12:1 ) and Philo the Jew acknowledges that these words He begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness. First, that interpretation only is valid which is true to the meaning of the author. Another divine, but an infidel, regards the knowledge of good and evil as the image of God by creation. MAKE MAN IN OUR IMAGE Man. He therefore restricts the image of God to government, in which the man has superiority over the wife and certainly he meant nothing more than that man is superior in the degree of honor. iii. Modern science has revealed so much about the wonders and the size of the physical universe that human beings may seem almost to be nothing. Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.". 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. Never been there before, yet somehow, God has built into this little bird that kind of instinct; and that's a bird brain. "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 birds of the heaven, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over everything that creepeth upon the earth. This word involves "in germ" the doctrine of the Trinity. Sermon Bible Commentary. A mere historian, like Josephus of old a mere commentator, like Ewald now might have used either the one or the other without sensible loss to his readers through both chapters. There are some seeds that build a little parachute. The image of God consists, therefore, in the spiritual personality of man, though not merely in unity of self-consciousness and self-determination, or in the fact that man was created a consciously free Ego; for personality is merely the basis and form of the divine likeness, not its real essence. 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. This verse states God intends for people to rule over fish, birds, and animals. He offers of the firstlings of his flock that which passed under death to Jehovah. It is God providing not for the perpetuation of the creature merely, but with marked completeness for sacrifice. We have no ground, therefore, for transferring it to the style of the heavenly King. With this the legends of the heathen world respecting the golden age of the past, and its return at the end of time, also correspond (cf. *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. Is there then any contradiction to be surmised? "After His likeness". And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, and herb yielding seed, and fruit trees yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so (Gen 1:9-11). On the fourth day we hear of lights in the firmament. There was no dispensation, properly so called, before it. We'll know no weakness, no pain, no suffering. All of the things were created or reformed within this six-day period. 26 Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over [ a]all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He . In the will is unfolded that freedom of action which chooses the good and refuses the evil. 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. On this it is unnecessary to dwell. We'll all be in our new bodies, perfected bodies that will know no handicaps at all. By power we act, either in giving expression to our concepts in words, or effect to our determinations in deeds. It is man as the head of creation. But I have the capacity to love.So man was made in the image of God and in the likeness of God. Then we find the waters caused to bring forth abundantly "the moving creature that hath life." should be made not in the likeness of any of the creatures He had not before given his wife this her full and proper name. (t) This image and likeness of God in man is expounded in Eph 4:24 where it is written that man was created after God in righteousness and true holiness meaning by these two words, all perfection, as wisdom, truth, innocency, power, etc. Humanity was the final full-stop in creation's story. The sin began with utter disrespect to a father. Genesis 1:27 is a summary of God's creation of mankind on the sixth day. [It's your food.] Any one who is acquainted with the chief writings of the old idolatrous world, of the Greeks and Romans especially, will see that what God has veiled in this brief statement, which passes calmly over that of which more had better not be spoken, is what they have amplified into the Titans and the giants and their greater deities. Chapter Overview: The holy scripture, being designed to maintain and improve natural religion, to repair the decays of it. If divine power separated the earth from the waters, why should it remain saturated? God constantly refused that man should make any kind of a likeness of Him. 10 million Ukrainians without power because of Russia. Yet, wonderful to say, in the very announcement of judgment on the serpent, God, who had by the light of His presence compelled the guilty pair to come forth out of the darkness in which they had hid, or rather sought to hide God held out the first bright light of mercy, but mercy in the judgment of him who was the root of the evil. The text we are studying for Sunday, September 16 is Genesis 1:26-31 + 2:4-7.This is that portion of the creation story or stories in Genesis 1 & 2 that deals with the creation of adam, which is variously translated (in the NRSV, anyway) as "humankind" (Genesis 1:26 & 27) and as "man" (Genesis 2:7).This means we're skipping over the institution of the Sabbath (Genesis 2:1-3), and . Finally, it has the singular and superlative merit of drawing the diurnal scenes of that creation to which our race owes its origin in the simple language of common life, and presenting each transcendent change as it would appear to an ordinary spectator standing on the earth. But God does communicate in such a way as at once meets the heart, and mind, and conscience. We expect him to work through the normal processes of nature in producing the crops from which we get our food by hard work. "Come thou into the ark," says He; "for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation." 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. I don't want God around me! But this seems to me indefensible, though there may be difficulty in reconciling what I regard as the truth with an unusual force of one or two words. Being made in Gods image, human beings are unique in Gods creation. God could introduce him, and could leave the heart to feel the rightness of saying no more about him than was necessary. What joy and delight in the Scriptures! Observe, in the beginning of the word of God, the sources of all things. God created man capable of governing the world, and when fitted for the office, he fixed him in it. Copyright 2023, Bible Study Tools. Mankind was the only form of life created "after our likeness" and Old Testament Reading: Genesis 1:26-31. The great point, my brethren, is to hold fast the truth. For when Moses afterwards repeats the same things he passes over the likeness, and contents himself with mentioning the image. It assigns an essential significance to the words, the heavens, in that verse. 13. Others have spoken spoken rashly and wrongly. There is something striking in the introduction of the expression "and over all the earth," after the different races of animals have been mentioned, especially as the list of races appears to be proceeded with afterwards. We gather from the present chapter that God is a spirit Genesis 1:2, that he thinks, speaks, wills, and acts (Genesis 1:3-4, etc.). But what came in immediately, and what is traced throughout the Bible, it may be noted, is the present consequence in the government of God. 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. And the common distinction is, that image exists in the substance, likeness in the accidents of anything. In Hebrew there is a dual tense, two, and the Hebrew "Elah" is God in a dual tense. Such was not the usual style of monarchs in the ancient East. But needless to say, Jesus is coming soon. the cause of causes said to "`jod', he, `vau', he"; that is, to Jehovah, which is in the midst of the ten numerations. First, however, it was an insinuation infused and allowed against the true God. I do not venture on any opinion as to this. Does he have sexual organs, and if so, which? Amos 2:1-3 meaning . The sun, moon and stars, previously hidden, now became clearly visible. Upon this I would not now dwell farther than to draw attention to the commencing words, "In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam in the day when they were created." It was not necessary nor wise to reveal it by Moses. This apparently means that a relationship of close fellowship can exist between God and man that is unlike the relationship of God with the rest of his creation. Now, they fly in erratic patterns, and sometimes they can be pesky, but, they'll land sometimes, I'll read my Bible and they'll land on my Bible, and I'll just look and study them. Every subject that comes before us is dealt with in a new point of view suitably to the new name given to God the name of God as a moral governor, no longer simply as a creator. God created (cf. There was a revelation of an infinite blessing for man unquestionably, but hardly what is called a promise. When the Bible says God did this or God created that, it does not mean that he must have done so instantaneously or magically. Next to Christ Himself, and what we have by and in Him, there is nothing of greater importance than the confession of the truth, both that God created, and that His creation is in ruins. For God is not now first beginning to consider what form he will give to man, and with what endowments it would be fitting to adorn him, nor is he pausing as over a work of difficulty: but, just as we have before observed, that the creation of the world was distributed over six days, for our sake, to the end that our minds might the more easily be retained in the meditation of Gods works: so now, for the purpose of commending to our attention the dignity of our nature, he, in taking counsel concerning the creation of man, testifies that he is about to undertake something great and wonderful. Genesis 2:18.). And God blessed them: and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.". Of the trillions of snowflakes that fall every year, God just likes variety so much. They went in male and female. We accept both as true. It recognizes, as far as can be expected, the relative importance of the heavens and the earth, the existence of the heavenly bodies from the beginning of time, the total and then the partial absence of light from the face of the deep, as the local result of physical causes. The water, teeming with life, and then the air, and the many, many kinds of birds and the variety of birds that God has created. 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