Obeying God’s Word - Genesis 2:15-17
In the ancient world, covenants were commonly made between nations. A covenant is essentially an agreement between two parties, normally a big nation and a smaller nation. The big nation would make certain demands of the small nation, but they would, in turn, commit to provide military protection in a dangerous world and there would be other benefits they could provide as a large and wealthy world power.
Covenants were binding, with rewards for covenant keeping and penalties for covenant breaking. As you might expect, the big nation would dictate the terms of the covenant. This passage of Genesis today teaches us about the nature of the relationship between God and mankind. It is a covenant relationship. It goes beyond God simply as Creator to God as Law-giver, which is clear from the covenant language God uses.
God is the “big nation,” so to speak. He is always the initiator of a covenant. Man never dictates terms to God or makes demands of Him. A covenant may sound rigid or restrictive, but it doesn’t have to be that way, as these verses clearly tell us. We saw last week that God created a good place for the man and women, a place sufficient for their needs. God made a place for them where they could fulfill their purpose.
Of course, we know that they eventually broke the covenant by disobeying God’s Word. They sinned. In Romans 5, the apostle Paul explains, “Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” What that means is that as the descendants of Adam and Eve, all people naturally disobey God’s Word.
In a nutshell, that is the problem with the world in which we live. The main problem is between people or groups or nations. It is between God and mankind. Romans 1 says that the law of God is written on the hearts of mankind, and because we are sinners, we naturally break God’s law. Whether folks know it is His Word or not, whether they recognize it as His law or not, we are all violators.
This universal, inward knowledge of God’s law makes sense when you consider that God made humans. And He appointed the first human, Adam, as the representative in His first covenant with man. Adam carried that responsibility. He disobeyed, now so do we. But though we naturally disobey God, He sent Christ Jesus to obey His Word in our place.
Just as Adam represented man before God, Jesus now represents us. The Scriptures even describe Jesus as the second Adam. We understand that God the Son came to earth; Jesus was born into a humble situation, born of a woman but conceived by the Holy Spirit of God. He was fully human and fully God, born without the sinful nature that each of us naturally possesses. And from the cradle to the grave, Jesus was able to live a sinless life and “fulfill all righteousness,” as Matthew 3 says. He then died a sinner’s death; the only righteous man dying for the unrighteous He came to save. Therefore, all who trust in Him, who trust that His life and death satisfied the demands of God, can now have and hope in eternal life through Him.
The requirements of God on humans are still in tact, so what are we to do? We must trust in Jesus and then look to Him to help us obey God’s Word in our lives. Without Jesus, we could never meet God’s requirements.
But what does God require of us? Earlier in worship we read this: “What is the duty which God requires of man? The duty which God requires of man is obedience to His revealed will.” What is His will for us? In other words, what does God require? Two things we see here. You can find them listed on page 6 in the WG. God requires that we fulfill the lifelong purpose that He ordained, and that we display the lifelong submission that He demands.
Look at verse 15. We see this combo again, “The LORD God.” “Yahweh,” God’s covenant name, and Elohim, the general word for “God.” So we understand that God’s covenant work is in view; His unique relationship with mankind is in the picture. It was the LORD God who “took the man and put him in the garden of Eden.” God carried the man to this place and caused him to rest there. God set the man down in the garden He had created for him.
I couldn’t help but picture a parent setting up the baby gate, putting a blanket and toys inside, and then picking up their small child and setting the child inside a baby gate. The authority of God over the man is so evident here. God’s power is demonstrated. God made the man, He breathed life into the man, and now He puts the man where He belongs.
Now, in Genesis 1, we read this command from God to the man and woman: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion...over every living thing that moves on the earth.” So we already have a sense of mankind’s responsibility to rule and work.
But notice these next words: God “put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.” There is some disagreement on how this should be translated from Hebrew to English. These verbs - these action words - are used in other places in the OT. Looking at those helps us interpret the meaning here. And keep in mind, any translation is also an interpretation. When you go from one language to another, the translator must decipher not only the individual words but also the intended meaning. It is challenging; we need God’s help.
But long story short, a better reading of the Hebrew grammar here leads us to read the words “work” and “keep” as referring not to the garden but to God. Many modern translators interpret the verbs as referring to the garden. This is why the ESV says “to work it and keep it.” Certainly, the man would be doing those things in the garden, so it’s not wrong to say that the man would be doing these things.
But like I said, the Hebrew grammar indicates that the words “work” and “keep” should be read as referring to God. That word you see translated there as “work,” is used in many other places in the OT, such as Exodus 8:1, “Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the LORD, “Let my people go, that they may serve me.” To “serve” the LORD. Same word often translated “work” in verse 15. We understand Exodus 8 to mean that God brought Israel out of Egypt to worship Him.
Words have different meanings based on the context in which they are used. Actually, both of these words which we see here as “work” and “keep” are used together again in Deuteronomy 10. Moses says to the Israelites, “And now, Israel, what does [Yahweh] your God require of you, but to fear [Yahweh] your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve [Yahweh] your God with all your heart and with all your soul, [13] and to keep the commandments and statutes of [Yahweh].” To serve and to keep. Put differently, to subject yourself to Yahweh with all your heart and soul and to obey His commandments.
We should understand that God put Adam and Eve in the garden for a purpose, and yes, they were to do work and be productive, but it was not man-centered work. It was not garden-focused productivity, for the garden’s sake. There was a greater purpose to it all. That greater purpose was glorifying God, and all that they did in the garden was an act of worship.
God ordained a lifelong purpose for the man and woman: they were to serve and obey Him. They were to be subject to His Word and keep it. Even the mandate to rule over the other creatures and subdue the earth and be fruitful and multiply were all commands to obey. Those things were God’s Word to man. That is our lifelong purpose: to obey the Word of God. The work is secondary to the worship.
There may come a day when you can no longer work. In our modern world, people who grow old and can no longer work and do the things they once did are often seen as no longer having a purpose. That’s not true though. Maybe they can’t work, but they can still worship God. They can still serve and obey; they can still continue to glorify God and enjoy Him.
You see, your work is not what ultimately defines you. Your work is good, it is from God and it is important, and you should do it to the best of your ability for the glory of God. But there will come a day when you can no longer do that. You might be thinking, “Good, I’m ready to retire!” You may have enough saved up to retire from your career, but you will never retire from worship. You will never retire from your lifelong purpose: to serve and obey God.
Have you lost sight of this somewhere along the way? Maybe you never knew this. We easily get so wrapped up in what we do that in our minds what we do becomes who we are. That is a characteristic of the world we live in today. But that’s not good, because we take a God-centered thing and make it man-centered. We make it about us, when it should be about God. Not us-focused, but God-focused. God ordained a lifelong purpose for you, and also, He demands lifelong submission.
Notice verse 16 again. “And the LORD God commanded the man,” He gave a charge to the man, “saying “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden.” Let’s stop there for a moment. The man is charged with obedience to God. Everything he would need for food was there. He had a vast array of blessings all around. There was enough to be content. But as he lived among God’s provision and blessing, his worship and obedience would be tested. Look at verse [17] “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” These are the basic components of a covenant: there is blessing for obedience and a curse for disobedience. Reward for covenant keeping; penalty for covenant breaking. Obedience would result in eternal life; disobedience would result in death.
Notice this: right and wrong are clearly defined. The relationship between God and mankind is a moral relationship. Morality is woven in the fabric of the universe. This is why the Scriptures teach that when mankind sinned, the whole created order was affected. In Romans 8, Paul writes, “The creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it. Creation groans and waits for what you and I wait for: redemption, the final lifting of sin’s curse.
God’s command to Adam proves his ability to choose and to obey. It is obvious that the man and woman would be justly held responsible for their actions. Obedience was their duty. 16th century pastor John Calvin makes an interesting statement about God’s command. He writes, “Moses now teaches that man was the governor of the world, with this exception, that he should, nevertheless, be subject to God.” God imposed His law upon mankind. The man and woman were to remember their place in the world, that though they had dominion over the world, God had dominion over them. This command, and this tree, were signs of God’s sovereignty. The prohibited tree stood to remind them of God’s authority. It was God whom they must serve and obey. God demanded lifelong submission to His will, and He was entirely just in doing so.
Maybe you’ve heard the old story of the captain aboard his ship as it travelled through the night. He looked into the darkness and saw faint lights ahead. So, he told his signalman to send this message: “Alter your course 10 degrees south.” After doing so, they received a return message: “Alter your course 10 degrees north.” Well, the captain grew angry, so he sent a second message: “Alter your course 10 degrees south, I am the captain!” He received another message: “Alter your course 10 degrees north, I am seaman third class Jones.” And now furious that his command was being ignored, the captain sent a third message, to evoke fear. It read: “Alter your course 10 degrees south, I am a battleship.” And then this reply came back: “Alter your course 10 degrees north, I am a lighthouse.”
Do you realize, as you bristle as God’s commands and rebel against His holy will, do you realize who you are up against? Here’s the thing: you can’t beat Him. Sooner or later, everyone will submit. This morning, we had a young boy stand here and publicly confess His faith in Jesus Christ. Eventually, all people will confess that Jesus is Lord. Not all will possess saving faith, but everyone will know. Romans 14, “We will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.”
Sadly, Adam would later disobey, and we will cross that bridge when we get to it in Genesis 3. He would fail to perfectly fulfill the purpose God ordained for mankind, and he would fail to perfectly display the trust God required of mankind. But the second Adam, Jesus Christ, would succeed where Adam failed. In fact, notice my two points again. God requires those things of us, and Jesus fulfilled them in our place. He perfectly obeyed God’s Word. Have you trusted in Him and bowed your heart before Him? Do you know Him and do you look to Him each day, throughout your day, as the One who made you right with God and helps you obey God’s Word?
The Scripture says that for His perfect obedience to God’s Word, “God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Bow before Him now. And please bow with me in prayer.