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Genesis 1:24-31

In an earlier lesson I related how that God had commanded the children of Israel to worship no other god. He said specifically:

Exodus 20:2-6 (2) “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. (3) “You shall have no other gods before me. (4) “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. (5) You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, (6) but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

So Moses has systematically ruled out anything in heaven above, in the earth beneath or in the water as being a god or goddess. All was created by the God of Israel, the one true God and to worship any other god was/is folly.

Our attention, on the sixth day, is turned to cattle, beasts and creeping things according to their kind. At the very beginning different kinds of animals were introduced suddenly on the scene. God spoke them into being.

Man was also created on the sixth day. This creation was different however than the animals that had been made. As wondrous as they were man was created with attributes the animal kingdom couldn’t begin to comprehend. Though man falls short of God in so many ways there are ways in which we are like Him. We are made in His image and likeness. Man has a part in eternity. Though created, his future is eternal. Man has an extremely complex mind and the concept of truth and moral right and wrong. Man can appreciate beauty and change his environment.

If Genesis 1 was written to prevent idolatry, reinforcing God’s commandments at Mt. Sinai, and I believe it was, then we have a very powerful statement in v. 26. The tendency of the nations at the time of the Exodus was to worship the created universe; the birds of the air and creatures of the sea, etc. Here God says that rather than those things being images of God, man is created in the image of God and has dominion over the creatures of the earth that were then being worshiped. Man had placed the animal kingdom in the wrong position entirely.

Man has dominion over the animal kingdom. Instantly the mind goes to the tremendous power of the elephant, rhino and the whale, or like Job the behemoth (Job 40:15-21) and leviathan (Job 41:1-34). The ferocity of the lion, tiger and bear also cause us to wonder, How can we have dominion when these things are so mighty and fierce and we are so weak? The fact is, however, that it is man that decides the habitat of the animal kingdom. It is man that has put the animal to use. It is the animal kingdom that feeds mankind, and man’s mind makes it possible to overcome the weakness of our bodies and exercise control. Beasts are dangerous and sometimes get the better of us but even Rome, as mighty as it was, at times lost entire armies to its enemies, but no one doubts today that it was Rome that held dominion over its neighbors.

Man was created male and female. Evolution has an impossible task in explaining the source of the sexes. Two sexes are required for the propagation of the race. The question for the evolutionist is how did mankind propagate before this feature evolved? God removes the system of evolution from its assumed position as “god,” i.e., the source of all that is.

How do we know that all this is true? There are scientific indicators, surely, and the absolute inability of evolution to answer some of the most basic questions about origins. For Christians, however, all these things were verified, i.e., given the stamp of God by a singular event. When Jesus told of his death in detail and told of his resurrection and this was followed by the actual events, Jesus words were verified. The empty tomb is proof of the truth of Genesis. Jesus referred to the Genesis account in his teaching. In Matthew 19:4-6 Jesus referred to Genesis 2:21-24 as the way things were from the beginning. The Genesis account is trustworthy.