nor did they evolve from a lower form of life. They had their
beginning by the creative work of Almighty God. And out of this
fountain flows the vast human family over the ages. We should keep in mind that human
nature was both created and existed in the first man or pair, Adam
and Eve. But sin entered into the world
by one man, and by that came death, and so death passed upon
all, for that all have sin. So now we come to consider the
offspring of Adam and Eve, the human race or the human family,
and how it came to be with them or with us. We were not created
in the fashion of our first parents, but we were and are being brought
forth by natural procreation. Since Adam, that has been the
manner. And especially in regard to the
soul, our question comes to mind and will tax us to the limit. How is it that we receive our
soul. How is our soul brought into
being and then into union with our body? Some have held four
ways, origin of the soul, pre-existent soul, reincarnation, tradutionism,
and creation are the four views of how the souls of men come
into being. Now some have held that all souls
were created before the world. All of them are pre-existent,
pre-created, and are sent forth to live in persons as they are
born. This is called the pre-existence
of souls, that they all were created by God before time. You know something? You will
find some of this teaching if you examine Mormonism. For Mormonism says or believes
in preexistent souls. And that the sin and the fall
of Adam and Eve was planned by God in order that these souls
might have a body to inhabit and to dwell in. And to be able
to begat mortal children so that the preexistent souls might have
a body to inhabit to give them joy and full existence in their
being, that is, the soul. It is not surprising, is it,
that this very thing, the pre-existence of millions of souls, could be
used by Mormons as a justification for polygamy. That is, to have
a plurality of lives, to more quickly produce bodies, for these
pre-existent souls to enter and to inhabit. However, this is
without any biblical basis whatsoever. Then, as I said, some hold a
reincarnation that they're cycled again and again. We'll not touch
that this morning. The question is, how do we come
to have our soul? We believe the Bible teaches
that. It seems that there can only
be two answers to the question, how did we receive our own soul? Two possibilities, seemingly. Number one, either they are created
by God ex nihilo, that is, out of nothing, from nothing, making
something out of nothing, and in some way, beyond our present
comprehension, joining it with our body at some point in our
existence. As to this origin of the soul,
this is called in theology, creationism. You believe in creationism or
another manner. So that the spirit lives in the
body, which Paul calls a house or a tabernacle, or a temple. Secondly, there is another view
concerning the origin of the soul, and it is called in theology,
Traditionism. So Creationism says God directly
creates the soul, and Traditionism said that the soul as well as
the body is in some inscrutable way produced by or propagated
from the parent. Robert L. Dabney, a good theologian,
was one who held to tradutionism, and he put it this way, quote,
by some inexplicable law of generation, parents propagate the whole being,
the soul as well as the body, so that they're parents of the
whole person of their children. Now of the two views, creationism
probably is the most popular and is probably held by the most
people. But the most popular view is
not always the right view. We've learned that over and over. Especially when we consider who
favors a particular view of a thing. And it is true that most Pelagians
and many or most Armenians, including the Roman Catholic Church, favor
the creationist view of the soul. Now, in fairness to our subject,
so did many sound Calvinists along the way, including John
Gill favored the creationist view of the soul. In fairness,
we should remember that both the creationist and the traditionist
view have major questions to face and to answer with regard
to their view. For the creationist, it is the
question, if God directly creates every soul of those that are
being born, if God creates the soul of every person as He did
of Adam. How then to account for its depravity? How to account for the total
depravity of that part? For God would not create something
defiled and depraved because the whole person is depraved
and that from their very birth If God creates the soul, then
He creates it holy, then it is corrupted when it is put in contact
or union with a carnal body or our carnal human nature. On the other hand, there is a
great hurdle for the traditionist view as well. And that is how
mortal parents, mortal parents can propagate an immortal soul. How can they be the parents of
a new soul as well as of the body of their children? How can
they be progenitors of something that, number one, is capable
of living apart and after the body, and number two, that is
immortal, will not die, and will exist forever? Now, let me make
a statement before we proceed. And that is that for quite a
few years now, I have come to favor the traditionist view of
the soul. At the same time, it is a subject
of great depth with good men and good Christians on both sides
of the issue. Finally, I acknowledge to you
that you are spiritual, that you have the Spirit of God in
you, leading you and teaching you, we are taught of the Lord,
and I would not violate your conviction. Perhaps you have
never formed an opinion, never thought about it one way or another. So, in the spirit of charity,
let me lay out a part of the case for tradutionism for your
consideration, and see whether or not it will bear witness with
your spirit or not. First, let me say that the tradutionist
view seems to better answer the matter of original sin. It seems that this better answers
and that this better fits with original sin. Now, original sin
is weakened or denied altogether by many who are creationism. For example, the Armenians who
hold to an age of accountability, saying that the soul is at first
not sinful at birth, and then for a few years of time, and
becomes sinful when they commit a willful and deliberate conscious
sin. Thus, if the soul is at first
pure, and then is corrupted, what is become of the federal
oneness with Adam and the direct imputation of Adam's sin unto
all of the race? That's first. And then secondly,
what is become of the declaration of David that we know so famously? Psalm 51 and 5, Behold, I was
shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me." What
is he saying? I was sinful from conception. Yes, I have done this sin. Yes,
he confesses all the way back. I was sinful at conception. And he connects this to his natural
propagation. In sin did my mother conceive
me. Now, I know there are some folks
who try to shift this off and say that David is saying that
his mother performed a sinful act in the conjugal relation
that resulted in his conception. That's far from the truth of
what David is saying. He is talking about himself personally. Now, Scripture is clear. We bring
depravity from the womb. And when Adam begat children,
they were not in the likeness and image of God as he was. But
Genesis 5 and verse 3, he begat children in his own likeness
after his own image. Job asked, how can he be clean
that is born of a woman? Job 15 and 14. Creationists quote those Scriptures
which speak of the soul as being a special work of God. And there are quite a few of
them in the Scripture. Zechariah 12 and 1, the Lord
forms the spirit of man within him. Isaiah 57 and verse 16 speaks
of the souls which I have made. Ecclesiastes 12 and verse 7,
the spirit shall return to God who gave it. Again in Job 33,
in verse 4, the Spirit of God has made me. The breath of the
Almighty has given me life. Those are a few. So yes, Scriptures
speak of the soul as a special work of God. But it does the
very same thing for the body or the whole person. For in Psalms
119.73, thy hands have made me and fashioned me. You see the same in Job 10 and
verse 8. And remember Jeremiah 1 and verse
5. I formed thee in the belly. And this was by procreation. Procreation is how the prophet
was formed by God in the belly. You remember Psalm 139? We won't go there. I am fearfully
and wonderfully made. Thou didst behold all of my substance
when as yet they were not made. So let's conclude with a consideration
of the immortality of the soul. As Gill wrote, this immortality
must be understood as to the nature of the soul. It is not
liable to death in the sense of the cessation of existence,
being immortal It is capable of passing through in and out
of different states, such as pure and unfallen in Adam. Secondly, fallen and depraved. Third, regenerate and revived
by the Spirit. And fourthly, of the eternal
state of everlasting glory. Now, the body dies and corrupts
and returns to the ashes. The soul is capable of living
after the death of the body, and as the body without the spirit
is dead, James 2 and verse 26, for it is that which does animate
the body. And upon the separation of these,
the death of the body or of the flesh occurs, since it is not
the body that animates the soul, but vice versa. We have two examples,
I believe, of this in the New Testament. Luke 23 and verse
46, Jesus cried with a loud voice and said unto the Father, Into
Thy hands I commend my spirit. And having said that, He gave
up the ghost. That is, He died. Stephen in
Acts 7 and 59 Dying said, Lord Jesus, receive
my spirit. There's a common expression or
euphemism for death that we meet with in the Old Testament quite
a few times. And that expression is giving
up the ghost. You'll find that in a number
of places. Genesis 25a, Abraham gave up
the ghost and died so that they go together. Ishmael, Genesis
25, 17, gave up the ghost and died. Isaac, in Genesis 35, 29. Jacob, 49 and 33 of Genesis. He yielded up the ghost and was
gathered unto his people. Job 311 wishes that he had done
so from the belly, that he had died before he was ever born,
that he had miscarried or that he had been stillborn. Then he
would escape the trouble, he said. Application. If there is
no immortal soul in people, then they have nothing to fear from
sin or from death or from hell or from a great judgment from
Almighty God. Nothing to fear of a judgment
at or after the death of the body if, as some say, man is
just like an animal when he is dead. He is dead and that is
the end. But we read of the saving of
the soul. Hebrews 10.39, a distinction
Paul makes in 1 Corinthians 5 and verse 5, as to the destruction
of the flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of the
Lord Jesus. Man, woman are superior to even
the highest animals that God has made. by having a reasonable
soul and capable of revelation from Almighty God. Christians
do not live only for the present world or for the satisfying of
the flesh, our bodies, and their death, or not our end or finality. There is a life beyond. The Scripture
is very clear upon that matter. So, I leave it to your consideration. as the Lord applies it to your
heart. All right, may we stand for a
word of prayer, please.