A Look in the Book, Part 12

contributed by Darrell Nichols, elder and teaching pastor

The Sixth Day, Part 3

​Genesis 1:24-31

(24) And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds. And it was so. (25) And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. (26) Then God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. (27) So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (28) And God blessed them. And God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. (29) And God said, Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. (30) And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food. And it was so. (31) And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (ESV)

As we continue our study of Creation Week in Genesis One, we again turn our attention to verse 26. "Then God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness." Image and likeness are often used interchangeably in the Bible (compare Genesis 1:27; Genesis 5:1-3; Genesis 9:6; 1 Corinthians 11:7; Colossians 3:10 and James 3:9). A good synonym for image or likeness is the word resemblance. Without damaging Scripture, we could paraphrase Genesis 1:26 to read, "Let Us make man to resemble Us."

Don’t misunderstand. When God created us, He did not create "little gods." That is not what image or likeness means here. We will never become equal to our Creator—not by a long shot. Genesis 1:26 indicates, however, that Jehovah God created mankind to resemble Himself. The verse says, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…." To whom does the pronoun "our" refer? As noted in our last blog, "our" refers to the Trinity. Did you notice that Scripture does not say anything about God creating fish after His likeness?  God doesn't say anything in the Bible about making animals, or anything other than humans, after His likeness. According to the Scriptures, God created only humans "in His image." As the well-known Bible commentator Matthew Henry said, "Man was not made in the likeness of any creature that went before him, but in the likeness of his Creator."

God is God and humans are human. The only time God and a human perfectly blended together was when Deity became a man—the God-Man, Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:8). Jesus is the only One Who has ever been or ever will be God AND man--ALL God and ALL man. But while mankind can never be God, God did create mankind to resemble God. We resemble God in four distinct ways: A personal resemblance, a spiritual resemblance, a moral resemblance and a physical resemblance. In this blog, we will address the first resemblance or, to use the Bible term, the first likeness…   

A Personal Likeness

"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." The first way in which we resemble God is in a personal way. We have a personal likeness to God. Man is a personal being. For example, church-goers greet one another when we come together at church or a Bible study. We often shake hands or hug one another. It is a personal greeting. There is gladness in our hearts over seeing brothers and sisters in Christ. It is personal. God made us personal beings. God created mankind with a personal likeness to Himself and this truth is seen in at least six ways which we mention here briefly…

• Consciousness

​Man is a conscious being. We are aware of our surroundings, ourselves and each other. We are conscious of each other’s existence. We usually know, at least to some extent, what’s going on around us. We have a personal likeness to God – we're conscious beings as He has always been.

• Volition

Man possesses a will, the ability to choose. To illustrate, if I decide to go to church on a given weekend, barring an act of God, I can go. We are allowed to make choices every day. The freedom to choose is a gift from God. Being able to choose is sometimes called will or volition. "I can do whatever I want" you may say. In most cases that is true. Haven’t you noticed this in your own life? God rarely interferes with the choices we make, even if those choices are illegal, sinful or unwise. But Ecclesiastes 11:9 warns, "…Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment." Usually, we can do what we want to do. To continue the previous church-going illustration, if I choose to NOT go to church or Bible study, I don’t have to go. And God will probably not strike me down (emphasis on probably 😊). Just like God, we have freedom to choose. It is a personal likeness to Him.  

• Intellect

Man is an intelligent being. Intelligence has been defined as the ability to acquire knowledge and skills and to apply them to various aspects of life. Being intelligent, however, is not a thing for us to brag about. It is something for us to be thankful for. Remember, our intellect is God-given. Sadly, like the so-called atheist, we sometimes use our intellect to fight against the One who gave us our intellect. By and large, we can think what we want to think. While there are a lot of Scriptures warning us about the dangers of wrongful thinking, we are allowed to think whatever we want (see Philippians 4:8; Psalm 10:4; Psalm 139:2, 23-24; Proverbs 15:26; Romans 12:17; Matthew 9:4; Matthew 15:19; 2 Corinthians 10:5; 1 Corinthians 3:18-20). Though our intelligence does not come close to matching God’s intelligence, we have a personal likeness to our Creator in that we are intelligent beings—though probably not as intelligent as we sometimes believe (Romans 1:21-22).

• Emotion

Man possesses emotion. We can get excited; we can laugh; we can cry; we can love; we can hate; we can grieve; we can fear. At various times we can feel sad, bad, glad or mad. These and many other expressions are marks of our emotional framework. God allows us to feel, to experience emotion. And not only experience it, but display it! Recently, my wife and I were at a softball game where one of our granddaughters was playing. When she hit a homerun, family and friends all displayed great emotion in cheering her on as she rounded the bases! Parents cheered! Grandparents cheered! Friends cheered! The coaches cheered (ours…not theirs)! The ballpark was packed with visible and audible signs of emotion! Humans have the capacity to show emotion because God gave us that capacity—and God Himself has often shown emotion! Remember the shortest verse in the Bible? It's John 11:35. "Jesus wept." How could the Son of God weep if He didn’t possess emotion? Another example of God's emotion is in the book of Exodus. God was interacting with Moses about the children of Israel in the wilderness. God got emotional. The Bible says God was angry over their sin (Exodus 32:10-12). See Matthew 21:12, Luke 15:7 and John 3:16 for other demonstrations of divine emotion. We have a personal likeness to God in that we possess emotion, just like our Creator.

• Speech

Man possesses an ability to communicate verbally. Birds and animals can communicate with sounds (the chirp of a bird, the roar of a lion) but they cannot communicate with spoken words. Why do you think God equipped humans with voices that enable us to speak? Of course, one reason is to communicate with one another, but another reason is to tell others about the Lord’s "wonderful works to the children of men" (Psalm 107:8). I’m reminded of the words to an old song:
            "Let’s talk about Jesus. The King of Kings is He.
            The Lord of Lords supreme, throughout eternity.
            The great I AM the way, the truth, the life, the door.
            Let’s talk about Jesus more and more."
Why did God give us a voice capable of singing? One reason was to allow us to voice our praise to Him "in songs and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord…." We can praise Him audibly or "in our hearts" (Ephesians 5:19). Psalm 147:1 encourages us to "Praise the LORD" [and then tells us why we should] "For it is good to sing praises to our God; for it is pleasant, and a song of praise is fitting." Our God-given speech reveals another personal likeness to God that we humans have.
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• Rationale

Another trait that man possesses is rationale. We have the capacity to think things through. We can organize our thoughts. We can consider or reason about various ideas and concepts. We can think in a logical manner. We are rational beings, which is a personal likeness to God. One last thing about man's rationale – it's not as great as God's! Read Isaiah 55:8-9.

​To sum up, human beings are personal beings who possess certain God-given traits: consciousness, volition, intellect, emotion, speech and rationale; just to name six. And the Trinity—God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit—has all of these traits, too! God is conscious that He is God and is aware of all that goes on. God has a divine will. He can do whatever He chooses (e.g., create the heavens and the earth recorded in the first chapter of Genesis). God is an emotional being, as pointed out above. He has the ability to speak with us and to us and for us and about us. The Lord is also rational—much more than humans.

God created mankind in His image, after His likeness. As stated, we resemble God in four ways. We've now seen the first resemblance, a personal likeness to God. We will take up the other resemblances in the next blog. Until then, stay in the Book!! ​

Darrell Nichols is an Elder and Pastor of Education at commUNITY church in Muncie, IN.
He can be reached at darrell.nichols@beincommunity.com or on Twitter @_nichols_dimes