God’s Breath of Life

Genesis 2:1-7 

1 Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. 2 And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

4 This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, 5 before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown. For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground; 6 but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.  7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

After six days of creating the universe and the earth, God chose to rest from all the work.  It was a pause to enjoy His creation, not a necessary time to recover His strength after working so much.  God is all powerful and we are simply told that He rested from His work - He stopped working.  This seventh day which He blessed as holy is the sabbath rest which God later referred to in His Law, that there should be a time to reflect on the works of God (and our own since we labor in His image).  Ultimately we who are in Christ will cease from our work and rest in His work in Christ on our behalf, but that is much later in God’s timeline.  Then the narrative here reflects back on this creation of the earth and heavens, before the plants grew and a mist covered everything before the first rainfall.  Then God made man out of the dust or dirt of the earth itself, which we can now examine to see our carbon based composition as testimony to this truth.  Though God’s word does not supply the scientific details, scientific examinations reveal the truth of God’s word and work.  Ah, then God breathed His life into man whom He made out of dust, and Adam became a living being instead of just chemicals of the ground marvelously thrown together.  Life comes from God and returns to Him when we die (Ecclesiastes 12:7); it is He alone who creates and gives life to everyone, which is why it is futile to attempt creating life apart from His giving of it to His creations.