Topical Studies
What the Bible says about
God Created Mankind in His Image
(From Forerunner Commentary)
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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)
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Genesis 2:21-24
The warmth and beauty of this creation is fitting, a crown on all that God had created for the man and woman to prepare them for life in the world. Adam's response shows his pleasurable agreement with this added gift. Feminists take issue with Scripture's reference to Eve as a “helper” (Genesis 2:18, 20), but there is nothing demeaning in the term. It simply means “one who helps.” God Himself is referred to as our “help” several times (see Psalm 115:10-11). Remember, Genesis 1:27 asserts, “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” With both sexes created in God's image, neither can claim superiority. With our knowledge of DNA, it makes perfect sense for God to have built Eve from a small portion of Adam's body because his body already had within it every means for Eve to be his perfect female match. Adam did not know this technical, biological reality, but he was still in naming-mode after his experience with the animals. So, when he saw her he said, in effect, “She is me!” meaning she is like him, not like an animal, naming her “woman.” (In Hebrew, “man” is ish and “woman” is isha.) Each was made to be the perfect companion for the other. The concluding comment in Genesis 2:24—that a man and his wife are to become one flesh—reinforces this. Today, marriage is not at its most stable state in our Western cultures. Yet, God's intention is plain. When asked about divorce and remarriage, Jesus declares God's original intent in Matthew 19:8-9. Mankind's marriage problems do not stem from God's creation of the institution. They lie in the hardness of heart of both men and women. Jesus' clear statement is the reality that the modern demand for “equality”—especially from feminists—opposes, and such opposition affects the stability of marriages to such an extent that more than a third of all marriages end in divorce. Some remarry and divorce several times, throwing both family life and society into turmoil. The entire culture is badly fractured. Feminist anger over God's making Eve for Adam reveals that they are anti-God in their outlook on marriage. They forget, or conveniently overlook, that Adam was made for Eve too, and in addition, that she was made from man, meaning that she was part of him. Genesis does not suggest in any way that she was created as man's servant. Adam himself perceived her as a delightful companion. Are men and woman equal? The answer depends on the particular context. Generally, they are not equal in physical feats of strength, for instance, but they are equal in many ways, especially in mental and spiritual terms. Both are created in the image of God, which starts them on the path to being fit companions for each other. Both are under moral responsibility to God. No place in Scripture states either a man's or a woman's sins are the worse. Both men and women are recipients of God's grace and can be forgiven by the blood of Jesus Christ. Both are equal in terms of being offered salvation and receiving eternal life and reward in God's Kingdom. The true cause of marital problems lies in the ignorance of both men and women of their responsibilities within a marriage. Compounding this is another reality: the self-centered, carnal character of each personality involved. These two factors—ignorance of responsibility and selfish carnality—result in multitudes of mistakes and misapplications in many areas of the relationship, creating discouragement and anguish rather than satisfaction and joy, as God intended.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Leadership and Covenants (Part Five)
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Daniel 12:4
Daniel prophesies of people "running to and fro" (Daniel 12:4), which can mean that the people are "at their wits end." Each of us has felt worn out and at our wits end, as we are living through Alvin Toffler's Future Shock, when the pace of life is so fast and the complexity so great that both our time and our attention are precious commodities. Our focus is continually being pulled in many directions at once, and this wears us out. We simply do not "multitask" nearly as well as we might like to think. Further, each time we shift gears, it takes us longer to get up to speed in that new gear. This weariness only multiplies as we are forced to focus on more things. Consider this principle in light of Matthew 6:33: "Seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness." The most important focus in our life is God and His project of forming us into His image (Genesis 1:26). This has to compete with potentially hundreds of other projects throughout any given day. Some are good, or at least necessary and some are time-wasters and energy drains. Yet, they all compete, and at times, our focus on God takes a back seat. God understood these limits of man, so He created a space of time—the seventh-day Sabbath—when essentially nothing was allowed to compete with Him. Time, though, is only part of the equation; the other part is focus, being mentally present. Any high-school student knows that he can spend a lot of time reading a textbook, but unless he is truly focused on the material, he will not get much out of it. God, then, instituted a prelude to His holy time, a day when, even though we still have to work, we are intended to gather our thoughts, to begin turning our attention, and to focus in twice as much on what life is about, not merely of what it consists. This way, when that sanctified time arrives, we are not still mentally at the office, or still solving the problems of the day, the last week, or of the next one. The Preparation Day is a day of "gathering" what relates to eternity so that we can properly ingest the spiritual manna on the holy day without distraction.
David C. Grabbe
Manna and the Preparation Day (Part Two)
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Matthew 19:3-6
Jesus' teaching on marriage follows the pattern set in the first two chapters of Genesis. Matthew 19:4-6 appears in a passage on marriage and divorce in which Jesus answers a question posed by some Pharisees about divorce, specifically, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?" (Matthew 19:3). At that time, divorce was quite rampant because of the general notion among Jews, taken from a misreading of Deuteronomy 24:1-4, that the law allowed a man to divorce his wife simply by giving his wife a certificate of divorce and sending her away. Notice, however, how Jesus answers their cynical question: "Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female' . . .?" (Matthew 19:4). He answered their question with Genesis 1:27! This gives us insight into what Jesus based His understanding of the institution of marriage on: God's original instruction just after creation. In the very next breath, He quotes from Genesis 2:24: "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh" (Matthew 19:5). So what did Jesus do in answering their question? He reached back to the very beginning of mankind and reminded them of God's intentions at that time, explaining that, in His judgment, nothing had changed. His purposes and instructions regarding marriage have not "evolved" over the millennia. He still considers marriage a God-plane union between a man and a woman with significant implications regarding being created in God's own image. In other words, God's reasons for the marriage institution have not been altered by mankind's inability to fulfill them. Jesus continues in Matthew 19:6, "So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate." His answer can be paraphrased as, "Look, you have got things all wrong. Marriage is not just a physical relationship that one can make or break at any time and for any reason. Genesis shows what God intended when He created people male and female, and clearly, He made marriage a divinely ordained, lifelong institution." He explains in verse 8, "Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning, it was not so." He then proceeds to give the biblical reasons for divorce. In this New Testament context, Christ shows that God has endorsed the marriage relationship from the beginning as an excellent way to produce righteous character in His children. He is preparing children in His image—not just children who look like Him but also ones who live as He does. Thus, His creation of mankind was not complete with His physical creation in Genesis 1, but it continues to move forward spiritually within the conversion process. As can be seen in Jesus' comments, the marriage institution plays a prominent role in it. Divorce, sundering the union of man and wife, can be a great hindrance to the spiritual growth of both parties involved. The first purpose of marriage, then, is that it provides a fitting environment for producing divine character.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Marriage—A God-Plane Relationship (Part Two)
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