Weekly Devotional 7-26-21
Man Created in the Image of God after His Likeness
Genesis 1:26-27 “26 Then God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, 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.”
Among all created beings man stands unique, he was created as a rational and morally responsible being in spiritual accord with the will of God. This spiritual accord however was lost at the fall. After the fall, man is still said to be in God’s image (Gen. 9:6, 1st Corinthians 11:7) nonetheless, it is implied in three of Paul’s letters that that image has been distorted. Consider Ephesians 4:24, Colossians 3:10, and Romans 8:29.
Ephesians 4:24 “and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.”
Colossians 3:10 “and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him.”
Romans 8:29 “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.”
The Ephesian passage requires that man be spiritually recreated in righteousness and true holiness (The original characteristics of Adam and Eve). The Colossian passage requires that man be renewed in spiritual knowledge in likeness of God, something that would not be necessary if they he had retained said knowledge (Perfect knowledge had been lost). The Roman passage requires a conforming to the image of Jesus Christ. (Being conformed to the image of Jesus (God) would not be necessary, had that image been retained.
Returning to the book of Genesis we read from 5:1-3: 1 This is the book of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female, and blessed them and called them Mankind in the day they were created. 3 And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. We note that it is said that Seth was born in Adam’s image, not God’s image, why the distinction?
By this time hundreds, perhaps thousands of people had been born. Many, if not most of them followed the sinful disposition of Cain, a very corrupt person. Adam and Eve had other children and was able to keep them in check, to a certain point, this is borne out by what was said of them after the birth of Seth, “at that time men began to call upon the Lord (Genesis 4:26b). Even though Seth’s line began to call upon the name of the Lord, because of their fallen nature (having lost the exact image and likeness of God), man became so corrupt that God destroyed them all except Noah and his family (See Genesis 6:5-13). God would use this family to begin the repopulation of the earth.
Even after the devastation of the flood when man increased in number, Nimrod led them in revolt against God’s authority over their lives and would not turn to Him in worship. They thought to build their own society apart from His rule. (See Genesis 11:1-4)
These things could not and would not have occurred had man retained the exact image and likeness of God. But God loved man and before He created the world made provision for their restoration that He might have fellowship with them, and that, for eternity. We find assurance of this in John’s first letter to those he ministered to during the first century of the church, and by extension, all Christians. “1 Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. 2 Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (1st John 3:1-2).
It carries that to be like Him we will once again bear the fulness of the image and likeness of God. Wow!
Steve
Stevelampman.com
Transforming Power; the Work of God on Behalf of Man