Made in the Image of God
Genesis 1:26 – 31
The Theory of Evolution claims that all living creatures descended from a single, one-celled organism that spontaneously formed on ancient Earth. It states that after an untold number of fortuitous accidents, amino acids somehow formed by themselves, after another untold number of fortuitous accidents, some of these amino acids formed themselves into DNA, RNA and proteins, and those, again through another untold number of fortuitous accidents, formed themselves into a single, one-celled organism, our great-great-great-great-great-greatest grandpa or grandma. All living creatures, including monkeys, horses, whales, snakes, sea slugs and of course, us, descended from this same organism over many billions of years. This theory means two things: 1. Every living creature is related and 2. Everything is meaningless in itself.
The Bible gives us a totally different record, one that makes human beings unique, and that gives us real meaning and value.
Genesis 1:26 – 31
The Bible tells us that God made every living creature in the animal world on the 5th day. Then it tells us, as we read today, that God made as a unique and separate creation, apart from the animals. We may share many characteristics with animals, but we are not animals. The characteristics we share make sense in a physical world, because they are the perfect design for us to interact with our physical world. We have feet and legs to carry us, as do the animals. We have mouths to take in food like the animals. We even eat the same things animals eat. We have eyes to see, ears to hear and senses to help us react to our environment, just like the animals. Where we differ entirely is in our unique likeness to God. We are the only creatures in the physical world that God has made in His own image.
I And God Said
- Each time we read “And God” in Genesis Chapter 1, God is doing the next thing in time. In other words, He is doing something after doing something else.
- While this may seem self-evident, it’s important to pause to observe this fact at this point. The creation of man is not included in the list of living creatures God created to fill the air, water and land up to the end of verse 25.
- There is a clear separation at the end of verse 25 that signals the completion of another phase of creation. The Bible closes verse 25 with “and God saw that is was good.” This signals the completion of the creation of all the animals. Note that man is not included in this phase!
II Let Us Make
- The Hebrew word elohiym, translated God in our Bible, is plural. Yet the Bible also tells us that God is one God, using this same plural noun. “Hear, O Israel: The LORD [Jehovah] thy God [elohiym] is one LORD [Jehovah]: And thou shalt love the LORD [Jehovah] thy God [elohiym] with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” Deuteronomy 6:4,5
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The simplest way to understand this with our limited human grasp of God is to think of God something like we think of a family unit. A single family – one family – may have a father, a son and a grandson, yet it is still one family and we can refer to that family by the family name. It is one family revealed to us, or made up of a number of persons.
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God as translated from elohiym is referring to God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit – one God revealed in three persons.
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III Man
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- The Hebrew word translated man is adam (pronounced aw-dawm in Hebrew). It means mankind and is often shortened to man. It’s important to understand that man is a generic term, both in the Bible, and in our speech, meaning all human beings.
- In our modern, Western culture, there is a self-destructive, ridiculous political correctness that wants to remove the very word from our vocabulary. It is seen as a sexist and demeaning term by radical feMANism. Yet it refers not just to male human beings, but to female, as well. The Bible says that when God created man, “male and female created he them.”
- Furthermore, God created two genders, and that is all. “Male and female created he them.” What the God-denying, secular humanistic world is embracing today in this time of rampant and imagined gender dysphoria is confusion. Even many well respected secular psychologists also call it gender identity disorder. It is confusion, and it’s harmful when human beings are encouraged to identify as something they are not by nature. God created them male and female.
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Note that there are some people, a very, very tiny fraction of all people born on the planet, who are actually born with visible physical uncertainty about their sex. However, this is extremely rare.
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- The Hebrew word translated man is adam (pronounced aw-dawm in Hebrew). It means mankind and is often shortened to man. It’s important to understand that man is a generic term, both in the Bible, and in our speech, meaning all human beings.
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IV Let Us
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- God said, “Let us make man…” Who is us? Elohiym, translated God in our text, is plural. We have a clue right in Genesis 1:2 where the Bible tells us the Spirit of God was present. We usually call Him the Holy Ghost or the Holy Spirit. So we know that the Creator God was there, as well as the Holy Spirit. We know this right in the English text.
- But remember that scripture interprets – or explains – scripture. That’s one reason we need to read our Bibles every day, because we learn more and more about other things we have read in the Bible. In this case, when we go to John 1:1 – 3, we read, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” Again, the scriptures explain later in that same chapter that the Word is Jesus Christ. So now we know that Jesus Christ was also there at creation and is the Creator, and also God the Father.
- When God said, “Let us make man,” “us” refers to God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. When we study the Bible, we find the Trinity at work, right from the beginning of creation.
- God said, “Let us make man…” Who is us? Elohiym, translated God in our text, is plural. We have a clue right in Genesis 1:2 where the Bible tells us the Spirit of God was present. We usually call Him the Holy Ghost or the Holy Spirit. So we know that the Creator God was there, as well as the Holy Spirit. We know this right in the English text.
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V Our Image
- God said, “Let us make man in our image…” What an amazing statement! God made us in his likeness!
- Note that this does not mean we look like God. The Bible says in John 4:24, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” When we were made in the image of God, we were made spiritual beings.
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Animals are not spiritual beings. They have bodies and souls, but no spirit.
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- Note that this does not mean we look like God. The Bible says in John 4:24, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” When we were made in the image of God, we were made spiritual beings.
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They are intelligent to a degree and able to interact with us, but when they die, that’s it. They live, die and return to the earth.
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We are a special creation, created after the animals, spiritual beings like God, and therefore, eternal beings.
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Did you know that you are going to exist forever, whether you trust Christ as your Saviour or not? The animals don’t need to be concerned with that, because they are confined exclusively to space and time. Animals do not fear death. Even as they die, they do not fear death.
- Human beings fear death because it is not the end of our existence. Built right in to every one of us, hardwired into our very subconscious, is the knowledge that we will exist forever, either in the presence of God and the angels, or in outer darkness in the fires of hell, where there is “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 8:12)
VI Replenish
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God told man to be fruitful and to multiply and to replenish the earth. The word replenish is translated from a Hebrew word meaning to fill or make full. It does not mean, as those who believe and teach the Gap Theory would say, to refill the earth.
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Instead, this is something to be repeated or continued by every generation. Human beings are to fill the earth. This still has not been done, in spite of what we are often told. The reason some lack food is not because the earth cannot produce enough. It is because of sin and greed.
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VII Have Dominion
- When God created mankind, he commanded them to have dominion over all other living creatures. In the beginning, wild animals did not eat humans, nor did they eat each other. At God’s command, man had dominion over the animals and all living creatures ate herbs and fruit, not each other. At that time, “God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” Sin had not yet entered the world.
Conclusion
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We were created by God in the image of God. We did not evolve from slime and muck over billions of years. We were created as spiritual beings in physical bodies in a physical world. In the beginning, we lived in harmony with God and the animals. We were at our highest level, our very best, when we lived in complete harmony with God. As recorded in Genesis Chapter 3, that harmony did not last long. Man sinned against God and all the sickness, horror and death began in this world. Man chose the devil’s word over God’s, turning this world’s dominion over to the devil, and bringing death and destruction into this perfect creation.
- From that time forward, “…all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23 The penalty or “…wages sin is death;” which is everlasting punishment in the lake of fire, out of the presence of God, who is life, “but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” 1 Corinthians 15:22 Because we are spiritual beings, created in the image of God, we will exist forever. Because of sin, humans without Christ fear death. But when we simply trust Jesus Christ as our Saviour, we pass from death to everlasting life in Him.