Put them out of their order, and all becomes confused; receive them as God has written them, and there is perfection in the measure in which you understand them. Nevertheless, even in his fallen state, man retains something of the image of God, for every human being is potentially the beneficiary of the blood of Christ and an heir of everlasting life. See Genesis 3:22. Oh, what a testimony of the inventive genius of God in creation. Kisah ini pada pokoknya berasal dari tradisi Yahwista, kecuali Kej 26:34-35 (Para Imam). Nay, more, now that it is clearly revealed, they have no competency to appreciate it never take in its force; and for this simple reason, that man invariably judges from himself and from his own experience, instead of submitting to God and His word. We have first the great announcement that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. [Note: See James Jordan, "Rebellion, Tyranny, and Dominion in the Book of Genesis," Christianity and Civilization 3 (Summer 1983):38-80. . And the months were originally lunar months, the time it takes the moon to go through its full cycle, as it orbits around the Earth. There was the whole matter. Like the other animals, they were so made that they could feed themselves from what grew on the earth and reproduce their own kind. First, however, it was an insinuation infused and allowed against the true God. And thus, because we are now relating God to man, we are coming into that mysterious name of God, "Jehovah", "Elohim". It is man as the head of creation. We expect him to work through the normal processes of nature in producing the crops from which we get our food by hard work. "The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground." "The tri-unity of God is found in the first verse of the Bible, "in the beginning God," the word in Hebrew is "Elohim". God, having introduced His own Son, has won the victory, the fruits of which He gives to us by faith before our possession is displayed by and-by. What are the ten numerations? Again, let us note the confronting of the serpent, not with man, who always falls under Satan's power, but with Christ, who always conquers. There is next the associated fact of an utter desolation which befell not the heavens, but the earth. De Opificio, p. 16. In the Pentateuch the Hebrew term "image" occurs also in Genesis 5:3 and in Numbers 33:22. 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. And God said, Let us make man It is evident that God intends to impress the mind of man with a sense of something extraordinary in the formation of his body and soul, when he introduces the account of his creation thus; Let US make man. 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. 98. With this the legends of the heathen world respecting the golden age of the past, and its return at the end of time, also correspond (cf. It is not concerned with the sort of investigation that modern science is concerned with. And so we'll just go through finding out what it says and we'll leave the puny, little intellects to their discussions and arguments that are without profit or value to us. The highest, the holiest, the only suitable way, once it is laid before us, evidently is what God Himself has employed in His word. - Ziegler.). This is brought before us here. When men reason instead of receiving the revealed light of the Bible, I care not who or what they may be, they only mistake God and even man. "And if thou doest not well," it is said, "sin lieth at the door." Abel, Enoch, Noah, we have already seen. A mere historian, like Josephus of old a mere commentator, like Ewald now might have used either the one or the other without sensible loss to his readers through both chapters. The meaning is that God created everything good the world and mankind (Genesis 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31), but mankind sinned and destroyed paradise. It put a waterproof husk around itself. There was no fear then. God produces life, whether it be for the fish that people the sea, for the birds of the air, or for the beasts, cattle, or reptiles, on the dry land. The following notes suggest one way in which scientific knowledge, far from causing us to doubt the Genesis creation story, may in fact give us a more meaningful view of it. This was made in the image and likeness of God. His affections were all regular, and he had no inordinate appetites or passions. There was a trial of man in Eden, and he fell immediately: after that there was none whatever in the antediluvian world. Even for Adam, innocent as he was, life did not depend on abstinence from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. JANUARY 11- DAILY READING THROUGH THE ONE YEAR BIBLE- GENESIS 24:52-26:16; MATTHEW 8:18-34; PSALM 10:1-15; PROVERBS 3:7-8 Commentary written and read by Pastor David K. MacAdam. The fish, the fowl, are beneath the domestic cattle. They build their nests, they lay the eggs, they hatch their young. In truth only God is competent to pronounce; and this He has done. There is the provision of God, not merely for the need of man, but for His own glory; and this in the smallest things as in the greatest. Genesis 1:26. And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. But they were different from all other animals and were given power over them; for they alone, of all Gods creatures, were made in Gods image (24-31; sixth day). *Some have wondered why the serpent and Eve should be represented as saying Elohim ("God") in the temptation, seeing that everywhere else in the section the name employed is Jehovah-Elohim. Many commentators opine that these words, "image" and "likeness," are essentially synonymous in Hebrewmeaning that human beings generally look like Godbut doing so limits God's creativity to the merely physical. he followed her, as he has often since, into the broad way of evil. If man can discover such facts by other means, be it so. His thoughts were easily brought and fixed to the best subjects, and there was no vanity nor ungovernableness in them. And day unto day they utter their speech; night unto night their voice goeth forth. The others were caused to live by the simple fact that God organized them according to His own will; but in man's case there was this essential difference, that he alone became a living soul by the inbreathing of Jehovah-Elohim. And here is another fact that I desire to bring before you. And God said, Let there be light in the firmament in the heaven (Gen 1:12-14). Noah was undoubtedly; but it is not always, nor here, the aim to draw attention to what was special. God made but one male and one female, that all the nations of men might know themselves to be made of one blood, descendants from one common stock, and might thereby be induced to love one another. F6, which is wretchedly stupid; nor to It has been gathered from the varying names of God, etc., by speculative minds that there must have been different documents joined together in this book. It sedulously refrains from importing modern notions into the narrative. Genesis 11:1-32 opens with the sin of man, which led to the division described in the preceding chapter, the moral reason of that fact, new then, but still in its substance going on, whatever the superficial changes among men in their lands, and tongues, and political distribution. Scripture does not say more, and we must hold to scripture. Such is the power and simplicity of faith. ), the Syriac rendering must be dismissed as nothing more than a conjecture, and the Masoretic text be understood in the following manner. It is the relationship of Noah which appears here. Hence it is here that Eden is first spoken of. It substantially accords with the present state of astronomical science. And this pattern of six and one, will be established by God throughout the history of His people, and interwoven into their whole culture.So we find everything is beautiful. United as one humanity, male and female are one with God and his heavenly court. It may be observed, that the plural number is used, "let them", which shows that the name "man" is general in the preceding clause, and includes male and female, as we find by the following verse man was created: and over the cattle, and over all the earth; over the tame creatures, either for food, or clothing, or carriage, or for all of them, some of them for one thing, and some for another; and over all the wild beasts of the earth, which seem to be meant by the phrase, "over all the earth"; that is, over all the beasts of the earth, as appears by comparing it with Genesis 1:24 so as to keep them in awe, and keep them off from doing them any damage: and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; to make use of it as should seem convenient for them. Having prepared the natural creation for human life, God now desired humankind to enjoy that creation with him (2:1-3; seventh day). Humans were created in God's image, with the ability to cultivate and manifest qualities that God possesses, such as love, empathy, and justice. Genesis chapter 1. On the first the darkness on the face of the earth is removed; on the fourth that on the face of the sky. Thus in relation to His place as creator God preserved two of every sort; in relation to His own moral government He would have seven taken into the ark seven animals of each clean sort; of the unclean just enough would be there to preserve what He had made. It remains yet to be seen whether he will be good in act and habit. The elevation of an extensive tract of land, the subsidence of the overlying waters into the comparative hollows, the clarifying of the atmosphere, the creation of a fresh supply of plants and animals on the newly-formed continent, compose a series of changes which meet the geologist again and again in prosecuting his researches into the bowels of the earth. And to ascribe the least portion of a work so exquisite to angels, is a sacrilege to be held in abhorrence. A numerous lasting family, to enjoy this inheritance, pronouncing a blessing upon them, in virtue of which their posterity should extend to the utmost corners of the earth and continue to the utmost period of time. 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. Consequently the attempt of man's mind by what is now to judge of what was then always ends in the merest confusion and total failure. This point will suffice to indicate their chief guilt in thus traversing the boundaries which God had appointed for His creatures. This shows that the plural Elohim was known to convey a singular meaning despite its plural form. Then we find the generations of the sons of Shem. To the end of the third verse of that chapter it was always God (Elohim) as such. Isaiah 6:8). Chapter 12 Abram moves to Canaan by faith and fails in Egypt. Even we ourselves, who came by natural processes of birth, are said to be formed out of clay and made from the dust of the earth (Job 10:9; Ecclesiastes 3:20). should be made not in the likeness of any of the creatures The decay of animals is a law of nature established in the creation itself, and not a consequence of sin, or an effect of the death brought into the world by the sin of man. A day in which we acknowledge the Creator; it's set apart for the recognition of the Creator, as He has so left such ample evidence of Himself in His creation.Now later on, as God calls a nation of people, a separate people to Himself, we will be, we will find Him giving them a law for the seventh day; a covenant between God and Israel forever. So with Cain here "and if thou doest not well;" and such was the fact. Thus, it appears from the very beginning that God is represented as a compound unity. The first and second verses make allusion to these well-known measures of time. But yet, our year is measured by the time it takes our Earth to make its rotation around the sun. 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. The scientist may speak of the sun as the centre of the solar system, with the earth a minor planet of the sun, and the moon a small satellite of the earth. The Creation of the World. 27 So God created mankind in his own image, i., p. 52, c. 3. Not only is the method the most worthy, but the truth with which the book opens is one that nobody ever did really discover before it was revealed. This relation, however, is to be not in matter, but in form; not in essence, but in semblance. a. Abstract. The reason is evident. 3. Most wisely all such details awaited the unfolding of another day. Man.Hebrew, Adam. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. Psalms 8:5. Oh, you helped it propagate itself.There are other seeds that develop a quick-drying glue. Though man provides for neither, he has power over both, much more over every living thing that moveth upon the earth, which are more under his care and within his reach. Every subject that comes before us is dealt with in a new point of view suitably to the new name given to God the name of God as a moral governor, no longer simply as a creator. Why? Notable features include: * commentary based on THE NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION; * the NIV text printed in the body of the commentary; * sound scholarly methodology that reflects capable research in the original . But, as it is, scripture means nothing of the sort. And rather than trying to figure out who wrote it, it's better to find out what it says. Chapter 13 Lot's choice and Abram's part. The principles of God's nature are immutable. To me it is perfectly clear how speedy was the fall after the creation of man. And He will not force His choice upon me, because that would not be free choice.The chief emotional attribute of God is love. Hebrews 1:13, 14. *As Eve at the birth of Cain seems to have been unduly excited, and expecting I think a deliverer in the child whom she named as gotten from Jehovah, so she seems to me to express a sobered if not desponding sentiment in saying at Seth's birth, "Elohim hath appointed me another seed," etc. 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. This truly is some portion, though very small, of the image of God. Somehow they are like God in a way that nothing else is. As we might have expected, the Genesis account of creation is from the viewpoint of the ordinary person. 2. i Ibid. Consequently a moral test such as the wise and prudent would introduce here, and count a worthier reason why there should be so vast a ruin for the world ensuing, is out of the question. For when Moses afterwards repeats the same things he passes over the likeness, and contents himself with mentioning the image. In our image, after our likeness I do not scrupulously insist upon the particles , (beth,) and , (caph (90)) I know not whether there is anything solid in the opinion of some who hold that this is said, because the image of God was only shadowed forth in man till he should arrive at his perfection. (f) Vet. "And God said, Let us " The plural word [~'Elohiym] is used here; and the most logical understanding of it is that of seeing in it a foreshadowing of the doctrine of the Trinity revealed ages afterward in the N.T. Talk about microsystems!Oh, the wisdom of God, the wisdom of God. God created the rest of the universe in the first five days, and, "Then God said". "And God said". II. 10 And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. Clarke's Commentary. 2. That angels were then created. If they were not, it could not be said, in OUR image, and it does not appear from any part in the sacred writings that any creature but man was made in the image of God. set up by Josephus and a crowd of Greek and Latin fathers, the Nile according to Jarchi and other Rabbis, the Indus of late reasserted by Ewald, more than one of the fathers considering it to be the Danube! But if God had such care for us before we existed, he will by no means leave us destitute of food and of other necessaries of life, now that we are placed in the world. The three persons of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, consult about it and concur in it, because man, when he was made, was to be dedicated and devoted to Father, Son and Holy Ghost. All of the things were created or reformed within this six-day period. Thus the chief seat of the Divine image was in his mind and heart, where it was eminent: yet was there no part of him in which some scintillations of it did not shine forth. He has made the sea his highway to the ends of the earth, the stars his pilots on the pathless ocean, the sun his bleacher and painter, the bowels of the earth the treasury from which he draws his precious and useful metals and much of his fuel, the steam his motive power, and the lightning his messenger. Humanity was the final full-stop in creation's story. So God created man in His own image; in the image . But, it doesn't seem to matter, cause a couple of weeks later, their kids take off and they fly right to Hawaii. When the scientist tells us how rains falls or how grass grows, we do not contradict him by saying, But the Bible says God makes the rain fall, God makes the grass grow (Matthew 5:45; Matthew 6:30). But it is, secondly, in Gods likeness, which implies something closer and more inward. In closing the interpretation of this chapter, it is proper to refer to certain first principles of hermeneutical science. *This moral and typical bearing is the true key to the record in Genesis 2:4-25, and truly accounts for the differences from 1 - 2: 3, which ignorance and unbelief pervert into the discrepancies of two separate and inconsistent writers. It gathers information from the primitive meanings of the names that are given to certain objects, and notices the subsequent development of these meanings. He was gone from God. De Profugis, p. 460. He who is innocent a man absolutely without any evil either in himself or in that which was around him, where all was from God (and this is the revealed account of things), how could he have a knowledge of evil? (84) For the various opinions of Jewish writers on this subject, see Pooles Synopsis in loco. Could any person have conceived such wisdom beforehand? Most appropriately it is to Jehovah now. "Man" refers to mankind, not Adam individually (Genesis 1:27). A person is held out the Seed of the woman; for the manner most expressly bespeaks the tender mercy of God. Luke 1:70 and Acts 3:21 speak of holy prophets since the world began. I still know it's daytime, because there's light, but yet I don't see the sun. What is important for us to know is what did God say. p. 108. apud Wagenseil. Now, there are a lot of life forms that I can't even see, the waters are teeming with life forms. 14-16.] But it is the word of God, and nothing can be more suitable to God, gracious to man, or just to the enemy. (Malachi 2:15), though he had the residue of the Spirit, whence Christ gathers an argument against divorce, Matthew 19:4; Matthew 19:5. If this appearance were actually the fact, it would be impossible to escape the conclusion that the text is faulty, and that has fallen out; so that the reading should be, "and over all the wild beasts of the earth," as the Syriac has it. Could He have made them otherwise consistently with His own character? That he should be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, to subdue it, and have dominion over the other created beings of God.And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb-yielding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. So God is a superior trinity. Thus it is seen at once that, instead of these wonderful communications being merely earlier and later legends put together by a still more modern editor, who tried to make something complete by stringing together what did not aptly fit, on the contrary, it is the Spirit of God who gives us various sides of the truth, each falling under the title and style suitable to God, according to that which was in hand. This word involves "in germ" the doctrine of the Trinity. Isaiah 40:26 tells us that God made the stars and calls them by name. By the application of the term "good" to everything that God made, and the repetition of the word with the emphasis "very" at the close of the whole creation, the existence of anything evil in the creation of God is absolutely denied, and the hypothesis entirely refuted, that the six days' work merely subdued and fettered an ungodly, evil principle, which had already forced its way into it. May we seek to be taught more and more His truth, leaning on His grace! Next to Christ Himself, and what we have by and in Him, there is nothing of greater importance than the confession of the truth, both that God created, and that His creation is in ruins. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.". In the remarkable list, which is pursued down to Noah, we have another great truth set forth in the most simple and beautiful way the power of life which exempts from the reign of death, and not only that, but the witness to heaven as a place for man. The word of God is before them. But as the identity of "every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth" () with "every thing that creepeth upon the ground" () in Genesis 1:25 is not absolutely certain; on the contrary, the change in expression indicates a difference of meaning; and as the Masoretic text is supported by the oldest critical authorities (lxx, Sam., Onk. ) ( Ecclesiastes When we begin to enter into its real meaning, and hold fast that which is clearly the intended truth, the theory of Elohistic and Jehovistic annalists, with their redaction, vanishes into its own nothingness. ], "Image" and "likeness" are essentially synonymous terms. The phraseology employed perfectly agrees with and confirms the analogy of revelation, that the first verse speaks of an original condition which God was pleased to bring into being; the second, of a desolation afterwards brought in; but how long the first lasted what changes may have intervened, when or by what means the ruin came to pass, is not the subject-matter of the inspired record, but open to the ways and means of human research, if indeed man has sufficient facts on which to ground a sure conclusion. Was it a time for a promise? They who would define the subject briefly, say that in the image are contained those endowments which God has conferred on human nature at large, while they expound likeness to mean gratuitous gifts. How perfect therefore is the intimation of scripture! [Note: See Tremper Longman III, Song of Songs, pp. Explanation and Commentary of Genesis 1:26 On the sixth day, God created the crown jewel of his creation, mankind. This passage, of course, refers to the humiliation of Christ, whose being made "a little lower" than angels actually means "made lower for a little while," in the matter of his passion and death; for the same passage indicates that man, as he was created, ranked higher than angels, for, "Not unto angels did he subject the world to come," an honor reserved for man. "In the image of God male and female created he them " This means that woman also is made in the image of God. 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. But what characterises this scene is not the state in which man as such was this we had in Genesis 3:1-24 but what man did in that fallen state, and more especially what he did in presence of God and faith. There is a day coming when the ground of God's action will be neither innocence nor sin, but righteousness. The moment God spoke, you have the Word of God. Now men and women live in a world filled with hate, evil and disease. God said, Let us make man, and immediately it follows, So God created man; he performed what he resolved. Abraham, not Adam, is the depository of promise: so speaks scripture, as far as I know, invariably. The beautiful type of creation belonging to Christ is thus admirably preserved. And yet, look at the variety! Chapter 12:1-21:34 Abraham, the father of all believers (Romans 4) a. When Genesis 1:26 reveals that God made man in God's image, that means He gave man a will, emotion, and intelligence. All Commentaries Videos Images Devotionals Other Translations Sermons Related Scriptures Podcasts Blogs. It is very simply a measure for perpetuating the creature by God the Creator, in spite of imminent judgment. The primeval and prominent objects of human sway are here brought forward after the manner of Scripture. "`aleph', he, `jod', 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. Observe, in the beginning of the word of God, the sources of all things. Carmen Memorial. Genesis 2:1-25. assumes Genesis 1:1-31, but adds moral elements of the utmost importance and interest. [Note: For a critique of this book, see Douglas C. Bozzung, "An Evaluation of the Biosphere Model of Genesis 1," Bibliotheca Sacra 162:648 (October-December 2005):406-23. b. Now, the word light here is "meor". And, according to him, spiritual regeneration is nothing else than the restoration of the same image. Though the twins may have come from the same cell, divided and thus, they have the same chromosome content and gene content as each other, yet the variations that develop, I just am amazed at creation. 4 And God saw that the light was good. God Himself has touched it but curtly. No solid reason whatever appears why it should be so used here. iii. This sentence is not translated either in the French or Old English version. *, *It is deplorable but wholesome to see how superstition and rationalism agree in the grossest ignorance of man's condition before the fall and through it. The union of attributes which constitute his spiritual nature is his character or likeness. As the crisis hour is approaching, the saying of which we've been warning, as man has carelessly lived as though there was no tomorrow, we're coming soon to the day when they'll be no tomorrow. Article Images Copyright 2023 Getty Images unless otherwise indicated. At first it sounds strange that a day of human self-exaltation should be equally characterised by as strong a desire to deny the special breath of God for his soul, and degrade him to the pedigree of an ape! are not of God's privy council, nor were concerned in any part of See also Merrill, pp. p. 344. This concrete essence of the divine likeness was shattered by sin; and it is only through Christ, the brightness of the glory of God and the expression of His essence (Hebrews 1:3), that our nature is transformed into the image of God again (Colossians 3:10; Ephesians 4:24). I do not of course enter into details, but here is the inspired account, which shines in the midst of the horrors of that dark scene which fabulists portrayed. It's just to me exciting, that God is not limited to just one design.If you'd look around tonight you'd see that God isn't limited to just one design. "In the beginning God created." The soul is a spirit, an intelligent immortal spirit, an influencing active spirit, herein resembling God, the Father of Spirits, and the soul of the world.