Thursday, Jan. 24

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The historical biblical account of the creation of Adam and Eve states that God made the first man and woman 'in His own image'.  The occasion was the sixth day of Creation, after God had prepared the earth as a perfect environment for life and prepared the garden of eden for the crown of His creation, and after He had created the fish, the birds, and the other animals. These were all created by His divine word, which means that God spoke, commanded (or willed) each event to happen and it was done. In the case of the creation of man, there is a difference. 

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.  - Genesis 1:26-27

In this intriguing verse God appears to be talking to someone.  John Calvin said, “This is the language of one apparently deliberating... he enters into consultation.”  Many other commentators refer to it as 'a council'. But if this is so, with whom is God consulting? And why? Does the Bible give us any hint?  Some Jewish scholars have supposed that this is a description of God talking with the angels.  However, this is problematic on several levels; first, there is no evidence that the angels were involved in the creation act (other than to praise it) and there is no indication that we are made in the image of God and angles.  Since God needs no help or advice on how to create, any such consultation must have taken place within the Godhead - between God the Father and God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

God could easily have commanded the creation of man by His own Word, as He had done in the case of the animals and the plants.

Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so.  - Genesis 1:11

But God did not choose to create man in this way...

the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.   - Genesis 2:7

When God created the vegetation and the animals, He made them all “after his/their kind” (the phrase occurs nine times in the first chapter of Genesis) When He created man, He made him after the “God-kind”, in His own image!

Our existence (breath of life) is therefore not the result of spontaneous reorganization of molecules within our body, nor is it derived by evolution from any animal or 'lower hominid' (as some theistic evolutionists teach), but is a direct gift from God.  You really cannot reconcile the Genesis account of the creation of man in the image of God with Darwinian Naturalism.  We are clearly made distinct and different.  We are not a close cousin of the animals, nor a distant relative of primitive plant life, nor a product of primordial slime. Rather, we are as David wrote in Psalm 8,” crowned with glory and honor”... 

When I consider 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,
    the son of man that you care for him?

You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
    and crowned him with glory and honor.

You made him ruler over the works of your hands;
    you put everything under his feet:

all flocks and herds,
    and the beasts of the field,

the birds of the air,
    and the fish of the sea,
    all that swim the paths of the seas.

We are the crown of His creation, wonderful and different, the most excellent of all God's works, and a special expression of the divine nature, created by God's own personal activity, injected with God’s own image, and animated with the very breath of Life from God Himself.  

Jeff Frazier