Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Genesis 1 | Date: October 24, 2021 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Our Father, we are grateful that you have revealed yourself to us; you’ve revealed your purpose to us in your Word, and we’re thankful now for our subject this morning where you have informed us about ourselves. We pray that you’ll give us a better understanding of who we are and who we are before you. Through that, give us, we pray, a better understanding and appreciation of Christ and what he has done in becoming one of us in order to save us. We pray in his name, amen.

All right, Genesis 1 and 2. We’re back to Genesis now, again. And our subject for today is man, the crown of creation. So we’ve looked at the creation narrative in Genesis 1 through chapter 2, verse 3. We’ve looked at the rest on the seventh day. We’ve looked at several of the related issues with all of that. We still have yet to take up the related issue of evolution, creation, and science. We’ll have at least, I think, just one Sunday for each of those. We’ve looked at the meaning of the word “day” in the narrative. We’re taking our time working through, but now a huge issue is emphasized in the text, and I’ll show you that, I hope, today. And that is the creation of man. And it is, as I’ve mentioned, man the crown of creation.

So in Genesis 1, beginning with verse 3—verses 1 and 2, we have that initial statement of God creating the matter, all that is. And then verses 3 and following, we have that process of differentiation where he sorts things out and puts things in order to function the way his design and purpose for history will be. So we have the separation of light from darkness. We have the separation of the land and the sea. We have differentiation between non-life and then life, and then creaturely life, and then life—creatures in the air, creatures in the sea. We have all this differentiation going through the creation narrative.

And one thing I want to stress here at the beginning is just for you to notice how the narrative itself leads us to a sense of climax with the creation of man. So the creation narrative itself is building toward this climax to show man as if this is what we’re aiming at here in the narrative.

The Climax of the Narrative

So in chapter 1, verses 26 to 28, we have the account of that. “Then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion.” Notice, “let us make man, let them,” that is male and female, “let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens, over the livestock, over the earth, over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

And then in typical Hebrew fashion, it tells us what God did. Verse 26 tells us what he intends to do. And then a lot of the same language is repeated to tell us that he did it. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” I still say “replenish.” That was the King James rendering that I memorized as a kid. And the word does not mean replenish; it means fill. There’s a difference. “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

All right, verse 26. We’ve gone through the narrative. He’s created the light, separated light from darkness. He’s separated the land from the sea. He’s made land plants. He’s made the animals to dwell on. And now he says, verse 26, “Let us make man.” Now that’s a new expression. Not only “the man,” but “let us make.” It’s a new expression in the narrative. Up until this point, it’s been “let there be.” And we have creation by divine fiat. Creation ex nihilo. We’ve talked about that. So, “Let there be light,” and there was light. “Let there be an expanse in the heavens. Let the earth bring forth. Let the creatures swarm.” And we have those kinds of expressions: “Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be.”

And now we come to verse 26 and it’s “Let us make man.” And at the very least, it gives us a sense of some kind of deliberation on God’s part—at least a closer sense of God’s immediate personal involvement. The idea is out of a—the imagery is out of a potter with clay. We find that filled in in chapter two where he takes up the dust and forms Adam. Chapter two, verse seven: “The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living creature.” The language there is anthropomorphic. God doesn’t have a hand to scoop up the dirt. However it happened, we don’t know, but it is emphasizing God’s immediate involvement in the creation of man.

So instead of “Let there be, let there be, let there be,” it is “Let’s make man.” And God himself gets involved. And he makes him from the dust, and he breathes into his nostrils the breath of life. We have the same kind of personal involvement later in verses 21 and 22 with the creation of the first woman, Eve, where he puts Adam to sleep, takes out a rib, and makes the woman.

And then, of course, the sense of climax is marked by the very expression, “Let us make man in our image and after our likeness.” Now there is the plural pronoun there, “our image,” but notice the plural pronoun, “our” (plural), “image” (singular). I think this is an early hint—the word is adumbration—of the Trinity. I don’t know what else to make of it. There have been other suggestions to account for that. Maybe there’s a council of the angelic beings or something like that, but we are not made after the image of the angels. We’re made after the image of God. And this “our image,” I think, is speaking then of the image of God, the triune God, in man.

And then we had in the earlier creation of the world and the animals and the plants and all of that, we had that repeated expression, “after their kinds, after their kinds, after their kind, after their kinds.” But now what we have is man; it’s not stated that way. There’s only one kind of humanity, if you will. That’s a given in the Scriptures as well: one human race. But that’s not the expression used here. The expression used here is we’re made not after our kind, but after God’s image. So again, there’s a sense of climax that’s building—that man is the apex of God’s creative activity in that creation week.

An Entailment of the Image of God

So whatever “image” is—and we’re going to put that off till next week, because I don’t have time to deal with all of that today—but whatever image is, in some ways, man was created to be like God. That’s what “after God’s image” means. And we’ll explore what that signifies more next time. One entailment of the image of God is that we’re made with the ability to rule. That’s what’s emphasized in verses 26 to 28. We’re made after God’s image and then what is stressed is that we have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, over every living thing that moves on the earth. We have rulership over everything.

So mankind is created. He’s the crown of creation and in fact, if in this scene God is the great king over all making this world, he has established mankind as his vice-regents to rule over this newly created world. And so there’s this dignity given to man made after God’s image, made as kings to rule over God’s creation.

So again, verses 26 to 28: “Then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens, over the livestock, 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 blessed them, and God said to him—and here it comes again—be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Now this expression “have dominion over” is not the same Hebrew word that’s used earlier in verses 16 and 18 about the lights “to rule” the day and that kind of thing. But it’s the idea of exercising dominion. So God is pictured here as the great king over all. He’s delegating his rule now to newly created humanity, and he entrusts them with his rule in this garden that he makes that we’ve seen already in chapter two, gives them authority over all of it, and tells them to be fruitful and fill the earth, extend God’s rule over the entire planet. And everything you see is under your rulership. Man, animal, the planet itself, the plants—everything is under your rule. Now some in this day of environmentalism have said that this was a bad command because man has abused it and abused the environment. And it may be true that man has, we have in some ways, but obviously I think the command is to rule responsibly over God’s created order.

All right, so all of that to emphasize again that there’s a sense of climax now in the narrative itself that we have to see the dignity of humanity, the unique dignity of humanity, even in the way it’s presented in the creation narrative. Now this high status or this dignity of humanity is evident in other ways as well. The focus of the narrative from chapter one, verse one, all the way to chapter two, verse three, has narrowed from the universe—broad as it can be; he made everything that is, the lights and the heavens, the earth, everything that’s in it—he made everything, and now the narrative narrows to the creation of man.

And now, rather than just a couple of expressions—”let there be, let there be,” and it happened—we’ve got six verses given, verses 26 to 31, given to this narrative of the creation of man. In fact, this word “created” now appears three times in this brief section. I think I’ve mentioned before that the word “created” is used sparingly in this passage. And every time it’s used, it’s used of something really new. There’s a new intervention of some kind that God is doing. And now that word, which is used sparingly, is used three times in these six verses. And that is a result of God’s deliberation: “Let us make.” And so there’s this divine interruption now in this creative process of making the world. And here’s where we come to the point: we’re making man. And this is something special.

And then after commanding the earth to bring forth vegetation, to bring forth living creatures in the sea, living creatures to swarm the airs in the sea, land animals to populate throughout the earth—again, he doesn’t say, “Let us make man after his kind,” like he did of the plants and the fish and the animals. He says, “Let us make man in our image, let him rule. Let him have dominion.” So there’s a distinct uniqueness to humanity—man as God’s vice-regent ruling over the created order.

Then we get to chapter two, which recounts the creation—it’s not a second creation account as it’s sometimes called, but what we have is a recounting of a couple of the details with a special focus. He zooms in, in chapter two, to look at some specific things: the creation of man, verse seven; the creation of woman, verses 21 to 23. And then chapter two, verses 19 and 20, we have this fascinating mention that man names the animals. And this is an exercise of his dominion. He’s ruling over the world, everything in it, and now as one function of that rule, he’s naming the animals.

Verses 18 to 20: “Now out of the ground, the Lord God had formed every beast of the field, every bird of the heavens, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds of the heavens, and to the beasts of the field.” Now how this worked out, we’re not told. This in fact has been a point of mocking from some of the critics. “Oh, what’d that look like? And God paraded the animals by and then Adam said, ‘Oh, that looks like an elephant. I’ll call it an elephant.'”

But I think the point here—all that misses the point—the point is that it has to do not so much with the animals, although I suspect that Adam understood the animals, was able to have some discernment about them and named them with some significance, whatever. But the point here has not so much to do with the animals as it has to do with man. They didn’t name him; he named them. And in fact, we see here Adam’s abilities to evaluate, to make differentiations. His administrative role here—that’s his rulership. Verse 19: “whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.” So it’s not just affirming Adam’s authority, but he’s commending his precision and judgment in his exercise of rule. Adam evidently understood the animals to some extent. Maybe this is the first classification of animals of some kind, I don’t know.

But then verses 17 and following, it’s important to notice that this naming of the animals, verses 18 and 19, doesn’t stand alone, but it’s part of a larger paragraph. Verse 17: “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper for him.'” Now out of the ground, the Lord had formed every beast of the field, every bird of the heavens, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. So the interesting thing here is, again, the uniqueness of man. He’s superior to the animals. He’s not just an animal, maybe with some higher qualities, but he’s in a different level. They are not on his level. He’s still alone. And so although he has all of this wonderful created order around him, these animals under his dominion, he himself is alone. There’s no one like him. And so, God says it’s not good that the man should be alone. And then he names them, something they are unable to do. So again, all of this to emphasize man is the crown of creation. He’s exercising intelligent dominion over the earth as he was commanded to do in verses 26 to 28 of chapter one.

All right, all of that then to say that in Genesis 1 and 2, we’re not making too much of it. It is the text itself that clearly emphasizes the dignity of humanity. Man is the crown of creation. It’s the climax of the narrative. The creation of man is a special work of God. Man is created in God’s image. He’s commanded to rule. He’s given dominion and he exercises that dominion. There’s a particular emphasis on the dignity and the superiority of humanity in the creation account. It’s worth noticing—it was a little tedious to go through all that—but it’s worth noticing because that’s precisely what is lost in any evolutionary theory: the dignity and the uniqueness of humanity.

We’ve seen this recently, but let’s take time to look at Psalm 8. Psalm 8. And this is important here because what we have in Psalm 8 is really a poetic commentary on Genesis 1:26–28. The psalmist here, David, is reflecting on Genesis 1:26–28 that we’ve just been looking at. He has noticed in the flow of the text the particular emphasis on the dignity of humanity and now in this song he revels in it.

Psalm 8: “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?”

All right, now get the point here so far. He’s praising God for the wonders of creation, but his focus now is: when I see this vast created order and all that it says about your greatness and your glory, and then you put man over top of it, it’s just an amazing thing. It’s amazing that you would give this consideration to man. So verse 4 again: “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moons, the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you care for him? You’ve made him a little lower than the heavenly beings, crowned him with glory and honor. You’ve given him dominion over the works of your hands. You’ve put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the sea.”

You can see how this is just reflection on Genesis 1:26–28. And so he caps off the psalm with the way he began: “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.” There’s something unique about this psalm in that he’s, one, he’s praising God for his majesty, his glory, but the particular reason for which he is praising God is the dignity that God has given to humankind. Look what he has done for us and he’s placed us over all of it.

Now if you’re in the Psalms, go ahead and look at Psalm 115. We have another mention of it. Psalm 115, verse 16: “The heavens are the Lord’s, the heavens are the Lord’s heavens, but the earth he gives to the children of man.” So the psalmist then is reflecting on this dignity that’s been given to humanity, this uniqueness that is ours created in the image of God. And again, we’ll explore the significance of the image next time.

The Original State of Man

All right. I think it’s a good time to stop then and make some broader reflections on humanity from this account. One is the original state of man. What was the original state of humanity and its creation?

Well, one, mankind was created mature. Chapter two, verses 15 to 25—that’s assumed throughout that man is not just some highly developed animal, but he’s created to rule over it and he exercises this rule in an administrative way. And he does it very capably; he’s mature. That again is completely incompatible with any theory of evolution. Man at his beginning was superior to them all and created to rule over all the world.

All right, the original state of man: one, he’s mature. Number two, he’s good. Man is created good. He’s not some savage beast trying to make his way upward in some evolutionary chain, but he’s good. And he’s good in every way. He’s fit for his environment. He’s able to function as designed. He’s able to rule. And he’s morally upright. The implication of the expression in chapter three that he heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the cool of the day in the garden—the implication of that is that this was the customary thing, that he’s in fellowship with God. And in fact, Ecclesiastes chapter 7, verse 29 comments on that: “You’ve created man upright.”

So man is originally good. So this is before sin. Now the one qualification we have to give to that is that although man is created good, he’s not confirmed in that goodness yet. It is what we would call a defectible righteousness. He’s created upright, but it’s a defectible righteousness. Augustine has a famous passage on this, and he develops it at some length. It’s been very influential in theology; it’s very good. But just for this simple part of it, he makes the point that mankind was created “able not to sin” and yet “able to sin.” Able not to sin and able to sin. There’s defectable righteousness.

Now, once the fall happens in Genesis chapter three, we don’t have that. We’ve got just the ability to sin. We don’t have the ability not to sin. Then once we’re saved, we have the ability not to sin and the ability to sin. And finally, in the glorified state, we’ll just have the ability not to sin and we’ll be confirmed in righteousness. But that’s what we see here now with Adam. He’s created upright, but it’s not a confirmed righteousness.

Details Regarding the Creation of Man

All right, the original state of man. We have some in chapter two, verse seven, details regarding the creation of man. “Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living creature.”

So the creation of man now—”let us make man in our image”—that’s chapter one, verse 26. The creation of man now is a twofold event. Number one, there’s the formation of the body from dust. That’s what he tells us in chapter one, verse 26. In fact, Adam’s name, ha-adam, Adam. There’s a pun involved because man is created now. Adam is created from adamah. Ha-adam, Adam, created from ha-adamah. How to put that in English? It’s been funny to see various scholars—how do you render that in English? And so he’s Adam from the earth; both words mean “earth,” sort of. One means “man,” but it’s from the “earth,” a related word. So can we translate this “man is earthling, from the earth”? “Earthling” is a funny word, but it gets the point across. That’s the pun involved here. In the Hebrew, Martin Luther used to refer to, famously referred to humanity as a “lump of clay” to emphasize this very thing.

Now we’re not told how God did that. He takes the dirt and makes a man. God doesn’t have hands. But again, it does point up the special attention given to this creative event, personal involvement of some kind on God’s part. And it’s a supernatural event, and it seems to be instantaneous, not the product of naturalistic developments. God is involved, forms the man from the dust of the earth, and it’s done.

I said it’s a twofold event. Creation of man is a twofold event. One, forming of his body from the dust, and then, again, chapter 2, verse 7, the divine in-breathing. There’s another anthropomorphism. God doesn’t need breath. He is spirit. He doesn’t depend upon air. But the expression here is to point out that in whatever way specifically it was done, God breathes into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life and he became a living, animated body. He became a living creature. The King James translation of that, “he became a living soul,” is a little bit misleading. That “living creature,” that expression is found in chapter one with regard to the animals as well—a living creature. It means an animated being to distinguish them from the plants and all of that. But again, there’s a heightened sense here of man’s dignity that God has given to him. He’s the crown of creation.

The Constitution of Man

All right, maybe that’s a good time then to stop and look at: what is the constitution of man? How did God make us? What is man constitutionally? Well, verse seven tells us that in a sense. He created man from the dust of the ground, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living being.

So, one: man has a body. Man is formed from the dust of the ground. We’ve mentioned this already in this series that in the history of theology, embodiment—the embodiment of humanity—has not always been appreciated. I think Alan Mickle had a good comment on that for us some weeks ago when we came across this topic. There’s also some contemporary theologies that would learn well from this, who deny the future resurrection of the body. It’s a complete misunderstanding of God’s purpose, which is to restore humanity whole. Humanity—yes, there can be the existence of the soul without the body, but mankind is not a whole being without the body. Mankind was created to have a body and that becomes important even practically in the New Testament. How are you going to serve God if you don’t have a body? So, “present your bodies a living sacrifice to God. Glorify God in your body.” The life of the Lord Jesus to be manifested in our bodies, in our flesh. You have that emphasized that we belong to God in our bodies—belong to God. And then of course it has its significance in the resurrection as well.

I have a friend at school, at the seminary, who just wrote a book recently on human embodiment. And he starts out with a shocking statement: “I am my body.” And I read that and I thought, “Okay, Greg, that’s a little overstated. I am my body.” Well, then he goes on to say, “Now that I’ve got your attention, man is more than a body. He’s body and soul, body and spirit.” But he wants to emphasize this point that embodiment is the proper state of human existence. By the way, this has implications as well that we’ll see in some coming weeks with regard to gendered bodies. We are created male and female for an important purpose in God’s purpose for humanity, most immediately, repopulating the earth.

So it’s a body, verse 7, chapter 2. It’s a living body. He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living creature. He’s animated. That’s his vitality. Now, the word doesn’t mean “soul” as the King James translated, but I suspect it has some implications like that and it’s probably why it was translated the way it was—that there is a differentiation here between man and the animals. And it does seem here that there is some emphasis on this twofold being, a part of our being. And in any case, the Bible, in further revelation, is very clear on that—that man is a two-part being, his body and soul. Like we saw recently in James chapter 2, verse 26, “the body without the spirit is dead.” The implication is the spirit lives on, but the body without the spirit is dead.

But our point here is that there’s these two dimensions to human existence, body and soul. Paul talks about that in 2 Corinthians chapter 5: to be away from the body in death, to be away from the body in the presence of Christ is what is better. So we have man as a body and spirit. Spirit and body. I don’t want to—I’ve got all kinds of data here just for my own sake—I don’t want to get bogged down in tedious things. But we have this emphasis in the Scriptures and it is important for us to recognize that there’s two dimensions, two aspects to humanity: body and soul. And so you have those passages where the spirit is referred to as distinct from the body. You have those passages that speak of the spirit existing apart from the body after death.

And then of course, and this becomes a contemporary discussion as well in our naturalistic world that denies anything supernatural. In an evolutionary world where everything is the development of a naturalistic process and everything about humanity is just the function of so much brain activity, cellular activity, biology and all of that—that’s it, that’s all. What you are is what you can see in a lab. And at this point we want to say no, the mind—what is the mind? Is it the brain? No, it’s something more than the brain. It functions perhaps through the brain, of course, but what is the mind? It’s something more than humanity and there’s been a whole—several new books recently have been written on that and it is fascinating to explore. Arguing with the naturalist on their own level, the significance of the mind as distinct from the brain and the function of you as a person having a spirit that is not just explainable simply in terms of so much chemical activity in the brain. And so all your loves and your passions and your calculations and your appetites and all are more than instinct. And the analysis of humanity can show that in so many different ways. Your wants and your dreams and your ambitions, your determining probabilities and calculations for the future—these are not just the function of instinct. Your memories and all of that reflects something more about us than what is physical. And that is the spirit that God has given us, which transcends the body in some sense.

Now the Bible does not define “soul” for us—just what is the soul? There’s a book written on the human soul a few years ago, fascinating to read, but even there it was just difficult—how do you define what a soul is? I don’t know how to say it, but at the bottom line, I guess you could say the soul is the inner you that makes you you, and that’s what makes you make the decisions that you make and use the body the way that you use it and so on.

Might mention here as well that there’s been a strong tradition of teaching that I think is mistaken—particularly in, I don’t know why, but it’s in dispensational circles that it’s been the strongest—distinction between soul and spirit. So the word’s called “trichotomy,” that man is body, soul, and spirit. And they make a distinction between soul and spirit. The soul is the emotions; the spirit is that which relates to God. And a whole theology is built around that. I think it’s mistaken. I think the—and that’s the traditional view of the church—the soul and the spirit are just terms that are used interchangeably. And I think any number of passages can demonstrate that.

All right, then all of this is foundational to man as created in God’s image that we’ll see next time. Man in the totality of his makeup is body and soul or body and spirit as these two dimensions, and that informs then for us next time the image of God in man. What does that mean? How does it function?

One more consideration here, and here I’ll just—you’re familiar with Psalm 8. Already we’ve looked at it where the psalmist revels in the fact that we have been created with such dignity that God has made us the king of creation. He’s placed everything under our feet. That’s the expression: “under our feet.” We rule over all the world that God has given us—the planet, the animals, the plants—we can use them for our benefit, for our use. Yes, we must do so responsibly, but it’s been given there for us to do. And we’ll see in the creation mandate how that should work out. This is, in essence, this is how we get computers, and this is how we get coal, and this is how we get all the resources that we get and develop medicines and all of that. This is an outworking of the creation mandate. Man rules over the world to use it for his own benefit, his own uses, to extend God’s purpose throughout the earth.

But he’s placed everything under our feet, and that’s a wonderful thing that God has done for us, the psalmist says. As we’ve also seen recently, and I’ll just play on your memory, in Hebrews chapter two, the writer picks up Psalm 8, which in turn is picking up Genesis 1, but it picks up the language of Psalm 8. It says, “You’ve placed everything under his feet.” But wait, we do not yet see everything under man’s feet. That is, something else has happened. That’s Genesis 3—the fall. Mankind has failed as crown of creation. He’s going to be king ruling it over all to the glory of God and extending God’s glorious rule over all the planet, and he’s failed in it. Oh, there’s ways in which he has fulfilled it. He’s done the creation mandate in some marvelous ways, but overall man has failed. We do not yet see all things under his feet.

But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels. And he uses the same language of Psalm 8. Jesus was made a little lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honor. And the whole idea there is that he has become what we are in order to accomplish for us what we should have done. And for us as our leader, he’ll become the king of the earth and we will reign in him. Big theology through the whole Bible picks up on this very thing, that the kingship given to man that we have failed in doing will be restored in the Lord Jesus.

In fact, I think one of my favorite observations of Hebrews chapter two is the context. And that is, in chapter one of Hebrews, the writer there expounds at some length the glorious deity of Jesus. And now in chapter two, he explores the incarnation, the humanity of Jesus, in saying he was made a little lower than the angels. Look at the difference in contrast. For us, that’s our dignity—made just a little lower than the angels. That’s how wonderfully God has created us. Jesus was made a little lower than the angels, but for him it was the other direction. That which is our highest dignity is that to which Jesus, the Son of God, has stooped to become one of us in order to pick up where we have failed and accomplish redemption for us and accomplish God’s purpose for the world and ruling over all of it.

All right, any questions?