The Creation of Mankind
2/18 Reading Portions: Exodus 1; Luke 4; Job 18; 1 Corinthians 5
Online Bible Audio/Readings Links (ESV)
2/18 Reading Portions: Exodus 1; Luke 4; Job 18; 1 Corinthians 5
Genesis 1:26-27
Then 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 birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
COUNCIL
Having set the groundwork for salvation through sacrifice, prophetically speaking (as we had seen in yesterday’s devotional), our triune God, for the first time in the six-day creation process, establishes a council between the three Persons of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Not that there was never any council before, but by revealing to us that a council took place, God establishes two wonderful things. In all the creation process until this point, God creates because it is in His sovereign nature to do so, according to His will and good pleasure. Yet when He creates mankind, our triune God lets us know that our creation as a species was accomplished through almighty wisdom and power. Spurgeon’s A Puritan Catechism asks,
“How did God create man?”
The answer:
“God created man, male and female, after His own image,[1] in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness,[2] with dominion over the creatures.”[3]
When the sixth day is recapitulated in Genesis 2:4-25, giving us greater details in the creation of both man and woman, the man was formed from the dust of the ground (Gen 2:7) and the woman was made (Gen 2:22), or built (KJV), from the flesh taken from the man’s side (we’ll take a look at both of those when we get to Genesis 2). Here in Genesis 1:27, however, God created man and woman from nothing, using the same Hebrew word, בָּרָא (ba-RA), that is revealed in Genesis 1:1. Why is that? The essential core of what mankind is composed is knowledge from the Father, righteousness from the Son, and holiness from the Spirit; and our puritanical forefathers, by the prompting of the Holy Spirit, were keen to understand that in their compilation of the catechism. In other words, apart from our triune God, and most especially, apart from salvation through Jesus Messiah since man’s fall, men and women are unwise, unrighteous, and unholy. This is why the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:7-11), during our salvation and since we’ve been saved. This is why in the creation process God created the sacrificial animals before creating man (as mentioned in yesterday’s devotional). Mankind’s creation was to reveal God’s glory through Jesus Messiah! Hallelujah! What a Savior!
[1] Genesis 1:27
[2] Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:10
[3] Genesis 1:28