Creation Day 6, Pt. 3
Genesis 1:26-31
Let's open our Bibles to Genesis chapter 1 and this will be the last in our series of origins that deal with the creation in Genesis 1. We bring the story, the six-day creation to its close.
Now let me just summarize what we have learned so far. With regard to the origin of the universe there are only three options. Only three options. Option number one we can call materialistic evolution. Materialistic evolution affirms that the entire universe as it now exists came into being out of nothing. Somehow there appeared in the midst of nothing something, something living in a primordial slime that through billions of years mutated into the intricate complex and vast universe which we now live in. That's materialistic evolution. That's option one.
Option two is theistic evolution...theistic meaning God. Theistic evolution affirms that God does exist and God was the original mind and the original power that launched and punctuated evolution with various creative acts along the way. So you have God involved initially. You may have God involved at other points. But evolution is the process that God used over billions of years by mutation and change to bring about the universe as we now know it.
The only other alternative you have is divine creation. And divine creation affirms that the eternal God, all wise, all powerful and unchanging made the universe as it now exists. And that God created everything out of nothing by speaking it into existence. Creationism rejects any form of evolution. Divine creation affirms that God created everything the way it is presently. Obviously within certain plants and within certain animals there are variations, but the categories remain the same as God originally created them. And frankly there are no other options.
And we've taken a look at the first option. The first option, that is materialistic evolution, and we know it can't be true. It can't be true because evolution is possible because chance is nothing, chance is not a force and nobody times nothing equals nothing. Nobody times nothing does not equal everything. Random chance cannot result in anything. If nothing exists, nothing can exist.
We also know that the system of life, DNA, chromosomes, genetic code, the information encoded into every living cell prevents evolution because that code determines what that living cell will do and it can't do any more than it is programmed to do so it can't become anything superior to what it is. If something does change, it is inferior, it produces something less not something more. So we know that evolution is impossible.
The second option is impossible for the same reasons as the first, because evolution is impossible. And there is not any true and accurate, scientific evidence that any life at all, any life at all has ever evolved so as to become another kind of life with a new genetic code and a new DNA. We also reject theistic evolution, the second option, because the God who is eternal, the God who is all wise and powerful and unchanging, has revealed Himself to us and told us how He created the universe. And He didn't tell us that He used evolutionary processes. We've been learning in Genesis 1 and 2 and it is affirmed throughout all of Scripture there is nothing in any part of Scripture to indicate anything different than that God created everything as it is without the use of any evolutionary process.
That leaves us with only one other option, that's the third option, and that is divine creation. God created everything as it is now. That makes scientific sense. That's the only thing that makes scientific sense. As I've been saying to you, evolutionists are having a very hard time proving evolution. The reason they can't prove it is because it didn't happen.
How did the universe come into existence? The only record and the accurate record, the divinely ordained and inspired record is right there in Genesis 1. The Bible tells us that God created the universe in six solar days...six 24-hour days. And the genealogies of Genesis, the tracking of the generations of man indicate that that six-day creation period occurred probably six to seven thousand years ago, that's all. This is what the Bible says and I'm just summarizing what we've learned. This is what the Word of God says. It is inspired and it is inerrant. This is unmistakable and inarguable. Science has never come up with anything that can disprove divine creation. In fact, on the other hand, they have never come up with anything that can prove evolution.
Now when God began the Bible He initiated revelation with the historical record of creation. That's how the Bible begins. Because creation by God is foundational to all history and to all theology. Creation, in fact, is the foundation of all truth, all truth and all true religion. If the universe came into existence by divine creation, there is God. And since there is God, He is in charge, He is sovereign. He sets the rules. All of that is laid down as foundation in creation.
And I've been saying to you, the Bible is to be taken as seriously in Genesis 1 and 2 as anywhere else, as seriously as John 3:16, as seriously as Romans 3:23, as seriously as any other part of Scripture. And any less than a full commitment to the integrity of the truth of Genesis 1 and 2, anything less than that brings the Scripture into question, brings God's accuracy and authority into question and strikes a blow against God.
Douglas Kelley(?) who has written a very helpful book I've referred to a number of times called Creation and Change said, and I quote, "If we avoid dealing with what the Bible says about creation of the material universe, then there is a tendency for religion to be disconnected from the real world. Or to change the figure, there is a tendency to put Scripture and Christianity into a stained-glass closet that doesn't impact the space/time realm," end quote.
You can't get mystical about God the creator without being mystical about everything else that the Scripture reveals. You can't be doubting and questioning and undermining the statements of the Bible about creation without undermining everything else the Bible says potentially as well.
Christianity does not begin with accepting Jesus Christ as Savior. It begins with accepting God as creator. And the real problem, folks, of the twentieth century, the real problem of a post-modern world is not that they reject Jesus Christ, it's that they reject God as creator. Consequently they don't even know who Jesus is or how He fits in. And if you reject God as creator, that, I believe, is the cause of all human lostness. It's the cause of vagaries in human thought. It's the cause of all the meanderings of philosophy.
On the other hand, when you believe that God is the creator and He created exactly as He revealed in Genesis, that establishes the foundation for all truth, for then God is sovereign and all truth and authority flows down from God about everything.
And I think we've been saying this, and I'll just repeat it briefly, but the sad part of this is that the church has jumped on this theistic evolution bandwagon and been a part of undermining their own credibility, been a part of undermining their own gospel, been a part of undermining their own message. They've been contributors to the lostness of humanity by disconnecting them from a sovereign holy creator. And when the church seriously demands that people recognize God as creator and sovereign and sustainer and consummator of the time/space universe, when people...when the church tells people unequivocally that God is acting in human history, that God more than just acting, God is controlling human history, God has established the rules and the standards and God is the judge of every life, when that is established then men become accountable to God, then the Bible, and then the gospel and then Jesus Christ become critically essential because they reveal God...His commands, His laws, His promises, His purposes and His salvation.
And we affirm this third option that God created the entire universe as it is and He did it in six 24-hour days, six to seven thousand years ago. And throughout our series I've tried to show you many scientific indications that anything other than this is foolishness. In fact, in our series we've discovered that the evolutionists have built a house of cards and all their proofs of evolution have fallen flat when examined honestly.
So we have come then to Genesis 1 with confidence that this is God's Word, this is the Bible, the Word of God. And in Genesis 1 we have the only and true record of creation. Not to believe it is the most serious of crimes because it rejects God and His Word. And what does Genesis 1 say? Look at verse 1, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." That's a summary statement. That's really all you need to know. Everything that exists in the heavens and the earth God created.
And then starting in verse 2 and running down to the end of the chapter, verse 31, the details are given are the summary of verse 1. Verse 1 simply tells us God created the heavens and the earth. Starting in verse 2 it unfolds how He did that...the details are given. And they reveal clearly that there were six days of creation, actually six solar days identified as evening and morning, or morning and evening. One period of light followed by one period of dark as any normal day.
And we've learned that on day one God created light along with the material for the rest of His creation. On day two He created the sea and the heavens. On day three He created the earth and plants. On day four He created the luminaries, the sun, the moon, the stars. On day five He created the sea creatures and the birds of the air. And on day six He created land animals and man. And that's where we find ourselves. Go over to verse 24.
This is day six and God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind, cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind. And it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth after their kind and the cattle after their kind and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind and God saw that it was good. Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image according to our likeness and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.' And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them. And God blessed them and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.' Then God said, 'Behold I have given you every plant-yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit-yielding seed it shall be food for you. And to every beast of the earth and every bird of the sky and to everything that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food.' And it was so. And God saw all that He had made and behold it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day."
Now last time we looked at verses 24 and 25, the land animals. And we saw them, according to those verses, divided into three categories. Both verses, 24 and 25, mention those three categories as well as verse 26 repeats some of them. There is the category of cattle, which we said were domestic animals, animals that can be tamed. They're creeping things, anything that lives that's low to the ground from insects to rodents and many other things, reptiles and so forth. Then there are the beasts which no doubt refer to the higher non-domesticated four-legged animals that walk the earth. God then creating those animals put the finishing touches on the environment for man. And then we come to verses 26 and 27 and this is what we began to look at in some detail last time.
Then God said everything is ready now. The whole universe has been created for the purpose of man to live in it and to see the hand of God declared through all of it, through the firmament and through the beasts of the field which will give Me glory as the prophet Isaiah said. God has created a whole world, a whole environment for man so that man can see the wonderful creative genius of the mind of God and God can demonstrate His beauty, His order through all the created world and God can provide an environment which puts His glory on display.
And then capping it all off, once everything is prepared, the house is made for man. Verse 26, "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image.'" And here we are introduced to the crown of creation which is man. I don't have time to go over what we did last week, it was very involved and very important. I hope you'll get the tape. If you're going to get any tape in this series you probably should get that one, although all of them, if you've missed them, would be to your benefit.
Starting with the statement, "Let us make man," just stop at that point. There are four features in the making of man that are outlined here. Four features. The first one is the most defining one, "Let us make man in our image," and then it is said immediately another way, "according to our likeness." Down in verse 27, "And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him," as if we might somehow miss the point it's repeated four times. Man is made in the image of God. It's repeated again in chapter 5, it says in verse 1, "This is the book of the generations of Adam in the day when God created man, He made him in the likeness of God."
Now what does it mean to be made in the image of God? It means you're not an animal. It means you're not a higher animal. It means you didn't evolve from a monkey, or a gibbon or a baboon, or any other thing. From the very outset man was created on a divine pattern, made on a divine pattern rather than a material earthly pattern only. And, by the way, he is the only living being in the time/space universe made on the divine pattern. Man is transcendent. Man is an eternal being. The truest part of man cannot be reduced to any chemical formula. the truest part of man cannot be seen in DNA. It cannot be found in the chromosomes. It cannot be found by dissecting his brain. It cannot be found by cutting open his heart. It cannot be found by tinkering with his nervous system.
You can take all of the scientific experiments you want on the anatomy of a human being and never will you discover the true part of man, which is that intangible reality that he is a transcendent and eternal being which has no chemical constituents. Man is distinct from every other created creature. In Ecclesiastes chapter 3 and verse 11, a wonderful statement is made. "He has made...speaking of God...everything appropriate in its time, He has also set eternity in their heart." What a great statement. He has set eternity in their heart. That's true only of man. Down in verse 21 of Ecclesiastes 3, "Who knows that the breath of man ascends upward and the breath of the beast descends downward to the earth." The writer is saying...man, his spirit goes up, any other created being upon death, his spirit goes down. Goes into the ground, as it were, out of existence because God has set eternity in our hearts. You can take away our body and we will live forever.
So the image of God isn't talking about some kind of physical form. The image of God indicates attributes, not shared at all by animals. And the bottom-line word I gave you was personal...man is a person, personhood. These are his distinctives...self-consciousness. Animals are conscious but they're not self-conscious. They're conscious to their environment, they react to their environment, but they don't know they're reacting to their environment, it's merely instinctive. But man is conscious and he reacts to his environment and he knows how to react cause he reacts cognitively. Man has reason rather than instinct. Man has the capability to think abstractly. Man has the ability to appreciate beauty, to feel emotion, to be morally conscious. And above all, as we pointed out last time, man has the capacity and the need to personally relate to others, to other people and especially to God, being able to love Him and worship Him. That's personhood.
Man has the ability to love. Man has the ability to fellowship, to converse, to commune. Man is the only creature in existence in the time/space world that has language. Now all of that points to the trinity and that's why, as I told you last time, verse 26 indicates, "Let us make man," for the first time God is introduced here as more than one because He's making man in His image and man is made for personal relationships. God discloses the fact that He Himself is a trinity as we well know and as unfolds throughout the rest of Scripture, particularly the New Testament, so that God in the relationships of the trinity establishes the pattern for man's relationships.
Now that's sort of the ontological essence of man. The ethical essence of man, he has the capacity for moral behavior. He has the capability to be holy and righteous. He has the ability to be sanctified. He has the ability to obey God. He has the ability to receive divine and eternal salvation. Man created in the image of God, and that's just a brief review of what we saw last time, primarily indicating personhood and therefore relationships.
Now let's look at the three remaining features that are described here of man. Number two, man is not only made in the image of God, man is the king of the earth. He is the king of the earth. We look at that in verses 26 and 28. In verse 26 after saying "Let us make man in our image according to our likeness," God said, "And let them rule...and let them rule." And then He went on to describe everything, the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, over all the earth, over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. Down in verse 28 it says, in the middle of the verse, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth." Man was designed by God to be the sovereign of the planet, to be the king of the earth. Verse 26, let them rule. Verse 28, subdue it and rule.
The noun, by the way, in verse 26 is plural because man is a collective term. That's why it says, "Let's make man in our image," and then, "Let them rule," it's a collective noun. Man as a species is created in God's image on the divine pattern and given the responsibility to be the sovereign over the whole creation, the whole creation. And then God goes back over the sequence. You remember if you go back to day five, the fish came, then the birds came, then the cattle came, then the creeping things, and then the beasts or living things mentioned at the end of verse 28. So the sequence is repeated. All of the created higher life forms beyond plants, which will be mentioned in a moment, are under man's sovereign dominion.
Now this involves something very practical. Go over to chapter 2 verse 19. And here is a rehearsal of the same account of creation, just adding more insight to it. "Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, every bird of the sky." We've already learned that, this is just summarizing and repeating that. "And He brought them to the man to see what He would call them, and whatever the man called the living creature that was its name. And the man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky and to every beast of the field." Now that was the first thing that man had to do. If he was going to be the sovereign over creation he had to identify creation. He had to classify creation. And he did that. He had the capability to look at the characteristics of a given creature and give it a fitting name, which he did.
A second responsibility that man had, back in verse 15, with regard to the sovereignty over creation. Chapter 2 verse 15, "Then the Lord God took the man," before, of course, he was created, "and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and to keep it." Now remember, there's no curse yet, there's no sin, there's no fall, there's no death. But there was some way in which there was a...there was a tending to the garden of God, as some theologians have called it. He needed to tend to the garden of God. We don't know all that that meant, but it was his responsibility to see that the garden of God was cultivated and flourished.
Go back to verse 8 and let's find out a little about this garden. The Lord God planted a garden toward the east in Eden and there He placed the man whom He had formed and out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food, and we learned that already in chapter 1, this is just rehearsing the same thing with more detail. "The tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil." Two trees are separated out as very unique trees.
"Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden and from there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good; the bfrllium and the onyx stone are there. And the name of the second river is Gihon; it flows around the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Tigris; it flows east of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates. Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it."
Now plants need water. And so the man's responsibility was to make sure that everything had its appropriate care. I don't know all that meant, pre-Fall, because nothing could die but perhaps it could flourish in a greater way to the glory of God if it was carefully tended to by man.
In the garden God also gave man the responsibility, as I read, to name the animals. We saw that. But go back for just a moment to verse 16. "The Lord God commanded the man saying, 'From any tree in the garden you may eat freely.'" I mean, you can just enjoy it all. "But from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die." What's die? What's that? That was the one warning, the one warning.
So apart from that God places man in this garden with the responsibility to name all the animals, which shows his cognitive capabilities and also to tend to the garden. Man's responsibility was to learn about His creation and glorify God by the wonder of what he saw and then to classify the creation and then somehow to shape the creation so that it was an honor to its creator in every way. Now remember, there was no fear, there was no death, there was no bloodshed. But man, nonetheless, had the responsibility to attend to the garden of God.
As I thought about that I thought about my yard. Now I have a fallen yard. I have a yard in which death exists. And I can probably kill things as well as any other person, even though I may be trying to make them live. And I began to think about the fact that, you know, we still live in the garden of God...it's been brutally affected by the Fall and sin and death. But still we live in a world that is designed by God to manifest His glory. And we do have a responsibility, I think, to tend to the garden of God. I don't know about you but when I go out into the garden that we have at our home and I see all of the magnificent and beautiful plants flourishing there, my instantaneous response is to glorify God and to praise Him. I have a man who comes by every week and really knows what he's doing and takes care of all those plants so that they always look beautiful and you can always go out and clip all these magnificent roses and anytime you come to our house you're going to find little containers filled with magnificent roses. And I look at that man who happens to be a Christian man and I see him, in a sense, as a servant of God who is giving honor to God by the way he tends the garden of God.
I don't worship the plants by any means, or any of the birds that come or yesterday...I guess it was the day before yesterday we had a lovely fawn enjoying our yard. That's an occasional thing that occurs. Even some local emu like to come and visit. I think there's a reasonable to all of that. I really do. I think if God has given you a little space, a little piece of His world, it's right to let that little piece give glory to the creator. I mean, isn't it amazing when you think about all the plants that God has created, why do you think He created them? To do what? To give glory to Himself. And when you cultivate those kinds of things you are doing that, you are putting God's creative power on display. It beats the slag heaps of the English midlands. It beats the dead rivers of eastern Europe.
You know, so much of the communist world was short-sighted. For economic purposes they just destroyed the creation. That happens all over and I'm not...I'm not becoming an environmental whacko, as t