Post by Les Brewer on Oct 21, 2017 19:57:48 GMT
Creation Day 6, Part 3 Genesis 1:26-31
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Now last time we looked at verse 24 and 25, and 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. There are 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 beast, 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 men 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 beast 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, and God can provide an environment which puts his glory on display.
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. Here we are introduced to the crown of creation which is man. But 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 one, “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, earthy pattern only. By the way he is the only living being in the time space universe made on the divine pattern.
Man is transcendent, 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 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 creative 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 distinctive’s; self-consciousness, animals are conscious, but they are 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, because 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 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, and 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 the last time verse 26 indicates let us make men. For the first time God is introduced here as more than one, because he is 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 relationship of the trinity establishes the pattern for man’s relationships. Now that’s 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. 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 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 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. Then God goes back over the sequence. You remember if you go back to day five the fish came and then the birds came and then the cattle came and then the creeping things, and then the beast 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 and every bird of the sky,” we’ve already learned that this is just summarizing and repeating that, “and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. 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 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 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 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. 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 one. 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 the 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.
The gold of that land is good; the bdellium and the onyx stone are there. 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. And 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 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 of the garden you may eat freely.” 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 will surely die.” What’s that? That was 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.
Then to classify the creation and then somehow to shape the creation so that it was an honor 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 tend 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. I began to think about the fact that 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 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 that 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. 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 in 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 approach 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 piece give glory to the creator. 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’re putting God’s creative power on display.
So everything we do should be to the glory of God. We have a cursed earth to deal with and it’s not easy, but like Adam after he sinned we need to work at it a little to the point where we sweat in order that God’s creative beauty might be on display. We’re still stewards of his creation, and I think as a Christian I feel that stewardship. Now I realize that this is a temporary planet, it’s all going to burn up. But while I’m here I want God to be able to be on display. So Adam was given that responsibility, now we this side of the fall, this side of sin cannot subdue the garden of God as we would like. It’s a wild world and we hear all about the death that occurs in our world. We even have plants that are deadly don’t we?
Plants that are drugs, we have living bacteria and things like that that kill, that have created plagues that have literally resulted in the death of tens of thousands of people. We have animals that are killers. It’s not the garden it was originally because of the fall and curse. It says in chapter 2 of Hebrews verse 8 that he’s been crowned with glory and honor in verse 7. Then in verse 8 it says, “Thou has put all things in subjection under his feet.” That’s true, Christ is as the incarnate man truly the king of the earth; “for in subjecting all things to him, He left nothing that is not subject to him.” But look at this next statement, very important.
“But now we do not yet see all things subjected to him.” Isn’t that true? Christ is the true king of the earth, he was made a little lower than the angels. He came down and became one of us, and so he took on the dominion mandate and because he’s God he has the greatest power to subject the creation to himself. But we look at the creation and it was to be subjected to him, verse 8 says that all things are subject to him. There’s not anything that exist that isn’t subject to him, but we don’t yet see all things subjected to him. We don’t see the animal kingdom under control, docile and passive. We don’t see plant life just growing and flourishing without any care and tending.
We don’t see the world free from war and hatred and slaughter and etc. and disease and illness. So we don’t yet see all things subjected to him, but we will. We will, someday all things will be subjected to him, someday he will reverse the curse, he will be king of the earth. Look at verse 10, “It was fitting for Him,” for Christ, “for whom are all things,” ultimately they’re going to all be his, “and through whom are all things,” he made them all, “in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.”
Through his death he gained the right to be the sovereign of the earth and he will take that right and he’ll go into his glory, he’ll rule this world, he will subdue this world, and he will bring us along with him bringing many sons to glory. So we could say this that there was before the fall a dominion mandate given to man which he could exercise, and he had control of all the animals, and he had control of the garden of God. But he lost that in the fall and it will be regained when Jesus who has not yet subjected all things to himself will do that, and that’s looking at the millennial kingdom, the restored earth, Eden reversed as it were. You remember the Prophet Isaiah says the desert will blossom like a rose, the lion will lie down with the lamb, a child will play in a snake pit, and if somebody dies at a 100 years they die a baby. So that death in it’s normal course will be abated.
It’s very reasonable to assume that people who go into the millennium alive on the earth will live through the entire 1000 years without dying. Death will be mitigated, the curse will be mitigated. There will still be elements of the curse on earth, because there will still be people being born on the earth who have a sin nature and who rebel against God. So sin will be here, but it will be largely subdued, and then finally at the end of the 1000 years the whole earth is uncreated and a new Heaven and a new earth is created where there is no sin and there is no fall. So man will reign with Christ in the kingdom and one day when Christ subdues the creation so we will enjoy that subjugation of the creation, because we will reign with him.
The second thing then we say about man is that he is king of the earth, he is sovereign over the earth. He is not just a biological extension of some other creature. He was made of different stuff in the image of God to rule this universe, and he will do that in the glories of the millennial kingdom when he with Christ reigns over a subdued universe, brought into subjection by Jesus Christ himself.
In fact it says in the scriptures the prophets noted and New Testament refers to it that the earth will be renovated at the beginning of the 1000 years. So certain features of the curse will be mitigated at that point, man then was given this sovereignty at the very beginning. He rises above all the created order and is the sovereign, the king of the earth. Thirdly, we find in creation, go back to Genesis. We find in creation this is also man’s responsibility, it says verse 28, “God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.” Now in verse 27 it says that he made them male and female.
Now this is the third responsibility of man; he is to manifest the image of God personhood and relationship, he is to be king of the earth, he is to tend the garden of God and do everything he can in leading and subduing the created order to put God’s glorious power on display, and he is the propagator of human life. So God made them male and female; that was God’s design for marriage and procreation. We’ve been talking about the fact that procreation exist in all of the animal world. There’s even a procreative capacity among the plants who reproduce by means of seed or seed in fruit.
God gave man relational capacities and then God gave man a helper. It says in verse 7 of chapter 2 that, “God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; he became a living being.” As you read down this passage a little bit verse 18, “The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone,” this isn’t going to work, because I‘m going to have to keep creating people. He can’t have this, I have to make a helper suitable for him. Now I know what most people think; this means there’s somebody to do the dishes, somebody to take out the trash, somebody to make the bed.
That’s not the kind of helper; he needed help in one main thing and that was procreation, propagation of the human race; that was the issue here. He needs a helper, he needs a partner, he needs a perfect match. Out of the ground the Lord God had formed everything, but there was something different about the way he formed this helper back in verse 20. God looked all around his creation and there wasn’t a partner for Adam, there wasn’t anything in the created order that was at his level. We need to keep affirming that now; to be a human being is not to be a glorified animal. It’s to be an eternal being made in the image of God and there was only one and that was Adam.
“So God caused a deep sleep to fall on the man, and he slept. He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place, and the Lord God fashioned it into a woman, the rib which he had taken from the man. Brought her to the man and the man said this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”
What was there to be ashamed of, there wasn’t any sin. Now, this section that I just read to you in chapter 2 expands the simple statement of verse 27b which says male and female he created them, and there you have the story of how he did that. Chapter 2 is not an additional story, it’s an expansion on the original. Now in both places the male is first, he created them male and female. In chapter 1 it tells you – chapter 2 tells you in verse 7 he created the man, and down in verses 18 and following he created the woman following. Now this is important; the male is place first and this is necessary in creation.
It shows the amazing accuracy of the book of Genesis. Let me tell you what I mean. Genetic research confirms this, for the male has both X chromosomes, which by the way engender females, and Y chromosomes, which engender males. Males are X and y, females are not. If the female had been created first and the male taken out of her body then reproduction would have been impossible for there would have been nothing but X chromosomes. In which case only females could have been reproduced, because females don’t have a Y chromosome. Man had to be created first because he has an X and a Y chromosome, and the Y chromosome produces a male and the X female.
God knew exactly what he was doing, and so he reached in and took a bone and that bone, if we get a little scientific here, had the encoded DNA in the cell structure which could create a male. He made a woman out of that bone, made a partner for Adam and together they could produce both male and female. So X chromosomes and Y chromosomes were well-known to God even though they don’t appear in the book of Genesis. The male had the genetic materials so that a female could be taken out of him and be genetically related to him in the same kind, and then through relationship with her be able to procreate both male and female.
So together they fulfill the dominion mandate of verse 28 be fruitful and multiply and subdue the earth. Fruitful and multiply, the technical word for that is fecundity, it means the ability to procreate, and by the way that’s just all through Genesis. I’m not going to take the time, but you can – chapter 9 God blessed Noah after the flood. His sons he said to them you got to carry on this original mandate be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, make babies in the vernacular. Produce children, and in the 17th chapter of the book of Genesis verse 16 speaks about Abraham and Sarah, “I will bless her, and indeed I will give you a son by her. Then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.”
In verse 20, “As for Ishmael, I will bless him, and will make him fruitful and will multiply him exceedingly.” That’s to make you fruitful and multiply is the Old Testament expression for procreation. So the male and female design were to allow man to procreate, which would allow man wonderful, wonderful responsibility and privilege of producing others in the image of God. What an incredible blessing. You bring a little baby into the world that’s an eternal person made in the image of God. That’s a – and there’s nothing like it, there’s absolutely nothing like it.
Because that little life has the capacity for relationship. Whether it’s a relationship that I enjoy with a member of the family like my father who’s at one end of life or whether it’s my little granddaughter running up to me with both arms in the air and pleading with me to pick her up and give her a hug; those are the richest things in all of life, relationships. We have the privilege and the joy of enriching our own relationship in marriage by multiplying and bringing into that union others capable of deep, personal, communion conversation and fellowship. We can enjoy with them the same personal relations that we enjoy with each other.
Therefore, God is saying you can extend this dominion over the face of the earth. Fill the earth Genesis 9:1, fill the earth. The same thing in Genesis 1:28 fill the earth. God designed marriage one man, one woman, that’s clear from what I read you at the end of chapter 2, and man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife. They become one flesh, and the way they become one flesh is in the life that comes from them. One flesh could mean you have sexual intimacy, one flesh could mean that you think alike and you do things together. But the truest and purest expression of one flesh is when both of you come together in one flesh, one life.
That was man’s mandate, because in so doing man multiplies the image of God. That’s why we talk so strongly to Christian parents who have little children to understand the stewardship you have from God to bring that little one, made in the image of God, back to the knowledge of God through faith in Jesus Christ. So God established this capability, this fecundity as it’s called, this ability to procreate and God established marriage as the environment; one man, one woman for life in which that would take place. It was an evolutionary resource that was trying to explain man’s behavior in an evolutionary way.
They couldn’t figure out why it is, this was the statement, why it is that humans almost always end up in what they call pair bonds. They couldn’t figure out the evolution that produces that. It seems in our culture that doesn’t happen that way, doesn’t it that people just run around willy-nilly and have babies, and there’s all kinds of illegitimate children being born. But the fact of the matter is according to this resource they said 98 percent of the human beings on the earth end up in a pair. That’s because God has made us that.
Of course all the feminist and all the homosexuals want to do everything they can to assault and destroy God’s intention, and they have been very successful in our society. Because of that Romans 1 says the wrath of God has come upon them. Enough about that, man then is created in the image of God, he is created to be king of the earth, he is created to be the propagator of life. Finally, he was created as the recipient of enjoyment. God just wanted to bless him; it says it in verse 28, “and God blessed them.” He just wanted somebody he could bless.
He blessed them. How did he bless them? He blessed them with dominion, he blessed them with the divine image, eternal being. He blessed them with the ability to have relationships, he blessed them with personhood, he blessed them with the ability to understand his creation, he blessed them with the capability to know him as well as to know each other. He blessed them with the ability to reproduce themselves and fill the earth with others made in the image of God, and he blessed them one other way, verse 29, “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.”
Now did you ever ask why it is that God filled this world with such a variety of food just from the plant side alone? Just fruits and vegetables; take away man because there’s no death at this point so man is a vegetarian when he was originally created. But there seems to be absolutely no end to all the vegetation, all that grows, that hangs on trees for the joy of man. I’ve often thought God could have made a brown sky and brown water and a colorless world, and rice. So all you do all your life is eat rice or whatever else. But why did god fill this world with such a vast array of plants and vegetables, its fruits and vegetables just abound. Every time I go to another culture, another place in the world I’m introduced to another thing that people get out of the ground and eat.
It’s pretty astonishing, some of them I don’t want a second helping of, but that probably has more to do with how they’re prepared than what could be done for them like covering them with a lot of cheese or something. But I continue to be amazed and God has accommodated this with another amazing human ability, and that is the ability to taste. You take that for granted don’t you and the ability to smell. You primarily think you taste, but you really smell more than taste. But God has given us the capability to taste certain things. What a blessing so that we can literally just enjoy the immense bounty that God has provided for us.
So Adam and Eve first were vegetarian, they could eat every plant yielding seed on the surface of the earth, every tree yielding fruit with seed in it was food for them, and to every beast of the earth and every bird of the sky, and everything that moves on the earth which has life I’ve given every green plant for food, and it was so. It was so again that punctuation statement that indicates this was the permanent established pattern. Man was a vegetarian and animals were also vegetarian at creation. Why? Because there was no death, nothing died. God established this as the original fixed pattern. It was permanent at that time, it was so indicates its permanence. Now there was just one exception, chapter 2, verse 9 there was this tree of life in the midst of the garden.
This tree of the knowledge of good and evil also. Down in verse 16 they were commanded you could eat from the garden anything you want, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. For in that day you eat from it you shall surely die. They could eat the tree of life all they wanted, but they couldn’t eat the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. To eat what was forbidden would devastate the original design producing death and decay. It’s a sad story isn’t it? That’s exactly what they did.
Chapter 3 tells the terrible story and we don’t know how much time past, we don’t know whether it was decades or whether it was hundreds of years, but the time came when Eve was beguiled by the serpent and the serpent lied to her and she bought the lie. She disobeyed God and she ate and then Adam knowingly disobeyed God and ate and everything changed, everything. Chapter 3 verse 19 all of a sudden taking care of the garden wasn’t easy. Back to verse 17, “Because you have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it; cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles are going to grow; you will eat the plants of the field, by the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground.”
Your whole life is going to be one very, very great challenge. You’re going to have to work hard for your food, from vegetation that once was readily acceptable – accessible to you. Then in verse 21 it says, “The Lord God made garments of skin,” now that’s the first death. In order to make a garment of skin God had to kill the animal. God killed the first animal to cover the nakedness of Adam and his wife. Down in chapter 4 in verse 4 Abel brought firstlings of the flock and their fat portions, that means he brought an animal sacrifice, killed an animal and the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering.
The Lord accepted the death of animals as a sacrifice, which means animal death was inaugurated by God, acceptable to God, within the framework of his sacrificial system because of course it pointed to the wages of sin which is death. God later allowed people to eat meat over in chapter 9 when Noah and his sons came out of the ark God said be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Chapter 9 verse 2, “The fear of you and the terror of you shall be on every beast of the earth.” Now all of a sudden you’re going to be king of the earth, you’re going to have authority over these animals, but they’re not going to be amiable to that.
They’re going to fear you, “Every beast of the earth, every bird of the sky, everything that creeps on the ground, all the fish of the sea. Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you. I give all to you as I gave the green plants.” Don’t think being a vegetarian is the Christian way. It was originally the way, but once there was sin God allowed people to eat meat, and I think that was very, very important. Because God demonstrated through those deaths originally that there was death for sin, death required a sacrifice, death even required a substitute.
Now in the glorious millennial kingdom to come the question could come up is it going to be the same? No, animals are going to be tame and not wild, but there will be some animals killed during the millennial kingdom for according to Ezekiel 40-48 there will be sacrifices held in the millennial temple. So some of them will be killed at least for commemorative feast in the millennial temple, and sin will exist as I said in the millennium. But there will be some return to the original design. The Prophet Isaiah wants us to understand, and I noted some reference to that earlier, but he wants us to understand that the world will be to some degree different.
The cow and the bear will graze, the young will like down together, and the lion will eat straw like an ox, and the nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, the weaned child will put his hand in the viper’s den and it won’t be harmed. There’s definitely going to be some reversal of the curse though it’s not going to be total. In Isaiah 65:25 the wolf and the lamb will graze together, and the lion will eat straw like an ox, etc. and the serpent will eat dust. So there will be some changes.
Summing it up, obviously there is a lot more we could dig into in chapter 2 and see whether that’s something we do in the future. But for the moment God created man in his own image, he created man to be king of the earth, created man to procreate, to propagate and fill the earth with others who would be made in the image of God. He created man to enjoy the bounty of his blessing. When that was all done verse 31 says and God saw that he had made and behold it was very good. Not just the parts, he’s commented on the parts being good. This time he says it’s very good; that’s the first time.
Not so much the parts, but he saw all that he had made. Again reiterating that he is the creator and the maker of everything. No death, because no evil and no sin and no falleness. Folks that ends all possibility of evolution, including anything kind of theistic evolution which depends on death. There was no death, things weren’t mutating and dying for billions of years during this time. When God says a day he means an actual day. So you come to chapter 2 verse 1 thus the heavens and the earth were completed and all their hosts. That’s it folks, there ain’t no more. That’s the story.
It started and ended 32 verses, and gave us the complete picture of the created universe in all its wondrous perfection. Do you believe that, it’s God’s word isn’t it? Father, we thank you tonight for these weeks that we’ve been able to look at this and see your mighty and glorious hand. Thank you for being our creator, sustainer, consummator of the universe. Thank you for being our Savior, our Lord, our friend. Thank you for being our Father; that the great creator became my Savior is a wondrous reality. Thank you, amen.
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Now last time we looked at verse 24 and 25, and 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. There are 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 beast, 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 men 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 beast 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, and God can provide an environment which puts his glory on display.
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. Here we are introduced to the crown of creation which is man. But 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 one, “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, earthy pattern only. By the way he is the only living being in the time space universe made on the divine pattern.
Man is transcendent, 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 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 creative 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 distinctive’s; self-consciousness, animals are conscious, but they are 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, because 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 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, and 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 the last time verse 26 indicates let us make men. For the first time God is introduced here as more than one, because he is 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 relationship of the trinity establishes the pattern for man’s relationships. Now that’s 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. 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 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 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. Then God goes back over the sequence. You remember if you go back to day five the fish came and then the birds came and then the cattle came and then the creeping things, and then the beast 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 and every bird of the sky,” we’ve already learned that this is just summarizing and repeating that, “and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. 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 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 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 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. 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 one. 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 the 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.
The gold of that land is good; the bdellium and the onyx stone are there. 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. And 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 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 of the garden you may eat freely.” 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 will surely die.” What’s that? That was 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.
Then to classify the creation and then somehow to shape the creation so that it was an honor 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 tend 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. I began to think about the fact that 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 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 that 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. 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 in 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 approach 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 piece give glory to the creator. 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’re putting God’s creative power on display.
So everything we do should be to the glory of God. We have a cursed earth to deal with and it’s not easy, but like Adam after he sinned we need to work at it a little to the point where we sweat in order that God’s creative beauty might be on display. We’re still stewards of his creation, and I think as a Christian I feel that stewardship. Now I realize that this is a temporary planet, it’s all going to burn up. But while I’m here I want God to be able to be on display. So Adam was given that responsibility, now we this side of the fall, this side of sin cannot subdue the garden of God as we would like. It’s a wild world and we hear all about the death that occurs in our world. We even have plants that are deadly don’t we?
Plants that are drugs, we have living bacteria and things like that that kill, that have created plagues that have literally resulted in the death of tens of thousands of people. We have animals that are killers. It’s not the garden it was originally because of the fall and curse. It says in chapter 2 of Hebrews verse 8 that he’s been crowned with glory and honor in verse 7. Then in verse 8 it says, “Thou has put all things in subjection under his feet.” That’s true, Christ is as the incarnate man truly the king of the earth; “for in subjecting all things to him, He left nothing that is not subject to him.” But look at this next statement, very important.
“But now we do not yet see all things subjected to him.” Isn’t that true? Christ is the true king of the earth, he was made a little lower than the angels. He came down and became one of us, and so he took on the dominion mandate and because he’s God he has the greatest power to subject the creation to himself. But we look at the creation and it was to be subjected to him, verse 8 says that all things are subject to him. There’s not anything that exist that isn’t subject to him, but we don’t yet see all things subjected to him. We don’t see the animal kingdom under control, docile and passive. We don’t see plant life just growing and flourishing without any care and tending.
We don’t see the world free from war and hatred and slaughter and etc. and disease and illness. So we don’t yet see all things subjected to him, but we will. We will, someday all things will be subjected to him, someday he will reverse the curse, he will be king of the earth. Look at verse 10, “It was fitting for Him,” for Christ, “for whom are all things,” ultimately they’re going to all be his, “and through whom are all things,” he made them all, “in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.”
Through his death he gained the right to be the sovereign of the earth and he will take that right and he’ll go into his glory, he’ll rule this world, he will subdue this world, and he will bring us along with him bringing many sons to glory. So we could say this that there was before the fall a dominion mandate given to man which he could exercise, and he had control of all the animals, and he had control of the garden of God. But he lost that in the fall and it will be regained when Jesus who has not yet subjected all things to himself will do that, and that’s looking at the millennial kingdom, the restored earth, Eden reversed as it were. You remember the Prophet Isaiah says the desert will blossom like a rose, the lion will lie down with the lamb, a child will play in a snake pit, and if somebody dies at a 100 years they die a baby. So that death in it’s normal course will be abated.
It’s very reasonable to assume that people who go into the millennium alive on the earth will live through the entire 1000 years without dying. Death will be mitigated, the curse will be mitigated. There will still be elements of the curse on earth, because there will still be people being born on the earth who have a sin nature and who rebel against God. So sin will be here, but it will be largely subdued, and then finally at the end of the 1000 years the whole earth is uncreated and a new Heaven and a new earth is created where there is no sin and there is no fall. So man will reign with Christ in the kingdom and one day when Christ subdues the creation so we will enjoy that subjugation of the creation, because we will reign with him.
The second thing then we say about man is that he is king of the earth, he is sovereign over the earth. He is not just a biological extension of some other creature. He was made of different stuff in the image of God to rule this universe, and he will do that in the glories of the millennial kingdom when he with Christ reigns over a subdued universe, brought into subjection by Jesus Christ himself.
In fact it says in the scriptures the prophets noted and New Testament refers to it that the earth will be renovated at the beginning of the 1000 years. So certain features of the curse will be mitigated at that point, man then was given this sovereignty at the very beginning. He rises above all the created order and is the sovereign, the king of the earth. Thirdly, we find in creation, go back to Genesis. We find in creation this is also man’s responsibility, it says verse 28, “God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.” Now in verse 27 it says that he made them male and female.
Now this is the third responsibility of man; he is to manifest the image of God personhood and relationship, he is to be king of the earth, he is to tend the garden of God and do everything he can in leading and subduing the created order to put God’s glorious power on display, and he is the propagator of human life. So God made them male and female; that was God’s design for marriage and procreation. We’ve been talking about the fact that procreation exist in all of the animal world. There’s even a procreative capacity among the plants who reproduce by means of seed or seed in fruit.
God gave man relational capacities and then God gave man a helper. It says in verse 7 of chapter 2 that, “God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; he became a living being.” As you read down this passage a little bit verse 18, “The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone,” this isn’t going to work, because I‘m going to have to keep creating people. He can’t have this, I have to make a helper suitable for him. Now I know what most people think; this means there’s somebody to do the dishes, somebody to take out the trash, somebody to make the bed.
That’s not the kind of helper; he needed help in one main thing and that was procreation, propagation of the human race; that was the issue here. He needs a helper, he needs a partner, he needs a perfect match. Out of the ground the Lord God had formed everything, but there was something different about the way he formed this helper back in verse 20. God looked all around his creation and there wasn’t a partner for Adam, there wasn’t anything in the created order that was at his level. We need to keep affirming that now; to be a human being is not to be a glorified animal. It’s to be an eternal being made in the image of God and there was only one and that was Adam.
“So God caused a deep sleep to fall on the man, and he slept. He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place, and the Lord God fashioned it into a woman, the rib which he had taken from the man. Brought her to the man and the man said this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”
What was there to be ashamed of, there wasn’t any sin. Now, this section that I just read to you in chapter 2 expands the simple statement of verse 27b which says male and female he created them, and there you have the story of how he did that. Chapter 2 is not an additional story, it’s an expansion on the original. Now in both places the male is first, he created them male and female. In chapter 1 it tells you – chapter 2 tells you in verse 7 he created the man, and down in verses 18 and following he created the woman following. Now this is important; the male is place first and this is necessary in creation.
It shows the amazing accuracy of the book of Genesis. Let me tell you what I mean. Genetic research confirms this, for the male has both X chromosomes, which by the way engender females, and Y chromosomes, which engender males. Males are X and y, females are not. If the female had been created first and the male taken out of her body then reproduction would have been impossible for there would have been nothing but X chromosomes. In which case only females could have been reproduced, because females don’t have a Y chromosome. Man had to be created first because he has an X and a Y chromosome, and the Y chromosome produces a male and the X female.
God knew exactly what he was doing, and so he reached in and took a bone and that bone, if we get a little scientific here, had the encoded DNA in the cell structure which could create a male. He made a woman out of that bone, made a partner for Adam and together they could produce both male and female. So X chromosomes and Y chromosomes were well-known to God even though they don’t appear in the book of Genesis. The male had the genetic materials so that a female could be taken out of him and be genetically related to him in the same kind, and then through relationship with her be able to procreate both male and female.
So together they fulfill the dominion mandate of verse 28 be fruitful and multiply and subdue the earth. Fruitful and multiply, the technical word for that is fecundity, it means the ability to procreate, and by the way that’s just all through Genesis. I’m not going to take the time, but you can – chapter 9 God blessed Noah after the flood. His sons he said to them you got to carry on this original mandate be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, make babies in the vernacular. Produce children, and in the 17th chapter of the book of Genesis verse 16 speaks about Abraham and Sarah, “I will bless her, and indeed I will give you a son by her. Then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.”
In verse 20, “As for Ishmael, I will bless him, and will make him fruitful and will multiply him exceedingly.” That’s to make you fruitful and multiply is the Old Testament expression for procreation. So the male and female design were to allow man to procreate, which would allow man wonderful, wonderful responsibility and privilege of producing others in the image of God. What an incredible blessing. You bring a little baby into the world that’s an eternal person made in the image of God. That’s a – and there’s nothing like it, there’s absolutely nothing like it.
Because that little life has the capacity for relationship. Whether it’s a relationship that I enjoy with a member of the family like my father who’s at one end of life or whether it’s my little granddaughter running up to me with both arms in the air and pleading with me to pick her up and give her a hug; those are the richest things in all of life, relationships. We have the privilege and the joy of enriching our own relationship in marriage by multiplying and bringing into that union others capable of deep, personal, communion conversation and fellowship. We can enjoy with them the same personal relations that we enjoy with each other.
Therefore, God is saying you can extend this dominion over the face of the earth. Fill the earth Genesis 9:1, fill the earth. The same thing in Genesis 1:28 fill the earth. God designed marriage one man, one woman, that’s clear from what I read you at the end of chapter 2, and man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife. They become one flesh, and the way they become one flesh is in the life that comes from them. One flesh could mean you have sexual intimacy, one flesh could mean that you think alike and you do things together. But the truest and purest expression of one flesh is when both of you come together in one flesh, one life.
That was man’s mandate, because in so doing man multiplies the image of God. That’s why we talk so strongly to Christian parents who have little children to understand the stewardship you have from God to bring that little one, made in the image of God, back to the knowledge of God through faith in Jesus Christ. So God established this capability, this fecundity as it’s called, this ability to procreate and God established marriage as the environment; one man, one woman for life in which that would take place. It was an evolutionary resource that was trying to explain man’s behavior in an evolutionary way.
They couldn’t figure out why it is, this was the statement, why it is that humans almost always end up in what they call pair bonds. They couldn’t figure out the evolution that produces that. It seems in our culture that doesn’t happen that way, doesn’t it that people just run around willy-nilly and have babies, and there’s all kinds of illegitimate children being born. But the fact of the matter is according to this resource they said 98 percent of the human beings on the earth end up in a pair. That’s because God has made us that.
Of course all the feminist and all the homosexuals want to do everything they can to assault and destroy God’s intention, and they have been very successful in our society. Because of that Romans 1 says the wrath of God has come upon them. Enough about that, man then is created in the image of God, he is created to be king of the earth, he is created to be the propagator of life. Finally, he was created as the recipient of enjoyment. God just wanted to bless him; it says it in verse 28, “and God blessed them.” He just wanted somebody he could bless.
He blessed them. How did he bless them? He blessed them with dominion, he blessed them with the divine image, eternal being. He blessed them with the ability to have relationships, he blessed them with personhood, he blessed them with the ability to understand his creation, he blessed them with the capability to know him as well as to know each other. He blessed them with the ability to reproduce themselves and fill the earth with others made in the image of God, and he blessed them one other way, verse 29, “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.”
Now did you ever ask why it is that God filled this world with such a variety of food just from the plant side alone? Just fruits and vegetables; take away man because there’s no death at this point so man is a vegetarian when he was originally created. But there seems to be absolutely no end to all the vegetation, all that grows, that hangs on trees for the joy of man. I’ve often thought God could have made a brown sky and brown water and a colorless world, and rice. So all you do all your life is eat rice or whatever else. But why did god fill this world with such a vast array of plants and vegetables, its fruits and vegetables just abound. Every time I go to another culture, another place in the world I’m introduced to another thing that people get out of the ground and eat.
It’s pretty astonishing, some of them I don’t want a second helping of, but that probably has more to do with how they’re prepared than what could be done for them like covering them with a lot of cheese or something. But I continue to be amazed and God has accommodated this with another amazing human ability, and that is the ability to taste. You take that for granted don’t you and the ability to smell. You primarily think you taste, but you really smell more than taste. But God has given us the capability to taste certain things. What a blessing so that we can literally just enjoy the immense bounty that God has provided for us.
So Adam and Eve first were vegetarian, they could eat every plant yielding seed on the surface of the earth, every tree yielding fruit with seed in it was food for them, and to every beast of the earth and every bird of the sky, and everything that moves on the earth which has life I’ve given every green plant for food, and it was so. It was so again that punctuation statement that indicates this was the permanent established pattern. Man was a vegetarian and animals were also vegetarian at creation. Why? Because there was no death, nothing died. God established this as the original fixed pattern. It was permanent at that time, it was so indicates its permanence. Now there was just one exception, chapter 2, verse 9 there was this tree of life in the midst of the garden.
This tree of the knowledge of good and evil also. Down in verse 16 they were commanded you could eat from the garden anything you want, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. For in that day you eat from it you shall surely die. They could eat the tree of life all they wanted, but they couldn’t eat the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. To eat what was forbidden would devastate the original design producing death and decay. It’s a sad story isn’t it? That’s exactly what they did.
Chapter 3 tells the terrible story and we don’t know how much time past, we don’t know whether it was decades or whether it was hundreds of years, but the time came when Eve was beguiled by the serpent and the serpent lied to her and she bought the lie. She disobeyed God and she ate and then Adam knowingly disobeyed God and ate and everything changed, everything. Chapter 3 verse 19 all of a sudden taking care of the garden wasn’t easy. Back to verse 17, “Because you have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it; cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles are going to grow; you will eat the plants of the field, by the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground.”
Your whole life is going to be one very, very great challenge. You’re going to have to work hard for your food, from vegetation that once was readily acceptable – accessible to you. Then in verse 21 it says, “The Lord God made garments of skin,” now that’s the first death. In order to make a garment of skin God had to kill the animal. God killed the first animal to cover the nakedness of Adam and his wife. Down in chapter 4 in verse 4 Abel brought firstlings of the flock and their fat portions, that means he brought an animal sacrifice, killed an animal and the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering.
The Lord accepted the death of animals as a sacrifice, which means animal death was inaugurated by God, acceptable to God, within the framework of his sacrificial system because of course it pointed to the wages of sin which is death. God later allowed people to eat meat over in chapter 9 when Noah and his sons came out of the ark God said be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Chapter 9 verse 2, “The fear of you and the terror of you shall be on every beast of the earth.” Now all of a sudden you’re going to be king of the earth, you’re going to have authority over these animals, but they’re not going to be amiable to that.
They’re going to fear you, “Every beast of the earth, every bird of the sky, everything that creeps on the ground, all the fish of the sea. Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you. I give all to you as I gave the green plants.” Don’t think being a vegetarian is the Christian way. It was originally the way, but once there was sin God allowed people to eat meat, and I think that was very, very important. Because God demonstrated through those deaths originally that there was death for sin, death required a sacrifice, death even required a substitute.
Now in the glorious millennial kingdom to come the question could come up is it going to be the same? No, animals are going to be tame and not wild, but there will be some animals killed during the millennial kingdom for according to Ezekiel 40-48 there will be sacrifices held in the millennial temple. So some of them will be killed at least for commemorative feast in the millennial temple, and sin will exist as I said in the millennium. But there will be some return to the original design. The Prophet Isaiah wants us to understand, and I noted some reference to that earlier, but he wants us to understand that the world will be to some degree different.
The cow and the bear will graze, the young will like down together, and the lion will eat straw like an ox, and the nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, the weaned child will put his hand in the viper’s den and it won’t be harmed. There’s definitely going to be some reversal of the curse though it’s not going to be total. In Isaiah 65:25 the wolf and the lamb will graze together, and the lion will eat straw like an ox, etc. and the serpent will eat dust. So there will be some changes.
Summing it up, obviously there is a lot more we could dig into in chapter 2 and see whether that’s something we do in the future. But for the moment God created man in his own image, he created man to be king of the earth, created man to procreate, to propagate and fill the earth with others who would be made in the image of God. He created man to enjoy the bounty of his blessing. When that was all done verse 31 says and God saw that he had made and behold it was very good. Not just the parts, he’s commented on the parts being good. This time he says it’s very good; that’s the first time.
Not so much the parts, but he saw all that he had made. Again reiterating that he is the creator and the maker of everything. No death, because no evil and no sin and no falleness. Folks that ends all possibility of evolution, including anything kind of theistic evolution which depends on death. There was no death, things weren’t mutating and dying for billions of years during this time. When God says a day he means an actual day. So you come to chapter 2 verse 1 thus the heavens and the earth were completed and all their hosts. That’s it folks, there ain’t no more. That’s the story.
It started and ended 32 verses, and gave us the complete picture of the created universe in all its wondrous perfection. Do you believe that, it’s God’s word isn’t it? Father, we thank you tonight for these weeks that we’ve been able to look at this and see your mighty and glorious hand. Thank you for being our creator, sustainer, consummator of the universe. Thank you for being our Savior, our Lord, our friend. Thank you for being our Father; that the great creator became my Savior is a wondrous reality. Thank you, amen.
