Genesis: a fantastic book that answers so many of our most basic questions!
In our last post we went right back to the start of the universe and saw the difference that knowing Genesis makes for our lives, and for our culture; that our world and our universe are masterpieces made by a loving, wise, brilliant God, not just huge, dark, random, inhospitable, empty accidents. And so many more joyful things about what our God is like; it’s a wonderful chapter! So this time and next: Why is it so great to be human?
We humans were created in the sixth Genesis day; or the sixth creation period, or whatever the Hebrew word `yom` translated day in our Bibles actually means. It may be straight after the fifth day of creation (v23) – or it may be millions of years after God last stepped in on that day. Genesis doesn’t say; that’s not what God has written it for. But what we should notice, when God steps into the process to create us, is that we are halfway through the sixth `day` when the animals are made; as if to say, we humans do have lots in common with the animals, but there’s also a striking break here when the word of God creates something radically different from the rest of the animal creation. We’re not just `naked apes’, `nothing but mammals’. We human beings are the climax, the summit of Genesis 1’s story; the whole process of the world’s creation had a goal, & it was to bring forth human beings with whom God can share eternity! No doubt the planet was a gloriously beautiful place in the millions of years before we came along; but nevertheless, the crowning purpose of this whole process of creation was to create — YOU, dear reader! (Take that away & bear it in mind next time it’s a bad day and you’re looking in the mirror & feeling, Yecch! )
But why? What makes each of us so valuable? Well, 1:27 tells us. We’re immensely valuable because we’re actually made, each of us, in the very image of God! This is an astounding phrase, an incredibly profound idea. God is not totally other, completely alien and unknowable. He is like us in significant ways – or rather, He has made us to be visible expressions of what he is like. Earlier in Genesis 1 we saw how God loves, and creates, and orders, and enjoys, and blesses. And we do these things too; in a way that’s sometimes sinful, admittedly; but as we come to understand what it really means to love, and create, and enjoy, and bless, we come to understand what God is like. (Another example: Scripture shows us God as the perfect Father. What does that mean? Well, as we understand what human fatherhood is meant to be like, we understand what God is like. It is a huge responsibility to be a father, defining that word for our kids; and if like me you had a father who had real problems, you may have to do some serious work in Bible study and worship to grasp how God is our Father, and to re-understand what father means.) But if we dare to believe this, it offers a highly significant element for our identity and self-worth.
And it means that every human being, fallen as we are, still has absolute, intrinsic worth and dignity, and deserves respect, care and love accordingly. And as we come to love and understand our neighbour, and love and understand what it means to be human, it also helps us love and understand what God is like, because we’re made in His very image. (See 1 John 4:12.) And we can go a step further: the more we grow like God and like Jesus, the more we become truly human. Christ was the ultimate, true human; the second Adam (1 Cor 15:45-49), man as we should be. (See also Hebrews 2:6-9.) So as we grow like Jesus we’re growing more & more into the image of God, more & more truly human. Romans 8:29 tells us that the whole purpose of salvation is that we all become like Jesus; the goal of what God is doing in us is to make us `conformed to the likeness of his Son’, and so be made, each in our own uniquely individual way, increasingly like Jesus, and hence truly human as God intended us to be. Many of the wonderful components we’ll see in ch2 of what it means to be truly human are actually reflections of what God is like.
Every woman, man and child, then – you & I – is glorious because we’re in the image of God! (And – Genesis 9:6 – this isn’t just something from before the fall; and it’s certainly not just about Christians!) So if we see that, how can we be racist? How can we not care about world poverty that destroys people in the image of God? How can we despise someone else (at church or at work) if they’re made by God in His image? How can we despise ourselves if we’re made lovingly by God in His image? And this includes the God-created distinctives of both genders (see 1:27 and 5:1-2), which go back before the Fall to God’s original plan; it’s together that we express, `image-out’, God’s own unity-in-diversity. The image of God is only complete if it includes both sexes. It’s like God’s trinity: there’s unity and there’s diversity, unity without losing distinctiveness. Gender differences have been horribly abused since the Fall; but like Paul does (1 Cor 11:11), we can look back here before the Fall and see it’s only in expression of what’s specifically masculine and what’s specifically feminine that the image of God is revealed. That’s why the homosexual vision is so desperately inadequate, because the image of God is only complete through both genders together. Only together do we express, image-out, God’s unity in diversity; we need each other! And exactly the same is true with races – the image of God is clearest when you’ve got blacks, Chinese, whites, Asians, worshipping God together – and that’s why in Revelation 7 we learn that God’s goal in history is a Bride in which the distinctives of every tribe and nation are represented; because it’s together that we express the image of God!
Let’s move on quickly. V28: Being human involves three callings from God. First, we’re called to `be fruitful and increase in number’ (until the earth is `filled’; maybe at this late point in human history that task is not far from completion?) Family life and growth, then, are a basic aspect of what it means to be human; they’re not just a biological drive that gets prettified by our sentiment, nor a second rate destiny. Family life and growth are vital parts of what it means to be human. They’re not an indispensable aspect – Jesus was single lifelong – but they’re very significant indeed.
Then, slightly more difficult: `Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the air and over every living creature…` We may catch ourselves reacting with dislike to this word `rule` (although American Christian writer Dallas Willard points out that, when we hear of animals facing extinction, most of us do feel we have a responsibility to do something about it). But our problem is that the whole idea of `ruling` has become so corrupted. There’s lots in the old testament (for example 1 Samuel 8, addressing Israel’s transition from judges to kings) about how true servant leadership/rulership isn’t about dominating, but about exercising real authority, in love and servanthood; and then it’s good, even vital. It’s only after the Fall that the spirit of domination, violence and exploitation comes into the idea of ruling. Look at Jesus and we see man ruling over leprosy, fear, demons, storms, paralysis. `Rule` means organize and care for the world in the most harmonious and mutually helpful way. Our calling from God, then, is to work in stewarding, caring for, and developing the world and its resources (see also Gen 2:15). And this – organizing and caring for the world well – is what lots of us do in our working lives in one way or another; it’s what’s happening in lots of industries, in agriculture, in natural resources, in manufacturing. Perhaps this perspective can help us think about our own work & really thank God for it; because we’re contributing a small bit, every day, to what God has called humanity to do across the millennia!
Then thirdly the bit in v28 about us being called to `subdue the earth`. This too may seem strange to us, because it sounds so combative. What’s going on here? Does it make us wonder (as for example the viciously carnivorous dinosaurs might do) if the world outside Eden was already fallen? God `planted a garden` in Eden (2:8); isn’t this a little odd if the whole world was paradise? Had Satan already got involved in the process & messed it up? When Adam was called to subdue the earth, was Eden meant to be a bridgehead from which God’s goodness should flood out into the surrounding world, just as we the Church are called to be today? Be that as it may, this verse can remind us that we’re called to be warriors, dragon slayers. When we face world poverty, or sex trafficking, or the arms trade, or the explosion of abortion, or laws that are directly against God’s plan, we’re not called to just crawl into a little hole and cry together; we’re meant to do something about it by the power of the Spirit! The warrior impulse has been horrendously corrupted in history, becoming the source of huge evil; but if it’s directed aright, it’s good! We human beings are built for battle, spiritual battle, to subdue the evil and injustice and darkness, and above all the spiritual darkness & ignorance of the gospel, and so bring the world back towards the way God lovingly planned it! May the Lord help us to be warriors for the gospel, and to subdue some of the massive evil in our world, even as we wait for Christ’s return which alone can see this completed; because it’s part of being human as God designed us!
It is really good to be human! And we’ll see even more of that when we move on to chapter 2…
