DESIGNED BY GOD (2)

THE BELIEVER/CHRISTIAN VIEW OF "DESIGNED BY GOD"

When I read and then, deeply meditate on Genesis 1:27, I realized how truly blessed "we" are!  Ohhh, to have been created in our creator’s image! This scripture teaches us that: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” KJV.  We are to rejoice because from the beginning, we were all created for greatness!

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OD created man, male and female, with reasonable and immortal souls, endued with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, after His own image, having the law of God written in their hearts, and power to fulfill it: and yet under a possibility of transgressing, being left to the liberty of their own will, which was subject unto change. Beside this law written in their hearts, they received a command, not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; which while they kept, they were happy in their communion with God, and had dominion over the creatures.

Here are four points that are either obviously or indirectly evident:

1. Man was created [designed] as a direct act of God, in His image. Man is a “living soul,” composed of a physical (body) and a non-physical (spirit) element.

2. The image of God in man resides in the spiritual element.

3. Being God’s image-bearer [designed] somehow involves “dominion over the earthly creatures.”

4. The image is two-fold: there is a broader and narrower aspect of the image. The former is intrinsic and in-alienable; the latter is not-it was lost in the Fall.

Now that we are fully armed with the spiritual wisdom and knowledge of Genesis 1:27, why don’t we commit to memory the following:

a.) It was not a physical likeness, but...

Although God is spirit (John 4:24) and does not have a body like a man, when He appeared visibly to men according to the Old Testament record, He did so in the form of a human body (e.g. Genesis 18:1-2; 32:24, 28,30).

Furthermore, the human body was the form in which God the Son would be incarnated or 'made in the likeness of men' (Philippians 2:7). Thus God made man in that bodily form which He Himself would one day assume—the form in which He wished to reveal Himself.

b.). It was a mental likeness.

God endowed man with intellectual ability which was and is far superior to that of any animal. Thus man was given a mind capable of hearing and understanding God's communication with him, emotions capable of responding to God in love and devotion, and a will which enabled him to choose whether or not to obey God. Man was thus equipped, not only to 'love God and obey Him forever', but also to do God's work on earth—to be His regent and govern the creation in co-operation with his Creator.

This is seen in God's command to Adam and Eve that they exercise dominion over the earth and its animals (Genesis 1:26, 28), in Adam's task of cultivating the garden (Genesis 2:15), and in the statement that Adam gave names to certain of the animals on the earth (Genesis 2:19-20).

Man's intellectual gifts are further seen in his ability to design things and then make them, to appreciate beauty, to compose glorious music, to paint pictures, to write, to count to large numbers and do mathematics, to control and use energy for his own benefit (e.g. fire, electricity, nuclear power), to organize, to reason, to make decisions, to be self-conscious, to laugh at himself, and to think abstractly.

c.). It was a moral likeness.

Man only, of all God's creatures, has a spirit or God-consciousness, that is, a capacity for knowing God and holding spiritual communion with Him through prayer, praise, and worship. Since the Fall (Genesis chapter 3), man has had inborn moral awareness of good and evil, or conscience, which he perceives in his spirit......to be continued.

In Christ,

Playwright Janet Irene Thomas
Founder/CEO
Bible Stories Theatre of
Fine & Performing Arts
www.biblestoriestheatre  
info@biblestoriestheatre.org