Fourth, it is also in harmony with the elementary facts of geological knowledge. mind of man thinks it a mighty difficulty that what appears to be so small a matter should be pregnant with such awful results. As the earth produced them at the creative word of God, the different individuals and generations would also have passed away and returned to the bosom of the earth, without violent destruction by the claws of animals or the hand of man, as soon as they had fulfilled the purpose of their existence. The evil is traced home at last to its source, and the serpent is brought fully out. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day (Gen 1:31). Genesis 2:1-25. assumes Genesis 1:1-31, but adds moral elements of the utmost importance and interest. Chapter 1. last, and beside me there is no God: and three jods (yyy) testify concerning him, that In conclusion, the Sabbath day, which God* sanctified, closes the great week of God's forming the earth for man, the lord of it. 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. The creation of man does not take place through a word addressed by God to the earth, but as the result of the divine decree, "We will make man in Our image, after our likeness," which proclaims at the very outset the distinction and pre-eminence of man above all the other creatures of the earth. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. They went in male and female. 70. fol. I don't, I want God to leave me alone!" These prophets may be the stars themselves. 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. Here then we enter on an entirely new state of things, and a truth of capital importance for everybody to consider who has not already made it his own. His soul, I cannot doubt, laid hold of the word that God had pronounced in judging the devil. p. 108. apud Wagenseil. What are the ten numerations? Because of this expression of God within them, men and women are in a sense Gods representatives upon earth. Modern science has revealed so much about the wonders and the size of the physical universe that human beings may seem almost to be nothing. 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. [Note: See John F. Kilner, "Humanity in Gods Image: Is the Image Really Damaged?" At first the earth was featureless and in darkness because of the mass of surrounding water, but as the thick clouds of water vapour began to lose their density, a hazy light came by day from the invisible sun (1:1-5; first day). But when God's word is humbly and prayerfully studied, the evidence will not be long withheld by the Spirit of God, that there is a divine depth in that word which no mere man put into it. 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. I do not consider that its locality is so very difficult to ascertain in a general way as has been often imagined. According to this, God determined to give to the man about to be created in His likeness the supremacy, not only over the animal world, but over the earth itself; and this agrees with the blessing in Genesis 1:28, where the newly created man is exhorted to replenish the earth and subdue it; whereas, according to the conjecture of the Syriac, the subjugation of the earth by man would be omitted from the divine decree. "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. Psalm 147:4 and Isaiah 40:26 tell us God has the stars all numbered and God has a name for them all. Man is fallen, and the creature made subject to vanity. As if, in truth, that barbarous style of speaking, which has grown into use within a few past centuries, had, even then, prevailed in the world. Was it with certain other intelligent beings in existence before man that he took counsel? 119. He created the heaven and earth at the beginning. Now, as the Divine Being is infinite, he is neither limited by parts, nor definable by passions; therefore he can have no corporeal image after which he made the body of man. The context determines which is the correct meaning in any . "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. For as we have on the sixth day the lower creation for the earth, so finally man himself the crown of all. Others who deem themselves more acute, but are doubly infatuated, say that God spoke of himself in the plural number, according to the custom of princes. "And Noah did according unto all that Jehovah commanded.". 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. 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The image of God consists, therefore, in the spiritual personality of man, though not merely in unity of self-consciousness and self-determination, or in the fact that man was created a consciously free Ego; for personality is merely the basis and form of the divine likeness, not its real essence. Hitherto God has been introduced simply as commanding; now, when he approaches the most excellent of all his works, he enters into consultation. God, and God alone, can communicate the truth. Genesis 1:26 Parallel Verses [ See commentary ] Genesis 1:26, NIV: 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.' Genesis 1:26, ESV: Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. The Statement before us may look at first unaccountable; but when carefully weighed and reflected on, the propriety of it becomes manifest. The greater part, and nearly all, conceive that the word image is to be distinguished from likeness. one that had ruined the glory of God, as far as it rested upon him. But when all this is done with, who was it that shut Noah in? His affections were all regular, and he had no inordinate appetites or passions. 510. In three "days" God made the uninhabitable earth productive, and in three more "days" He filled the uninhabited earth with life. .," p. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God said, "let us make man in our image, after our likeness. (f) Vet. *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. Is there then any contradiction to be surmised? all the more because of the chaste simplicity of the style and words. Here we learn that man did not become a living soul in the way that every other animal did. It acknowledges the narrative character of the first verse. It may be well to glance at it just to show the importance of heeding the word of God, and all His word. 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. Man is the image of God by virtue of his spiritual nature. Hitherto, it had been said, "Let there be light," and "Let there be a firmament," and "Let the earth, or waters, bring forth" such a thing; but now the word of command is turned into a word of consultation, "Let us make man, for whose sake the rest of the creatures were made: this is a work we must take into our own hands." How thrilling to be able to see the design in nature, all testifying of the wisdom of the God that I serve. In Genesis 5:1-3, we read, "In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; male and female created he them; and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. whom did he say this? The Sixth Day. He was like Adam fallen, not his representative only. Chapter 12:1-21:34 Abraham, the father of all believers (Romans 4) a. 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). This only may be remarked in addition, that "the sons of God," in my judgment, mean the same beings in Genesis as they do in Job. Likewise people should maintain the other divisions in the universe. 2 The earth was b without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. How infinite His wisdom! De Opificio, p. 16. De Profugis, p. 460. But how art thou fallen, O son of the morning! declare a plurality, and are expressive of others, being Nor indeed is such dealing according to the revealed nature of God. Such was the condition in which man was formed. I need ears to hear, but God wouldn't necessarily need ears to hear. Now comes the first mention of evening and morning, and of days. said, "I was as one brought up with him (or an artificer with Genesis 2:1-3; Genesis 2:1-3, taking the Sabbath as the necessary complement of the week, and therefore going on with the preceding six days, not with what follows. Departed from God, they hid themselves, and He had but to utter those solemn and searching words to Adam, "Where art thou?" The Jews sometimes say, that Adam and Eve were created in Finally, it has the singular and superlative merit of drawing the diurnal scenes of that creation to which our race owes its origin in the simple language of common life, and presenting each transcendent change as it would appear to an ordinary spectator standing on the earth. Third, it is equally consistent with human science. If men, and men too of ability and learning, have tortured the signs of its very perfection into proofs of defective and clashing documents, ridiculously combined by a man who did not perceive that he was editing not fables only but inconsistent fables, what can believers do but wonder at human blindness, and adore divine grace ' For themselves, with glowing gratitude they receive it as the precious word of God, where His love and goodness and truth shine in a way beyond all comparison, and yet meeting the mind and heart in the least, no less than in the most serious, wants that each day brings here below. In the beginning God created everything the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. It doesn't necessarily mean a source of light. So we find, now, the crowning act of God's creation. 1. Humans were created in God's image, with the ability to cultivate and manifest qualities that God possesses, such as love, empathy, and justice. But it is the more important because, when it is a question of the guilt of taking man's life, the ground is that he was made in God's image. But, it doesn't seem to matter, cause a couple of weeks later, their kids take off and they fly right to Hawaii. What are the ten numerations? . See more on this in my commentary on Hebrews 2. A large inheritance: Replenish the earth; it is this that is bestowed upon the children of men. This act of creation, too, like all that precede it, is shown by the divine word "good" to be in accordance with the will of God. When the Bible says God did this or God created that, it does not mean that he must have done so instantaneously or magically. Here then we only hear of pairs which enter. Other phases of human likeness to God are seen in such things as freedom of will, moral responsibility, intellectual achievement, and creativity. See Wenham, pp. 3 And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light. There is nothing which more maddens man than mortified religious pride; and so it is here proved, for he rose up against his brother and slew him. . As to how, when, and why it was, there is silence. "And in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God. 10 million Ukrainians without power because of Russia. It is often a difficulty with souls that God should have made the moral history of the world to turn on touching that tree or eating of that fruit. Man was made the same day that the beasts were, because his body was made of the same earth with theirs; and, while he is in the body, he inhabits the same earth with them. "Cursed be Canaan" was of deep interest, especially to an Israelite, but in truth to anyone who values the revelation of God. Somehow they are like God in a way that nothing else is. That explains why humans can actually imitate God's personality. Was it a time for a promise? This supposition cannot be admitted; because the expression "let us make" is an invitation to create, which is an incommunicable attribute of the Eternal One, and because the phrases, "our image, our likeness," when transferred into the third person of narrative, become "his image, the image of God," and thus limit the pronouns to God himself. For God passes rapidly over the early account and history of the globe I might almost say, hastening to that condition of the earth in which it was to be made the habitation of mankind; whereon also God was to display His moral dealings, and finally His own Son, with the fruitful consequences of that stupendous event, whether in rejection or in redemption. And Jehovah had respect unto Abel, and to his offering. 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. However, the word for "let us make" (naaseh, ) which is plural, is translated as "let us make" () which is plural in the Greek as well. For it is much more exactly true than any expression that has been invented by the most scientific of men; yet there is no science in it. It cannot be believed that God discussed the creation with the angels and included them as participants in His decision to create man. On the fourth day we hear of lights in the firmament. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. It should seem that of the rest of the creatures God made many couples, but of man did not he make one? I do not think that the expression means a sin-offering, as is sometimes supposed; for it does not appear that there is ground for inferring that the truth of a sin-offering was understood in the slightest degree till long afterwards. we should have had a long introduction, and a full history of his origin and his designs and his doings. They show a misunderstanding of the nature of the Bibles language. "In the image of God male and female created he them " This means that woman also is made in the image of God. The first verse is not a summary. them? - The relation of man to the creature is now stated. Cain, as it is said, went out from His presence, and dwelt in the land of Nod; a son is born in due time who builds a city called after his name. The atmosphere has been created to sustain his life. When fallen he acquired the internal capacity of knowing right from wrong, apart from a law to inform or forbid; and in this respect became like God at the very time when he lost God and intercourse with Him as an innocent creature. And chapter one was written by the "Elohistic"; chapter two by the "Jehovistic." 98. It was not till after the flood, that men received authority from God to employ the flesh of animals as well as the green herb as food (Genesis 9:3); and the fact that, according to the biblical view, no carnivorous animals existed at the first, may be inferred from the prophetic announcements in Isaiah 11:6-8; Isaiah 65:25, where the cessation of sin and the complete transformation of the world into the kingdom of God are described as being accompanied by the cessation of slaughter and the eating of flesh, even in the case of the animal kingdom. Without pretending to enter into particulars, this I may remark that in the Bible there is not a more important chapter thanGenesis 10:1-32; Genesis 10:1-32 as regards the providential arrangement of tongues, families, and nations Here alone is given the rise of different races, with their sources. Was it a state for a promise? he followed her, as he has often since, into the broad way of evil. Such is the birth of civil life in the family of Cain, where we find the discovery and advance of the delights of man; but, along with the progress of art and science, the introduction of polygamy. The narrative of it is introduced with something of solemnity, and a manifest distinction from the rest. The soul is first, in Gods image. The land also experienced this development of animal life, till it too became full of all kinds of creatures. His quotation is from R. F. R. Gardener, Abortion: The Personal Dilemma. 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. What God looks like; none of us know. It is not "Jehovah" now but "God." And we really don't know what He looked like. How small are the remains of it, and how great the ruins of it! It is true that objections have been raised by natural historians to this testimony of Scripture, but without scientific ground. In our image, after our likeness.The human body is after Gods image only as being the means whereby man attains to dominion: for dominion is Gods attribute, inasmuch as He is sole Lord. That is what the Babylonian calendar was predicated upon, and there is a lot of evidence to show that also the Mayan, Incan, Chinese calendars where all predicated on a three hundred and sixty-day year. Nizzachon, p. 5. The history supposes man thenceforward allowed to act without external law or government to control though God did not fail to work in His merciful goodness in His own sovereignty. The word Adam, which we translate man, is intended to designate the species of animal, as chaitho, marks the wild beasts that live in general a solitary life; behemah, domestic or gregarious animals; and remes, all kinds of reptiles, from the largest snake to the microscopic eel. Again, what value would it be for God to give me the freedom of choice but then not respect the choice? I have this little system in my eyes with the vitreous jelly on the backside that is taking these little pictures at the rate of about eighteen per second and transmitting the vibrations on into the brain by which my eyes are interpreting the world around me and making it understandable as the vibrations are coming into my brain, and all of it's unscrambling and interpretation as these little flash vibrations are bounced in at eighteen per second. So, the parents fly off to Hawaii, leaving their kids in Alaska! Darius, "I make a decree" Ezra 5:8. God Himself has touched it but curtly. But here I stop for the present. We have no ground, therefore, for transferring it to the style of the heavenly King. God said, Let us make man, and immediately it follows, So God created man; he performed what he resolved. The distinction drawn between (in the image of God created He him) and (as man and woman created He them) must not be overlooked. [Note: Gorman Gray, The Age of the Universe: What Are the Biblical Limits?] The union of attributes which constitute his spiritual nature is his character or likeness. 1 In the a beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. There are some seeds that build a little parachute. Man alone therefore has what is commonly called an immortal soul. The sun, moon and stars, previously hidden, now became clearly visible. "And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth." And the patent fact lies before us, that to join his wife in the sad sin is his first recorded act. "El" is God in Hebrew, singular. So let there be the "light holders" in the heavensto divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years (Gen 1:14): And so our time is calculated by the sun and the moon, and it is generally thought that the Earth's rotation around the sun was a three hundred and sixty-day year. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the . If you are speaking in the intimacies of the family, you do not adopt the same language towards your parents, wife, child, or servant, still less towards a stranger outside. 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. We saw at the close of verse 2 the introduction of the Spirit of God on the scene. "They were both naked the man and his wife, and were not ashamed." THE NEW AMERICAN COMMENTARY is for the minister or Bible student who wants to understand and expound the Scriptures. 3 And God said, c " Let there be light, " and there was light. Hence the believer finds not the slightest difficulty. Six years they may go into slavery, the seventh year they are set free. But then, pretty soon, as the glue dries completely, it falls off and it has propagated itself. Man was not made in the likeness of any creature that went before him, but in the likeness of his Creator; yet still between God and man there is an infinite distance. by the fall. * If Canaan drew his father into the shameful exposure of Noah, all can see how just the sentence was. Other places in the Old Testament it is translated Gods. 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). 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