Text: Genesis 1:26-30
About the early days of creation when God first created Adam and Eve. Emphasis is on the description - that God created Adam and Eve "In His Image". What did it really mean for Adam and Eve? What does it mean for us today? Is there any difference?
The answers are very important because if we know what it means then we know what is expected of us today. Many people (Christians included) often ask these questions: "Who Am I?", "Why Am I Here?", "Why do I behave well at times and badly at other times?"
Three Important Truths:
1. Mankind is Unique - created by the Almighty God (Genesis 1:27, Isaiah 42:6-7, Psalm 139:13-14, Psalm 139:15-16, Jeremiah 1:5-6).
- Mankind is uniquely created by God, the Bible views life as sacred and we have no right to take life even out of our own lives (Genesis 9:6).
2. Mankind is endowed with Body, Soul and Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:23). Only mankind has spirit and soul. No other creature in the animal kingdom possess spirit and soul.
- The spirit gives a spiritual dimension: God is spirit, we can communicate and have a close relationship with God. Our soul gives us what we call, our 'mind' or out heart, it is our intellectual dimension: we can think, we can reason, we have a conscience which tell us what is right and wrong. It is this part of us that leads us to believe that there is life after death, the soul will return to God our creator.
3. God created mankind in His Image to empower mankind with authority over dominion over God's creation. God told Adam that His purpose for him and his family was to be God's caretaker of the earth. They were to multiply, fill the earth and rule over and subdue the earth.
When God had finished creating the earth and Adam and Eve, when God had given them this commands, God took a look at His work and pronounced it was "very good" (Genesis 1:31).
And God's purpose of making Adam and Eve in His own image was that they would reflect the greatness and the goodness of God.
But Adam and Eve were tempted and deceived by the devil and fell into sin. They were expelled from the garden and separated from God and this separation from God and sin tarnished the 'image' of God. They no longer truly reflect the greatness and goodness of God.
When Adam and Eve's children came into the world, there was envy and jealousy and we know Cain committed the first murder when he killed his brother, Abel (Cain was banished from God).
And later Adam had another son, Seth (Genesis 4:25). Seth was no longer "in God's image" (Genesis 5:3). Seth was born in his father's image. All mankind born after Seth carries the tarnished image of God because of Adam's sin.
So which image do you and I reflect?
(a) if you care a non-christian, you do not know much about 'in His image', you probably reflect the tarnished image of Adam. The image is not totally tarnished, you can still reflect some goodness, honesty, etc but incomplete.
(b) If you are a Christian, you know what Christ has done for you. You will also reflect the tarnished image of Adam, but your image should be daily undergoing transformation into the likeness of Jesus Christ (the 2nd Adam).
God is at work in Jesus Christ, seek to restore the tarnished image of every believer. Paul wrote: "God is at work in the world seeking and saving those who are separated from God by restoring the image of God in them and through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ". "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has passed away, behold the new has come!" (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Read 2 Corinthians 5:18.
What a good and gracious God. Even though our forefather, Adam and Eve sinned and defaced God's image, God has given us his son Jesus Christ to forgive our sin and to reconcile us to God and to entrust us in this ministry of reconciliation.
Conclusion:
How can I reflect the image of Jesus Christ?
(1) Believe, trust in Jesus Christ - cleansing of sin
(2) Spend time in fellowship in God
(3) Be transformed - externally, internally.
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