The Spirit of God has acted quite otherwise. Genesis 1:25-26 And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the . This honour indeed God has put upon the body of man, that the Word was made flesh, the Son of God was clothed with a body like ours and will shortly clothe ours with a glory like that of his. 15 My frame was not hidden from you. But here I stop for the present. Now the key here is the grass and the vegetables and the trees yielding seed after their kind. The world, the universe has been created. It was the essential feature that the trial should be simply a question of God's authority in prohibition, not one of grave moral evil. Swept back wing design, and their ability to just hover, and then almost to fly backwards. Then the earth is described as void and waste, and (not as succeeding, but accompanying it) darkness upon the face of the deep, contemporaneously with which the Spirit of God broods upon the face of the waters. *How this agrees with the dispensational dealings of God with Israel needs no argument. Here again how observable is the transparent and self-consistent truth of scripture. . So what did God do? Will it be so always? 98. Meaning of Genesis 1:26. It is the truth, and in such a form and depth as man himself could not have discerned. Here then we only hear of pairs which enter. "And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth." We find then light caused to be a remarkable expression, and, be assured, profoundly true. "Most theologians have recognized that that [sic] we cannot interpret it [i.e., the phrase the image of God] literally-that is, that mans physical being is in the image of God. And God set them in the heavens [the firmament, in the limitless space of heaven, the rachowq of heaven] to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. That man was made last of all the creatures, that it might not be suspected that he had been, any way, a helper to God in the creation of the world: that question must be for ever humbling and mortifying to him, Where wast thou, or any of thy kind, when I laid the foundations of the earth?Job 38:4. In closing the interpretation of this chapter, it is proper to refer to certain first principles of hermeneutical science. For, to reply to the last objection first, geology has offered no conclusive evidence of its doctrine, that the fossil remains of beasts of prey and bones with marks of disease belong to a pre-Adamite period, but has merely inferred it from the hypothesis already mentioned of successive periods of creation. Genesis 1-11:26. Departed from God, they hid themselves, and He had but to utter those solemn and searching words to Adam, "Where art thou?" There was a famine in the land: Though Isaac lived in the land God promised to his father Abraham and his descendants, it did not mean that life in the land would be without trouble or challenge. The image of God within them is what makes them human. Here we learn that man did not become a living soul in the way that every other animal did. I say, "well I want to do this". Believers can, for by faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God (Hebrews 11:3). Man, as soon as he was made, had the whole visible creation before him, both to contemplate and to take the comfort of. Genesis 1-11: The Christian Standard Commentary - by Kenneth A Mathews (Hardcover) $22.49 - $40.49. It is not concerned with the sort of investigation that modern science is concerned with. The victims of sin knew shame, now fear. It sedulously refrains from importing modern notions into the narrative. (85). He has appointed them rulers over the earthly creation (see 1:27-28).Without the image of God within them, people would not (according to the biblical definition) be human. Then what confirmation of one's faith! How infinite His wisdom! . and supply the defects of it, since the fall, lays down at first this principle of the unclouded light of nature: That this world was, in the beginning of time, created by a Being of infinite . But it was important to show its ground in the facts of creation, apart from special relationship, and that made Elohim alone appropriate in this place. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. The intention of Almighty God in the creation of man is revealed to have been the placement of man over the earth and all that is in it, an intention frustrated in part by man's rebellion in Eden, but finally realized despite all hindrances and delays in the era of the "new heavens and the new earth." God and man share a likeness that is not shared by other creatures. last, and beside me there is no God: and three jods (yyy) testify concerning him, that Hitherto God has been introduced simply as commanding; now, when he approaches the most excellent of all his works, he enters into consultation. The Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us. In the latter she only saw a child given of God naturally. earth; Likewise people should maintain the other divisions in the universe. As it is, God reserves the striking detail for the scene of moral relationship. God constantly refused that man should make any kind of a likeness of Him. Commentary on Genesis 26:1-5 (Read Genesis 26:1-5) Isaac had been trained up in a believing dependence upon the Divine grant of the land of Canaan to him and his heirs; and now that there is a famine in the land, Isaac still cleaves to the covenant. God is here styled Jehovah-Elohim; and so uniformly to the end of the chapter. The use of the plural number intimates that this authority was not given to Adam only, but to all his posterity as well as to him. of the breath of God by which the being, formed from the dust of the earth, became a living soul. And to every beast of earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so (Gen 1:29-30). These words are directed not to the earth, out of which man was Give up the immortality of the soul, and you deny the ground of that relationship, man's special moral responsibility to God. Then we have the further fact stated of the state into which the earth was plunged to which it was reduced. He created him male and female, Adam and Eve--Adam first, out of earth, and Eve out of his side, Genesis 2:21-23; Genesis 2:21-23. I warn every person solemnly against a notion found in both ancient and modern times, that there was in the beginning a quantity of what may be called crude matter for God to work on. But we have on the first day light, and a most remarkable fact it is (I may in passing just say) that the inspired historian should have named it. Humans were created in God's image, with the ability to cultivate and manifest qualities that God possesses, such as love, empathy, and justice. God does not give such knowledge by direct revelation. And again the design, and the variety! He appears most consistently and in season, when man's earth is about to be brought before us. For when Moses afterwards repeats the same things he passes over the likeness, and contents himself with mentioning the image. And so you get the feeling, an irritation in your ankle, and you reach down and pull that seed out and throw it down. This is brought before us here. And let them have dominion (92) Here he commemorates that part of dignity with which he decreed to honor man, namely, that he should have authority over all living creatures. Who else could have told us how and when the earth was thus divided? "By the law is the knowledge of sin," and until the law was brought in there was, as far as scripture tells us, no such discrimination, if any, between the offerings. In that literature, so marvellously preserved to our days, Sir H. Rawlinson thinks that he has traced the first man up to the black or Accadian race. And in the manner in which creation is here presented what unspeakable grandeur! (Colossians 3:10, and Ephesians 4:23.) "And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell." The preservation of the creatures which required the ark. "Come thou into the ark," says He; "for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation." And so Seth, to him also there was born a son, and he called his name Enos. So always it is. Why? See his Works, vol. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters he called the Seas: and God saw that it was good. Seth therefore was begotten in Adam's own likeness, not in God's. Hence we may see how fitting it is that, as man is about to be introduced on the earth for the first time, as the previous state had nothing whatever to do with his being here below, and indeed was altogether unfit for his dwelling on it, besides the fact that he was not yet created, days should appear only when it was a question of making the heavens and the earth as they are. what disappointment and grief, both of the most poignant kind, followed ere long For Abel too was born; and in process of time it came to pass that they brought their offerings unto "Jehovah" a term, I may observe, that is here in admirable keeping. (87) I answer, is not in the original, but is taken from the French translation. Let it suffice to refer to the great principle, remembering that the theatre of the ages or dispensations of God is the world since the flood. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. If she possesses all along with Him, it is because of her union with Him, not intrinsically. Others blend them together, and say there is an Hendiadys, that is, according to the image most like us. Mankind was the only form of life created "after our likeness" and And then He said, "Thou shalt not make unto thyself any graven image or any likeness of God to bow down and to worship it". As for the transfer of the site of the garden lower down in the plain of Shinar, it appears to me altogether untenable. I wonder how long the pine tree could have existed before it decided, "I need to get my seeds out further" and it developed the little wing on the seed.There are other seeds that when the pod dries out they explode. For God is not now first beginning to consider what form he will give to man, and with what endowments it would be fitting to adorn him, nor is he pausing as over a work of difficulty: but, just as we have before observed, that the creation of the world was distributed over six days, for our sake, to the end that our minds might the more easily be retained in the meditation of Gods works: so now, for the purpose of commending to our attention the dignity of our nature, he, in taking counsel concerning the creation of man, testifies that he is about to undertake something great and wonderful. He had created everything that was needed at this point, and so that was the end of His creative act. Any one who is acquainted with the chief writings of the old idolatrous world, of the Greeks and Romans especially, will see that what God has veiled in this brief statement, which passes calmly over that of which more had better not be spoken, is what they have amplified into the Titans and the giants and their greater deities. And this honour, put upon man at first, is a good reason why we should not speak ill one of another (James 3:9), nor do ill one to another (Genesis 9:6), and a good reason why we should not debase ourselves to the service of sin, and why we should devote ourselves to God's service. They have no small interest; but men are apt to be hasty and short-sighted. Could any person have conceived such wisdom beforehand? 1:24 ) so as to keep them in awe, and keep them off from The Fall obscured but did not obliterate the image of God in man. The roots themselves are marvelous. But, after all, it is the positive truth of God which it is the all-important business to hold, and this God has put in the heart of the simplest child who believes in Jesus. De Profugis, p. 460. The insertion of the substantive verb, as has been remarked, expresses no doubt a condition past as compared with what follows, but pointedly not said to be contemporaneous with what preceded, as would have been implied in its omission; but what interval lay between, or why such a desolation ensued, is not stated. Ed. And you see it floating through the air, its heading somewhere to propagate itself wherever the wind will let it drop and then it will burrow in and begin to grow.The coconut seed is a fascinating seed; it's conquered the South Pacific. Does he have the form of a man, or of a woman, or both? Marvelous, absolutely marvelous!But we get the more complex life forms that sort of are a little independent. Hence, therefore, as closing all the previous state of things, where man was not spoken of, preparing the way for the Adamic earth, the Spirit of God is seen brooding upon the face of the waters. We are examining now the sixth day of creation, the day when man appeared upon the earth. Through His creation, as you look at the wisdom, as you study it, as God has designed the leaves to take and turn the sunrays into energy and, and all, and the photosynthesis processes by which the sun is turned into energy to feed the tree and all. And as we suggested last Thursday night, it is possible that He'll be the only handicapped person in there. But yet, our year is measured by the time it takes our Earth to make its rotation around the sun. It was created after the image of God; and that image, St. Paul tells us, consisted in righteousness, true holiness, and knowledge, Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:10. the words spoken after the manner of kings, as Saadiah, using the ii. We were created directly by God to represent Him on the earth and have dominion over every other . Others have spoken spoken rashly and wrongly. Others proceed with a little more subtlety, who, though they do not imagine God to be corporeal, yet maintain that the image of God is in the body of man, because his admirable workmanship there shines brightly; but this opinion, as we shall see, is by no means consonant with Scripture. As Apostolic's we can in fact give solid biblical answers as to why God may have used a plural form. In our image, after our likeness What is said above refers only to the body of man, what is here said refers to his soul. Men have been planting grains of wheat for millenniums and he has yet to plant a grain of wheat and have a corn stalk grow out of it. let them be for lights in the firmament in the heavens to give light upon the earth: and it was so. It is all well, and a desirable service of love, if a Christian can happily and with God-given wisdom meet the difficulties of others; but hold you the truth yourselves. Now, that does not necessarily mean a physical likeness of God. (86) But Augustine, beyond all others, speculates with excessive refinement, for the purpose of fabricating a Trinity in man. But this is not the meaning of verses 1 and 2. It allows, also, if it were necessary, between the original creation, recorded in the first verse, and the state of things described in the second, the interval of time required for the light of the most distant discoverable star to reach the earth. I don't want God around me! When the Bible says God did this or God created that, it does not mean that he must have done so instantaneously or magically. Yet man was made the same day that the beasts were; his body was made of the same earth with theirs; and while he is in the body, he inhabits the same earth with them. Undoubtedly there is teaching of the Spirit of God founded on the facts of revelation. [It's your food.] And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And so, even the tri-unity of God is expressed in the first verse, "in the beginning God," Elohim. Hence, wherever man enters he makes his sway to be felt. He made man the master over the earth. But here the question is respecting that glory of God which peculiarly shines forth in human nature, where the mind, the will, and all the senses, represent the Divine order. We all have a nose, we all have eyes, we all have eyebrows, we all have---well, we, most of us, have you know, some hair at least. It is not "Jehovah" now but "God." ], One writer sought to retain six literal days of creation and to harmonize them with an old age earth model, allowing a long period of time (possibly billions of years) between Genesis 1:2-3. of food to man, no mention as yet is made of any other meat than [Note: See Tremper Longman III, Song of Songs, pp. The Anthropomorphites were too gross in seeking this resemblance in the human body; let that reverie therefore remain entombed. "The image is found in the type of relationship that was designed to exist between male and female human beings, a relationship where the characteristics of each sex are valued and used to form a oneness in their identity and purpose. It just testifies to God's neat, inventive genius, and being able to take same basic features and just creates an infinite number of varieties.God evidently likes variety. But the Holy Spirit has veiled such a fact in the only manner that became God and was proper for man. (86) Some here distinguish, and say the image is in what is natural, the likeness in what is gratuitous. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the . Free standard shipping with $35 orders. In the account of the accomplishment of the divine purpose the words swell into a jubilant song, so that we meet here for the first time with a parallelismus membrorum, the creation of man being celebrated in three parallel clauses. But the will of man pits itself invariably against the known will of God, and the very man who was doomed to be a fugitive sets to work that he may settle himself here below. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 145.] This precludes all pantheistic notions of the origin of man. There was a trial of man in Eden, and he fell immediately: after that there was none whatever in the antediluvian world. The moment God spoke, you have the Word of God. The Bible speaks of the heavens and the earth as ordinary people see them from their standpoint on earth. Some think they have some kind of device that tunes on the magnetic field of the earth. The Heir of all things is the Second man, and not the bride. And what followed after it? There was the whole matter. And this we may safely say, That he by whom God made the worlds, not only the great world, but man the little world, formed the human body, at the first, according to the platform he designed for himself in the fulness of time. Whether people are believers or not, whether they receive the truth or not, God holds to that which belongs to His own moral being. What does He do then? It is not, but rather of moral relationship. Was it a person for a promise? Take, for instance, the way in which the book of Genesis opens. Your judgment alike of God and man will be falsified; your estimate of the past and your expectations of the future will all be vain, unless you steadily remember that God now in all His dealings with man acts on the solemn fact of sin original and universal sin. Both may be perfectly right, and both absolutely true; but there is a difference of manner and phraseology, because of a difference of object before you. Although we are a "little lower than the angels" it is the angels who have the job of ministering to the people who will inherit salvation. Nebuchadnezzar, "I have dreamed" Daniel 2:3. Having prepared the natural creation for human life, God now desired humankind to enjoy that creation with him (2:1-3; seventh day). Both appear to me natural and purposed. But there is not an object within the ken of man which he does not aim at making subservient to his purposes. 3. He pronounces a . It is the soul which gives the unity, and which accounts for the personal identity. Here on the fifth day, now, we have the more complex life forms. For although at the present time man is fitted by his teeth and alimentary canal for the combination of vegetable and animal food; and although the law of mutual destruction so thoroughly pervades the whole animal kingdom, that not only is the life of one sustained by the death of another, but "as the graminivorous animals check the overgrowth of the vegetable kingdom, so the excessive increase of the former is restricted by the beasts of prey, and of these again by the destructive implements of man;" and although, again, not only beasts of prey, but evident symptoms of disease are met with among the fossil remains of the aboriginal animals: all these facts furnish no proof that the human and animal races were originally constituted for death and destruction, or that disease and slaughter are older than the fall. ( Hardcover ) $ 22.49 - $ 40.49 her union with Him, it is not shared by creatures. 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