Episode Details

Remsen Bible Fellowship; 10/15/2023

Introduction

What does it mean to be human? That may sound like a big, abstract, question. But while it absolutely is big, it’s not as abstract as it sounds. I would suggest that underneath many of today’s simmering (or boiling) controversies are assumptions about the answer to this question. “What does it mean to be human?” And those assumptions need to be examined.

Is it true that self expression is a core value, an important part of being a fulfilled human being? Does freedom truly mean having the ability to do whatever you want, or is there a definition of freedom that has more to do with fullness and joy? 

We can’t plumb those questions at depth today. But to think about them intelligently, and biblically, we need a foundation. We need to know the origin story. You can’t know what something is for unless you know why it was made. And that’s what we’ll learn this morning.

We left off last week in the middle of day six of creation. We had read how God formed the world in days 1-3, creating the universe as we know it - and very likely created the world beyond what we can currently know - in those first three days. Then days 4-6 consisted of God’s filling work in creation. He made the sun, the moon, and the stars. He made the fish in the water below, the birds in the air above. He made every kind of creature that lives and crawls on the face of the earth. But then there comes the crowning moment in the creation story, the moment which will transform the creation from “good” to “very good.”

Text

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. 

God’s Determination

This scene gives us a peek behind the “fourth wall” of the Biblical narrative. While, very often, what we experience of the story in the Bible is the three-walled perspective (we can’t see into the mind of God), occasionally we get to hear from a prophet speaking on God’s behalf, or a divinely-inspired narrator will give us a peek “behind-the-scenes”, as it were. And the first time that happens is here in the creation story. Chapter one has moved along telling us what God did. But now there is a pause. And we get to hear what God thought. 

Who’s Speaking - and to Whom?

Before we look at the thought - the spoken thought - we need to ask, who is the thinking speaker, and to whom is he speaking? Verse 26 begins, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Jewish commentators held that this was God consulting with the angels. As if he were addressing the heavenly courtroom, “let us proceed in such and such a way.” Some modern commentators still hold that belief. 

But I think a simple, but careful, look at the text tells us this is not the case. G