.
● Gen 1:26a . . And God said: Let us make Man in our image, after our likeness.
The introduction of the plural personal pronouns "us" and "our" into the narrative at this point has given rise to some interesting speculation regarding the identities of the antecedents.
The Hebrew word for "Man" is 'adam (aw-dawm') which, in this case, simply refers to human life; i.e. humanity. It's actually a species name rather than a proper name.
Because of the terms "image and likeness" there are some who believe that humanity's creator is some sort of hominid; or at least resembles one. But according to Christ, man's creator is non physical.
"God is spirit" (John 4:24)
Spirits don't have solid bodies. (Luke 24:36-39)
God instructed Moses' people to avoid making any kind of mannequin, figurine, totem pole, or statue representing God since no one has any true concept of what creation's God actually looks like in person. (Ex 4:10-19, John 1:18, John 5:37)
There exists absolutely nothing in nature physically resembling its architect; except maybe the air in front of your face-- neither human, nor beast, nor plant, nor bird, nor bug, nor reptile nor anything out in the void (Rom 1:21-23). Pagan concepts that portray creation's God as a human being are purely fantasy. (Rom 1:25)
One of the meanings of image and likeness is located at Gen 5:3.
"When Adam had lived one hundred and thirty years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth."
The apostle Paul once said to the men of Athens, relative to the creator: "We are His offspring". (Acts 17:28-29)
In other words: the creator, in a strange sort of way, is humanity's parent.
"I said: You are sons of the Most High." (Ps 82:6b)
If humans were paternal sons of the Most High-- viz: if they were biological sons --they'd be immortal because God is immortal; i.e. like begets like. But humans are not immortal.
"Nevertheless you will die like men" (Ps 82:7)
So then we are safe to conclude that humanity's image and likeness of God isn't the same as Seth's image and likeness of Adam; and humanity's divine sonship isn't biological. God didn't reproduce in order to bring humans into existence, rather, He created them into existence from dust rather than birthing them from Himself.
Humans then, because of their special relationship with the creator, are, from a certain point of view, a divine species of created life.
"I said: You are gods" (Ps 82:6a)
So very early it comes out that there are at least two categories of gods in the Bible; there's the supreme god called Jehovah, and there is the lesser god called Man.
There is of course only one true god (Deut 6:4, John 17:3, 1Cor 8:4-6) so we conclude that Man's divinity isn't intrinsic, rather, it's ersatz; i.e. artificial. It's a bestowed kind of divinity rather than inherited. Jesus Christ, on the other hand, got his divinity by inheritance; which is a kind of divinity that's vastly superior to Adam's; viz: humans are artificial gods; while Jesus Christ is the genuine article. (Heb 1:1-14)
● Gen 1:26b . . let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.
Humanity's sovereignty, power, and control over nature is primarily where we find the exercise of its image and likeness of God; in other words: Man does not answer to nature-- just the opposite --nature answers to Man. (Ps 8:4-8)
The word for "rule" is from radah (raw-daw') and means: to tread down, i.e. subjugate; specifically: to crumble off; viz: conquer.
I saw a pretty interesting bumper sticker some time ago that went like this:
We Are Not Above The Earth;
We Are of the Earth.
Well . . I respect the Native American cultural sentiment underlying that statement; and must admit that I agree with it to a certain extent. But creation's maker decreed that though Man is of the earth; he is very definitely above it too, and has the God-given authority to subjugate every living thing on the planet including its forests, its grasses, its rivers, its seas, its soil, its rocks, its air, its minerals, its mountains, its valleys, and even its tectonic plates and the earth's very atmosphere itself. According to Heb 2:8, humanity is on track to take control of even more.
● Gen 1:27a . . So God created Man in His own image, in the image of God He created him;
If humans were paternal sons of the Most High-- viz: if people were His biological offspring --they'd be eternal beings like Himself because God is an eternal being; i.e. like begets like. But humans for now are not even immortal let alone eternal.
So then we are safe to conclude that humanity's image and likeness of God wasn't the same as Seth's image and likeness of Adam, viz: humanity's divine sonship isn't biological. God didn't reproduce in order to bring humans into existence, rather, He created them into existence from dust rather than from Himself.
● Gen 1:27a . . male and female He created them.
It's okay to pity people who refuse to be identified by their gender and prefer to be known as non binary, i.e. as neither male nor female. But there is no just no way on God's green earth that Bible believing Christians should ever be supportive of the non binary movement because the image and likeness of God finds its completeness in distinct male and female gender identities.
There's a term for people who believe themselves to be someone and/or something other than what and/or who they really are. I think it might be called Dissociative Disorder. There was a time when society confined people with those kinds of conditions to psychiatric facilities for observation and therapy, but nowadays political correctness requires that they be "included". But God-honoring Christian churches dare not accept into their membership someone known to identify themselves as non binary.
"See to it that no one misses the grace of God, and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many." (Heb 12:15)
A bitter root is one belonging to a species unfit for human consumption. When you find noxious vegetation sprouting in your garden, you've got to get out there with a hoe and dig that stuff up before it spreads out of control.
NOTE: The pronoun "them" in Gen 1:27 is a bit ambiguous. It can refer to the first couple; but it can just as easily refer to the human specie in total. In other words: Gen 1:26-27 speaks of all of us; and by extension, so does Gen 2:16-17 because according to Acts 17:26, that's how it worked out.
Some women would be offended by association with a male pronoun but it's a biblical designation nonetheless. Regardless of one's natural gender, all human beings are of the 'adam species and can be legitimately referred to as a him or as a he because all of us, regardless of gender, are extensions of a solo specimen; including Eve because she was made from a human tissue sample taken from a man's body. Bible students really have to watch for that because when they run across the word "man" and/or "men" in the Bible, it doesn't always indicate males.
_
● Gen 1:26a . . And God said: Let us make Man in our image, after our likeness.
The introduction of the plural personal pronouns "us" and "our" into the narrative at this point has given rise to some interesting speculation regarding the identities of the antecedents.
The Hebrew word for "Man" is 'adam (aw-dawm') which, in this case, simply refers to human life; i.e. humanity. It's actually a species name rather than a proper name.
Because of the terms "image and likeness" there are some who believe that humanity's creator is some sort of hominid; or at least resembles one. But according to Christ, man's creator is non physical.
"God is spirit" (John 4:24)
Spirits don't have solid bodies. (Luke 24:36-39)
God instructed Moses' people to avoid making any kind of mannequin, figurine, totem pole, or statue representing God since no one has any true concept of what creation's God actually looks like in person. (Ex 4:10-19, John 1:18, John 5:37)
There exists absolutely nothing in nature physically resembling its architect; except maybe the air in front of your face-- neither human, nor beast, nor plant, nor bird, nor bug, nor reptile nor anything out in the void (Rom 1:21-23). Pagan concepts that portray creation's God as a human being are purely fantasy. (Rom 1:25)
One of the meanings of image and likeness is located at Gen 5:3.
"When Adam had lived one hundred and thirty years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth."
The apostle Paul once said to the men of Athens, relative to the creator: "We are His offspring". (Acts 17:28-29)
In other words: the creator, in a strange sort of way, is humanity's parent.
"I said: You are sons of the Most High." (Ps 82:6b)
If humans were paternal sons of the Most High-- viz: if they were biological sons --they'd be immortal because God is immortal; i.e. like begets like. But humans are not immortal.
"Nevertheless you will die like men" (Ps 82:7)
So then we are safe to conclude that humanity's image and likeness of God isn't the same as Seth's image and likeness of Adam; and humanity's divine sonship isn't biological. God didn't reproduce in order to bring humans into existence, rather, He created them into existence from dust rather than birthing them from Himself.
Humans then, because of their special relationship with the creator, are, from a certain point of view, a divine species of created life.
"I said: You are gods" (Ps 82:6a)
So very early it comes out that there are at least two categories of gods in the Bible; there's the supreme god called Jehovah, and there is the lesser god called Man.
There is of course only one true god (Deut 6:4, John 17:3, 1Cor 8:4-6) so we conclude that Man's divinity isn't intrinsic, rather, it's ersatz; i.e. artificial. It's a bestowed kind of divinity rather than inherited. Jesus Christ, on the other hand, got his divinity by inheritance; which is a kind of divinity that's vastly superior to Adam's; viz: humans are artificial gods; while Jesus Christ is the genuine article. (Heb 1:1-14)
● Gen 1:26b . . let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.
Humanity's sovereignty, power, and control over nature is primarily where we find the exercise of its image and likeness of God; in other words: Man does not answer to nature-- just the opposite --nature answers to Man. (Ps 8:4-8)
The word for "rule" is from radah (raw-daw') and means: to tread down, i.e. subjugate; specifically: to crumble off; viz: conquer.
I saw a pretty interesting bumper sticker some time ago that went like this:
We Are Not Above The Earth;
We Are of the Earth.
Well . . I respect the Native American cultural sentiment underlying that statement; and must admit that I agree with it to a certain extent. But creation's maker decreed that though Man is of the earth; he is very definitely above it too, and has the God-given authority to subjugate every living thing on the planet including its forests, its grasses, its rivers, its seas, its soil, its rocks, its air, its minerals, its mountains, its valleys, and even its tectonic plates and the earth's very atmosphere itself. According to Heb 2:8, humanity is on track to take control of even more.
● Gen 1:27a . . So God created Man in His own image, in the image of God He created him;
If humans were paternal sons of the Most High-- viz: if people were His biological offspring --they'd be eternal beings like Himself because God is an eternal being; i.e. like begets like. But humans for now are not even immortal let alone eternal.
So then we are safe to conclude that humanity's image and likeness of God wasn't the same as Seth's image and likeness of Adam, viz: humanity's divine sonship isn't biological. God didn't reproduce in order to bring humans into existence, rather, He created them into existence from dust rather than from Himself.
● Gen 1:27a . . male and female He created them.
It's okay to pity people who refuse to be identified by their gender and prefer to be known as non binary, i.e. as neither male nor female. But there is no just no way on God's green earth that Bible believing Christians should ever be supportive of the non binary movement because the image and likeness of God finds its completeness in distinct male and female gender identities.
There's a term for people who believe themselves to be someone and/or something other than what and/or who they really are. I think it might be called Dissociative Disorder. There was a time when society confined people with those kinds of conditions to psychiatric facilities for observation and therapy, but nowadays political correctness requires that they be "included". But God-honoring Christian churches dare not accept into their membership someone known to identify themselves as non binary.
"See to it that no one misses the grace of God, and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many." (Heb 12:15)
A bitter root is one belonging to a species unfit for human consumption. When you find noxious vegetation sprouting in your garden, you've got to get out there with a hoe and dig that stuff up before it spreads out of control.
NOTE: The pronoun "them" in Gen 1:27 is a bit ambiguous. It can refer to the first couple; but it can just as easily refer to the human specie in total. In other words: Gen 1:26-27 speaks of all of us; and by extension, so does Gen 2:16-17 because according to Acts 17:26, that's how it worked out.
Some women would be offended by association with a male pronoun but it's a biblical designation nonetheless. Regardless of one's natural gender, all human beings are of the 'adam species and can be legitimately referred to as a him or as a he because all of us, regardless of gender, are extensions of a solo specimen; including Eve because she was made from a human tissue sample taken from a man's body. Bible students really have to watch for that because when they run across the word "man" and/or "men" in the Bible, it doesn't always indicate males.
_
