What Genesis 2 Reveals about God's Design for Life (Genesis 2)

A Few Thoughts to Consider

What was God’s original intent for creation and humanity?

Before we answer this, let’s address a quick technical note. The Bible didn’t always have the chapters and verses we see in translations today. Stephen Langton, an Archbishop of Canterbury, first divided the modern Bible into chapters around 1227, prompting the Wycliffe English Bible in 1382 to use this pattern. In 1448, a Jewish rabbi named Nathan divided the Hebrew Old Testament into verses. In 1555, Robert Estienne, also known as Stephanus, divided the New Testament into standard numbered verses, building on Nathan’s verse divisions for the Old Testament.

Thus, when we get to Genesis 2, we see that the first three verses could easily be the summation of Chapter 1. The author of Genesis, often thought to be Moses, writes:

¹ So the heavens and the earth and everything in them were completed. ² On the seventh day God had completed his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. ³ God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, for on it he rested from all his work of creation.

This passage teaches us that the principle of keeping a 24-hour Sabbath was always God’s original intent for humanity. And when we operate without it, our lives are out of rhythm.

In The Emotionally Healthy Leader, Peter Scazzero writes, “God’s Sabbath rhythm is a reflection of the rhythm that undergirds all of creation.”[1] He goes on to say, “On the Sabbath we embrace our limits. We let go of the illusion that we are indispensable to the running of the world.”[2]

Genesis 2 is chock-full of other foundational material as well. Verses 7-8 tell us God created man from the dust of the ground and placed him in the garden of Eden. Oz Guinness says,

“The Genesis declaration that humans are made in the image and likeness of God is the clearest, strongest, and most influential statement of the priceless value of the individual human being in human history.”^[3]

Verses 16-17 let us know man can eat every tree except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If he eats that tree, he will die. Verses 18-22 give us the origin story of Eve because God says, “It is not good that the man should be alone.”

These verses also reveal God’s intended design for marriage relationships. The most sacred human relational covenants must be between one man and one woman. Thus, the question for Christians today is not what relationship makes me happiest. Instead, it is what relationship will best align me with God’s intended design?

In verses 24-25, the author makes another foundational observation when he writes, “²⁴ This is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh. ²⁵ Both the man and his wife were naked, yet felt no shame.”

Two points I want to note. First, this tells us that when a couple gets married, there is a natural separation that occurs. Yes, they might still ask their parents for wisdom, but the relational dynamic shifts. Second, nakedness was never intended to produce shame.

We’ll get to this later, but as Sheila Wray Gregoire writes, “Our theology of sex has to go beyond the creation story in Genesis 2:25—being naked and not ashamed—and encompass so much more. A truly Christian view must see sex through the lens of the cross.”^[4]

In Genesis 2, we learn about the beginning of humanity, God’s original plan for perfect harmony, the introduction of free will leading to disobedience, and the foundation for intimate relationships.

A Meditation to PRAY

Praise | I praise you for creating a perfect world and setting foundational truths that help the world run in perfect order. Thank you for making me in your image and creating days and seasons of rest.

Release | I give you my human understanding of how the world works. I release my desire to always be strivings, and I commit to resting as you desired.

Ask | Show me areas of my life where I am relying on my human knowledge of good and evil. Help me to trust you in your perfect way.

Yield | I surrender my strivings and understandings to you. Only your way is perfect.

A Challenge to Act Like Christ  

Ephesians 1:4 says Christ “chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him.” This was and remains God’s desire for his creation. He wants us to align with who we were created to be and to completely trust him in every area of our lives.

Unfortunately, as we’re about to see, humans are great at messing this up.

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[1] Scazzero, Peter. The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World. Zondervan, 2015. 145.

[2] Scazzero, Peter. The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World. Zondervan, 2015. 147.

[3] Oz Guinness, The Magna Carta of Humanity, 78,

[4] Gregoire, Sheila Wray, Gregoire Lindenbach, Rebecca, and Sawatsky, Joanna. The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You've Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended. Baker Publishing Group, 2021. 201.