Some Comments on the Creation Week: Day 6b - The Creation of Man

And 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 fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

(Gen 1:26-31)

Day 6 of creation climaxed with the creation of man. Genesis 1 gives us an overview of the creation of Adam but Genesis 2 gives additional details. In this post I will be referring to both chapters. I already know this is going to be a long post so I apologize in advance.

Genesis 1:26, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:”

The use of plural pronouns in this verse has been the point of much debate. Some have proposed this is an example of the plural of majesty. Per Wiki, some monarchs believed their authority was divinely given so “us” meant “God and I.” In another sense, the plural could be a monarch speaking with the voice of his subjects such as when Queen Victoria famously said, “We are not amused.” But neither would apply here.

Certainly God was not consulting with the animals so they would not be included in the “us.” The Bible never says exactly when the angels were created but we might assume it was during the creation week. In that case, “us” might include the angels.

Of course, given what we know from the rest of Scripture, the “us” very likely means the three Persons of the Trinity. The angels had no part in the creation but we know that John 1 acknowledges Jesus as the Creator. So God's conversation here may be the Father in dialogue with the Son and the Spirit.

It's interesting to note the change in the pace of the action. In every other instance, God spoke and the created thing appeared. In this case, God pauses and deliberates before He acts.

Genesis 1:27-28, So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

There are a couple of significant points we can discern from this passage. First, we are different than the animals in that we alone are created in the image of God. One of the first tasks given to Adam at his creation was to name the animals of the garden. Among those beasts, Adam would find none like him. When God created Eve, Adam saw immediately that she was like him and remarked, “This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23). According to evolution, we are simply another evolved animal – one possessing higher intelligence. The Bible tells us that we aren't animals.

The second point we can see is that God created the earth to be of service to us. The plants were meant to be our food and we had dominion over every living thing in the sea, in the air, and on the earth. We should be good stewards of what has given us but the biblical description of the relationship between us and nature seems in stark contrast to the attitudes of radical environmentalists. They would have us believe there is something noble in unspoiled nature and it's our duty to serve the earth.

GENESIS CHAPTER 2 – A Second Creation Account?

Many critics have argued that Genesis 1 and 2 have contradictory creation accounts. I'm surprised this criticism has endured because even a cursory reading seems to dispel that notion. I suspect it has been successful through the use of quote mining where a critic will compare select verses from chapters 1 and 2 and the reader never bothers to read the context.

The chronology of the seven days of the creation week ends at Genesis 2:4. Beginning in verse 5 through the rest of chapter 2, the Bible expounds on the creation of Adam on day 6. Roughly, the events are as follows:

1. God creates Adam from the dust of the earth (v. 7)
2. God creates the Garden of Eden, which includes the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (v. 8-9)
3. God puts Adam in the Garden (v. 8, 15)
4. God creates animals in the Garden and brings them to Adam to be named (v. 19-20)
5. God creates Eve (v. 22)

Since chapter 2 has some animals created after Adam while chapter 1 has animals created before Adam, critics tout this as a contradiction between the accounts. We can see in the text, though, that the animals created in v. 19 are not the same animals that were created on previous days.

Still another criticism of the creation account is the straw claim that Adam had to name all the animals in the world. Since there are millions of species, naming them all would take more than a single day. However, a clear reading of the text shows that the task was limited only to cattle, birds, and “the beasts of the field.”

Genesis 1:31, And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

At the end of the 6^th day, God surveyed His entire creation. At the end of each creative act before now, God proclaimed the thing He had created as good. Now, He says everything He had made was very good. It was a world without sin. It was a world without death. The perfect creation He intended before time began had now been accomplished... in six days!