Dust and Glory
Genesis 2:4b-7, 15-17; 3:1-8

Psalm 8:4 asks a fundamental question. What is man? What are human beings?

Many different answers have been offered through the centuries. Some have argued that homo sapiens are just animals. We are simply mammals. We are “the naked ape.” Karl Marx, the father of Communism, believed that the essence of human beings is their labor, what they do. Sigmund Freud believed that we are composed of the id, ego, and super ego. The id is our lower nature, our baser instincts. The super ego is our higher nature, and the poor ego is locked in conflict between them. Rationalists say human beings are defined by their ability to reason. Rene Descartes, the sixteenth-century French philosopher, famously hypothesized, “I think, therefore I am.” Existentialists believe that man’s essence is volition, the ability to choose. Even Hugh Hefner had a theory of human nature. Not surprisingly, he postulated that we are basically sensuous creatures. A common contemporary view is that we are nothing more than complex biological language machines. There are elements of truth in all these theories of mankind, but they are also quite different and, in some ways, antithetical to each other. As Reinhold Niebuhr, the twentieth- century theologian, observed, “Man is his own most vexing problem.”

Thankfully, the Bible clearly speaks to this question. In order to grasp the Bible’s answer, we need to quote Psalm 8:4 in its entirety. “What is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you visit him?” Note well. We can understand human beings correctly only if we think of them in relation to God.

Genesis 2:7 is a key verse in correctly understanding what it means to be human. “Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.” The first thing to note is that we are created by God. As Psalm 100:3 puts it, “Know that the LORD is God. It is he that made us, and we are his.” We have not made ourselves. No random, impersonal process is responsible for our existence either. We are made by God, and we belong to God.

The stuff we are made from is especially important too. God formed man from the ground. There is a word play in Hebrew that is lost in translation. The Hebrew word for “man” is Adam. The Hebrew word for “ground” is Adamah. Adam comes from the Adamah. An English version of the word play might be humans come from humus! We are of the earth, earthy.

Verse 19 tells us that God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air out of the ground (Adamah) too. Furthermore, the LORD God placed man in the garden of Eden to cultivate the ground and to protect it. The garden, human beings, and living things all come from a common source: the ground.

Genesis 2:7 further specifies that we were created from the dust of the ground. We literally are “frail children of dust and feeble as frail.” We came from the dust, and we are destined to return to it. As Genesis 3:19 puts it, the LORD speaking, “You will return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

To be human is to be a lowly creature, a child of dust. We have a primordial connection to the dirt and to everything else that came from it. Our first vocation was as a humble tenant farmer serving the ground, cultivating and protecting it. So, we are mammals. Yes, we can think and speak, but we are animals, just like the rest. This is indisputable.

The question is, “Are we more than dust?” Again, the answer can be found only in relation to God. We are dust, but dust that has been breathed into by God. God breathed into our nostrils the breath of life and we became living beings (2:7b). The Hebrew word for "breath" is ruach. You cannot say the word without breathing out. Its pronunciation is very guttural. The word can be translated as "breath," "wind,"or "spirit." Remember the ruach of God was moving over the face of the deep in Genesis 1:2.

I like what James Boyce wrote about this, “Man was specially created by God’s breathing some of his own breath into him. Man has a special relationship to God by virtue of the divine spirit. Hence, although like the animals in certain respects, man is above them and is to excel them in his love of and obedience to the creator.” This is our glory! Human beings are a wondrous mixture of dust and glory.

But there is one final element to being human that must not be overlooked. We were created by God with limits. “ And the Lord God commanded the man, 'You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die'” (Genesis 2:16-17).

What impresses me is the expansive gift God bestowed upon Adam in the garden. The entire garden was given to him to cultivate and protect. He was given permission to eat freely of every tree of the garden, minus one: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But that single limitation was too much. We were made in the image of God, but when the possibility of becoming like God presented itself to us, we could not resist. “But the serpent said to the woman, 'You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.'” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate” (Gen. 3:4-6).

Genesis is not really a story about a fall from grace. It is a story of rebellion against God-imposed limitations. This is also what it means to be human. It is the perennial impulse to rebel against limitations. We are a species that constantly overreaches. We are always grasping for what we cannot have.

Adam and Eve thought they would be like gods knowing good and evil. In fact, they did achieve a god-like stature. The LORD God himself says in 3:22, “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil.”

But there is a huge difference in being able to distinguish between good and evil, between knowing right from wrong, and choosing the good. This is what has eluded us, and that deficit has resulted in a breach between God and the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve. It has also set us against each other. Our nature is to overreach, to grasp for what eludes us, but we can never seem to hold onto the good. We make the wrong choice again and again.

So, what does it mean to be human? It is impossible to answer the question correctly without reference to God. We are creatures. We have a Creator. Like all the rest of creation, we are just dust. Yes, we are to exercise dominion over the earth and all that is therein, but, in the end, we are just tenant farmers in the garden of God. We are humble creatures compared to God and God’s universe.

But we are much more than dust. We are dust that has inbreathed, inhaled the breath of God. God’s spirit has made us unique living beings. We have remarkable god-like abilities. Just consider the advances in science, technology, medicine, and construction, to name only a few. It is truly remarkable what human beings have achieved.

But there is one other facet to our humanity. We have an insatiable desire to become like God. This has proved to be our undoing. We know the good, but we struggle to perform it. We know evil, but we struggle to resist it. Thus, we are a mixture of dust and glory, good and evil.

In closing, I remind you of the gospel. The first Adam and his descendants were of the earth, earthy. But there was a second Adam. His name is Jesus. As the Apostle Paul says, “Thus it is written, 'The first man, Adam, became a living being'; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit” (1 Corinthians 15:45).

Jesus, the last Adam, has the power to reconstitute us from the dust at the resurrection. He has the authority to forgive our transgressions for he bore the original threat of death and judgment on the cross. Jesus has the power to make us know the good and hold onto it, to recognize evil and turn from it. He has the power to bring the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve to everlasting glory.

Praise be to God for we are fearfully and wonderfully made. We are dust, but God has destined us for goodness and glory.

Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ! Alleluia! Amen!