In the first place, we are told elsewhere that God is a spirit (John 4:24; Isaiah 31:3) and that he is ubiquitous (1 Kings 8:27). But the blessing pronounced is omitted, the author hastening to the account of the creation of man, in which the work of creation culminated. *Jehovah here, rather than Elohim, would have spoilt the beauty of the divine account. The laws of nature are Gods laws. God at least was pleased to form woman, as well as to reveal her formation in a way that ought to make ashamed him who recognises her as his own flesh and bone, yet slights or misuses a relationship so intimate. 1. Believers may therefore hesitate to dismiss a scientific theory simply by saying, But I believe God did it, because the theory may have been the way God has done it. For all scripture was given by inspiration of God. It is the same inspired historian who presents the subject in more than one point of view, but always consistently, and with a divine purpose which governs all. No language could express so well the truth as that which God has employed as a matter of fact. Here accordingly we find in Genesis 2:1-25, with a fulness and precision given nowhere else, God's entering into relationship with man, and man's relation to Eden, to the animal realm, and to woman specially. Now there is not really the very least ground for such an assumption. And it is this unity between male and female, and between humanity and God, that is destroyed in the Fall described in Genesis 3." You can study it yourself by clicking the Scripture itself then scrolling down page. That man's creation was a more signal and immediate act of divine wisdom and power than that of the other creatures. but as expressive of his honour and dignity; it being proposed he And yet, they are so exquisitely beautiful when you look at them under a microscope. He directs the ark to be made. Thirdly the dry land appears, and the earth bringing forth grass, and herb, and fruit-tree. There is more difficulty in deciding in what the likeness to God consisted. middle: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and Then there are other seeds that put a little hook on the end of the seed, and you or an animal walks by, and that little seed hooks on to your pants and it gets a free ride or it hooks in to your socks. Just as little ground is there for regarding the plural here and in other passages (Genesis 3:22; Genesis 11:7; Isaiah 6:8; Isaiah 41:22) as reflective, an appeal to self; since the singular is employed in such cases as these, even where God Himself is preparing for any particular work (cf. 98. 7. Man is fallen, and the creature made subject to vanity. What are the ten numerations? Being made in Gods image, human beings are unique in Gods creation. The fact declares itself. And they come and fly right into Hawaii, sometimes they get into severe storms, one-hundred, two-hundred mile an hour winds that blow them off course, but somehow they find their way right in. (89) Erat erim in singulis animae partibus temperatura quae suis numeris constabat.. In the previous description, which had not to do with man, there was silence about the Spirit of God; but, as the divine wisdom is shown inProverbs 8:1-36; Proverbs 8:1-36 to rejoice in the habitable parts of the earth, so the Spirit of God is always brought before us as the immediate agent in the Deity whenever man is to be introduced. Will it be so always? We see introduced, without more delay upon the scene, one too well and yet too little known, the active, audacious, most subtle adversary of God and man, the serpent from whom sin and misery result, as the Bible witnesses from the beginning to the end who is here first brought in a few quiet words before us. How possibly have that discrimination which decides morally between what is good and what is evil? Breaking Down the Key Parts of Genesis 1:26. From this it follows, that, according to the creative will of God, men were not to slaughter animals for food, nor were animals to prey upon one another; consequently, that the fact which now prevails universally in nature and the order of the world, the violent and often painful destruction of life, is not a primary law of nature, nor a divine institution founded in the creation itself, but entered the world along with death at the fall of man, and became a necessity of nature through the curse of sin. ( Genesis 1:3-5) The first day of creation: light is created and divided from the darkness. No such interval, however, could be absolutely necessary, as the Creator could as easily establish the luminous connection of the different orbs of heaven as summon into being the element of light itself. Man's present experience would have suggested neither; yet his heart and conscience, unless rebellious, feel how right and becoming all is in such a state of things none other so good. This, as suggesting an external likeness, may refer to mans reason, free-will, self-consciousness, and so on. The moment God spoke, you have the Word of God. Yet his government of himself by the freedom of his will has in it more of God's image than his government of the creatures. There is next the associated fact of an utter desolation which befell not the heavens, but the earth. Now without wishing to press my individual judgment of such a matter, I may state the conviction that the Pison and the Gihon, here described, are two rivers on the north of the site of Eden, one running into the Black Sea, the other into the Caspian. "And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God* said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? some for another; and over all the wild beasts of the earth, am that I am, ( Exodus 3:14 ) and he Without loss, these two things could not be transposed. (90) The two prefixes to the Hebrew words signifying image and likeness; the former of which is translated in, the latter after, or still more correctly, according to. Up until this point, God had said, "Let there be". Now, if they would drop straight down under the pine tree, they would probably never survive very long because the mother pine would be taking too much of the nutrients from the soil. Such is the power and simplicity of faith. "Cursed be Canaan" was of deep interest, especially to an Israelite, but in truth to anyone who values the revelation of God. As we might have expected, the Genesis account of creation is from the viewpoint of the ordinary person. ii. "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." Now, when God created our bodies, He created ears so that we could hear, designed them so that they would pick up sound vibrations that would bounce or vibrate the little incus stapes, and bones in there and send these vibrations into the brain that my brain would interpret as words and sounds and make it intelligible to me. p. 108. apud Wagenseil. There is no statement, from beginning to end of scripture, as far as I am aware, which in the smallest degree modifies or takes away from the force of the words with which the Bible opens "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.". he followed her, as he has often since, into the broad way of evil. * This, not to speak of other reasons, appears conclusive against the claim of the Pison to be the Ganges! And God said, Let us make man It is evident that God intends to impress the mind of man with a sense of something extraordinary in the formation of his body and soul, when he introduces the account of his creation thus; Let US make man. According to the account of creation in Genesis 1, the chief purpose of God in creating man is to bless him. They leave room consequently for a state or states of the earth long before either man or time, as man measures it. Check out this great listen on Audible.com. Choose from Same Day Delivery, Drive Up or Order Pickup. Genesis 2:1-3; Genesis 2:1-3, taking the Sabbath as the necessary complement of the week, and therefore going on with the preceding six days, not with what follows. 24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. * We are therefore warranted in supposing that they are described just because they might have been less easily discerned. ", To report dead links, typos, or html errors or suggestions about making these resources more useful use the convenient, Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology, Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament, The Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance And Dictionary, International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness ", "In the image of God male and female created he them ", "And God blessed them, and said Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth ", Comme a la verite, sa Sapience eternelle, et Vertu reside en luy, Adam, in the Old Testament and the Apocrypha, Eschatology of the Old Testament (with Apocryphal and Apocalyptic Writings). He created the animals, the domesticated-type animals, all after their own kind.And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God said, Let there be light in the firmament in the heaven (Gen 1:12-14). Is there then any contradiction to be surmised? For besides the deformity which everywhere appears unsightly, this evil also is added, that no part is free from the infection of sin. It assigns to the words heavens, earth, expanse, day, no greater latitude of meaning than was then customary. These distinguish humans from the animals, which have no God-consciousness even though they have conscious life (cf. The creation of man does not take place through a word addressed by God to the earth, but as the result of the divine decree, "We will make man in Our image, after our likeness," which proclaims at the very outset the distinction and pre-eminence of man above all the other creatures of the earth. They are a waste of your time and my time. But it is and will be of the deepest interest to trace these ways of God in earthly government from the first. I need ears to hear, but God wouldn't necessarily need ears to hear. If a promise to any, it was to the woman's Seed, the last Adam, not to the first, who was just sentenced with Eve. Oneness is essential for an orchestra, an athletic team, and a construction crew, as well as a family, to achieve a common purpose. We see God's tender care and parental solicitude for the comfort and well-being of this masterpiece of his workmanship, in creating the world previously to the creation of man. 1:24 ) so as to keep them in awe, and keep them off from Genesis 1:1-2) mankind male and female; they did not evolve from a lower form of life (cf. The Bible tells us that God is the one who did these things, and the scientist tells how he might have done them. ) ( Ecclesiastes IV. By speech we make certain easy and sensible acts of our own the signs of the various objects of our contemplative faculties to ourselves and others. [Note: Waltke, Genesis, p. For although at the present time man is fitted by his teeth and alimentary canal for the combination of vegetable and animal food; and although the law of mutual destruction so thoroughly pervades the whole animal kingdom, that not only is the life of one sustained by the death of another, but "as the graminivorous animals check the overgrowth of the vegetable kingdom, so the excessive increase of the former is restricted by the beasts of prey, and of these again by the destructive implements of man;" and although, again, not only beasts of prey, but evident symptoms of disease are met with among the fossil remains of the aboriginal animals: all these facts furnish no proof that the human and animal races were originally constituted for death and destruction, or that disease and slaughter are older than the fall. Evil conduct is that which makes manifest an evil state, and flows from it. The human mind is still endowed with most extraordinary capacities; it was more so when issuing out of the hands of its Creator. Why this was, how it was, God has not here explained. The highest, the holiest, the only suitable way, once it is laid before us, evidently is what God Himself has employed in His word. He doesn't make any two of them alike. It is the special place in which he stood that was witnessed by the sacrifice thereon offered. Let this suffice: I do not wish to speculate about the matter. 26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. Here then we enter on an entirely new state of things, and a truth of capital importance for everybody to consider who has not already made it his own. The simple statement of the facts is that which is worthy of God. Hitherto they had been of one lip; but combining to make a name to themselves, lest they should be scattered, not to exalt God nor confide in Him, they had their language confounded, and themselves dispersed. I warn every person solemnly against a notion found in both ancient and modern times, that there was in the beginning a quantity of what may be called crude matter for God to work on. The rebellious spirit of the forefather shows itself in the descendant Lamech. Certainly he did not well. The Spirit of God has acted quite otherwise. The very absurdity that God is a sexual being renders this interpretation highly unlikely. Lyra. Every one of them is a perfect geometrical pattern, but no two snowflakes alike. 11 Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that . Hitherto, it had been said, "Let there be light," and "Let there be a firmament," and "Let the earth, or waters, bring forth" such a thing; but now the word of command is turned into a word of consultation, "Let us make man, for whose sake the rest of the creatures were made: this is a work we must take into our own hands." The true key to this account is supplied in the Epistle of Jude. We have to do with facts. He contemplates the objects around him, marks their qualities and relations, conceives and resolves upon the end to be attained, and endeavors to make all things within his reach work together for its accomplishment. Such views as making it like an editorial "we," or the majesterial plural, or as an inclusion of angelic hosts or other heavenly beings are totally inadequate. What dispensation could there be? Genesis 11:1-32 opens with the sin of man, which led to the division described in the preceding chapter, the moral reason of that fact, new then, but still in its substance going on, whatever the superficial changes among men in their lands, and tongues, and political distribution. (88) Synecdoche is the figure which puts a part for the whole, or the whole for a part. And the evening and the morning were the third day. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. the likeness of the holy blessed God, and his Shechinah The minute it touches you, it glues itself to you. They show a misunderstanding of the nature of the Bibles language. In the man Christ Jesus both were perfect; and fallen man, when new-created in Christ, attains actually to that perfection which was his only potentially at his first creation, and to which Adam never did attain. 27-28; Charles Feinberg, "The Image of God," Bibliotheca Sacra 129:515 (July-September 1972):235-246, esp. What part of the land was submerged when the new soil emerged from the waters, how far the shock of the plutonic or volcanic forces may have been felt, whether the alteration of level extended to the whole solid crust of the earth, or only to a certain region surrounding the cradle of mankind, the record before us does not determine. (Comp. Was it a state for a promise? *Some have wondered why the serpent and Eve should be represented as saying Elohim ("God") in the temptation, seeing that everywhere else in the section the name employed is Jehovah-Elohim. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. And yet, look at the variety! Had the crime depended on man's retaining the likeness of God, murder might have been denied or justified, because if a man were not like God the unlikeness might be urged in extenuation of killing him. In his nature and constitution, not those of his body (for God has not a body), but those of his soul. Cain looked at Him in the place merely of a Creator, and there was his wrong. `vau', he"; that is, to Jehovah, which is in the midst of the ten It assigns an essential significance to the words, the heavens, in that verse. Their effect upon the earth helped to produce a variety of weather and a pattern of annual seasons (14-19; fourth day).As Gods creative activity moved on, animal life began to appear, with creatures in the sea and creatures in the air, all of them suited to their environment (20-23; fifth day). Conclusion: God desired that man would be like Him. God produces life, whether it be for the fish that people the sea, for the birds of the air, or for the beasts, cattle, or reptiles, on the dry land. Then (Genesis 4:1-26) we have a new scene, which opens with a change in the name of God. Observe another thing too. Proud member They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth." 27 So God created man in his own image; he created him in the imag. He begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness. The Eternal Being is essentially self-manifesting. Here man is at sea; but where he does arrive at conclusions, this at least is the common consent, as far as I know, of all who have given their minds to the study, that there are three, and only three, divisions into which nations properly diverge. Professor Davidson, On the plural form of the word Elohim. The superior trinity being Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the inferior trinity of man being body, soul and spirit. This further difficulty is also to be encountered, namely, why Paul should deny the woman to be the image of God, when Moses honors both, indiscriminately, with this title. And so God rested from His creative acts, as it points out here, He rested from His creation, all the work which He had made.And God blessed the seventh day (Gen 2:3). The history supposes man thenceforward allowed to act without external law or government to control though God did not fail to work in His merciful goodness in His own sovereignty. And the common distinction is, that image exists in the substance, likeness in the accidents of anything. But I have the capacity to love.So man was made in the image of God and in the likeness of God. Genesis 9:25-26; Genesis 9:25-26. Genesis 1:26-28. When God made man, when Jehovah-Elohim breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, man had no knowledge of things as right or wrong in themselves. The infinite God, who created this universe and all the life forms within it remains unformed in our own mind. The next chapter (Genesis 8:1-22) shows God's remembrance of Noah and every living thing. It is not concerned with the sort of investigation that modern science is concerned with. No later revelation in the smallest degree corrects the very first. Genesis 1:9-13 9 Then God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear"; and it was so. This dominion is very much diminished and lost by the fall; yet God's providence continues so much of it to the children of men as is necessary to the safety and support of their lives, and God's grace has given to the saints a new and better title to the creature than that which was forfeited by sin; for all is ours if we are Christ's, 1 Corinthians 3:22. What more important fact about God and man would be necessary if the covenant at Sinai were, in fact, to be a real relationship? The same principle applies in other fields of science. And here we find the solemn truth, that not only did Jehovah-Elohim cause to grow every tree that is pleasant and good for food, but "the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.". Nebuchadnezzar, "I have dreamed" Daniel 2:3. 3 And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light. God constantly refused that man should make any kind of a likeness of Him. His body only is ever said to be mortal. However, this explanation does violence to the Hebrew text. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because Jehovah did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth" (versesGenesis 11:8-9; Genesis 11:8-9). Moreover, this view is irreconcilable with the words "in our image, after our likeness;" since man was created in the image of God alone (Genesis 1:27; Genesis 5:1), and not in the image of either the angels, or God and the angels. This was acquired (have you never known, or have you forgotten, the solemn fact?) The following notes suggest one way in which scientific knowledge, far from causing us to doubt the Genesis creation story, may in fact give us a more meaningful view of it. We were . [Note: For a critique of this book, see Douglas C. Bozzung, "An Evaluation of the Biosphere Model of Genesis 1," Bibliotheca Sacra 162:648 (October-December 2005):406-23. [Note: Sailhamer, "Genesis," p. In the statement given by Moses every minute point beautifully exemplifies the propriety of the word of God. Now, as the Divine Being is infinite, he is neither limited by parts, nor definable by passions; therefore he can have no corporeal image after which he made the body of man. By reason we apprehend concrete things in perception and consciousness, and cognize abstract truth, both metaphysical and moral. (s) God commanded the water and the earth to bring forth other creatures: but of man he says, Let us make signifying that God takes counsel with his wisdom and virtue purposing to make an excellent work above all the rest of his creation. "For thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. If the woman was the one first of all to yield, she is the destined mother of Him that would defeat the devil and deliver man. He doesn't want you to know, because we'd just be dumb enough to carve out of a little stick God, and hang Him around our neck, and you know, we'd begin to think of God as a little piece of wood, this thing carved out and is strung around my neck. At the same time, it was so far involved in the effects of the fall, that the natural decay of the different animals was changed into a painful death or violent end. This only may be remarked in addition, that "the sons of God," in my judgment, mean the same beings in Genesis as they do in Job. In closing the interpretation of this chapter, it is proper to refer to certain first principles of hermeneutical science. Fruitfulness and increase depend upon the blessing of God: Obed-edom had eight sons, for God blessed him,1 Chronicles 26:5. Although we are a "little lower than the angels" it is the angels who have the job of ministering to the people who will inherit salvation. You've got same, basically the same features, and yet we don't look alike at all! And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.'. He ceased His creative act on the seventh day. a. Mankind was the only form of life created "after our likeness" and Not a word is heard about eternal life yet that must wait for His appearing who was such with the Father; not a word yet about the exhaustless riches of grace which were afterwards to abound. As the earth produced them at the creative word of God, the different individuals and generations would also have passed away and returned to the bosom of the earth, without violent destruction by the claws of animals or the hand of man, as soon as they had fulfilled the purpose of their existence.
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