“Genesis 1:20-31”

Sunday, October 13, 2019

“Then God said, ‘Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens.’ God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.’ There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day. 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. 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.’ God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 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 sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’ Then God said, ‘Behold, I have 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 every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food’; and it was so. God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.”

---End of Scripture verses---

On days five and six God created all animal and human life. “The process of Creation is now sufficiently advanced to sustain life, which is classified according to its habitat; creatures that colonize the waters and creatures that populate the sky.” (Nahum Sarna)

God created all the living sea creatures and birds that swarmed the air and He “blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply.’” God’s gift of fertility and sexual reproduction is a great blessing for both beast and mankind. The proliferation of plant life is a marvel and beautiful to behold, but their splendor cannot compare to the next level of creation. The explosion of vegetation from day three only serves to provide suitable food and habitation for the moving, breathing, calculating creatures created on the fifth and sixth day.

Of course, the pinnacle of God’s creative process is when He provided existence to the human being. Only people are said to have been created “in the image of God” and according to His “likeness” (verses 26-27). This gives humankind an unmatched nature and a unique relationship with the Creator. Of all the created beings, none comes close to the intellectual capacity of man to “subdue” the earth and “rule over” all of God's earthly creation, and only people have (are) eternal spirits that live on after their stint on earth is over. Of course, with this great privilege comes great responsibility to rule well and ethically, and the accountability to answer for the way he lives and rules.

While people are higher and nobler than all the rest of God's creation, Nahum Sarna notes concerning verse 26, “At the same time, the pairing of the creation of man in this verse with that of the land animals, and their sharing in common a vegetarian diet, focuses attention on the dual nature of humankind, the creatureliness and earthiness as well as the Godlike qualities.” When those created in the very image of the Creator choose to separate themselves from His presence, directives, guidance and standards, they tend to descend to the level of creatures of instinct (2 Peter 2:12), and even worse: purveyors of evil. This led to God's destructive judgment of the earth and nearly all of its lifeforms by the universal flood (Genesis chapter 9), and will ultimately lead to the destruction of the earth by fire and Final Judgment for all human beings.

“God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (verse 27). Nahum Sarna observed: “No such sexual differentiation is noted in regard to animals. Human sexuality is of a wholly different order from that of beasts... it cannot of itself be other than wholesome. By the same token, its abuse is treated in the Bible with particular severity... Both sexes are created on the sixth day by the hand of the one God; both are made 'in His image' on a level of absolute equality before Him.”

Sarna wrote further, “It is noteworthy that the recurrent formula 'of every kind,' hitherto encountered with the emergence of every living thing, is here omitted. There is only one human species. The notion of all humankind deriving from one common ancestry directly leads to the recognition of the unity of the human race, notwithstanding the infinite diversity of human culture... God, in order to promote social harmony, intended that no person have claim to unique ancestry as a pretext for asserting superiority over others.”

“God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good” (verse 30). With the genesis of man and the climax of His Creation now achieved, God observed and declared that the totality of His creation was not only “good” (verse 3, 10, 12, 18, 21 and 25), but “very good” (verse 31)! God put humans here to make the world a better place! Do your best to do good in His sight! Live faithfully unto death and in the end He will say to you, “Well done good and faithful servant... Enter into the joy of your Master” (Matthew 25:23)!

Please read Genesis 2:1-9 for tomorrow.

- Louie Taylor

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