God Makes Man

Behold how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. I love the sound. of our greeting time as we greet one another in the Lord. Let me invite you to turn in your Bibles, this morning to Genesis chapter one.

Genesis chapter one, for our time of study in, in God's word, we're continuing in our study of the book of, Genesis, and as we continue In our study of this book, we come today to Genesis chapter 1 verse 26, and my goal this morning is to cover most of 26 or all of 26 and most of 27. And then next week, we're gonna pick up, in verse 27, and Lord willing, we'll finish the, the chapter, next Sunday. And if you want to give a title to the message today, it's God Makes man. God makes man.

Last week we saw how God created the animals, and today we will observe Him creating man, the apex of God's creation. We will be witnessing today. In one of his lectures, Stephen Hawking, the great scientist, talks about a creation account. Of the Bashango people of Central Africa, and he delivers the account like this, which is actually pretty accurate based on the Bashango people's telling.

Of their creation account, it goes like this. in the beginning, there was only darkness, water, and the great god Boomba. One day, Boomba, in pain from a stomach ache, vomited up the sun. The sun dried up some of the water, leaving land.

Still in pain. Bumba vomited up the moon, the stars, and then some animals, the leopard, the crocodile, the turtle, and finally. He vomited up, man. So based on this tribe's creation account, the sun, the moon, and the stars are vomit.

The animals and ultimately mankind is the vomit of the great god Bomba. I wondered as I heard that account, how do you live with that? Like if that's what you believe really happened. Where do you go with that?

How does your life have meaning? How do you as a parent speak vision? Into your, children. I frequently will say to my children, a lot of times when I wake them up in the morning, wake up and fulfill your destiny.

And I'll say that to them frequently such that often when I go off to work, they will say, Dad, fulfill your destiny. but if this is what we believed happened at creation, How would we as a parent Even speak vision into our children. I can imagine the following exchange. Mommy, where did we come from?

Well, Johnny, we are all Boomba's vomit. Now go fulfill your destiny. Like that would just be crazy. I can't even imagine that.

But this is what they and some other surrounding tribes believed and Stephen Hawking in this lecture shares this accounting, but then he goes on to say this, this creation myth, like many others, tries to answer the questions we all ask. Why are we here? And where did we come from? Hawking goes on to plumb the depths in this lecture of the latest scientific discoveries, and he says that science is experiencing many successes in uncovering the origins of the universe and then He says this, listen to what he says.

New observational results and theoretical advances are coming in rapidly. Cosmology is a very exciting and active subject. We are getting closer to answering the age-old question. Why are we here?

And where did we come from? It is noteworthy to me that these two questions that are driving Stephen Hawking to do his science are fundamentally religious questions. The questions that are in his heart. That drive him are actually extremely legitimate questions.

Why are we here and where did we come from? And he's encouraging his audience to get involved in science so that you can find the answers to these questions. If you come to Genesis chapter 1 answering or asking these two questions, I would submit to you that you're coming to the right place. In particular, in our passage today, verses 26 through the end of the chapter, we find the answer to the questions, where did we come from and why are we here?

As we come to Genesis 1:26, we reach a really amazing moment in the creation story. With each successive day in the creation account, creation just keeps on going to a whole new level, and today we reached the crescendo, God's creation of Adam, God's creation of man, not just a man, but male and female. The word Adam does not just speak of a man in the sense of a male, but all of us in this room are in the category of Adam or mankind. And in this passage today, we find the answer to the question or the beginnings of it at least, who are we and where did we come from and why in the world are we here?

Let me read verses 26 and 27 for you today. Says then God said, let us make man in our image according to our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over the cattle and over all the earth. And over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. And God created man in His own image, and the image of God, He created him, male and female, he created them.

This is the word of God, and it's our blessing to be able to study this and may God help us to understand what he's saying to us in these verses. What I want to do with the time that we have today is observe 5 developments. that we find in just these two verses in God's creation of mankind on day 6 of the creation week. There's actually, we could say 6 developments, we're only going to have time to look at 5 of these, today.

5 developments in God's creation of mankind on day 6 of the creation week. Development number 1. Is this, God beckons the other members of the Trinity to join him in creating men. God beckons the other members of the Trinity to join him in creating man.

It says in verse 26, then God said, Let us make man in our image according to our likeness. Verse 26, when you begin reading it, it starts normally enough, does it not? It starts with then God said, actually, there's 7 times prior to this verse where we see the words then God said, so this is not unusual. In the prior 7 instances where we see then God said, it's followed by things like let there be 3 times, 2 times, let the earth bring forth, is what he said, and then 1 time let the waters teem, and then another time, let the waters be gathered together.

So we've seen this in the creation account where the passage says, then God says, And we've seen him say a whole variety of things, but here in verse 26, it's different. Then God says, and what follows is very different because the text says, then God said, Let us make man. The question that commentators occupy themselves with and writers for centuries is who is God talking to? Up to this point, God just says things like, let there be, and there is, and now the curtains open and we get to witness and listen in on God speaking to somebody and agreeing together with somebody else or other persons, plural to make man.

God seems to be speaking as a singularity up to this point, even though we know with further revelation in the Bible that he's not, but it seems that way in the text, but with the creation of man, the curtains are pulled back and we get to observe God as a plurality of being and he's speaking to somebody and he is inviting them in to this task of creating Man. So the question is who is God speaking to here? There's a variety of answers that are suggested. we're not going to take the time to observe each of these, probably the most common other than the one that I'm going to suggest, and the one which most of you already believe.

the, the suggestion that is most common is that perhaps God is speaking to angelic beings. Imagining God in the court, the heavenly court, and angels are there witnessing and listening in. And God speaking to them says, let us create man, one Jewish. non-Christian commentator who has a lot of great things to say about Genesis.

I've gotten a lot from his commentary. He says about this, the extraordinary use of the first person plural, the us. evokes the image of a heavenly court in which God is surrounded by his angelic host. That's really the only Viewpoint that his theology would allow him to entertain.

But I think a fair reading of the passage would show that this simply cannot be the case. Looking at this passage alone, we can know at least 3 things about the identity of whomever it is that God is speaking to. We know that whoever it is, They are co-participants in creation. They must be people who are actually participating with God in the making of man.

God says, let us make, if you say to someone, let us do something, you're inviting them into that task. When God says, let us make man, he's inviting some persons into the task of actually creating and making man. He does not say, let me make man. He does not say, watch me make man.

But he says, let us, let us together make man. Whoever God is talking to, he's inviting them to participate with him in the making of man. Is that fair enough? All right.

Secondly, we would know from the passage that whoever this is, that he is speaking to, they are co-sharers with him in his essential image. They are co-sharers with God in the essential image that man is going to be patterned after. Whoever God is talking to here, they must be persons who share in the very image and likeness of God that will serve as the pattern. That man will be created after God says, let us make man in our image, and in our likeness.

That's what he's saying. In other words, let us make man to look like what we, whoever he's talking to, what we look like. So whoever is included in the us and the our in this passage, they must be a part or sharers in the original likeness or the prototype that man was created to reflect. Is that fair enough?

All right, that leads to a 3rd thing that we can know based on this passage and what we have just seen, and that is that whoever God is speaking to here must be divine persons. Divine persons, according to verse 26, they're invited to participate in the making of man, and yet in the next verse, the text says, and God created. It doesn't say in God and the angels or whoever else was with him, God created. So he's inviting persons to join him in the making of man.

The next verse then says God actually created man. So whoever these persons are that he is speaking to, they must be included in the Godhead. Also, if they share in the image, That God is patterning His creation of man after, they must also be divine persons from that standpoint because in verse 27, it says God created man in His image. Verse 26, he says, in our image, the image we share, God then creates man in his image.

So the persons God is talking to in verse 26 must be included in the Godhead. And they must be sharers in his essential image. So this simply must be a case where one member of the Trinitarian Godhead is speaking to the other members of the Godhead. God the Father speaking to God the Son.

and God the Holy Spirit. This is absolutely consistent with what we see throughout the rest of scriptures. We already know in verse 2 that the Spirit of God is there, he was hovering over the face of the waters and regarding Christ in John 1:2, John tells us that Christ was in the beginning with God by his side. Even at the creation.

So we know Father and Son and Holy Spirit are together, we as Christians are very comfortable. Reading this passage in this way that this is God speaking to the other members of the Trinity. While the Jews and while Moses probably would not have understood the magnitude of all of this, as one writer says here in this passage are the first glimmerings. Of the Trinitarian revelation.

Just like we know that the ancient prophets would prophesy and then they would study the very things they prophesy trying to understand what is it that I just said. This is one of those things that Moses perhaps would ponder and search out and others, what is really being revealed here. We see what's being revealed as we read the rest of scripture. So this is the first time that God speaks to Himself in the narrative of Genesis.

And reading this verse, we're actually having an opportunity to listen in on the inner counsels of the Trinitarian God. We get to listen to one member of the Godhead speaking to the other members of the Godhead, and it's not often in scripture that we are treated to such a blessing, but we have this blessing here as we reach this epic moment of God's resolve to create man. So the first development in this passage is God invites the other members of the Trinity to join him in creating man.

2, God announces his intention to make man in his image and his likeness.

God is not simply deciding here to make man, but he's deciding to make man in a certain way, and that certain way is in our image, and according to our likeness. Literally, what God is saying is this, I will use who I am and what I look like, I will use who we are, God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and what we look like as the template for our creation of man. We will take certain things about ourselves. God is saying, I will take certain things about myself and imprint that upon mankind so that mankind will bear a resemblance to me in a unique way.

I do not want man to be me. Nor to be an exact copy of me in every single way. But I want to make man such that he is in my image and displays my likeness and reflects me. God has not up to this point of creation created anything.

In this way, God did not create anything else in His image. He did not create the sun or the moon or the stars in His image. He did not create the animals in his image. All these things reveal much about God's power and His attributes, but nowhere are any of these things said to be the image of God.

But in verse 26, God is expressing his intention to create man. In his image. It's also interesting to observe that God is not saying, let us make man in the image of the sun or in the image of the stars. That would have been impressive.

If that's what the text said, we would have been like, wow, I'm in the image of the sun, I'm in the image of the stars and the moon or whatever else, glorious thing that God has created. But he didn't make us in the image of the sun or the moon or the stars or any animals. God created us in the image of the one who brought all of these things into being. And that is amazing.

And God is at this point. Intending to make man, and his intention is to make man in his image and also in his likeness. There's a 3rd development that we see here in this passage in God's creation of man here on the 6th day of creation, and that is that God announces his intention for man to rule over the animal creation. He's announcing his intention for man to rule over the animal creation.

He says, and once he's created, let him rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. He says, I want to create man. And then I want man to rule. Notice what the text says, let them rule.

He's speaking of more than just Adam. He's speaking of Adam and Eve and all of their offspring. Mankind as a whole would exercise rule over God's animal creation and also bear God's image. God is expressing here his intention to have man rule over the animals.

Right now at this moment of creation, I guess we would say that God is the ruler over the animal creation, but he's wanting to create man so that he can delegate that task. To man who bears his image. What this means is that God is creating, in creating mankind. God's not forgetting about the animals and saying, OK, I've done that, been there, done that, let's do something else.

That's not really what God is doing. He's not forgetting about the animals and moving on to creating humans. He's actually doing something for the animals in creating mankind. He's creating humans for the benefit of the animals.

It's almost as if God looks upon the animal creation. And thinks it is not good for the animals to be without a human ruler who bears my image, so I will make a ruler for them and through these image bearing vice regents. I will express my care and my goodwill towards the animal creation. God is doing something for the animals, amongst other things, as he is creating man.

It's evident here, we're reminded of what we talked about last week that God intended in his original design for there to be a good relationship between mankind and the animal creation, a good relationship in which man serves as a good ruler and animals submit to man's good rule. And who knows what this relationship could have looked like if Adam and Eve had not fallen into sin. We will one day in the future under the reign of Christ in the new earth, see what that relationship could have looked like, as it will be restored under the reign of Jesus Christ.

That brings us to a 4th development as we come into verse 27, and that is that God creates man.

Up to this point, he's planning. And inviting the other members of the Trinity to join him, and he's stating his purposes. What he wants that creation of man to be like, now in verse 27, we see God carrying out his intentions that he stated in verse 26. It's interesting though that as we come into verse 27, that the singular is used rather than the plural.

He said in verse 26, let us make man in our image, and now the text is saying, God created man in His own image. Again, we're just being dazzled and reminded by the, of the fact that God is plurality and singularity at the same time. God is I and we at the same time. He is me and us at the same time.

And this has incredible impact on what it means for us to be in the image of God. But just for this point, let's ponder this, God creates men. Notice the word created here in the passage. This is the 3rd and the final occasion where we see the Hebrew word Bara.

used to speak of God's creation of the world. We have seen that whenever Bara is used in the creation account and even throughout Scripture in the Old Testament, God is always the subject. Whatever it means to Bara, it's something only God can do. No one else has ever said to Bara anything in the Old Testament.

And so it speaks of something that only God can do, only something that God can make. And we've also seen on the previous two occasions where we saw this word, that this word does not just tell us something about God, but it also tells us something about the nature of the product that God is creating. We've seen that whenever you see the word Brah, whatever it is that's being Brad, it is something that is epoch-making. It is something altogether novel and unexampled.

It's something amazing. We saw this word in verse one when it says that God created the heavens and the earth, that's pretty novel, right? There's nothing. And then the heavens and the earth are Barra.

We saw this word Bara last week in verse 21 where it says God created the animals. He created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves in, in the seas and every winged bird. And that's not surprising to us because when he created the animals, it was the first point in creation where he was creating living beings, living souls, so it fits that. Moses would use Bara.

This is creation going to a whole another level. But then coming into verse 27, with God's creation of man, we're not surprised to observe. That Bara is used again that by itself would indicate that creation is yet again going to a whole new level. But what's interesting?

Moses does not just use the word Bara once when he gets to creating men. He uses it 3 times. Three times. Look at verse 27.

God, Bahrod man in His own image, and the image of God, He Baad him, male and female, he bro them. This is essentially a threefold exclamation for Moses to use this term. 3 times is a thunderous exclamation that creation is exponentially going to an entirely different level. Apparently mankind is not barely unique in comparison to the rest of the creation.

He is dramatically unique. Saying something three times in Hebrew was one of the ways that a Hebrew writer would convey a superlative idea or put an exclamation point. On something that they wanted to say. Isaiah 6, holy, holy, holy, that's an exclamation.

In that passage, and here God created. He created, he created man. There's an exclamation point. On verse 27.

If music was playing while this passage was first being read, we would hear the music swelling gradually from day to day and reaching its crescendo here in verse 27, God created man in His own image, and the image of God, He created him, male and female, he created them. This is the grand finale. In the creation fireworks display that we've been watching over the last month and a half. One of the things that you notice reading Genesis one and what follows.

is what a highly exalted view of man that's actually presented. Man is the apex of God's creation. If you are afraid of heights, you want to be careful when reading verse 26 and verse 27. Because the creation account presents a dizzyingly high view of man as the apex of God's creation.

The rest of his creation is a distant 2nd and 3rd and 4th and so on. The animal creation takes a distant second to God's creation of man. The sun and the moon and stars are a distant 3rd or 4th or whatever to God's creation of man. All of God's creation, as much as it displays God's glory, pales in comparison to the worth of one human being.

I love what Pastor Kent Hughes says in his commentary on this very verse. Listen to what he says here. He says though you could travel 100 times the speed of light past countless yellow orange stars to the edge of the galaxy and swoop down to the fiery glory located a few 100 light years below the plane of the Milky Way. Though you could slow to examine the host of hot young stars luminous among the gas and dust, though you could observe close up the protostars poised to burst forth from their dusty cocoons, though you could witness a star's birth.

In all your stellar journeys, you would never see anything equal to the wonder of a human being. Moses reaches this point. Of the creation narrative saying, yes, God borrowed the heavens and the earth, he bro the animals, and then he comes to man and says, God, Barra, Barra, Barad man. Moses is giving us all the literary clues we need to know that in creating man, This is creation going to a whole new level.

This threefold repetition tells us so. I also have to wonder, If this threefold repetition of Bara might be an indication of the Trinity also. of God the Father and God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit involved in the creation of man. But regardless, in this passage, we see that God is creating man and we see that he is carrying out his intentions to create man in a particular way in his image that brings us to the 5th development in this passage, and that is God does not just create man, but he creates man in his image.

Created man. In his image. You are created in the image of God. I am created in the image of God.

Adam and Eve were created. In the image of God. A question that, man, whenever you read anything on this passage, a lot of ink is spilled over the question and answering the question, what does this mean to be created in the image of God and I want us to take a little bit of time to ponder what is meant by this statement and this is not exhaustive by any means. In fact, some of this we're going to come back to.

next, Sunday as we continue to unpack verse 27. But let me give you 7 or 8 things real quick to think about in answering the question, what does it mean for us to be in the image of God or for man to be created in the image of God. we know, amongst other things, that whatever it means, it's a pretty big deal. Right?

We would know this from how often it gets stated in Genesis alone. Genesis 1:26, Let us make man in our image according to our likeness. Verse 27, and God created man in His own image, in the image of God, He created him. Genesis 5:1, he made him, speaking of man in the likeness of God, Genesis 9:6, in the image of God, He made man, and God in Genesis 9:6 is saying, let me tell you something about man, I created man in my image, and therefore, And he tells people what to do about that.

And the treatment that mankind is entitled to because he is an image bearer of God. So whatever it means to be created in the image of God, we would know that it's a big deal and therefore it's worth thinking about and asking this question that we're pondering. Secondly, we would know that whatever it means to be created in God's image and likeness, it must represent features that render man distinct from animals, right? If animals were not created in the image of God, but man was created in the image of God, then The image of God in man must be pointing to things in man wherein man is different than the animals.

Actually, we have a lot in common with the animal creation. Biologically, there are many similarities between man and animals. A pig has a heart and lungs and a stomach, and so do humans and There's much overlap. We are living souls in the creation account, animals and man, we breathe the breath of life.

We have come from. Physically speaking, from the soil of the ground, so we have much in common, but animals we're not in the image of God. Man is, so whatever the image of God and man is, it must be pointing to those things about us wherein we are different from animals. Thirdly, whatever the image of God is in man, we know that it Or, or at least a portion of that image survived the fall, right?

man's fall into sin as awful as it was, with as much damage as it did, even damage to God's image in us, that fall into sin did not obliterate the image of God and man. And there's a couple of passages in the New Testament we can look at that point this out in 1 Corinthians 11:7, Paul states that man is present tense, the image and glory of God. So that's obviously after the fall. I researched this.

Paul lived after the fall, and yet he's speaking in the present, saying that man is. The image and the glory of God in James 3:9, James says, with our tongues, we bless God, but we curse men. And he uses the perfect tense who have been made in the image of God and perfect tense verb means something that happened in the past with the abiding results up to the present, that it is still in that condition. So to say we have been made in the likeness of God or the image of God is to say that we still are in that image that we were made in.

So we can be sure that Adam and Eve reflected the image of God in a greater way before the fall than they did after their fall into sin. Yet based on these passages, we know that something of the image of God still persists in all men. Number 4, or you're not really numbering these, I have them numbered in my notes. another thing we can observe is this, whatever it means to be created in the image of God, it entails relationship, us being relational beings or being persons in community.

This is implied actually by the language, let us make man in our image. is it interesting to you? That When God comes to the point where he is deciding to make men, That God reveals Himself to us, the reader as a plurality of beings, right at that strategic moment of creation. We see that God is not just a me, but he is an us.

He is not just an I, but he is a we. We observe that God is not just a singularity, but he is A community There's a relationship there. God is revealing Himself to us as a plurality of beings in community with one another, who speak to one another, listen to one another, and do things together, and God reveals that to us right at the moment that he is deciding to make man in His image. Perhaps by Saying what he says in verse 26 and letting us listen in on that, God is giving us a major clue as to what his image entails.

And so this would make sense to us. God does not say, let us make man in our images. In verse 26, instead, it is the singular image of the triune God, the singular image of this God who is In community. Members of the Godhead who live in relationship with one another, to just behold the Father is not to behold the entirety of God's image, to just behold the Son is not to behold the entirety of God's image, to behold Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in relationship.

In community with one another is to behold. The image of God in its Entirety. One writer says it this way, Douglas Kelly is his name. God Himself has never existed as a single lonely, solitary individual.

Rather, he has always existed in the fullness of family-like being. So for God to create man in His image is to create a person who is meant for relationship. Let's say it this way, we are created in the image. Of the one who is not just an I, but who is a we, who is not just me, but is us.

And he creates us in His image. And so we're not surprised in verse 27 to observe that God created him. In his image, male and female, he created them. Because God is not just a me, but in us.

Man is not just a him, but a them also. This is exactly why after God created Adam, if, if we cheat a little bit and go into chapter two, God creates Adam and, and in chapter two, God looks upon him and says it's not good for the man to be what? Alone This is not God looking at Adam going, oh, poor Adam. Poor Adam, I guess he needs companionship.

I didn't think about that. So I'll make a helper who corresponds to his needs. No, this is God. Looking at Adam by himself and saying, my image is not yet complete.

I have not yet fully made man in my image. I created Adam for relationship, and his capacity for relationship is right now crying out for fulfillment. When we get to chapter 2, we're going to observe that as Adam was naming the animals, the implication is he was looking for companionship. There was not a helper found for him, meaning someone was looking, and I suspect it was Adam.

Who was looking and when God did create Eve and bring Eve to Adam, literally the Hebrew could be rendered, Adam said at last. At last, This is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. There was a craving in him. For a relationship with someone who corresponded to him.

That is the image of God, that desire, that capacity for relationship, and the desire for relationship, that delight in the relationship that is now being brought to him is a reflection of the image of God. We also know that whatever it means to be created in the image of God, it entails. A crowning of man with royal status. What is so interesting.

To observe here is that if you read ancient literature from Egypt and Babylon, and what have you, you would find many occasions where persons are described as the image of God. But guess what you'll find That language is only reserved for kings. Only for royalty. In Babylon, for example, here's just a few examples.

here's some references, one passage says, the Father of my Lord, the King is the very image of Bel, and the King, my Lord, is the very image of Bel. That's just a nice thing to say when you come into the presence of a King. You are the image of God. You are the image of Bel, the great God.

In another passage, a text is describing a king and it says the king, Lord of the lands is the image of Shamesh or Shamash, which was the sun god. In another passage, O king of the inhabited world, you are the image of Marduk, who was a deity. A major deity in this day. And we see this language, kings, royalty are described as the image of God, whatever the name of the great God might have been at that particular point in time.

In Egypt, the evidence that is observed is exactly the same. One writer says this, whereas the Egyptian writers often spoke of kings as being in God's image, they never referred to other people. In this way. You just don't find examples of an average Joe, no offense to any Joes here, but no examples of just an average person being described as the image.

Of God. Only kings are described this way. In fact, King Tut. We've all heard of King Tut.

His full title is Tutankhamun. And literally The translation of that name is the living image of Amoon. Who was the chief god, the god of creation, and the god of fertility. That's what Tutankhamun.

Literally meant his title, his name was the living image of Amun. The Pharaoh Tutmos the 4th was referred to in one passage as the likeness of Ray, which was the sun god. So we see this language. In ancient times, but it is reserved for royalty alone.

So there's really no denying, no one disputes this, that the language of referring to someone as the image of God is regal vocabulary, the language that was used to elevate a king above ordinary people. But as some writers say, I found 3 writers who all said this and they must have been reading each other. but they said that the idea, this royal idea of the image of God becomes democratized. In Genesis one.

All humans bear the image of God according to the Bible, all humans are royalty, with a royalty more profound than any royalty that any human being could ever bestow upon. Another person, every living human being bears the stamp. Of royalty We've come a long way from Boomba's vomit, haven't we? This is the apex of God's creation, and we're realizing that there's something incredibly special about God's creation.

Of man To be created in the image of God means so many things and just for the sake of time, we're gonna, we'll stop the list right here and we'll probably come back to some of this stuff, next, next week. But let me just say one thing in wrapping up this discussion of The image of God that however we might make a list of ways that we reflect and are created in the image of God, we do want to be careful that we not be guilty of reductionism, taking one thing out of that list and saying this is what the image of God is.

One writer says it this way. Any approach that focuses on one aspect of man, be that physical, spiritual, or intellectual, to the neglect of the rest of man's constituent features seems doomed to failure.

Genesis 1:26 is simply saying that to be human is to bear the image of God in ways that the rest of biblical revelation will unfold and explain and make clear. So what do we do with this? We're gonna talk more about this next week, but let's ponder just a few ramifications of what we've learned this morning. Richard Dawkins, In his book, The Selfish Gene.

actually ponders the question, what is man? And listen to what he says. He says, is there meaning to life? What are we for?

What is man? After posing the last of these questions, the eminent zoologist GG Simpson put it thus, this is, this is, this. Simpson's Response to the question, what is man? He says, the point I want to make now is that all attempts to answer that question before 1859 are worthless, and that we will be better off if we ignore them completely.

And Dawkins is holding that view up as his own. That is chronological snobbery. At its worst, this is arrogance. Say anything before 1859.

Anything before Darwin, we can safely ignore. I think one of the biggest problems in our culture today is that too many people have followed this advice. I think we would say that any view of men that ignores what God is teaching us here in Genesis one. is a worthless view.

And should be ignored you. Were created by God. We all in this room were created by God. You are not the product of random evolutionary chance.

I was telling you a few weeks ago about a friendly exchange between an atheist and a, and a Christian and this Christian was talking to the atheists trying to evangelize them with just the basic good news that hey, you're an image bearer of God, and so you have value, your life has value. But this girl responded by saying, quote, I do not have value. I am irrelevant to the universe. I'm just a speck of dust.

That's where her atheism led her. So who has the higher view of man? The Bible presents an incredible view of mankind. And it's not the view that exalts us and then makes us proud.

No, with that high exaltation of being image bearers of God, the apex of his creation comes heavy responsibility. That's why God takes everything you say, everything you do, everything you think so seriously. And what, a lot of people, they reject that, because they would rather be meaningless to the universe and get to do whatever they want to do, than to bear the crushing responsibility of being an image bearer of God. Where their life is all about him.

And reflecting him. When you read the Old Testament law with all the laws that are given, the 10 Commandments and so forth, these are instructions that are given to image bearers of God. This is what God, this is how to live as the royalty. That I have created you to be.

This is how my image bearers are to live their life. We see in this passage, the beginnings of the doctrine that we are created in the image of God and that everybody that we run into, every human being displays the image of God, even those who don't know Christ. Even though God's image is marred and diminished as a result of the fall, every human being displays the image of God and because of that, there is something to celebrate and admire and respect in every single human person.

That you meet.

When a non-Christian artist does some great work of art, or puts together and creates some great music, we can admire the image of God being displayed through their intellect and through their artistry. Celebrate other people even if they don't know the Lord, any good you see even in a nonbeliever, where did that good come from? It came from God. And we should celebrate the image of God and others, and we should treat people accordingly as image bearers of God, all humans, the unborn, the elderly, the sick, Those who are dying because their bodies are afflicted with the Ebola virus, and they're one day away from death, they are image bearers of God and their life has value.

The disabled, All human beings by virtue of being human beings have enormous value and worth and should be treated. With respect, That accords with that reality. Genesis 9 tells us we shouldn't kill image bearers of God. James 3:9 says, you shouldn't even curse with your tongue and the way that you speak to people or about them.

You are to be very careful even in the way that you speak regarding image bearers of God. Man, I wish evangelical Christians were famous for how with their tongues, And with their keyboards, they treated people with respect, who bear the image of God. Because of this, we should love living in a city like this. We should love it when we see crowds of people.

Because where there are people, there is the image of God. Timothy Keller says this, like he lives, I think in Manhattan, and there's just tons and tons of people, but he's not longing to get to the suburbs and away from all these people. Listen to what he says, in the cities, you have more image of God per square inch than anywhere else in the world. So there's more to admire, more to celebrate, and more.

Infinitely valuable souls to love and to reach. God has created you to be an image bearer of him. This is your reason for existence to be a representative of Him who created you. You are not to live just for yourself, but for him and to display his glory.

In the fall What happened in the fall? God created Adam and Eve in His image. And the serpent comes to Eve and says, Yeah, God created you in His image to be like him to a degree, but you want to really be like Him. You wanna really bear his likeness in a way greater than what he's allowed.

You wanna really be like God, knowing good and evil, eat this fruit. And Eve in an attempt To gain for herself more of God's image than what she was entitled to partook of the fruit, and so did Adam, and they fell. See, when we realize how highly exalted mankind is, we then begin to understand how steep the fall. But we fell because we sought to overreach.

Which makes us really appreciate the passage that I read as we began to celebrate communion this morning. The essence of our fall is that we were not content to merely be image bearers of God. We wanted more than what he had created us to bear and thus we fell. The essence of our salvation is that God In the person of Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ did not view equality with God as something to clutch onto. But he humbled himself, lowered himself. And took on our likeness. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, and through him we are saved.

He descends and then he's exalted. We sought to exalt ourselves and we fell. But we have redemption in Christ and if we come to this one who became like us and humbled himself to death on the cross for us and is now exalted, we can find exaltation in him and restoration to the image of God in him. We'll pick up here next week as we continue to unpack.

These incredible realities of God's creation of man. Let's, let's pray together. Lord, if there are any that are here this morning who maybe they've never thought about these things. I just pray that you would open their hearts to realize what exalted beings.

They really are as a product of your amazing handiwork. They and all of us are fearfully and wonderfully made to be image bearers of you. This is what you created us to be, this is what we were destined for, this is what we fell from. And this is what you seek to restore us to through Christ who is the image of God, the exact representation of your person, and Christ came and revealed you to us.

And he died for our sins, and was raised from the dead and is now ascended to your right hand. And if we look to him, we can be saved and forgiven of our sins. And we can begin the journey of being made more and more conformable to the very image of the ultimate man, the God man, Jesus. who perfectly fulfills your original design for mankind and so much more.

It is in Him that we put our trust, and I pray if there are any here today who have never put their trust in Him, That their hearts would be drawn to you, Lord, awaken their hearts to see the beauty of Jesus, the ultimate image bearer of God, and that they would look to To you and find salvation in you alone. Help us as believers, Lord, to behave as image bearers. Who through your grace Seek to behave responsibly as the image bearers of God that we are. Help us to treat our fellow men with The dignity and the respect.

That is due to them as image bearers of God, whatever their beliefs may be, whatever their religion may be, whatever their political affiliation may be, May we as your people. show respect to the image of God and our fellow men. And when we do take a stand and we do speak out and we do criticize, and we call sin sin, that we do so in a way that is couched by this recognition. Of the image of God and others.

May we become famous for the respect that we show. And it's because of this respect that we urge people to look to Christ, and we point out the wrong, because this is not the way image bearers should behave. There's so much, Lord, for us to learn. Thank you for what you've shown us this morning, help us to live this out and to glorify you.

We thank you for this opportunity to give of our offerings to you, Lord, receive these funds, do much with every penny that is given for the glory of Jesus, in whose name we pray, and all God's people said,