“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.”
Genesis 2:7
Man is made of body, soul, and spirit. We line in a body, we have a soul, and we are spirit. Man was created to have intimacy with God, to fellowship with Him, to talk to Him, and to walk with Him in the garden. However, the breath of God was lost in man as man’s disobedience caused him to lose the intimacy with God and die spiritually.
God formed man from the dust of the earth. He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. When God formed man, He formed him with millions and millions of biological cells, with atoms, molecules, protons, tissues, and organs. But man, still didn’t have the breath of Life. Man had the substance that makes up the physical body, but not until God breathed the breath of Life into him did he become a living being. Soul, body, and spirit: man was now alive spiritually!
The breath of Life is the Spirit of God and the power of God in man. The breath of Life was not only to give man life, but to give him wisdom, special knowledge, to care for the garden, and to rule the earth. He was alive in such a way that he had complete relationship with his Creator.
This relationship was sustained through obedience to God. However, through man’s disobedience that relationship was broken. The physical aspect of man was affected several years into his disobedience. However, the spiritual life was immediately broken because of man’s disobedience.
In an action that was meant to be symbolic of Pentecost, Jesus, in an encounter that followed His resurrection, breathed upon His disciples saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). The action is a reminder of the opening sequence of Genesis: the Holy Spirit, the ‘breath of God’ is the agent of the ‘breath of life’ (Genesis 2:7, John 20:22). As God breathed life into Adam, so Jesus, ‘the last Adam,’ breathes new life into His people. Jesus becomes, in Paul’s language, ‘a life-giving spirit’ (1 Corinthians 15:45).
Jesus recovered everything through the power of His resurrection. Because of one man’s disobedience, the breath of God was lost. But through Jesus’ obedience, the breath of God was restored! “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Jesus did the same with the disciples, gave them new life. The intimacy that Adam lost in the garden was recovered by the breath of Life. That is the Holy Spirit of God! Spirit empowered disciples were thus motivated and enabled to take the message of reconciliation to the nations of the world in the certainty that God would accomplish that which He promised (Luke 24:48, Acts 1:4).
We see in Acts 2:1-4, “When the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wing, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one say upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” What was lost in the garden of Eden, was restored on the day of Pentecost!
