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<< Genesis 1:26   Genesis 1:28 >>


Genesis 1:27

In this one verse appears several important, foundational points that relate to marriage. The first is that God created both men and women in His own image.

Before God, a man and a woman are equal, meaning that both have the same potential: to be transformed into the image of God and inherit His Kingdom. Marriage, then, is a union of equals before God. However, Scripture clearly shows that God placed husbands in the position of authority—he is, as has been said, first among equals.

Yet, though they are equal in potential, they may or may not be equal in many areas of mental and physical abilities, and they are certainly not the same in emotional makeup or strength. It is evident that men and women have different natural inclinations, skills, and abilities—all the while not making one better than the other.

Being fashioned after God's own body and mind implies that both have human equivalents of God's abilities, desires, goals, preferences, etc. While creating Adam and Eve, God took many of His qualities and distributed them between male and female humans. Clearly, humanity's God-like qualities are not as excellent as His, since there is a great gulf between what God is and what humanity is, but we have human-level counterparts of what God Himself possesses. We are made after the God-kind.

That fact makes the relationships that we undertake with others quite important. Genesis 1:27 make it apparent that we are no longer dealing with just physical associations. In His first mention of mankind in the Bible, God begins by putting man's existence on a spiritual plane by letting us know He made us in His image. Our relationships, then, also have a God-plane quality to them, suggesting that we need to take them very seriously.

Why? Because the goal of every human being, whether he or she realizes it or not, is to be just like God. Male and female, created in God's image, are on the same track to the same place. So, the relationship between a man and his wife assumes a very spiritual and imperative quality.

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Marriage—A God-Plane Relationship (Part One)



Genesis 1:26-27

The implication in these verses is clear! When a human being is compared to the animals, his or her image is not just of him or herself, but in the image of God. This is the principle of kind reproducing after its kind.

Though it is not stated directly, the text infers that mankind reproduces after the God-kind! Verses 26-27 provide a contrast between humanity and the other verses that address the beasts of the field, the sea, and the sky. Man is not just different—he is like God! Man is after the God-kind—not animal-kind nor angel-kind!

But how is mankind like God? It is not merely a matter of form and shape, though that is included. It is principally in terms of more important things: intelligence; broad, emotional capacity; self- and other-consciousness; abstract, spatial, and artistic thought; creative powers to bring plans to pass; and most of all, desire for and capability to grasp spiritual content such as living forever. Mankind has the powers of mind! Humans haveminds in which the character of God can be created!

These verses do not say all of that here. We can gather supporting information from other parts of the Bible, but God lays the groundwork for it here at the very beginning, showing that humans, though physical and mortal, are created after the God-kind.

God does not hide vital truths like this by putting them in some "obscure" book like Obadiah, which is one chapter long and unread by most people. Yet, almost everybody reads the first chapter of Genesis! And there it is—right at the very beginning of the Book. The first powerful statement that man is made after the God-kind is in the Book's first chapter! Mankind is exceptional, distinctive from all other created things!

John W. Ritenbaugh




Genesis 1:26-27

Here in the Bible's first chapter, God states His goal: He is making man in His own image! By using both "image" and "likeness," God explained that He would create man to be just like Him! Man would not only look like God, but humanity would also have a spiritual ability to understand His nature and learn to conform to it. Through the experiences of life and the process of building godly character, humankind can put on the image of God and be resurrected into His Family (I Corinthians 15:49-53).

Richard T. Ritenbaugh
God's Master Plan



Genesis 1:27-28

In Jewish folklore, Adam's first wife was not Eve but a goddess named Lilith, who refused to submit to Adam in the name of equality.

The legend of Lilith long pre-dates Judaism. According to Janet Howe Gaines in her article "Lilith" (Bible Review), her dark origins lie in Babylonian demonology, first mentioned in an epic poem about Gilgamesh. Her name derives from a class of demons called lilitu, usually translated as "night monsters," who were believed to inhabit desolate areas. Lilith is reputed to seduce and otherwise abuse young men and attack pregnant women. Blamed for miscarriages and infant mortality, she was cast as the patron of abortions as her legend grew.

Time passed, and the Babylonian Empire faded, but this night-demon's myth spread to other nations that embellished her legend. The Hittites, Egyptians, and Greeks picked up the story, and everywhere Lilith went, she represented chaos, seduction, and ungodliness.

Among the Jews, the Essene community at Qumran was enthralled by demonism. Lilith shows up in some Dead Sea Scrolls, mentioned in a hymn apparently used in exorcisms. Centuries later, Lilith also appears in the Babylonian Talmud, where she is portrayed very much like Babylonian depictions of her. One Talmudic reference even warns that people should not sleep alone at night because Lilith might slay them.

When she was reconceived as the original woman during the Middle Ages, the Lilith story took off. The myth of Lilith became an answer to something that puzzled some scholars: When they compared the Genesis 1 creation of man and woman with the Genesis 2 story of Adam and Eve, they saw more differences than similarities. They perceived that Adam and Eve's story happened much later than the sixth day of creation, so they reasoned that the Genesis 1 account must refer to a different woman since God created Eve from Adam later.

Lilith conveniently came out of the shadows of legend and stepped into the role of the original woman. The scholars answered the later need for Eve by supposing that Lilith felt she was being treated as man's inferior despite being made at the same time and from the same dust. She claimed her independence by going into the wilderness, and since it was not good for man to be alone, God created a helper from Adam's side—or so the medieval story goes.

Like comic book and movie superhero tales, the story of Lilith went through different retellings, each adding a bit more to her myth. Lilith received a major retelling in the collection of writings known as the Zohar. Written in the thirteenth century, the Zohar is the seminal work of Kabbalah, basically a commentary on the Torah through the lens of mysticism.

The Zohar reinforces Lilith as the first woman, an abuser of men, and a breeder of evil spirits. It provides Lilith with a companion, Samael, the male personification of evil, associated with the serpent, the leader of fallen angels. After cohabiting with Samael, Lilith is punished and turned into a demon goddess. Lilith and Samael ally and embody the dark realm.

When we constrain ourselves to what the Bible says, one unambiguous interpretation or picture arises. But if we start looking to myths or folklore to fill perceived gaps, something very different emerges. If we allow them, such fables will attach to Scripture like parasites and twist the meaning of God's Word.

Because of such deviations, Paul warns of false doctrine and heeding fables (I Timothy 1:3-4). He counsels Timothy, "Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons . . .. But reject profane and old wives' fables . . ." (I Timothy 4:1, 7). A few verses later, he admonishes him to "give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine . . .. Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine" (I Timothy 4:13, 16), instructing him to "[avoid] the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge" (I Timothy 6:20). In his second epistle to his protégé, he warns against those who "will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables" (II Timothy 4:4). The apostle similarly exhorts Titus about "not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men who turn from the truth" (Titus 1:14).

David C. Grabbe
Inventing Goddesses and Demons (Part One)



Genesis 1:26-27

Not only is man shaped differently from animals, but also no animal can talk or has hands like a human. Greater than anything else, man has intelligence so far exceeding any animal's that there is no possibility of comparison. Because of these things, we can easily conclude that God created man to have dominion, to rule. He is a creation patterned after the God-kind, having both intelligence and freedom of will.

Animals are not self-determining; their actions are predetermined by God-created instinct. Thus, their wills are limited by what God has imposed on them. They cannot determine to meet a companion animal in two weeks at a certain location, then plan each day as to what they will do and what route they will take to meet their animal friend. It was man's high quality of intelligence combined with freedom of will that qualified him to be given dominion over every other form of life on earth.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Genesis 1 and Free-Moral Agency



Genesis 1:26-28

Finally, in verses 26-28, God creates human beings. On the sixth day He produced the acme of His physical creation, for whom He had refurbished the earth. Everything that He made was designed to carry out His plan to reproduce Himself through the creation of the human race. From this point, the great drama of human existence began to unfold.

Earl L. Henn
Genesis 1: Fact or Fiction?



Genesis 1:26-27

The word "image" is translated from the Hebrew tselem, and it means "shape, resemblance, figure, shadow." There is nothing abstract in it. This same word appears in Genesis 5:3: "And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image [tselem], and named him Seth."

Adam lived 130 years and begot a son in his likeness, after his shape, after his resemblance, after his figure, after his shadow. Absolutely no one argues anywhere about the meaning of "image" here. There is nothing abstract.

Even as the animals reproduced after their kind, so did Adam and Eve reproduce after their kind. What they reproduced was in the form and shape of Adam and Eve. It was in their image. Only when we apply this to God do people begin to question, all on the assumption that God really does not have any shape. They claim that a human-like appearance is something that He uses only when convenient. However, that is not what the Bible testifies.

If we desire to be accurate with the Scriptures, we must be consistent with the way the Bible's writers used these words. The same word is used of Adam and Eve as is used of God.

God uses this word in Exodus 20:4—right in the second commandment: "You shall not make for yourself a carved image [tselem] . . .." This is the same word as in Genesis 1:26. Does anybody contend that these carved images do not look like eagles, dragons, snakes, or men or women? No, the image, the idol, looks like, resembles, the shape, the form, of what it is being copied from. We also find this word in Leviticus 26:1; Psalm 106:19; and Isaiah 40:18-20; 44:9-17.

The word tselem appears seventeen times in the Old Testament, and even the liberal Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, which goes to great lengths to avoid saying it, admits that concrete form and physical resemblance must be considered for Genesis 1:26-27: "Perhaps we may conclude that, while much of the thought that there is an external resemblance between God and man may be present, Ezekiel, who was a priest, has it" (vol. II, p. 684).

Scripture cannot be broken; it does not contradict itself. The editors of the Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible have to admit that tselem carries the meaning of concrete form and physical resemblance. Man looks like God. Continuing the quote: "However cautiously he states it, P [P stands for 'Priestly,' one of the four groups whom critical scholars believe edited the Bible] seems to have reached a measure of abstraction."

The editors of the Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible are sneaky. "Well, maybe there is a concrete resemblance, and we know that Ezekiel has it, yet the fellow who wrote Genesis 1, perhaps he reached a measure of abstraction." How hard they find it to give up their assumption!

The same internal consistency happens with the word "likeness," which translates the Hebrew word demooth, meaning, "model, shape, fasten, similitude, and bodily resemblance." Notice Genesis 5:1, 3:

This is the book of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness [demooth] of God. . . . And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness [demooth], after his image, and named him Seth.

If demooth is used for God's creation of man in His image in Genesis 1:26, and then it appears in Genesis 5:1, 3, do we not have to apply the same discernment about what God intends? Demooth also appears in Isaiah 40:18; Ezekiel 1:5, 10, 13, 16, 22, 26, 28; 10:1, 22.

When we study the whole subject, we begin to understand why Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible had to write that Ezekiel showed man in physical resemblance to God.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Image and Likeness of God (Part One)



Genesis 1:26-30

Notice the seven major, broad overviews within which mankind's specific responsibilities are addressed:

1. This covenant introduces the sovereign Creator God Himself. In Genesis 1:1-5, He stands alone; the focus is on Him and what He wants us to learn first about Him. He stands at the beginning of all things and precedes everything. Everything He gives to man—God is the sovereign Creator and Giver of every good gift—he must use responsibly within God's purpose. This pattern of focusing on the sovereign Creator God and His purposes appears in all covenants with Him. God rules!

2. This covenant reveals that He is orderly. Every step in creation is taken in a scientifically logical progression, establishing that the creation and His purposes are not haphazard. Randomness is not part of His nature. God is purposeful and already has a plan that He is following step by step.

3. In the beginning, like God Himself, everything was morally perfect. No sin is present, nor are any demons there to interrupt His thoughtful construction of a practical and beautiful place for Him to work out His purpose for mankind.

4. No aspect of the creation is to be worshipped. Everything God made and gave to mankind is a product of and inferior to the One who made all things. No animal or object is to be used as an intermediary between the Creator and mankind. Only the Creator is to be worshipped.

5. Beginning with Adam and Eve, humanity is charged with populating the earth and subduing it. Men are not to have an adversarial relationship with the earth but to harness its potential and use its resources for human benefit. In this case, subduing indicates activities like cultivating its fields and mining it for mineral riches. Mankind is not to rape the earth but to work to manage properly what he has been given. Humans, created in God's image, are to exercise their God-given authority as His servants to care for the earth as He would. That is, men are to follow God's pattern. There is, of course, far more to being made in His likeness, but ruling is part of the reason for it.

6. Simply being born gives a person a stewardship responsibility. People are to treat God's wonderful gifts with the same loving care in which God designed and created them.

7. Mankind is to enjoy the foods produced in the Garden as well as the bountiful productivity God placed within humanity's purview.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Leadership and Covenants (Part Five)



Genesis 1:26-27

Notice the overall context of these verses. It is the very first chapter of the Bible, and God is laying the foundation for what will follow. If the foundation is not laid correctly, then the rest of the building is crooked. God is beginning to establish our vision of what His purpose is and where we are headed with our lives, and being what we are, we need to have some insight into what He is. So He tells us immediately that we are made in His image and His likeness.

He contrasts us with the animals. Each one of them reproduces after its kind. And when they reproduce, they look like their parents. They look like each other. God is clearly implying that He is reproducing Himself and that His purpose is that we will be exactly like Him when He is finished with us. Even now, in our physical forms, we are made in His image so that we will have the potential to be exactly like Him.

Virtually every explanation of these two verses begins with an assumption: that God did not really mean what He clearly states.

Verse 26 says the creation of man is about to occur. It is yet future. Verse 27 says that the creation is in the past tense. By the time the statement in verse 27 is done, man is already in His image. It is not future. It is past tense. It is not an image and likeness in progress as in the creation of a character image, but within the context, the image was already accomplished. A physical image and likeness of God has been made.

Who knows better? The God who authored the Book and the people He used to write these things down—or people who are looking at it centuries after the fact and have never seen God or heard His voice, people who are using a combination of Bible verses, metaphysics, philosophy, science, and assumption?

What is the assumption based on? It is usually on men's definition of the word "spirit." They combine that with John 4:24, which says that "God is Spirit." Adam Clarke provides a typical explanation: "Now as a divine being is infinite, he is neither limited by parts or definable by passions. Therefore he can have no corporeal image after which He made the body of man" (vol. 1, p. 38).

That is a direct contradiction based upon an assumption. It is based upon disbelief. Certainly, God does not have a material body, but that does not address the issue. The issue is whether He has a spiritual body, which served as a model for mankind, and whether He has a body that has parts.

This is important because men within the church of God are now telling members that God does not have form in mind at all in this verse, but only character image. This is important to us in understanding the nature of God and getting a correct perspective of the goal and purpose of life itself. They are associating Him with being not much more than the Catholic beatific vision or with man becoming part of a vague, immaterial blob without independence. This would effectively do away with the doctrine of being born again into a constructive and developing Family of creators.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Image and Likeness of God (Part One)



Genesis 1:1-31

The true God is the Author of the Bible, and He used His sovereign authority to determine the revelations it contains and the sequence in which they are given. Since Adam and Eve, believing in the existence of the true God and His Word has been the principal challenge affecting the quality of life mankind thinks it must have for happiness and prosperity. These beliefs have eluded human understanding—not because God has hidden Himself, but because men refuse to accept the clear evidence He provides in the creation.

Imagine that the Creator God sat us down in a room by ourselves and presented a short film summarizing the Bible's first ten chapters. What would we see? What would it teach us about His character, purpose, and plan?

Authors and filmmakers are creators in their own way. They prepare an outline, a story flow, they wish to follow either to entertain or to educate their readers or viewers. Have we ever wondered why God began the Bible as He did? Consider this simple overview as a factor of utmost importance to our well-being in relation to life's purposes.

Have we ever consciously noted that the Bible begins in Genesis 1 with God creating order from what appears to be the result of either a destruction of a previous system or an array of disparate parts, fashioning them into a form appropriate for His next step? Either way, as the story unfolds, the role He plays emerges. The primary point is virtually impossible to miss: Supreme order and direction in what He will reveal originates in and from Him. Though normally invisible to humanity, He is clearly in control, initiating what will happen and also continuing to completion what He began.

The orderly progression of time and activity continues as God arranges, piece by piece, the environment in which later events will take place. Created elements appear in a natural progression. First, there must be light. From this point on, everything coming into view is made new and in sparkling, showroom condition.

Last of all, the two humans are designed in the image of God Himself. They, Adam and Eve—who will set in motion the human side of the action—are created, given life, and presented gifts, which are examples of His grace: earth and all it contains for their use within the boundaries He set. They immediately begin to use what God freely gave them as gifts.

What has God chosen to show us thus far? First, He is the Author of all that is. Second, He brings order out of lifeless chaos. Third, perhaps our Lord's flesh-and-blood brother sums it up best in James 1:17-18:

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.

What has God revealed of Himself to this point without saying a word except for what He commanded to bring into existence? It is purposefully instructive.

Genesis 1 shows that He is a God of order and that He has a distinct purpose for each step He takes. He is a God of awesome powers, moving mountains, seas, rivers, valleys, and vast oceans of atmosphere into place. Greenery and animal life appear. Nothing happens randomly. Every step proceeds as He directs. He is in control as He purposefully establishes His sovereignty over everything He has brought into existence.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Leadership and Covenants (Part Ten)



Genesis 1:26-28

As God created, it is extremely significant that of all He created, only one creation is in His image, mankind. This is important to the purpose God is working out. Also, it is significant that of all the creatures God created, only mankind is given dominion over anything else, animate or inanimate.

Verses 26 and 28 show the first inkling of man's awesome potential. We are in God's likeness and His image, and have been given dominion in order to fulfill that potential.

If one looked up the word "image" in a Hebrew dictionary, it would not be very satisfying, being a typical textbook definition. It merely means "a shadowing forth, a phantom, a sketch, an outline." It gives the impression of a mere shape, a stickman. However, it has another, more interesting definition that means "whatever makes a man remarkable or procures respect."

The word "likeness" is commonly thought by linguists to mean nothing more than an intensification of the word "image." Even though it is a different word, its meaning is very similar. Putting those two words together, the Hebrew clearly shows that we are remarkable, especially in comparison to all other life. We are in the image of God.

Though we are remarkable, we are merely an outline, a mere copy or representation. We are illusory compared to God, because He is the reality.

The word “image” deserves further examination. The word "image" could evoke different mental images depending upon one's perspective. Over the past several decades in the United States, "image" has acquired a deceptive application that obscures its true meaning. This application skews one's understanding, interfering with the meaning God intends.

For example, today, a politician hires a publication firm to create an image for him that the people will find acceptable, and, thus, vote him into office. If someone is trying to find employment, they dress a certain way to project a particular image for employers to perceive. Corporations also try very hard to find the right image before the public.

To an American, an “image” has subtly come to mean "the illusion of what something is presented to be" rather than "the essence of what it really is."

In Hebrew, the word translated "image" is not "a deceptive illusion." Rather, image means "the likeness of one subject expressed in another." This difference is important. It means, "the likeness of one subject, God, expressed in the other, man." The verse indirectly says that man is very much like God.

The Hebrew meaning is frequently used in English in reference to family resemblance or characteristics. We say that a child is the spitting image of his father or his mother, possibly referring to physical or social traits.

The "image" is no illusion; it is the reality. It is the family trait. It is the essence of reality.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Right Use of Power



Genesis 1:26-28

Two things are made especially plain. God states three times in verse 27 that man is created. In verses 26-27, He says four times that man is created in the image of God. He wants us to grasp those points because the same applies to us! Even though we are now about 6,000 years from when He first spoke those words, these realities have not changed one iota.

In addition, God clearly gave us beings created in His image authority over animals. That authority has not been taken from us. This dominion implies responsibility in managing them that we owe to our Creator.

Many people seek to escape the responsibility of answering to our Creator, devising complex explanations to deny His existence to themselves and others. They may reason that, if He does not exist, how can they be responsible for submitting to His commands?

They will move heaven and earth, as the saying goes, looking for proof to back their denial of God. The great bulk of mankind lacks the resources, the time, or the education to make such a search, so for their own benefit, they simply deny His existence by ignoring Him. These two categories of people are part of the “Nones”—those who claim no spiritual attachment whatever—of this generation.

Others, without making any real effort to search out the truth, create a god or goddess they are comfortable with and worship him or her to salve their consciences. They do not seem to grasp that their dodges do not alter their responsibility to conform to what God laid out in the beginning.

Another category is quite worrisome: the sincere folk who consider themselves Christian. However, either due to false teaching in their churches or perhaps their own laziness, they believe that much of the Old Testament no longer applies to them. In their minds, it has been “done away” along with what they consider Old Covenant laws, deliberately ignoring what Jesus Himself says about those same laws (Matthew 5:17-20).

However, God's Word still stands, and mankind is still responsible to follow this covenant, as Romans 1:20-21 declares:

For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead [margin, divine nature], so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Leadership and Covenants (Part Five)



Genesis 1:26-27

When God molded Adam of the dust, He shaped him in the outward form of Himself; He gave this unique form to man alone. Besides this, God gave man dominion over his environment, and to do this job, He gave him abilities like His own. Man can think, reason, make decisions, and plan. He can originate and evaluate ideas and bring them to completion. He can communicate and express complex concepts that can be understood by other men. Mankind understands and marks the passage of time.

No animals have these abilities! But there is more: Man has a unique ability to imagine and desire life after death (Ecclesiastes 3:11)! Men want to live forever! The problem is that without the revelation of God, they have NO IDEA how to attain it!

William R. Gray
Taking It Through the Grave



Genesis 1:26-31

In the beginning, Adam and Eve were not created with the evil nature we see displayed in all of mankind. At the end of the sixth day of creation, God took pleasure in all He had made and pronounced it "very good," including Adam and Eve and the nature or the heart He placed in them. An evil heart cannot possibly be termed "very good." They were a blank slate, one might say, with a slight pull toward the self, but not with the strong, self-centered, touchy, and offensive heart that is communicated through contact with the world following birth.

Following Adam and Eve's creation, God placed them in Eden and instructed them on their responsibilities. He then purposefully allowed them to be exposed to and tested by Satan, who most definitely had a different set of beliefs, attitudes, purposes, and character than God. Without interference from God, they freely made the choice to subject themselves to the evil influence of that malevolent spirit. That event initiated the corruption of man's heart. Perhaps nowhere in all of Scripture is there a clearer example of the truth of I Corinthians 15:33: "Evil communications corrupt good manners."

Comparing our contact with Satan to Adam and Eve's, a sobering aspect is that God shows they were fully aware of Satan when he communicated with them. However, we realize that a spirit being can communicate with a human by transferring thoughts, and the person might never know it! He would assume the thoughts were completely generated within himself.

Following their encounter with the evil one, "the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked" (Genesis 3:7). This indicates an immediate change in their attitudes and perspectives. It also implies a change of character from the way God had created them, as they had indeed willingly sinned, thus reinforcing the whole, degenerative process.

This began not only their personal corruption but also this present, evil world, as Paul calls it in Galatians 1:4. All it took was one contact with, communication from, and submission to that very evil source to effect a profound change from what they had been. The process did not stop with them, as Romans 5:12 confirms, "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned." Adam and Eve passed on the corrupt products of their encounter with Satan to their children, and each of us, in turn, has sinned as willingly as our first ancestors did.

When we are born, innocent of any sin of our own, we enter into a 6,000-year-old, ready-made world that is permeated with the spirit of Satan and his demons, as well as with the evil cultures they generated through a thoroughly deceived mankind. In consequence, unbeknownst to us, we face a double-barreled challenge to our innocence: from demons as well as from this world.

Six thousand years of human history exhibit that we very quickly absorb the course of the world around us and lose our innocence, becoming self-centered and deceived like everybody else (Revelation 12:9). The vast majority in this world is utterly unaware that they are in bondage to Satan - so unaware that most would scoff if told so. Even if informed through the preaching of the gospel, they do not fully grasp either the extent or the importance of these factors unless God draws them by opening their eyes spiritually (John 6:44-45).

John W. Ritenbaugh
Communication and Leaving Babylon (Part Three)




Other Forerunner Commentary entries containing Genesis 1:27:

Genesis 1:26-27
Genesis 1:27
Genesis 2:21-24
Ecclesiastes 7:1-4
Matthew 19:3-6
Matthew 24:14
Acts 5:3
Romans 7:1-3
Romans 7:1-3
Ephesians 2:2

 

<< Genesis 1:26   Genesis 1:28 >>



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