Creation Day 6, Pt. 2
Genesis 1:26-27
And we continue tonight in our study of the book of Genesis, chapter 1. Origins, day six, the creation...what a great, great time we have had doing this. I can't think of a series I've done in recent years that has had the response that this one has had. And as soon as I have finished it, and that's just the next couple of weeks we'll actually wrap up the part about creation, we're going to plan to put it on the radio and spreading it around the English-speaking world so that others will have the opportunity to come to grips with the great, great testimony of the book of Genesis.
In our study of Genesis we have come now to day six in God's creation, the pinnacle of God's creative work, creation of man out of nothing. Let me read, starting in verse 24 of Genesis 1, "Then God said, 'Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind, cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind, and it was so.' And God made the beasts of the earth after their kind and the cattle after their kind and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.' And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them. And God blessed them and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and rule over the fish of the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves on the earth.' Then God said, 'I've given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth and every tree which has fruit yielding seed, it shall be food for you. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to everything that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food and it was so.' And God saw all that He had made and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day."
Now there couldn't be a more straightforward account of creation than that. It tells you exactly what God did on the sixth day. He created the land animals, dividing into three categories we find all of them...both the domestic animals indicated by the word cattle, and the more wild animals indicated by the term beasts of the earth, and then everything that walks lowly on the ground, or crawls, insects, reptiles, amphibians, rats and squirrels and etc., and etc.
Then having created that form of animal life already the day before, having created all the birds in the air and all the animals in the sea, God had completed His creation with the exception of man, finished it off as verse 26 and 27 indicates by creating man. All of that He did on the sixth day, actually a 24-hour period as indicated at the end of verse 31, an evening and a morning, a period of light and a period of darkness...that is to say one revolution of the earth.
Now the enemies of God and the enemies of the Bible have denied this revealed Word from God. They have claimed that man has evolved over millions and billions of years. And that modern man is the result of mutation. Modern man is the result of some...some random and yet self-willed genetic transformation. Man is the product of the survival of the fittest. That is not what the Word of God says. What I just read you couldn't be more clear. It is also reiterated in the second chapter verse 7, "The Lord God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being." And down in verse 19, "Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, every bird of the sky, brought them to the man to see what he would call them. Whatever the man called a living creature that was his name. And the man gave names to all the cattle, to the birds of the sky, to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon man, he slept then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place and the Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man and brought her to the man."
There you have the creation of woman. In both cases, the creation of man, the creation of woman, is a direct and immediate creative act of God. Over in chapter 5 of Genesis, the fifth chapter begins, "This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day when God created man He made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and He blessed them and named them man in the day when they were created." Repeatedly it says there was a day when God created man both male and female. That is what the Bible says.
Isaiah 45:12 echoes it, "It is I...says God...who created man." Job 33:4, "The Spirit of God has made me." Deuteronomy 4:32 talks about a day when God created man on the earth. This is repeated not only in the verses I've given to you but elsewhere as well. In spite of the clear teaching of the Bible, the clear teaching of Genesis and other passages of Scripture, evolutionists, some of them calling themselves Christians and therefore theistic evolutionists, that is that God caused evolution to bring man into existence, these evolutionists have tried against the clear testimony of Scripture that God created all these things in a day, tried to prove that man evolved, that everything evolved from a one-celled creature through water animals, amphibians, apes to finally the erect man who is then the pinnacle of creation.
But scientists though they deny the Bible have found it impossible to find proof for the evolution of anything, including the evolution of man. The reason they can't find proof for it is because there isn't any. You can't find proof for something that didn't happen. And evolution never happened and that's why they can't find any proof for it. In six 24-hour or solar days God made the entire universe, the earth and all its living creatures. And as we've been saying He did it about six or seven thousand years ago.
Now that does bring up the issue of fossils and I have to address this, I did a little bit last time, but I know many of you are students and even in elementary school in the later grades, certainly in junior high and high school and on into college you're faced with the supposed fossil record that proves that man evolved from some kind of a four-legged apelike creature. How do we deal with the supposed fossil testimony that is used to prove evolution? Don't scientists actually have missing links? It seems like every few years or every few months some scientist claims to have found some transitional ape-man form. Do they have missing links? The answer...absolutely not-absolutely not.
A most interesting scientific book called In The Beginning, written by Walter Brown who is a Ph.D from MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For 21 years Walt Brown was the chief of science and technology studies at the Air War College and professor at the Air Force Academy, a very fine scientist. He has exposed, as have many others, the lies of evolutionists trying to make their case. He writes that stories claiming that fossils of primitive ape-like men have been found are grossly over stated. For example, it is now universally acknowledged that Pilt-down man was a total hoax and yet it exists and has existed in text books for more than 40 years. Prior to 1978 the evidence for Ramapithicus(???) consisted of a mere handful of teeth and jaw fragments. And as I told you last week, Ramapithicus was one of the largest categories of transitional ape-man. We now know that it came simply out of some teeth and jaw fragments. It is now known that ramapithicus was just an ape. The dethroning of ramapithicus supposedly the first human, the dethroning has been a serious blow. We now believe, scientists believe, that ramapithicus was probably the extinct relative of an orangutan, nothing more.
You find some interesting information about that in a book by Roger Lewen(?) called Bones of Contention, I mentioned that last week as well. One of the other supposed transitional forms is called Nebraska man. The only evidence, by the way, for Nebraska man turns out to be a pig's tooth...quite a leap. The skulls of the famous Peking man are considered by many experts to be the remains of apes that were systematically decapitated and exploited for food by man. The classification Homo-erectus is considered by most experts to be a category that should never have been created...with regard to them.
The first confirmed limb bones of Homo hibilis have recently been discovered. They show that this animal clearly had ape-like proportions and should never have been classified as homo or manlike.
And then australopithecines, as I mentioned last time, which were made famous by Lewis and Mary Leaky, found most in South Africa, are quite distinct from humans. Several detailed computer studies of the australopithecines have shown that their bodily proportions were not intermediate between man and living apes at all. Further study of their inner ear bones that were used to maintain balance show a striking similarity with those of chimpanzees and gorillas but a complete difference with those of humans. One of the fossils, a three and a half-foot tall long-armed 60-pound adult called Lucy...you remember the discovery of Lucy...was initially presented as evidence that the australopithecines walked upright in a human manner, however studies of Lucy's entire anatomy, not just a knee joint, now show this is not true. Lucy, I hate to tell you, swung from trees.
For about a hundred years the world was led to believe that Neanderthal man was stooped and apelike. Recent studies show that this erroneous belief was based upon some Neanderthals who were crippled with bone disease such as arthritis and rickets. Neanderthal man, Heidelberg man and Cro-Magnon man were completely human, artists depiction of them, especially of their fleshy portions, are quite imaginative and not at all supported by the evidence. And so it goes.
And furthermore as we have been saying all along, the dating methods of evolutionists are grossly in error as well. So bottom line, they don't have any transitional forms. They don't have any proof for the evolution of anything, certainly no proof for the evolution of man. And the reason they're having a hard time proving it is because it didn't happen and therefore it can't be proven.
What did happen is recorded for us in the Bible. Let's go back to Genesis chapter 1. On the first day, according to verses 24 and...on the sixth day, I should say according to verses 24 and 25, day six featured the creation of land animals. Cattle, I mentioned this last time, would be domestic and tame. Creeping things, all the creatures low to the ground...beasts, four-legged, non-domesticated animals. Having done that we then come to verses 26 and 27. And here we find the creation of man. It occurred immediately, ex nihilo, as it were, God brought man into existence in his immense complexity instantaneously, created Adam full grown and then as chapter 2 indicates later on created a helper, Eve, full grown, fully functioning as well.
Now everything that was created up to the point of the creation of man, both male and female, was to provide the environment in which man would live and in which man would enjoy the blessing of God and for which he would thank and praise God the creator of it all. As wondrous as all created life was, as good as it was, and God said it was good, as intricate and complex and vast as it was, it was nothing like a man. It was separated from the nature of man by so great a gulf as never to be passable by any natural process. Nothing could ever become a human...nothing. No fish, no sea mammal, no reptile, no monkey, no ape, no gorilla, no creature could become a man. We've already gone over that again and again because of DNA genetic coding, that is impossible.
But there is another component that can't be found in the DNA. There's another component that is wonderfully mysterious and it is introduced to us in verse 26 by the words, "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.'" And verse 27, "And God created man in His own image, in the image of God." And then as I read you earlier in Genesis 5:1, "In the day when God created man, He made him in the likeness of God."
This is man's unique identity. This is the part of man that cannot be reduced to genetics. This is that mysterious spiritual part of man that can't be put into a test tube. This is that part of man that cannot become...that cannot come into existence by a mutation or a transition. This is the image of God.
Now verse 26 starts, "Then God said," and verse 27, "And God created." It's the same formula. God says and God creates, and really they are synonymous. God says let it happen and does it. Only this time there's a very important difference...a very important difference. For the first time a major language shift occurs. Never before has the text said, "Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness." Never has God spoken in a plural form. Every other time, "Let there be...Let there be...Let there be." It is impersonal. Nothing that God has created to this point has any personal connection to Him. You need to mark that because that is a very important issue to understand. The language is impersonal...let there be...let it happen...and God speaks it into existent...existence, creates it but never identifies personally with anything that He has made, not with light, not with water, not with elements, not with the sun, moon, the stars, the stellar bodies, not with the earth, not with the separation of the land from the sea, He has no personal relationship to those things...not with birds, not with swimming life and not with land animals...no personal relationship exists...no personal involvement exists, either in time or eternity. There is no bird that is related to God in any personal way. There is no, sorry about this, dog or cat that is related to God in any personal way. There is no creature related to God in any personal way until we get to this point.
At this point God becomes personal and He begins to speak in relational terms, "Let us make man in our image." And God for the first time in the Bible introduces Himself, now listen carefully, in a relationship. Up to this point it's just God. But now God defines Himself with plural pronouns, "Let...not let Me...Let us," and we are introduced to the fact that God has within His very nature relationships. That can only occur when there is more than one. We are now then introduced for the very first time to the fact that God is a trinity. And, of course, it's been hinted at because the word for God, elohim, has a plural ending, but this is specific. Now all of a sudden we have been introduced to God who is more than one and we are introduced to the relationships within the trinity by this statement, "Let us make man in our image." And now all of a sudden we are introduced to the great reality that there is an executive divine committee, that there is an executive divine council. We got a little bit of a hint of that back in chapter 1 verse 2, God creates at the beginning of verse 1, and then in verse 2 we are introduced to the Spirit of God moving over the surface of the water.
When we go to the gospel of John in the New Testament, this is the creation account we read there, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God." That is the second member of the trinity, Jesus Christ. Now we are introduced to Jesus Christ that says all things came into being by Him and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In John 1 we find that the second member of the trinity, the Word who became flesh, John 1:14, that has to be the second member of the trinity, Jesus Christ, was in fact the creator. Genesis 1 we see God as the creator. Genesis 1 we see the Spirit of God in creation. John 1 we see the Son of God or the Word of God, the incarnate Word in His creative character. We now are introduced to the fact then that God is more than one and we know from all of the testimony of Scripture that God is three persons in one.
We are now introduced to a relationship. This is very, very important. He doesn't employ the impersonal fiat...let there be...terminology. He uses language that reveals He is communicating with others. He is in communion with others in this creation.
Now I want you to follow this because this is really important. This is a clear unmistakable, inarguable reference to the trinity, though the fullest clarification of the doctrine of the trinity doesn't really unfold until the New Testament. You can't fully understand the trinity until the third person...the second person of the trinity rather is incarnate and until the third person of the trinity, the Holy Spirit, comes at Pentecost and begins to do His mighty work as revealed at that time. But the seeds of the doctrine of the trinity are planted here. It would be fair to say that we would overstate the case if we expected any original reader of Genesis to grasp the doctrine of the trinity from Genesis chapter 1. That would be overstating the case...the case...it's not there. B.B. Warfield, the great Princeton theologian, once wrote, "The times were not ripe for the revelation of the trinity in the unity of the godhead until the fullness of the time had come for God to send forth His Son unto redemption and His Spirit unto sanctification." And that's exactly right. We don't see the fullness of the trinity until the Lord Jesus Christ comes and until the Holy Spirit is sent.
So this verse cannot in some simplistic way be used as a proof of the trinity, but looking back at it from the vantage point of the incarnation and the vantage point of the coming of the Holy Spirit, we can see the richness of the meaning here because we have the full revelation. Now there are throughout the Old Testament, and it needs to be mentioned, there are throughout the Old Testament passages of Scripture which indicate communication between the members of the trinity. For example, in chapter 2 of Psalms, or Psalm 2 verse 7, the psalmist writes, "I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord, He said to Me, 'Thou art My Son, today I have begotten Thee.'" And there is the first member of the trinity, the Father, communicating to the second member of the trinity, the Son. And that, of course, prophesies what was fulfilled in the incarnation of Christ and referred to in Hebrews chapter 1.
Later on in the Psalms, in Psalm 45, and this is very foundational so I'm going to take a minute with it here, in Psalm 45 and verse 7, again the Father is speaking..speaking of the Son, He says, "God, Thy God, has anointed Thee with the oil of joy above Thy fellows." Again that is referred to in the book of Hebrews as being directed at the second member of the trinity, the Son. So there is the communion between the Father and the Son again.
And maybe the more familiar one would be Psalm 110:1, some of you may be familiar with and you have a very direct communication there, if I can find it here, "The Lord says to My Lord," there it is. Two Lords, one speaking to the other. The Lord being the Father says to My Lord, being the Son, "Sit at My right hand until I make Thine enemies a footstool for Thy feet." And again that is referenced in the New Testament as being a messianic prophecy.
You could look at Isaiah 48:16, you find the same thing, where there is communication between the members of the trinity. But again I say, until you come to the incarnation you don't see the full identity of the second member. And until you come to the book of Acts with the coming of the Holy Spirit, you don't see the full presentation of the third member, namely the Holy Spirit. But here you have back in Genesis indication that God by nature is in relationship to Himself. He is multiple persons in perfect relationship.
Now let's dig a little deeper into this. In verse 26, "Let us make man in our image," implicates the whole of the trinity in the creative act. The whole of the trinity are brought together to do this. "Let us make man in our image," and then verse 27 says, "And God created man." You can speak of God as one as in verse 27, or you can refer to God as more than one as in verse 26 and He says, "Let us make man in our image." God is one God and yet He is three persons, as we know.
What you have here then is the council of the trinity in the purpose of creating man and now the time is right. Now I have to stop at this point, I wouldn't be faithful to the intent of Scripture if I didn't do this. Through the years I have tried to show you that God had a divine purpose before the world began and that that divine purpose was to...to take a bride, as it were, for His Son, that God the Father desired to give to His Son an expression of love in a bride that would be a redeemed humanity to be given to His Son to love and adore and praise and glorify His Son forever and ever and ever and also to serve Him. That et eternal purpose of God unfolded within the executive council that is God within the trinity.
Let me just give you a brief reminder of it because it is so very important...so very important. Speaking of Christ in 1 Peter 1:20 it says He was foreknown, which means predetermined, before the foundation of the world but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you. So Jesus who has appeared in these last days for your sake to die on the cross, to rise again, to be your Savior, Jesus who has appeared in these days was planned before the foundation of the world. So before Genesis 1, before day one of creation, before this creative week unfolded, redemption was already planned. Okay?
In other words, God planned redemption before He created the race of people from whom He would draw the redeemed. His redemptive purpose came first. Let's follow that even further, Titus chapter 1, for a moment. It talks about the gospel in Titus 1:1 and 2, Paul a bondservant of God, an apostle of Jesus Christ, Paul's identifying himself there. And he says he is for the faith of those chosen of God. That's salvation faith for the elect, the knowledge of the truth according to godliness, the hope of eternal life. So he's talking about the gospel, the gospel of all saving faith that involves election, it involves the knowledge of the truth, it involves godliness, it involves the promise and the hope of eternal life. But notice this, God's whole saving purpose, His whole saving purpose was something God who cannot lie promised...when?...it says long ages ago, the Greek says before time began. Now when did time begin? When did time begin? On day one. So before day one God had already planned the gospel. And there was an element of the gospel that was a promise. He promised long ages ago. God promised that He would choose some, that He would grant them faith, that He would give them the knowledge of the truth, that He would produce in them godliness, that He would grant them eternal life. God promised that before day one.
Now the question is to whom did He promise it? He didn't promise it to any human being, we weren't even created till day six. He didn't promise it to angels. As I told you earlier, angels were created at the same time everything else was created. We don't know exactly or precisely when. But He certainly didn't promise salvation to angels because angels don't experience salvation, do they? So He didn't promise them that. The angels who sinned and fell out of heaven fell forever and there is no salvation for angels. So to whom did God make a promise of salvation before time began?
Well, go over to 2 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 9, we'll get a little deeper into this. It says that God, the end of verse 8, who saved us, called us with a holy calling, etc., etc., etc., did this according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus...and for some reason the translators here translate the same phrase that's in Titus 1:2, same exact phrase, there it's translated long ages ago, or whenever, here it's translated from all eternity, it's the same phrase...before time began. Here we have it again. God made a promise, according to Titus 1:2, before time began. Here it says He had a purpose that involved Christ Jesus from before time began. So before time began God made a promise. He made a promise that He was going to redeem some creatures that He would make and He was going to redeem them by means of Christ Jesus. He must have been discussing then with the second member of the trinity the necessity of an incarnation, the necessity of an entrance into the world, the necessity of sacrifice for sin and all of that.
It was all planned before time began. Verse 10 says but it was revealed by the appearing of the Savior Jesus Christ, or Christ Jesus. Now I'm taking you before Genesis 1, I'm taking you in time...before time began, before the earth was given its foundations, before there was any creation in the councils of God. The plan was there was going to be a redeemed humanity who would be created and redeemed, brought to glory by means of the incarnation and the sacrifice of the second member of the trinity.
We know further in the New Testament that they would be redeemed by the work of the third member of the trinity, the Holy Spirit, who would convict their hearts of sin and righteousness and judgment, who would illuminate their minds to understand the truth, who would regenerate them and grant them the new birth. And, of course, at that particular point they would be transferred from death to life, they would become one of God's own. Those who would experience all of that are those whom God chose before the foundations of the earth, before time began.
Philippians chapter 1 verse 3 talks about...I should say Ephesians chapter 1, I'm sorry, verse 3 talks about the purposes of God, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ...why?...just as He chose us in Him before...what?...the foundation of the world." So the whole divine decree unfolded before time began, before anything was ever created. And this was in the council of the trinity. Verse 4 says, "He predestined us." He did it simply because of His own will.
How far did this go? Well, the Father said I'm going to create and redeem some people, I'm going to give them to the Son as a love gift. In fact, if you look at John 6, and I won't take the time, and look at John 17, repeatedly Jesus refers to every believer as those whom the Father has given Me. Remember that? Jesus in John 6 says, "No man comes to Me except the Father draws him." Jesus says, "All that the Father gives to Me will come to Me and I will lose none of them." In John 17 Jesus prays, "I pray, Father, that all that You have given Me will be brought to glory to see our glory." Jesus refers to believers then as those whom the Father has given Him. And that begins to shape this plan. The Father then desires to show His love to the Son. It is His supreme love, it is the love that only God knows the love that is so great that it longs to give and God determines that the way to express that love is to create and redeem humans and then bring them to glory. And when they're brought to glory, they are made like Christ. Philippians tells us in chapter 3 that we'll be conformed to His glory, to the very body of His glory. First John 3 says we'll be like Him for we see Him as He is. And so the Father i