Is the description of Adam and Eve’s creation a parable, or is it true?
Listen: 96 Question 3
It is so important that we realize the scriptural account of the creation of Adam and Eve is true and literal. Otherwise, we are at a loss as how to explain the existence of the human race. There have been attempts to take God out of the creative process, therefore giving way to the false teachings of evolution and the Big Bang theory.
The Word of God is precise in telling us that the Lord made man, and then it tells us how the Lord made man. On the sixth day of creation, we read in Genesis 1:26-27, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” Then, in Genesis 2:7, the Lord gives us more information about how He created man. That says, “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 soul.” We then learn how the Lord made Eve in Genesis 2:18-24, “And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”
The New Testament gives us several statements concerning the creation of Adam and Eve. Let’s look at a few of them. We have the words of the Lord Jesus in Mark 10:6 where we read, “But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.” The Apostle Paul speaks of man’s creation in 1 Corinthians 11:8-9 where he says, “For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.” We have this statement concerning the creation of man in 1 Corinthians 15:45, “And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul…” Paul goes on to tell us in 1 Timothy 2:13, “For Adam was first formed, then Eve.”
Some have said that it really makes no difference if we see the creation of Adam and Eve as literal or figurative. I do not agree with that thought. To deny the literal creation of man and woman is to contradict the words of the Lord Jesus and the Apostle Paul given to us in the New Testament. We are told in Ecclesiastes 12:1 to, “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them.” It is so important that we know the Lord to be our Creator. It is He that spoke the world into existence. Listen to these words of awe and praise in consideration of the Lord as our Creator in Nehemiah 9:6, “Thou, even thou, art LORD alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee.” When we come to accept the creation of Adam and Eve as a literal and instantaneous work of God, we will be filled with that same sense of awe and praise. Psalms 90:2 tells us, “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.” (96.3)