Series 2 - Lesson 3 - Annotation 3
What evidence have we in the Bible that this is an ideal and not a manifest creation?
3. The first chapter of Genesis describes the ideal creation of man and states that God "finished" His work in the ideal or planning stage. The second chapter makes the announcement that "there was not a man to till the ground" (Gen. 2:5). This shows that while spiritual man had been created as the image of God, he had not yet been manifested; he had not yet evolved as a human being, as man living in a three-dimensional form or body who could "till the ground" so that it might yield its increase.
Often words are regarded as synonymous that, strictly speaking, are not. The words expression and manifestation are examples. Expression means the pressing out or fulfilling of an idea in all its details in consciousness. It is the process of the formative power of thought, the making of an image of what is expected to be brought forth later on. Manifestation is result, the fulfillment of expression, the formed word, the living object that appears in the sphere of the senses.
"A man to till the ground" (Gen. 2:5) would necessarily be a manifest man. It would take a natural man to work in the natural sphere of creation—a man equipped with a body or form that would make connection with and have somewhat of an understanding of nature.
This is the evidence that the Bible presents to us that there is first the ideal creation (expression in mind of the plan), and later on the manifestation makes its appearance.
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Preceding Entry: What phase of creation is described in the first chapter of Genesis?
Following Entry: Who or what is Jehovah, the Lord God of the Scriptures?
