Being God's Image: Why Creation Still Mattersনমুনা

Humans Representing God

Genesis 2 is a bit befuddling at first. We’ve already witnessed the creation of people in Genesis 1, but in Genesis 2:5 the world still lacks human beings. It also lacks vegetation. God proceeds to create things, but in a different order than in Genesis 1 (man before animals, and animals before woman).

Clearly, Genesis 1 and 2 are not arranged chronologically. Each offers a different angle on God’s creative work. In Genesis 1, God is center stage. We witness the power of His Word and the wonder of His ordered creation in a well-crafted literary composition. By implication, Genesis 1 offers humans a model work week, including dominion over Creation that includes regular rhythms of rest.

Genesis 2 explores what it means to be human in relation to God, to the earth, to plants, to the animals, and to each other. The first humans are unnamed until the end of Genesis 3 because they function as a paradigm for all of us. A close reading of the second account of Creation shows us who we are.

In Genesis 2 we discover that humans are meant to be gardeners. God created humans to participate in His joy-filled creative work and live in harmony with Creation. This is evident from the beginning. Genesis 2:5 attributes the lack of fruitfulness on the earth to two factors: (1) God had not yet sent rain, and (2) humans were not yet present to till the soil. This statement implies that the intended design is a partnership between God and humans to cultivate the earth.

The absence of a human is resolved by God’s creative act. We learn that “Yahweh God formed a human from the soil of the ground” (Genesis 2:7, my translation), an origin we share with animals (v. 19). This statement emphasizes humanity’s essential connection with the earth. We are "human" from humus, "adam" from adamah, "earthling" from earth. But we are also more than dirt. God blew His own breath into the human to bring him to life and then invited him to name the animals (Genesis 2:19-20). These acts separate him from inanimate and animate Creation, respectively.

The partnership between God and humans hinted at in verse 5 is fleshed out in the verses that follow. God is a gardener. He planted the garden in Eden and then passed the baton to humanity (Genesis 2:8). When God placed the first human in Eden’s garden, he was “to work it and guard it” (v. 15, my translation). That is, the human’s role was to maintain and protect God’s garden. Before we were anything else, we were gardeners.