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 air, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
in the image of God He created him;
male and female He created them.
Genesis 1:26-27 Modern English Version (MEV)
THAT THE CREATION OF MAN WAS PRECEDED BY A DIVINE CONSULTATION.
1. This consultation was Divine. Held by the Three Persons of the Ever-Blessed Trinity, who were one in the creative work.
2. This consultation was solemn Man, unlike the rest of creation, is a being endowed with mind and volition, capable even of rebellion against his Creator. There must be a pause before such a being is made. The project must be considered. The probable issue must be calculated. His relation to heaven and earth must be contemplated.
3. This consultation was happy. The Divine Being had not yet given out, in the creative work, the highest thought of His mind; He had not yet found outlet for the larger sympathies of His heart in the universe He had just made and welcomed into being. The light could not utter all His beneficence. The waters could not articulate all His power. The stars did but whisper His name. The being of man is vocal with God, as is no other created object. He is a revelation of his Maker in a very high degree. In him the Divine thought and sympathy found welcome outlet. The creation of man was also happy in its bearing toward the external universe. The world is finished. It is almost silent. There is only the voice of the animal creation to break its stillness. But man steps forth into the desolate home. He can sing a hymn--he can offer a prayer--he can commune with God--he can occupy the tenantless house. Hence the council that contemplated his creation would be happy.
1. In respect to his intelligence. God is the Supreme Mind. He is the Infinite Intelligence. Man is like Him in that he also is gifted with mind and intelligence; he is capable of thought.
2. In respect to his moral nature. Man is made after the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness. He was made with a benevolent disposition, with happy and prayerful spirit, and with a longing desire to promote the general good of the universe; in these respects he was like God, who is infinitely pure, Divinely happy in His life, and in deep sympathy with all who are within the circle of His Being.
3. In respect to his dominion. God is the Supreme Ruler of all things in heaven and in earth. Both angels and men are His subjects. Material Nature is part of His realm, and is under His authority. In this respect, man is made in the image of God. He is the king of this world. The brute creation is subject to his sway. Material forces are largely under his command.
4. In respect to his immortality. God is eternal. Man partakes of the Divine immortality. Man, having commenced the race of being, will run toward a goal he can never reach. God, angels, and men are the only immortalities of which we are cognizant. What an awful thing is life.
5. In respect to the power of creatorship. Man has, within certain limits, the power of creatorship. He can design new patterns of work.
1. It is attested by the intention and statement of the Creator. It was the intention of God to make man after His own image, and the workman generally follows out the motive with which he commences his toil. And we have the statement of Scripture that He did so in this instance. True, the image was soon marred and broken, which could not have been the case had it not previously existed. How glorious must man have been in his original condition.
2. It is attested by the very fall of man. How wonderful are the capabilities of even our fallen manhood. The splendid ruins are proof that once they were a magnificent edifice. What achievements are made by the intellect of man--what loving sympathies are given out from his heart--what prayers arise from his soul--of what noble activities is he capable; these are tokens of fallen greatness, for the being of the most splendid manhood is but the rubbish of an Adam. Man must have been made in the image of God, or the grandeur of his moral ruin is inexplicable. Learn:
1. The dignity of man’s nature.
2. The greatness of man’s fall.
3. The glory of man’s recovery by Christ. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
What is the image of God in which man was created?
1. Then he that had most power and dominion would have most of God’s image, and consequently Nimrod had more of it than Noah, Saul than Samuel, Caesar than Christ--which is a blasphemous paradox.
2. Self-denial and humility will make us unlike.
1. In the understanding. At its first creation it was sublime, clear, and inspiring. It was the leading faculty. There is as much difference between the clear representations of the understanding then, and the obscure discoveries that it makes now, as there is between the prospect of landscape from a casement, and from a keyhole. This image was apparent--
(1) In the understanding speculative.
(2) In the practical understanding.
2. In the will. The will of man in the state of innocence had an entire freedom to accept or not the temptation. The will then was ductile and pliant to all the motions of right reason. It is in the nature of the will to follow a superior guide--to be drawn by the intellect. But then it was subordinate, not enslaved; not as a servant to a master, but as a queen to her king, who both acknowledges her subjection and yet retains her majesty.
3. In the passion. Love. Now this affection, in the state of innocence, was happily pitched upon its right object; it flamed up in direct fervours of devotion to God, and in collateral emissions of charity to its neighbour. Hatred. It was then like aloes--bitter, but wholesome. Anger. Joy. Sorrow. Hope. Fear. The use of this point--that man was created in the image of God--might be various; but it shall be two fold.
(1) To remind us of the irreparable loss we have sustained by sin.
(2) To teach us the excellency of the Christian religion. (R. South, D. D.)
The Divine image in man
It is not too much to say that redemption, with all its graces and all its glories, finds its explanation and its reason in creation. He who thought it worth while to create, foreseeing consequences, can be believed, if He says so, to have thought it worth while to rescue and to renew. Nay, there is in this redemption a sort of antecedent fitness, inasmuch as it exculpates the act of creation from the charge of short-sightedness or of mistake. “Let us make man in our image,” created anew in Jesus Christ, “after the image of Him that created him.” Notice three respects in which the Divine image has been traced in the human.
Man in God’s image
The small can represent the great. Is not the sun reflected in the hues of the smallest flower, and in the greenness of the finest blade of grass? Yet that sun is distant from our earth ninety-five millions of miles, and is larger than our earth one hundred thousand times.
1. In the possession of moral powers and susceptibilities.
2. In the pure and righteous state of his whole nature.
3. In his relative position toward other terrestrial creatures.
1. In the possession of the Divine image human nature had within itself a mirror of God.
2. It led to fellowship with, God.
3. It was a mirror of God to other creatures.
4. It was a mirror in which God saw Himself.
In this was involved--
(1) Supreme good to man himself.
(2) High satisfaction and glory to God.
Reflections:
1. How sadly changed is human nature.
2. How elevated is the Christian.
3. How blessed is God. (S. Martin.)
The image of God in man
In man two widely different elements are blended, of which only the one could be moulded in the image of God. God is a Spirit: but man is material as well as spiritual. God “breathed into (man’s) nostrils the breath of life”: but He had previously “formed (him) of the dust of the ground.” Man therefore is like a coin which bears the image of the monarch: when we would describe the features of that royal likeness, we take no thought of the earthly material of the metal on which it is impressed.
1. In the first place, then, man bears God’s image, because God gave him a freewill, by the force of which gift he is entrusted with individual responsibility, and exercises a sort of delegated power. This freewill was made separate from that of God, or the gift would not have been complete. But it was never meant to be independent of that of God, or the gift to a creature would have been fatal; as indeed man made it, when he started aside into the rebellion of a self-seeking and isolated will. God is the great First Cause.
2. But what are the next features of God’s image, in addition to this gift of will? It might resemble mere force committed to some powerful but lawless body, which could move without the help of sense or sight. Thus the madman, for instance, retains will with its full originating power. But it impels him blindly and irrationally; it may impel him to do himself an injury, or to injure those whom he once loved most dearly. And this would be an instance of will without light. Or again, the thoroughly abandoned man, who is given over to a sort of moral madness, he too retains the power of will; but it has lost all moral guidance; it no longer obeys the laws of rectitude; it has become, by the loss of that guidance, more dangerous, because more mischievous, than even the mightiest of the powers of nature. And this would be an instance of will without law. To complete our notion of God’s image, therefore, we must add to the power of will the law of conscience. Whatsoever is right is our bounden duty, which the strict harmony of our nature enjoins; whatsoever is wrong must be firmly shunned, as a contradiction to that nature, as a new discord in the place of harmony, as a new dishonour to the image of God,
3. But in the third place; it is not sufficient to have added the law of conscience, unless we add the light of reason too. For we could imagine a creature, possessing something like both will and conscience, who might nevertheless be far less richly endowed than man. The will of such a being might be unenlightened: the conscience might be no more than a sort of stolid sensation of mindless and unreasoning fear. The gift of intellect, then, is a third essential feature in our nature; and a third trace of the image of God. Our first parents had dominion, for God “endued them with strength by themselves, and made them according to His image, and put the fear of man upon all flesh, and gave him dominion over beasts and fowls.” They had intelligence, for “counsel, and a tongue, and eyes, ears, and a heart gave He them to understand.” They had intercourse with God, for “He made an everlasting covenant with them, and showed them His judgments.” Now I need scarcely point out how precisely and accurately this threefold division corresponds with what we had reached through an altogether different process. It was as an image of God’s will that man possessed dominion: as an image of God’s mind that he was capable of knowledge: as an image of God’s moral nature, that he was admitted to intercourse with God. (Archdeacon Hannah.)
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