Princeton Presbyterian Church

Princeton Presbyterian Church (EPC) Sermon # 1668

January 12, 2025

Genesis 1.26-31                Click here for audio worship.

Dr. Ed Pettus

(This is an extended outline, not a verbatim transcript.)

 

“The Sixth Day”

 

²⁶Then 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.” ²⁷So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. ²⁸And 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.” ²⁹And 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. ³⁰And 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. ³¹And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

 

• On the Sixth Day

 

In our story in Genesis 1, God has been at work creating everything! Light, dry land, things that creep along, and so forth. Then we come to day six. Then God said… Day six, five days of “then God said”, the spoken Word becomes something, all that is spoken into existence. Day six is the making of man, of Adam. Adam is the Hebrew word for human being, male, and refers both to the person named Adam in the Bible as well as a reference to all of humanity. In the Greek it is anthropos from which we get the word anthropology, the study of humanity. The forming of Adam is unique among all of creation. We know this because of the way God made man and the details of how this was done, which we will see in chapter two.

This text from 1.26-31 is something like a synopsis of what is to come in Genesis 2 where we will see a more detailed account of this sixth day. Some people want to try to make this into two creation stories but I think it is easy to see that we have a general story (Gen 1) followed by a more specific telling of the same story (Gen 2). On the sixth day God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. There is no other creature created in this manner, created in the image of God.

 

• Let Us Make Man

 

Genesis gives us our first look at the Trinity. The plural pronoun is used to relate the making of Adam and Eve, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”. God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit creating man in their image. This reality of created in the image of God is as mysterious as seeking to understand the mystery that is the Trinity. Certainly there is something to our creation that refers to our capacity to reason and to change and grow in mind and spirit. Animals were created to live solely on instinct, that which God has given them as their capacity to glorify God simply by being what they are created to be. We, on the other hand, have been given free will and a spirit breathed in by God as we will see in Genesis 2. We have been given more than instinct alone, but something that reflects the Creator. That, in and of itself, gives us a particular and singular responsibility to give glory to God by choice and by love and gratitude to what God has given and what God has created. God gives us a particular responsibility in the blessing and charge to care for all of creation.

 

• The Blessing and Charge

 

Genesis reveals a blessing and a charge to all of humanity. You might remember the notion that was very popular a few years back, maybe twenty years or more now, time flies, but the notion was that all we need to know we learned in kindergarten. I looked it up while writing this sermon. It was a book by Robert Fulghum and on the New York Times best seller list. It had sixteen things we learned in kindergarten and here are a few: 1. Share everything; 2. Play fair; 3. Don't hit people; 4. Put things back where you found them; 5. Clean up your own mess; 6. Don't take things that aren't yours; Just put some of those in practice for federal government and we would all be better off!

There is another consideration that the authors Foster and Tennant propose (It’s Good to Be Man), that everything we need to know we learn in Genesis. Genesis gives us a proper understanding of the rest of Scripture including the New Testament. They say this, first of all, because Genesis tells us our purpose on the earth. Rule the earth, fill the earth, be fruitful and multiply. We are in charge of keeping the created order in order. We are tasked with the rulership that God has given us over all that He has created and made and formed. God gave us the duty to tend the garden. God does not prune the apple tree for them, but commands that they do the work. It is given over to us to rule and govern and take care of what God has given. The language is perhaps deeper than our use of the term stewardship, but the Genesis account is to rule and subdue the earth and the creatures and the rivers and the oceans and so on.

Look again at the language of the ESV… Why make man? To have dominion (to rule), a term used twice in the text but also a host of other phrases that say the same thing. It appears that this charge dominates this section of Genesis.

Dominion (2x)

“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion...

“Behold, I have given you...

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.”

 

When we read this again, we see the tremendous authority and control over all that God has created. In one sense we become sovereign over creation. I liken that to becoming ambassadors for Christ. Just as we represent Christ to the world, so too we represent the Creator to creation. Everything created has been given to us for the purpose of our having dominion and rule so that creation will have care givers for the flourishing of all creation. This is not a bunch of climate change hooha over which we get blamed for every problem in the earth, but real subjection of creation given over to the human creature, given by God for to subdue it for our use and God’s glory. Yes, we can cut down the trees to build houses and plant two more trees for the future generations. Yes, we can make use of fossil fuels for the good of humanity, to improve a standard of living all over the earth. Yes, we should not abuse our authority and dominion, but we have been given this responsibility.

The purpose of subduing the creation is to bring it under control for our use and resource for life. We are to exercise dominion as God has exercised dominion. We learn how to rule from how God rules and we learn that from the whole of Scripture. Jesus, for instance, is called the second Adam because His coming into the world has atoned for the sin of the first Adam.

 

Romans 5.18-19, Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 19For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous.

 

1 Corinthians 15.45, Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.”

 

Ephesians 1.15-23, For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, ¹⁶I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, ¹⁷that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, ¹⁸having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, ¹⁹and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might ²⁰that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, ²¹far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. ²²And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, ²³which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

 

All that to say that we learn our role from Genesis by learning from Jesus, by following Him in all things. And we learn from the beginning of Genesis because Jesus is present from the beginning (John 1).

One more thing, this synopsis of the sixth day is not just the male alone, but it is rendered as both the male and the female as working together for the purposes God has ordained. We work together for the good of all creation and because God is the sovereign over us, the earth will not be destroyed by us. God will see to that! Also, one day to come, the promise is sure, God will bring a new heaven and a new earth. In Christ all things will be reconciled because of His death and resurrection.

In Genesis we have the seed of creation and the seed of God’s Word in our hearts. Just as Adam was given the role of cultivating the garden, so too must we all cultivate the seed of God’s Word in our hearts that we might be able to better exercise dominion over the earth. The seed of Genesis helps us to understand all that follows.

James 1.21-22, Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

How do we exercise dominion? By doing God’s Word!

 

• It Was Very Good

 

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. Man and woman called very good. This verse sums up all that God had made, very good, well ordered, under male and female dominion, ready to be subdued and ruled. Ready for multiplication of the human person, male and female, the well ordered creation for the good of all creation. It is very good to have two sexes, two genders, only two. The goal of disorder is seeking to introduce more than two. When God sees that disorder, it is not very good. Male and female He created us and it was very good.

At this point in the story of creation, we have the good creation of God. All is well, but we know the story takes a turn and we will examine that as we continue our journey through Genesis.