This morning we will be in, you guessed it, Genesis chapter 1.
Go ahead and turn there if you would.
We've been looking at the creation days and here we are on
the last day, if you will, of creation of the Creative act.
So we'll be finishing Chapter 1 and then in a couple weeks we
will jump into Chapter 2. We will be finishing, we'll be
up through Chapter 3 before we get to the Advent season.
So, so we'll we'll pick it up a little bit here.
Now when we look at pictures, they immediately take us
somewhere. So when I look at this picture,
for example, I'm immediately transported back to one of my
most favorite places in all the world.
The ocean is there on the near side of the bridge in the Bay is
passed it on the far side and you see the city San Francisco
in the background there. And I remember the drive across
the Golden Gate that was to happen a few minutes after this
picture was taken. I remember later that afternoon
when when just Aria and I went to the Art Museum, the Legion of
Honor, just daddy and daughter. Just a wonderful time and we
enjoyed looking at the arts. I remember how what should have
been an hour drive from where we were staying to this location
ended up being hours as we sat on 80 in a lot of traffic on a
Saturday morning, not a weekday morning.
The picture isn't the experience, but but the picture
points back to to an experience and all the memories that are
attached to it. This morning as we as we
continue in our study, we'll consider how how we're like God.
No, we aren't actually God, but we like that photo.
We are representations of something.
So if you're able, would you stand as we read from Genesis
chapter 1, We'll begin at verse 26.
Then 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 heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the
earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
So God created man in his own image.
In the image of God. He created him, male and female.
He created them, and God bless them and, and God said to them,
be fruitful and multiply and fill 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 moves on the
earth. And God said, Behold, I have
given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all
the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruits.
You shall have them for food, and to every beast of the earth,
and to every bird of the heavens, and to everything that
creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I
have given every green plant for food.
And it was so. And God saw everything that He
had made, and behold, it was very good.
And there was evening, and there was morning.
The 6th day you may be seated. Here in the creation account,
the phrase and God said is always followed by let there be
or or let's this happen each time this happened, God is
speaking by order of what we call divine Fiat, his spoken
word issuing A decree, God speaking into nothing and
created something simply through decree, commanding it to be.
But when we come to humanity, however, it's a little
difference. After declaring all the
creatures of the earth good, verse 26 changes it up as the
text deviates from the previous literary structure.
And this should be a clue to pay attention.
God said let us make man. The text is suddenly moved out
of the realm of the impersonal, if you will, and into the
personal. The previous commands weren't to
anybody in particular and and involved a sort of distance
between God and and his creation.
God would speak and and something would happen.
Something would come into existence.
But now God says, let's make humanity.
Now, if you're paying attention, this might cause you to seek
assurance. There's only one God, right?
If there's one God, then why is he using the first person plural
and saying, let's us? When it comes to this creative
act, it's important for us to start from the right
perspective. So we begin by defining us.
We're going to define what US means.
Over the millennia, a number of explanations have been offered
regarding the usage of the first person plural us, rather than
the first person singular me. A few weeks ago, I mentioned
first of all that the word Elohim, the word for God, is
plural in form. This plurality along with the
use of us has led to various different interpretations.
Some suggestions have been that the use of us as a remnant of
polytheistic religions. Or perhaps God is calling to his
creations the heaven and the earth and saying let's make
humanity more popular notion is the idea of divine honor and
majesty. A king might say something like
let us go and do this or perhaps God is deliberating with himself
self. What would you like to do today?
Well self, let's go make humanity.
Others have proffered the notion of addressing A heavenly court
of angels, the spiritual beings. However, all these explanations
have issues and and some of them frankly have no basis in what
Scripture is trying to communicate.
The best understanding of the usage of the first person plural
is that it is actually referring to the Godhead, the Trinity.
I believe it's referring to the Trinity.
Some will argue this passage doesn't clearly communicate the
doctrine of the Trinity, and you're not wrong.
This passage doesn't explicitly spell out the Trinity.
But when we consider other passages of Scripture, we're
able to arrive at this conclusion.
The Godhead exists in in three Co equal but distinct persons,
Father, Son and spirit, and all three of these persons were
complicit in creation. First, God the Father is found
all throughout this narrative. It, it opens up and says in the
beginning, God create the heavens and the earth and then
and then each time there's a creative act that says God said
and God said and God said so on. So we see God the Father all
throughout this. Then verse 2 we saw that the
Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters and then
to determine Jesus part in creation we go to John's gospel.
So we jump all the way to the New Testament, John 11.
There it reads in the beginning was the Word and the Word was
with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with
God, that is the Father. All things were made through him
and without Him was not anything made that was made.
John opens up one of the most powerful Christological passages
in all of Scripture by saying Jesus.
Jesus is the word that we see there in John 1.
Jesus was there at the beginning, and not only that,
but He was involved in creating the world and nothing was made
apart from Him, it says. So when we take all these verses
into consideration, the logical conclusion is for us to
interpret the plural us as referring to the Godhead,
Father, Son, and Spirit. So this is who did the creating.
Now we're going to look at what the creation was and Simply put,
the creation was human. Verse 26 read Then God said, let
us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have
dominions. So God created man in his own
image, in the image of God. He created him male and female.
He created them. The word for man found here in
verse 26 is is a Dom. And yes a Dom does become
eventually that specific human's name, Adam as as we would say.
But here it doesn't refer specifically to A to a single
entity, a single person. Rather it refers to humanity.
This is further corroborated by the fact God refers to them a
couple times here. Here in these verses he he uses
the word them. So how did God do this?
Genesis 27 tells us that the Lord God formed the man of dust
from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
So God has an intimate connection with this new
creation. This connection is deeply
personal and it feels like the relationship perhaps of of a
Potter with his clay. And nowhere else does this
relationship between God and his creation exist.
Not with the sun, moon, stars, fish, birds, not even with the
land animals, the the other nefeshis, the other soulish
beings. As as we learned last week,
verses 26 and 27 refer to humanity being in God's image.
They were made in his image after his likeness.
So what does it mean to be an image of God and bear his
likeness? As we consider this, we'll now
turn our attention to the question, what is special about
humanity? Because some will have you
believe that there's nothing special about being humans.
It was just enough time transpired for humanity to
evolve. But that is not what we believe
because Scripture tells us otherwise.
So there's a lot that could be said regarding what it means to
be created in God's image, but there are four primary areas I
want to highlight this morning. The first thing of note is this
phrase specifically that we are image bearers, we are image
bearers, we we bear God's image. Now in the ancient Near East,
regular people like like you and I weren't thought to be in the
image of God. The idea of the image of God
referred primarily to an idol like a king or, or to the image
of that king. Idols would be set up around
around cities and towns and, and this was viewed as as that God's
presence was, was there in that idol on earth.
And then so because of that, the places where these idols were
set up would become, would become sacred.
They would become hallowed ground and and people would
flock to these locations so that they could worship that God,
that idol there rulers would also sometimes be referred to as
images of God. Ramses the second was worshipped
as the very image of RA, the sun God.
He was Raz representative on Earth, viewed as equal with him
along with the entire pantheon of the Egyptian deities.
The Pharaoh or or king acted to ensure the well-being of his
people on behalf of the God or or gods as it were.
All rulers of the ancient Near East enjoyed an elevated status
and were considered sons of God, intermediaries between God and
man. And the king was worthy of
worship, so the temple would often be connected to his house,
to his palace, as as he was that nation's priest.
So it's a radical thing when Moses writes, God made humanity
in his very own likeness, in God's likeness.
In a single verse, value had been added to all of God's
creation. Everyone, regardless of wealth
or or status, is a child of God in the sense that they are made
in his image. However you might choose to
organize society, all of it is in a sense placed on the same
level. This clearly has nothing to do
with a person's contributions to society or their perceived value
or intellect, rather has everything to do with the
creator and the assigned value that he gives his creation.
He's the one who confers value on all of his creations, but
most especially humans. Rich, poor, powerful, weak,
male, female, young, old, moral and immoral.
Everyone is a child of the Creator and loved by him.
What actually is the image of God?
The word used here is is Salem, that is TSELEM Salem and and
this word almost always refers to an idol to to a carved image.
In fact, only a few times in Genesis does does it is it
translated as something other than or meaning something other
than an idol. But here Yahweh is going to use
this word to 1st establish something about human.
Human is apparently a sort of Salem human is made to represent
God on earth. So we image God in that, in that
we represent him and, and his character to to all of the
world. And this happens when when we
exhibit Yahweh's communicable, communicable attributes.
His communicable attributes are those attributes which are gods,
but which we can also live out. These are attributes like love,
mercy, goodness, wisdom, justice, creativity.
All of these attributes are found in God, but also found in
humanity as well. So each of us represents God
here on earth. And the first part we find here
in Genesis 1 is that humanity is to rule.
Humanity's job is to rule, to have dominion is what the text
says. One way humans are set apart
from all other creatures is they're told to subdue the
earth. In verses 26 and 28 we find the
command to have dominion. This command has been much
perverted and misinterpreted over the years.
I get the sense that when people hear this word, sometimes they
think of someone who has no regard for the land and the
creatures of this world. Someone see the command to have
dominion as permission from God, to clear cut forest, to kill all
the bison that roam the Midwest, or to exploit people, enslave
them for the purposes of prophets.
But that's not what God has in mind when He calls humans to
rule. The first component to
humanity's rule is in relationship to the land.
So first of all, it's in relationship to the land.
Adam was made chief gardener. In chapter 2, verse 25, we see
Adam was placed in the garden to work it and to keep it.
His role as as head gardener is to maximize the land, to make
the most use of it so so that it too could be fruitful and
multiply and then in turn feed all the inhabitants of the land.
All you gardener types. We got lots of those in his
body. You're being just like Adam and
Eve were in the garden. You are doing what God told them
to do. Good job, somebody's got to do
it. I would not be good at it.
Now. It should be said that Adam's
job, it was a lot easier than the way you have it now.
After that day. When?
When he and the woman took a bite of the forbidden fruits,
everything changed. And before that, before that
there were no weeds, no no thistles.
The weather was perfect for farming and and the crops were
were responsive and would just grow so easily.
These were ideal conditions for developing and farming the land.
Now in recent years, the word sustainability has gained
popularity. Sustainability seeks to look at
our products and resources and and provide these products that
we've come to love, whether it's clothing, food or other products
in a way that is sustainable. It is the practice of meeting
the needs of this present of the present without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own needs for this
product. This is all about using
resources in a responsible manner in order to maintain
ecological balance and ensure the long term well-being of both
humans and the earth. And when you do this, you take
into consideration factors like the economy, the environment,
and there's lots of social dimensions that go into this as
well. But at the heart of this
movement is the notion that if I keep using this product in a
negligent manner, then it's possible someday there will be
no more of this product and it'll disappear from the face of
the earth, or at least be more difficult to come by.
While while current use of the word sustainability may have
been rooted in in climate alarmism and doomsday theories
about our planet, sustainability does jive with what God teaches
us here in Genesis 1. Taking care of our planet makes
sense and it confers respect on both the planet and God's
creatures, which is the second aspect of exercising dominion.
The second component of ruling is in relationship to the living
creatures. Verse 30 reveals to us that God
gave living creatures every green plant for food.
This means all the sustenance of the earth wasn't just for the
humans, it was for the living creatures as well.
First of all, this tells us there's enough food for all the
creatures, both human and animal, and humans aren't to
subdue the earth in a way that leaves no room and no sustenance
for the other creations we share the earth with to them.
Also, God is given the right to live off the soil, and that
means our rights to land do have some limits, if you will.
Now, I believe it's apropos for us to pause here to look at the
only Torah reference to a King's behavior in Israel.
God knew the people would one day desire a king, so he
preemptively gives them permission to place a king over
them in in the Promised Land. However, God has stipulations
for for how a king should rule over the people of God.
Deuteronomy 17 says only he must not acquire many horses for
himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to
acquire many horses. Verse 17 and he shall not
acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor
shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold.
Then verse 19 tells the king to follow the law and fear the Lord
so that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers.
Here God is laying out his vision for royal rule.
God's expectations of his king are different than than the
other cultures. The king is one among his
brothers and sisters, his fellow Israelites.
He's not to accumulate wealth or arms.
That is the that was found in the going back to Egypt to to
accumulate horses. He's not to indulge himself in
any of the ways that kings would normally be accustomed to by
accumulating wives or or massive amounts of wealth.
And it's only through humility and solidarity with his people
that the king is able to rule for the benefit of the people.
So the task for humans is to adopt this royal rule that that
God has set out. Only when humans live in a way
that benefits the king will they be able to exercise their
authority over the creation in a manner that benefits the
creation. Were God's images placed in this
world as representatives of the one true king, as a king might
erect an image of himself in the land in order to remind people
of his rule and his claim to dominion, his claim, his power
over them. So humanity is placed on this
earth in God's image as God's representatives of his rule.
We aren't the actual rulers per SE.
We're representatives of the ruler acting as ambassadors
tasked with maintaining and forcing God's claims to dominion
here on earth. Now before we move on, it's not
unusual for someone to ask well I get to see my dog in heaven.
Well guess what? Scripture doesn't tell us that
not even not even sure what our relationships with our spouses
will be in heaven as we won't be married when we're in heaven,
but as as we eventually return back to a garden like state.
It seems to me, and I think scripture communicates that,
that animals will be very present in heaven as as I read
last week in the When the wolf lays down with the lamb, the
leopard chooses to not eat the goats, the child is able to pick
up a serpent without fear. Animals will be very present and
parts of the new creation. So whether that includes Fluffy
or Fido, I don't know, but I think it will be a very
enjoyable time for us for sure as we return back to light, back
to that garden like state as we continue.
So we're image bearers and and we adopt God's royal rule in
exercising dominion over land and creatures.
Humans are also meant to reproduce.
We're meant to reproduce, to propagate life and help it
flourish on the earth. It's possible you hadn't noticed
a little detail here. I hadn't noticed it until my
research. Previously, when God created all
other creatures, he created them in mass.
He didn't just create a single Organism or even 2 of them.
Allah the ark. No, God created them in
abundance. The sea swarmed with fish, the
skies were filled with birds. The land brought forth all kinds
of living creatures. However, human Adam was created
initially alone at first one man and all the animals.
Then chapter 2. I know most of us know this.
Chapter 2 tells us there wasn't a a helper for for a Dom.
There wasn't a counterpart to the human.
So God created a helper for him. We'll go into that more in a few
weeks, but here we are. The beginning of humanity starts
with just a single pair in the command.
Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
Now obviously you it takes a while for this to happen, right?
With a gestation period of nine months and the fact most humans
don't typically produce litters of children.
Some do, but most don't. The command to be fruitful
begins here, but it doesn't stop here.
These words are are then repeated after the flood and
then if we think Genesis 22, God's promise to to Abraham
echoes this same sentiment. I will surely multiply your
offspring is what God says. So here we get a glimpse into
God's heart. God gave humanity the ability to
create more humans, the ability to reproduce image bearers.
Not only that, but God wants a world full of them.
We live in a sad time where pregnancy and children are are
seen as barriers to living life. Liberalism has so demeaned
motherhood and children that it now sees these things as
weakness and burdens. Increasingly, certain sectors of
women decry marriage and men, They're so fiercely independent
that they hate men, literally hates men.
And they find the thought of someday having children
absolutely repulsive. They believe is so much so that
late last year hysterectomies and tubal ligations, that is,
having your tubes tied, began to surge simply in protest against
conservative values. This is sad.
And I will say this was one thing to be commended, another
thing I should say to be commended about Charlie Kirk.
He was not ashamed to speak to God's design.
He did not say women had to be at home.
That's not what he said. But he was very unashamed to say
one of your greatest joys in life is your children.
Our society can't grasp the truth that children are a
blessing, the truth of Psalm 127.
Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the the fruit
from the fruit of the womb. A reward like arrows in the hand
of a warrior are the children's of 1's youth.
Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them.
I am curious how many arrows went into a quiver, like 2-3,
six, or was it some of you I know come from 10's and stuff
like that? I don't know, but the point is
people with lots of children are blessed.
Lastly, humanity is a recipient of God's divine blessing.
We receive His divine blessing. God made humanity and the first
thing we see after this creative act is in verse 28.
God bless them. It says we were created to be
the recipients of joy and blessing from God's hand.
He made us so He could then pour out His goodness on us.
God wants us to find enjoyment in life.
Ecclesiastes 518 reads Behold what I've seen to be good in
fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil
with with which one toils under under the sun the few days of
his life that God has given him. God saying, find enjoyment in
your work, in what you do. Then Paul even writes in First
Timothy 6 As for the rich in this present age, charge them
not to be haughty or proud, nor to set their hopes on the
uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with
everything to enjoy. All the enjoyments of life come
from God. All the plants and and fruit
trees were intended not only for the humans use and enjoyment
before the animal Kingdom as well.
As best as I can tell animals and man were initially
vegetarian. This is the ideal that that
Genesis 1 sets up and I think we have reason to believe we'll
we'll see that coming back into view in the new Earth.
Human had all he could ever want right there in the garden.
It was a perfect environment, perfect climate, the perfect
partner with whom with whom human could fully enjoy life.
God says be fruitful and multiply.
It was at that moment God looked upon all of his creation,
everything that he had made and he says it was very good.
Everything was just as he wanted it to be.
The birds were flying, the the fish were swimming, trees and
plants growing, and animals and humans flourishing.
Life was easy as they lived in the fullness of God's blessing.
I close with John MacArthur summation of the creation up to
this point. As he conveyed in his book
Battle for the Beginning, the creation of the human race was
the central object of God's creative purpose from the
beginning. In an important sense,
everything else was created for humanity, and every step of
creation up to this point had one main purpose, to prepare a
perfect environment for Adam. The human race is still at the
center of God's purpose for the entire material universe.
The unfolding of creation establishes a theater in which
the great redemptive saga can be played out.
Man is the main character. God's own son even becomes a man
in the climax of Redemption's drama.
And this is the purpose for which the entire universe was
created, so that God's grace, His mercy, His compassion could
be lavished on this creature whom God had created in his own
image. Let's bow our heads and close
our eyes. God, it's humbling to to
consider the task that you have set out for humanity to rule
this world in in a way that is befitting of you, to be your
representatives, your ambassadors, your image bearers
here in the world. What is man that you are mindful
of him? We are just humbled to consider
that you would seek to put your qualities, your nature in US.
Thank you for your love, your care, your concern for us and
may we in part show that to other humans that we come across
each day as we go about our lives.
It's in Jesus name we pray, Amen.