When it’s not yet good

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. ¹⁶ And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, ¹⁷ 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 surely die.”

¹⁸ Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” – Genesis 2:15-28

When Diane used to travel more, I would enjoy the first two or three days of her absence. I could watch the movies I wanted. I could eat what I wanted. I could chart my own course. But I quickly would quote Genesis 2:18, “It is not good for the man to be alone.” Of course the context is quite different. The gift of a godly wife helped me in many different ways – companionship, healthier choices, and better use of time.

At the end of each day of creation God assessed his work, “and it was good.” But here on the day God created man and woman, there was a time when it was not good. This is a remarkable statement. This isn’t a pronouncement about whether or not it was complete, or finished. This is a moral judgment. This is in the immediate context of the presence of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This was a not-good moment – before Adam and Eve’s rebellion and the fall into sin. 

This reveals something about our created state. Man is not complete by himself. God designed us to need another. And we will see how this is resolved in the following verses. The fact remains: There are good and evil times and events. And God assesses these all. We may think we know what is good. We may be quite convinced of our judgment. We may even be tempted toward calling good something that we really desire. But all that is a foolish pursuit. Better we allow God to determine what is good and what is evil, and thank him that he (alone) is good (cf. Mark 10:18).