For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:23

Six Divine Days of Creation Part 4 – Genesis 1:26-31

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Six Divine Days of Creation Part 4 – Genesis 1:26-31

14 November, 2021

Series: Genesis Series

Book: Genesis

Pastor Simeon Western

Pastor Simeon Western

Notes Download

Scripture: Genesis 1:26-31

Exposition of Day 6 (creation of man) of Creation week. In this series, Genesis is interpreted as literal history. We unashamedly believe in a literal, six day creation!

Brief review of what we have covered so far in the creation week:

  • DAY ONE: CREATION OF UNIVERSE & LIGHT (VS. 1-5)
  • DAY TWO: CREATION OF THE ATMOSPHERE (VS. 6-8)
  • DAY THREE: CREATION OF LAND, SEA & PLANTS (VS. 9-13)
  • DAY FOUR: CREATION OF SUN, MOON & STARS (VS. 14-19)
  • DAY FIVE: CREATION OF SEA & FLYING CREATURES (VS. 20-22)
  • DAY SIX: CREATION OF LAND ANIMALS & MAN (VS. 24-31)

The creation of man represents the pinnacle and climax of creation week. Man was God’s special creation, designed by the Creator to bear His image on the new world He had created. “The creation of man,” writes B.H. Carrol, “is the last and highest stage in the production of organic life. Every step in creation so far is a prophecy of his coming and a preparation for it.” Erich Sauer writes, “All this extravagance to provide for man a home, yea, more than a home – a university in which to learn about his loving creator! Man, as the image and glory of God, is placed in the earth as the king of creation. He walks erect, with his face uplifted to receive the radiance of God’s face. How unique Man is! Another great chasm has been crossed – the chasm between Man and Non-Man.”1

Observe three truths about the creation of man:

The Design Of Man (Vs. 26-27)

The Divine Council (Vs. 26)

  1. In previous Creative acts the formula was “And God said, Let there be” but in this verse God speaks as it were to Himself. God is not speaking to the angels as man was not made in the image of angels. One member of the uni-plural Godhead was addressing another member or members. This is a council within the Godhead. God’s plan to make man in His image is announced.2 There are other examples of such fascinating exchanges within the Godhead in Scripture (e.g., Ps. 2:7; Is. 6:8; Ps. 45:6-7; 110:1). Man was intended by God to express His image (Vs. 26a) and to exercise dominion (Vs. 26b).
  2. Man was made by a direct act of creation. He did not evolve from ape like creatures!
  3. “image…likeness” = these words refer to something that is similar but not identical to the thing it represents or is an ‘image’ of.3 We are similar to God in that we share possess attributes such as reason, love, will and morality. We also have an eternal spirit. However, we do not possess such Divine attributes as Omnipotence, Omnipresence and Self-existence.
    1. Man, like God, is a moral being with an eternal spirit and has spiritual attributes. Animals on the other hand cease to exist when their bodies die (Ecc. 3:21). Henry Morris explains, “There can be little doubt that the “image of God” in which man was created must entail those aspects of human nature which are not shared by animals – attributes such as a moral consciousness, the ability to think abstractly, an understanding of beauty and emotion, and, above all, the capacity for worshiping and loving God. This eternal and divine dimension of man’s being must be the essence of what is involved in the likeness of God.”
    2. You were created special and unique. You are not a glorified animal! Your body was uniquely crafted to bear the image of God, not to be misused for sinful purposes. Henry Morris notes, “We can only say that, although God Himself may have no physical body, He designed and formed man’s body to enable it to function physically in ways in which He Himself could function even without a body. God can see (Gen. 16:13), hear (Psalm 94:9), smell (Genesis 8:21), touch (Genesis 32:32) and speak (2. Peter 1:18), whether or not He has actual physical eyes, ears, nose, hands, and mouth. Furthermore, whenever He has designed to appear visibly to men, He has done so in the form of a human body (Genesis 18:1-2); and the same is true of angels (Acts 1:10). There is something about the human body, therefore, which is uniquely appropriate to God’s manifestation of Himself, and (since God knows all His words from the beginning of the world – Acts 15:18), He must have designed man’s body with this in mind. Accordingly, He designed it, not like the animals, but with an erect posture, with an upward gazing countenance, capable of facial expressions corresponding to emotional feelings, and with a brain and tongue capable of articulate, symbolic speech.”4 In the fulness of time the Son, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, would be manifest in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16) and would be “made in the likeness of men” (Phil. 2:7), just as man had been made in the likeness of God.
  4. Leupold writes, “Taking the verse as a whole, we cannot but notice that it sets forth the picture of a being that stands on a very high level, a creature of singular nobility and endowed with phenomenal powers and attributes, not a type of being that by its brute imperfections is seen to be on the same level with the animal world, but a being that towers high above all other creatures, their king and their crown.”5

The Divine Creation (Vs. 27)

  1. God follows through on His Divine plan and makes man in His image. Mankind reflects the handiwork of an All-powerful, All-wise, Intelligent Creator. The atheist Richard Dawkins admits, “There is enough information capacity in a single human cell to store the Encyclopedia Britannica, all 30 volumes of it, three or four times over.”6 Dr. Jonathan Sarfati writes, “Nowadays we would say that each of our cells – and there are about a hundred trillion in the human body – contains about three gigabytes of information.”7
  2. Both male and female are created to reflect God’s image. The Word of God elevates both sexes to an equal standing right from the beginning. God designed a distinction in the roles for men and women but they were both made equal in His sight. Both the male and the female were to be image bearers of God.
  3. The further man gets away from God and the Book of Genesis, the more women are mistreated. This is a fact of history. Consider the example of the treatment of women in pagan cultures without the Bible.
  4. Practical implications of the truth of man being made in God’s image.
    1. It forms the basis of the sanctity of human life. Murder is forbidden because man is made in God’s image. Genesis 9:6 “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.” This forms the basis of the value the Christian places on human life and informs his views on contemporary issues such as abortion and euthanasia. It leads towards a philosophy of seeking to preserve rather than extinguish human life. Your beliefs DO affect your behaviour!
    2. It solves the problem of racism as all people groups trace their lineage back to a common ancestor designed in the image of God. While the Bible acknowledges various people groups and nations, it does not promote the idea of “races” as we know it today. Viewing each human being as made in the image of God solves the problem of racism. Differences between people groups are cultural and not racial. Acts 17:26 says, “And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth…”. Evolutionary theory on the other hand is inherently racist and has been the philosophical basis of some of history’s greatest atrocities and injustices. For example:
      1. The treatment of Australian Aborigines – https://creation.com/darwins-bodysnatchers-new- horrors#NoteAddedFeb2017
      2. The treatment of Ota Benga – https://creation.com/ota- benga-the-pygmy-put-on-display-in-a-zoo
    3. It answers the issue of feminism as God made man and woman as equal image bearers of God. Both man and woman were given the command to subdue the earth and exercise dominion. In reality, the cultures that tend to treat women the worst are non-Christian cultures. The evolutionary worldview provides no basis for the correct treatment of women. In fact, if you take the “survival of the fittest” idea as a product of blind, random chance, then nature has made men stronger than women so why shouldn’t they use that strength to their selfish advantage?

The Directive To Man (Vs. 28)

Man’s commission was to:

Multiply in the earth (Vs. 28a)

  1. “Be fruitful and multiply” = God made man with the ability to reproduce. This is a reminder that God was the designer of the one flesh union for the marriage union. One of the fundamental purposes for marriage as God ordained it was to produce more image bearers of God. Today’s society has all but dismissed child bearing as an integral part of the marriage union.
  2. Note: The command to be fruitful and multiply was reiterated after the flood so still stands even in a world under sin’s curse. Gen. 9:1, 7 “And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth…And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.”
  3. Psalm 127:3-5 “Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.”
  4. ‘replenish’ = in modern English we could mistakenly take this to mean “repopulate”. In fact, those who teach the gap theory or day age theory use this argument to defend billions of years of death before Adam. However, the argument falls apart when you define the word in old English. In old English it simply meant “to fill; to stock with numbers or abundance. The magazines are replenished with corn. The springs are replenished with water.”8 Even in modern English the prefix ‘re’ does not always mean ‘again’. For example, the word ‘research’ does not mean to “search again” but “search completely.” The word ‘replete’ often used today means “completely full”.
  5. Note: The popular idea that the world is overpopulated is simply not true. Seven billion people could fit into an area the size of Great Britain with an average space of 33m2 each.9

Manage the earth (Vs. 28b)

Man was to exercise dominion over the whole earth:

  1. Sea life – “the fish of the sea”
  2. Bird life – “the fowl of the air”
  3. Animal life – “every living thing that moveth upon the earth”
  4. Note: Dominion does not have to be taken in a negative way as some try and argue. Man was to be a caretaker and steward of God’s creation (See Ps. 8:6-8; Heb. 2:8). He was to be a manager, not an abuser of creation. In actual fact, the evolutionary theory, if taken to its logical conclusion is anti-environment as it teaches the survival of the fittest. The worst environmental abuses have actually occurred in countries where atheistic communism has been in power.10
  5. Illustration: Christian philosopher Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984) said that only the Christian has the proper perspective on a tree. He respects it as a tree, created by God. He therefore does not condone chopping it down just for the sake of wantonly chopping it down. However, he is also free from pagan “sacred grove” taboos about nature, so he is quite relaxed about chopping it down to fulfil his need to build a house. At the same time, his Christian duty toward the needs of future generations means he will plant at least another to take its place.11

The Diet For Man (Vs. 29-30)

In the original, pre-fall world:

Humankind was to be Vegetarian (Vs. 29)

  1. This was to change after the flood. The post flood decree from God allows man to now eat animal flesh for food. Gen. 9:3 “Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.”
  2. We would humbly remind those who use the vegetarian diet of Eden as a case for not eating meat that we no longer live in a pre- fall, Edenic world! In fact, to forbid the eating of meat is denounced in the New Testament as a doctrine of devils (1 Tim. 4:1-5).

Animal kind was to be Vegetarian (Vs. 30)

  1. This presents a real problem for those who want to try and fit billions of years of evolution into Genesis one supposedly based on the fossil record since the fossil record contains clear evidence of carnivory (flesh eating). This can’t be the case before the fall as animals were vegetarian. Taking God at His Word makes sense. Animals became carnivorous after the fall of man and the curse of sin that came on the world.
  2. Note: Edenic conditions are restored in the Millennium (Is. 11:6-9).

The Declaration Of God (Vs. 31)

This declaration is:

The Seventh Declaration

  1. This is the seventh and final time in Genesis one that God declares His creation “good”.
  2. Seven is the Divine number of perfection. God created a perfect world without sin and suffering. This is the truth of the Bible and to try and fit evolutionary theory into Genesis one, you have to do dishonest violence to the text of Scripture.

The Superlative Declaration

  1. This time the adjective ‘very’ precedes the word ‘good’ for further emphasis.
  2. It is inconceivable that God would declare creation “very good” if He was looking billions of years of survival of the fittest evolution.

Conclusion

Do you know Christ as Saviour? Sin came as an intruder into God’s perfect creation and sent mankind on a destruction course in this life and ultimately eternal destruction in the after life unless he accepts God’s gracious offer of salvation.

Already a Christian? Have lost sight of the real purpose for your existence? Is life all about you or all about Christ?

References

  1. E Sauer, The Dawn of World Redemption, Exeter: The Paternoster Press; 1966, p. 41.
  2. Morris, p. 72.
  3. Sarfati, p. 250.
  4. Morris, p. 74.
  5. Leupold, pp. 92-93.
  6. R Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, Why the evidence of evolution reveals a universe without design, p. 115. Cited by Jonathan Sarfati, The Genesis Account, p. 230.
  7. Ibid.
  8. Webster’s Dictionary 1828, http://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/replenish Viewed 5/11/21.
  9. Sarfati, p. 265
  10. Ibid, p. 253.
  11. Ibid, p. 255.