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 food. 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.
Genesis 1:1-32
God The Creator – we know from Genesis 1 and 2, that God created everything. He created the universe, and everything there in, and He did it all by speaking it into existence. He said let there be light, and there was light and it was GOOD. Let there be sky and it was GOOD. Let there be dry ground (land and sea) and it was GOOD. Let there be vegetation, sun and moon, sea creatures, birds, land animals and they were all GOOD.
Whether God created all of these in 5 literal days or 5 periods of time is irrelevant. Just the task of creating the universe is MAGNIFICENT, man has been trying to figure out how to create the universe, since the beginning of time, and our best brains cannot even agree on the starting blocks of creation. So how great is our God, our omniscient God, our omnipotent God, but above all our GOOD God that created a GOOD universe, expressly to have a place to be with his creation of day six.
As God created an infinite universe, with organisms so complex, and life itself. We can be confident that there is no thing, that God cannot do. Any problem, any difficulty, any sadness, any need we might have, we can be absolutely assured that God can fulfil it. So we can know, that we have a rock upon which we can stand with absolute confidence.
On day six “God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male an female he created them.” (Genesis 1:27). God repeats himself in this passage, this is not common, so what this passage says must be very important for us to grasp. Three times He tells us he created us, on two of those occasions he says he created us in his image. He created us to be adopted as sons (Ephesians 1:5), to be in loving intimate father and son relationship. In fact we are encourage to call him “Abba” (Romans 8:15 and Galatians 4:6) which an Aramaic word meaning Dad, Daddy the most intimated term you can call your father.
Our loving God created us from dust and breathed the breath of life into man (Genesis 2:7), and he created us in his image, we will look at what this might be in the next few weeks. God is spirit, but we are now flesh, in fact the Apostle John really struggled to describe what God looked like when he saw him in a vision (Revelation 4), all he could do was liken Him to other things. So I am sure God is not fleshy, bald and wrinkled with a long white beard. Perhaps he has a torso, head, two legs and two arms, who knows, as he is clothed in unapproachable light for fallen man, we will only know when we meet him in eternity. But we where created in His image, an image of love, wisdom, holiness, etc. And these are the traits we should be showing to the world. We will occasionally fail, but if we keep trying we are fulfilling one of our created purposes. But the best bit is if we try, God WILL provide His strength, His love and His holiness, so His everything so that we can succeed at being in His Image.
So to summarise we have an omniscient, creator God who made us and loves us, and provides all that we need to reflect his image. How can we be certain of this! Acts 2, tells that in place of Jesus we have his Holy Spirit, within us, “ who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession” (Ephesians 1:13-14). How wonderful is that.
