God on the sixth, twenty-four hour day of creation, directly and immediately without secondary causation, created (bara’) man’s body from inorganic material and inbreathed man’s spirit into Adam by a direct act of the creative breath of God (Genesis 1:26-27; Genesis 2:7, 22; Job 33:4; Matthew 19:4) resulting in a living soul from the union of body and spirit (Genesis 2:7). The first woman, Eve, was likewise created supernaturally and directly from the bone and flesh of Adam and had no ancestry of any kind, but has an intrinsic organic unity with Adam (Genesis 1:27; Genesis 5:1, 28-29; Genesis 2:21-22; 1 Timothy 2:13; 1 Corinthians 11:8, 12). The entire human race descended from Adam and Eve by procreation with the exception of Christ (Genesis 3:20; Acts 17:26; 1 Corinthians 15:47).

The first man, Adam, was created in the image of God in untested creaturely holiness (Genesis 1:26-27, 31; Ecclesiastes 7:29). Man replicates his God personally on a finite level which includes self-consciousness, self-determination, intelligence, emotion, reason, human language, creativity, and aesthetic appreciation (Colossians 3:9-10). Man, like his God, is a spiritual and moral being including a capacity for fellowship, worship, eternal life, and an intuitive sense of right and wrong (Ephesians 4:24). God made man’s body after the archetypal form which He Himself had designed for His own corporeal and visible expression in Jesus Christ (Hebrews 10:5).

Man’s composition consists of a unity of both a material and an immaterial part (Matthew 10:28; James 2:26). The material is represented by the body and the immaterial by the soul and spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:23; Hebrews 4:12). The physical body is an essential and permanent part of man’s nature (Psalm 139:15-16; 1 Corinthians 6:12-20). Spirit is the seat of personality and essentially synonymous with the image of God in man (Romans 8:16; 1 Corinthians 5:5; Hebrews 12:23). Soul is the individual life which results from the union of body and spirit (Genesis 2:7; Ezekiel 18:20; Exodus 21:23; John 15:13). Both the material and immaterial parts of man (the whole person) are propagated by natural generation (traducianism – Genesis 5:3; Psalm 51:5; Acts 17:26). Contrariwise, the soul and spirit of an animal consist only of an animating principle of life related to biological and instinctive functions (Genesis 1:20; Genesis 6:17).

Adam’s disobedience in the garden (the fall) brought spiritual, physical, and subsequently eternal death upon himself and the entire human race (Genesis 2:17; Romans 5:12-19; Revelation 20:15). Consequently, the image of God in man was marred by the fall but not erased, distorted but not demolished (Genesis 9:6; 1 Corinthians 11:7; James 3:9). Originally man was able not to sin (Genesis 1:31). As a result of Adam’s fall, man is not able not to sin. All men are sinners by state, disposition, and choice (Psalm 51:5; Jeremiah 17:9; 1 John 1:8; Ephesians 2:1-3). Therefore, men are alienated from God, spiritually dead, and under the penalty of eternal condemnation (John 3:18; Revelation 20:15; Romans 5:18).