Original Humanity – Genesis Ch1v26to31

Sermons Archive - Greenview Church

Let me add to the welcome that David has given you this morning, and let me invite you to take a Bible and turn with me, if you have a Bible, to Genesis chapter 1. There’s also some Bibles in the seats. If you want to borrow one of those, you can. And we’re going to read from verse 26 of Genesis 1 to the end of the chapter.

So let’s hear God’s Word together. Then God said, Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created mankind in his own image.

In the image of God, he created them. Male and female, he created them. God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and increase in number.

Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground. Then God said, I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it.

They will be yours for foods. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground, everything that has the breath of life in it, I give every green plant for food. And it was so.

God saw all that he had made and it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. Amen.

This is God’s Word. Why should you listen to a talk on the sixth day of creation? There’s a good question. Let me give you three reasons why it might be worth giving the next 30 minutes of your time.

Number one, this day is going to show you how to view and value the world. Very hot topic at the moment, particularly in the last 10, 20 years. How should we view the environment? Well, this passage is going to speak into that.

Number two, this day is also going to show you how to view and value yourself. What is your sense of self-worth? What value do you have as a human being, if any value at all? Lots of people struggle with that. And this passage speaks into that.

And then number three, and I guess it’s a kind of extension of the second thing, this passage is also going to show you how to view and value other people. What worth do other people have? And therefore, what way should you treat them as human beings? And particularly if they’re people who are very different from you, maybe you would tend naturally to have a low view of them, to think that they’re beyond the pale. Well, how should you view them? How should you treat them? These are just some of the implications that we’re going to touch on before we get to the end of this message.

But what I want to do to begin with, I want to start with something really simple. And what I want to start with is a very curious observation about day six. Now, notice with me the amount of space Moses the writer gives to day six.

It runs from, actually before we started to read verse 24, all the way to verse 31. And if you just kind of glance at the whole of chapter one, you’ll see that day six is almost as long as the previous five days put together. Days one to five, if you clump them all together, are just a little bit longer than the space Moses gives when he writes about day six.

He slows down. And the obvious question is why? What is so significant about the sixth day that Moses goes on and on about it? Is it the creation of the land animals who come first at the start of the day? Well, they’re wonderful in themselves, but I don’t think they alone warrant the focus that Moses gives day six. Now, something even greater, more monumental, is going to happen on this day.

And there’s a hint of it even in the very language that starts verse 26. Have a little look down at the beginning of verse 26, when God unusually says, let us make. Let us make.

Now, previously when God makes things, again, if you just glance back to other days, you’ll see that usually God speaks in impersonal language. God will say things like, let there be this, let there be that, let there be light. Let this thing be separated from that thing.

But here for the first time, God speaks in a personal way and in a plural way. Let us make something. Now, who is God speaking to here? Some suggest that God might be speaking to the angels, the court of angels in heaven.

I think much more likely God is actually speaking with Himself. I like what John Calvin says. He says, God is consulting with Himself.

Do you ever consult with yourself? Am I the only person that consults with myself sometimes? Will I do this? Will I do that? Maybe I’m going to do this. I hope you don’t speak in the plural when you do it. Right enough.

Let us do this. I think God’s consulting with Himself. And I think later in the Bible, we see this in a deeper and fuller dimension.

You find that within the one God, the Bible reveals this slowly, you find that within the one God, there is community. There is a trinity of persons. I reckon we’re glimpsing that here.

The Father, Son, and Spirit conferring. Let us make mankind. The last thing God makes, the most remarkable thing God creates is us.

Now, this is quite an interesting… There’s a kind of little tension here we’ve got to work out in our heads because we… Maybe you’re confused when I say that, because I’ve been saying for the last two weeks that God is the hero of creation. And that’s absolutely true. If you make everything, you must be the hero of the creation storey.

Yet while God is the hero, we need to understand something else, that humanity is the high point of creation. God is the hero, but humanity is the high point. In fact, this whole chapter, in many ways, is very human-centric.

It’s all really building up towards the creation of humans. This is why the creation account in Genesis is actually focused on planet Earth. Did you notice that last week when we actually went through the days? Did you notice that Genesis 1 is not really an account of just the general creation of the universe? The universe is created, but it’s in the background.

In the foreground is the creation of the earth. That’s why there’s so much focus on things like the sun and the moon, and that’s also why there’s the little throwaway comment, and He also made the stars. The rest of the stars are not that relevant, because the camera is focused on creation from earth’s perspective.

Why is the camera zoomed in on planet earth when it could be focused on anywhere else in the whole universe? The reason is God is about to make something utterly unique in the entire cosmos on earth. Let us make mankind in our image. Now, down through church history, Christians have scratched their heads at this, and they’ve wondered what is meant by the image of God.

And quite often the conversation goes this way, that people wonder, well, is there some kind of characteristic that we can isolate and say that’s the essence of the image? The image is, for example, some have said the image is our ability to reason. It’s our thinking that the animal kingdom doesn’t share. Or is it, as others have suggested, perhaps the spiritual side of human beings? We’re not just physical, we’re spiritual.

Or is the image something that we do? Is it the fact that we rule over creation in the way that God rules? Is it more of an activity that is the image of God? I must say that I’m personally nervous about trying to pin down what exactly the image is. And the reason I say that is for a simple reason. Genesis 1 never defines what the image is.

It never explains it. It just states it, but it never unpacks it. It seems that more important than knowing exactly what’s in the image is simply knowing the fact that you are made in it.

And it certainly means this, to be made in God’s image certainly means this. It means that you represent God and you resemble him here on earth. In the days when Moses was writing, there was a fairly common idea.

And the common idea was a king. A king could be a human image bearer of a god. So say you were a Pharaoh or something trying to rule over Egypt.

Well, it’s obvious that you weren’t divine yourself. But the idea would be that you represented a deity on earth. You were their representative, and therefore people better listen to you, right? Because you’re ruling with the authority of the god.

And of course, this was not something for the plebs, right? It was only the kings that were the image bearers of god, not the ordinary people. Well, here in Genesis 1, we have something quite different, wholly unprecedented. Every human being, rich and poor, young and old, are all made in the image of God.

They all represent the creator, and they are all made to be like him. They resemble him. That’s the connected idea.

That’s why he puts image and likeness together here. I’m not one of those who thinks that the image and likeness are like radically different things. I think likeness here is clarifying what the image means.

Part of what the image means is that we are like God. You know, if I say, little Joe is the spitting image of his dad, what do I mean? I mean that he looks like him, right? He’s in his image. He looks like him, or he acts like him.

He walks like him. He talks like him. To be in someone’s image is to resemble them in certain respects.

And while in many ways human beings are unlike God, we are being told here that in lots of ways humans uniquely resemble him. So that when you look at a human being in a way that can’t be said of any other creature or any other inanimate object, you can say there is much there that reflects what God is like. Like verse 26, the first command to the image bearers is to rule the fish, the birds, and the other animals.

Well, that’s like God, isn’t it? What does God do? God rules. He reigns over all things, the whole of the cosmos. And now in a much smaller way, humans are like God.

We rule over the created realm under God. And it’s ruling here over the animal kingdom, isn’t it? The Planet of the Apes franchise has got a lot to answer for. I mean, I love the movies.

The movies are fantastic and fair play to them. They’ve made millions out of the fantasy. What if apes ruled over the world, including human beings? But it is fantasy, isn’t it? Or any of these other kind of funny things you watch, you know, dogs ruling the world or whatever it is in these films, it’s all fantasy.

Forget the lions, forget the apes, the bears, and all of that. The ultimate apex predator is you, human beings. And it’s not because human beings got lucky, it’s because God, verse 27, created mankind in His own image, in the image of God, He created them.

Just notice in passing, that’s the third time in the second half of verse 27 that we’re to be made in God’s image. Just in case you’re missing the point, we’re told three times that we are God’s image bearers. He created them.

Notice the plurality there. We said that there’s a plurality in God Himself. There’s an us in God.

And now we’re seeing that there’s an us in humanity, those who bear His image. God created them. And if we’re wondering, well, who’s the them? Moses then defines it, doesn’t he? Male and female, He created them.

How beautiful and yet how controversial this statement is. Beautiful, isn’t it? I think so. It’s beautiful that male and female are made together in God’s image.

Not one instead of the other. It’s not that male’s in the image and the woman isn’t, or the woman’s in the image and the male isn’t. It’s not one above the other.

No, this is saying that if you just had a world full of men, it would be a very bad thing. It would obviously be very smelly and probably fairly violent, and we would soon all die out because we would have no ability to reproduce. And I don’t have the courage to tell you what a world full of women would be like, but you can come up with your own version of that.

It would also be subpar. Together as male and female, we are made in God’s image, and it’s only together that the image is fully displayed. It’s unity in diversity that is so beautiful and so like God.

So, that is beautiful, and yet today, of course, me saying this is actually controversial, isn’t it? Because the Bible only gives us two genders here. Not an infinite number of genders that you can keep adding to, but only two. And they’re not the same, and they’re not interchangeable.

According to the Bible, your being male or female is fixed before birth and is given by biology. Biblically, you’re not male or female because you like rugby or poetry. It’s not defined by your own self-assessment or by a set of arbitrary interests that some culture or other sees as more masculine or feminine.

Whether you play with toy trucks or a doll’s house doesn’t decide your gender according to the Bible. I realise that there are a very small number of complicated cases where it’s hard to establish gender at birth, and that needs much wisdom and much support as that is worked through. But in the vast, vast majority of cases, your maleness or femaleness is clear and it is given to you.

Let me say, however, that if you struggle with this very thing, I hope this church feels safe enough for you to open up and talk about it to someone. And unfortunately, that’s not always the case in churches. And I hope you’ll be able to open up with someone and tell them that you wrestle with this.

We want to be clear in the Bible. We also want to be compassionate about the real struggles that people face. But it is to these two genders that God gives blessing, verse 28, and a commission.

Verse 28 of Genesis 1 is the first great commission in the Bible. We maybe know the great commission in Matthew. This is the first great commission.

You sometimes hear people call it the creation mandate or the cultural mandate. And it boils down to two main instructions. Fill the earth and rule the earth.

The filling part implies marriage and having children. Notwithstanding what some people suggest, it’s not a bad thing that the earth is populated full of people. That is actually what God commanded us to do, to fill the earth with His image bearers who would fill the earth with His glory.

But not only fill the earth with people, but people who would rule over the earth in His likeness. And that involves subduing the earth, which might include the land being also ruled over, not just the animal kingdom, subdue the earth, and ruling over the earth’s creatures. Not ruling in an exploitative way, but in a way that images God in the kind of way that He rules over us.

Well, how have we done in following these commands in Genesis 1? How are we getting on as a human race with the creation mandate? I’m sorry to say, not very well. I mean, in the face of it, it looks as if we’re doing okay because we’ve kind of populated countries and we’re sort of ruling over the natural world with our smarts and strength. But of course, filling the earth, as we’ve said, with image bearers was always much more than just increasing the population and ruling by brute force.

Now, the idea always was to fill the earth with those who would resemble God in His holiness and in His resistance of sin. And we’ve failed in that, haven’t we, as a human race? All have sinned, Paul says in Romans, and fallen short of the glory of God. And Hebrews chapter 2 has a fascinating insight.

In Hebrews 2, the author is speaking about us as human beings, and he talks about God putting everything under their feet, which I think is a reference back to Genesis 1 and the creation mandate. That’s when He put everything under our feet. But the author goes on to say, God left nothing that is not subject to them, yet at present, we do not see everything subject to them, to the human race.

In other words, he’s saying something has gone wrong. Humans have failed to fully live out the creation mandate. We’re not ruling over the world in the way we were intended to do.

Everything is not subject to us. I mean, that’s true, isn’t it? Even our own hearts are not fully subject to us, are they? We’re not even fully in control of our own sinful desires. There’s a devil loose in the world.

We’re going to see that in Genesis 3. Adam and Eve did not subdue the earth in a holy way. And so, we’re not the perfect images God intended. That’s the bad news.

But the good news, the great news, is that God has done something about that problem. God has sent into the world someone who is the perfect image of who He is. Colossians 1 calls him the image of the invisible God.

Jesus showed the world in His life on earth what God is like, not partially, but perfectly. You know what Hebrews 1 verse 3 says? It says that the Son, Jesus, is the exact representation of God’s being. Jesus is the image of God that we were meant to be.

He filled the earth with God’s glory, with His words, with His deeds, with His attitudes. And then He died as a substitute in place of every one of us that have failed to be like God in His perfect goodness. And this is why the church today is also going into the world with another commission, arguably an even more important commission.

We’re going and we’re making disciples of all the nations in every part of the world, and we’re telling them that they need to follow a better image bearer so that they will know the blessing of what it truly means to be human. You can’t experience the full blessing of being human just through your work, or your marriage, or relationships, or children, or through pleasure, or religion. You can only experience the true blessing of being human when you know the true image bearer.

Well, the image bearers back then were given God’s provision. Of course, they’re given the commission. They also now need to be given the provision to fulfil it.

And what do they need? They need food. And we see that in verses 29 and 30, to keep them alive so that they can fulfil God’s commission. And then in verse 31, God once again sees what He has made, and He says that it is very good.

And notice the increase here, the sort of upping the level. Previously, God has just said that things are good. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that only after He has created His image bearers, only then does God look at it all and say, it’s very good.

That brings us to the end of our text. And the question I’m asking, and maybe you are, is, well, where does this land in my life? And what are some of the implications of this, if any? I want to leave you with three things, just to go away and chew on. And the first thing is what we said at the beginning, how we should view and value the environment.

Now, a bit of a promo here. Andy Hunter is speaking tonight on how should Christians view the environment? Come out and hear him. All I want to say is that Genesis 1 shows us a very high view of the environment that we live in.

Yes, human beings might be the highest point, but environment is also very highly valued. And in fact, something I hadn’t even noticed, isn’t it interesting that while humans are the pinnacle, actually God makes them share day six with the animals? He doesn’t actually give humans their own day. He makes the animals, he makes the humans.

Why? Because they may be above creation, but they’re also part of the environment. And I think that’s significant. Come this evening and we might hear more on some of that.

Secondly, this passage shows us how we should view and value ourselves. Now, many people struggle with a low view of themselves. And I want to caveat this immediately by saying what I’m not talking about.

If I behave poorly, if I treat someone badly and I feel bad about myself, it’s good to feel bad. So, I’m not talking about our sin. I’m not talking about feeling bad in that sense.

That’s a healthy sense of conscience and guilt. But putting that to the side, there are people that quite apart from any wrongs in their lives, have an incredibly low view of themselves and of who they are. Maybe it stems from the way they were parented.

Maybe it comes out of the trauma of how they’ve been treated at some point in life. Maybe it’s just something that emerges internally. Who knows? But some people have that feeling that they are intrinsically worth nothing.

And if someone treats them poorly, well, that’s understandable because they’re worthless anyway, in their view. Now, if that is you, then please know that you’re not alone. There are many, many people who struggle with that in a private way.

And please also realise that if you leave that unaddressed, if you’re not pastorally engaging with that, if you’re not getting support and help with that, if it’s an acute issue for you, that it will have all sorts of damaging effects on you and on other people in your relationships, if you just bury your head in the sand on that one. There isn’t an easy fix to thinking you have no value. But one of the resources we can draw on is knowing that bottom line, I am made in the image of God.

No matter what I’m achieving or not achieving, no matter what they are saying about me, whoever they are, no matter what I’m even saying about myself, nothing can change this creational reality. Even when you can’t get out of bed, this is still true. You are a divine image bearer.

So we don’t need to define ourselves by success or popularity or anything else, but we can be defined by the fact that we are in God’s image. This passage, I think, helps us to get an appropriate sense of the fact that, yes, we are creatures. We must be humble, not overestimate ourselves.

But we’re also creatures made with an incredible dignity. And then finally, this shows us how we should view and value other people, which is really just an extension of that last point. If every human being is made in God’s image, then how should you treat them? This is where Christianity is such a surer foundation than atheism.

I mentioned a couple weeks ago the book, Sapiens, by a guy called Yuval Noah Harari. He talks about, and other atheists have talked about this as well, but he talks about how the whole idea of human equality emerges out of Christianity and Judaism. He talks about, for example, the American Constitution, where all human beings are created equal under God.

He says this whole concept, this entire idea is based upon the Bible. This is what he says. He says, if we do not believe in the creation myths, that’s his view of creation.

He thinks it’s all a myth. He says, if we do not believe in the creation myths about God, creation, and souls, what does it mean that all people are created equal? Evolution is based on difference, not equality. If human beings are just animals, what’s the basis for treating them in any sort of loving and decent way? But if we take creation seriously, then all human beings have enormous dignity and worth, and we had better treat them all well, because God made them, they reflect God, and God will hold us accountable for how we treat His image bearers.

And so the question that’s been going through my mind this week is, who are the people, let’s be real about this, who are the people that I am tempted to value poorly, on a lower level, or to see as having no worth at all, maybe because of their behaviour? Who are those people? It could be a vulnerable baby in the womb. It could be a vulnerable old person who we can’t see the utility of. It could be someone of a different ethnicity.

It could be someone who has different politics. It could be someone who we despise because of their behaviour. I was quite struck by this, the horrible thing that went on down south with the murders, and then the racism, and the people being attacked, and so on, thuggish, racist behaviour.

But it’s interesting, isn’t it, when you see the newspaper coverage of that, that the perpetrators are called monsters, they’re called thugs, they’re called racists, they’re given labels, and we know that reflects wrong behaviour, and that there is a need for repentance. But isn’t it interesting that when people act in a despised way, we immediately dehumanise them, and they just become a label, they become a monster, or whatever it is. And I think in the church, we need to have a different kind of public discourse.

I think when we’re having conversations about these animals, these monsters, we need to speak of them as human beings too that need prayer, that actually need the gospel. And I think we can actually stand out by the way we speak of people, particularly those who seem to be cancelled by everyone else. C.S. Lewis, in his famous sermon, The Weight of Glory, made this brilliant remark.

He said, there are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. The only humans you have ever spoken to—this is me now, not Lewis—the only people you have ever spoken to are those made in God’s image.

So in what way are you, am I, treating those people?

The post Original Humanity – Genesis Ch1v26to31 appeared first on Greenview Church.