Gifted Clay

Male and female created he [God=Elohim] them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.

Gen 5:2

When God took that clay from earth’s sod and fashioned mankind in His own image, God designated both man’s position and individuality … his honor, authority, and character … setting it apart as unique among His creations. We miss that in the English; yet the concept is captured in Hebrew: called their name Adam.

God didn’t name the animals … Adam did, as each was brought to him by God.
God did name, however, the clay into which He imparted the His own breath of life. He name him ‘Adam.’ (mankind). Fascinating. One part of that ‘image of God’ quality, then, can be see in Adam as he, in turn, gives names to other creations of God.

God ‘calls me by name’ – not simply by the name mankind; but by my own name noting that uniqueness of character, of nature, of giftedness which He Himself imparts to me. My ‘name is also carved into the palm of His hand. I’m not simply a number, another clump of dust into which the breath of life is imparted.

Throughout the OT the ‘naming’ of a child carries great significance. Once, again, it appears an example man of ‘acting in the image’ of God.

Scripture opens with God giving man a name, and in closes with the same : To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it. (Rev. 2:17)


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Adam … begot [bear, bring forth] a son in his own likeness, after his image Gen 5:3

Immediately this puts me in mind of the first time Genesis records ‘image’:

… So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created them …

Strong’s Hebrew dictionary sheds some unexpected light on what God did when He first reached down into that clay and created.

“Image” is from an unused root meaning to shade; a phantom, that is, (figuratively) illusion, resemblance; hence a representative figure, especially an idol: - image, vain shew.

That’s what the serpent in Eden knew; what the breathing clay had not yet figured out. Man wasn’t a ‘piece’ of God; he wasn’t the essence of God’s divinity … merely a shadow, a shade, resembling only in part the real thing.

No wonder God moved the apostle John’s pen to write so specifically.

For God so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son …

Not made, nor fashioned as God fashioned man. Jesus was Divine … was one and the same in essence and nature and glory .... and He remains so.

Mankind, this clay tent fashioned in the image of God, has never been nor ever will be more than a shadow of He Who was, and Is and Is to Come.

In steps the miracle of Grace, Love’s desire for relationship, the immutable plan birthed before the foundations of the world.

Ephesians 2:5-10 tells the eternal tale … a tale of new creation.

But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

One day, those created in Christ Jesus, will be brought, again, before the Tree of Life, where we will be invited to eat. Never as God, or becoming God … but standing in the Righteous of the Lamb, God will choose to see us pure and spotless … children of the Living God.

Those today, those throughout history, seeking godhood (newage theology is rife with it) still sit before a garden tree immersed in a serpent’s lie.

All man can ever bear are those in his own likeness … mired in sin … chained and enslaved to self … desperately needing a Savior.

That’s the hope begun in Genesis 5. That lineage that would bring man first to a manger; then lead him to follow bloody footsteps up a savage hill, to stand before a bitter tree, where Redemption Wine at last spilled. Before an empty tomb man would learn ‘freedom’s dance’ as hands raise heavenward to embrace the Son.