The Glory of the Creator

1926, the state of Tennessee versus John T. Scopes. Very important moment in our American history. What has taken place is, well at that time, it's illegal to teach evolution in a lot of states, particularly Tennessee. John Scopes is a New Yorker. And so the ACLU decides let's set this New Yorker up in Tennessee. Let's get him to teach evolution. What will take place? There will be a little battle that will set precedence to start turning over other laws and legal issues. Well, what was supposed to be a small little lawsuit that had a precedent for other bigger lawsuits became a national spectacle. Because there's a fellow named Clarence Darrow, who is a tea atheist, and he decided he was going to volunteer his services for the ACLU. And he was going to take this grand opportunity to once and for all destroy Christianity with this small little case. Well then, after Darrow, I can't remember exactly who volunteered first, Darrow or Williams Jenning Bryan, who ran for president three times, He was also known for giving talks all over university campuses on the truth of Christianity and the falsehood of evolution. He decides that he's going to be the star defense for the state. He's going to be there to be the key witness for creationism and Christianity to defeat the ACLU and Clarence Dorough. The key problem in the case is the technicality that Jennings agreed to allow Darrow to examine him. But he didn't get to ask questions back. You see what happens is Jennings is there and he has to answer all the questions that Darrow has to propose and he doesn't get to have a fair debate, a fair real argument where he gets to ask questions as well or really a fair debate where both have to answer the same questions. What takes place is somewhat embarrassing. because William Jennings Bryan doesn't answer the questions well. Some of them he doesn't answer at all, and some of them are very basic questions like, how did Jonah get swallowed by a fish and live in the fish for so many days? Very basic kind of scientific questions that they have some reasonable answers to. And as Bryan stumbled and stuttered, and the whole world is listening, Christianity, a lot of Christians aren't feeling embarrassed about this. Because this is their star witness. This is the key Christian man who's supposed to defend the faith. And he looks like a fool by one of the key atheists of the day. Well, this led to a couple odd or interesting formulations in Christian culture. It led to many becoming what in one sense is called fundamentalist. Now, this is a negative sense of fundamentalist. We are fundamentalist in the sense that we hold to the fundamentals of the faith. There's a group of Christians that decided we're no longer going to engage the culture. We don't know how to answer these questions. We're going to go into our caves. We're no longer going to engage the questions and the concepts and the problems of the world. We're going to defend ourselves against them only if I continue to repeat what we know. And there's not a conversation taking place. Well, out of that group came great men like Francis Schaeffer and Bill Bright and even a great evangelical, even though he's known for other things, Jerry Falwell. Men who said, we're no longer going to sit back in a cave and not proclaim the gospel, not defend the faith by attacking the falsehood. We're going to come out of the cave. We're going to take as many Christians as possible and we're going to start interacting and dialoguing and truly fighting for the faith. Well, the Scopes trial is just one small little battle that actually creationism won. Scopes was fined and slapped on the wrist and he was sent back up to New York. Christians lost the war, though. In a lot of people's minds who heard the debate, Christians couldn't answer these questions and Christians even wondered, can we answer these questions? And it led to a lot of people, I think, having confusion over how science and religion relate to one another. They both have their proper spheres, but this led many Christians to mess up those spheres. Because one way people started engaging is by trying to make Scripture, I think, say more than Scripture says about science. One way Christians overreacted was to start affirming things from Scripture that Scripture doesn't declare as absolutely as many want to believe. The more dangerous problem is that many are starting denying Scripture. Many started wanting to say that Genesis 1, our text this morning, was a myth. That it isn't actually describing reality, it's just a poem that's fancy and gives us something about God. Many people are trying to start fitting Scripture into science by denying certain parts of what Scripture declared or forming and shaping it Such as, well, theistic evolution is trying to put the two together. What you do at that point is you have to say one of them's primary and one of them's secondary. What you do whenever you're trying to fit the two together, which one is primary, which one is clear, and which one is going to have to give up something? Well, too often, our clearest declarations of Scripture have been denied. Well, I'm looking at a very interesting text this morning, Genesis 1. And we're going to look at it from four different angles. We're going to look at it from four different perspectives. The first thing we're going to look at is the grand declaration of God the Creator. We're going to first look at Genesis 1 as literature. The second thing we're going to do is look at Genesis 1 as a polemic. That's a fancy word for a fight. Genesis 1 has an apologetic function to it. Genesis 1 is trying to say that this is the God and this is creation over against other theories of God and creation. Then we're going to look at Genesis 1 as theology. And finally, we're going to look at Genesis 1 as anthropology. First, Genesis 1 as literature. What kind of genre, what literary form is Genesis 1? It's quite fascinating. as a piece of literature alone. It really doesn't fit perfectly as a poem because there's prose. It tells a story. It really doesn't fit perfectly as a story because it has so many poetic characteristics. It has assonance. The very first word, Bereshit Barah Elohim, there's assonance. There's a repetition of the syllable that catches the ear like a poem. There's repetition. And God said, is used ten times. It was so, seven. It was good, seven. There's certain clear poetic tools within Genesis 1 and chapter 2, verses 3. That's always going to be assumed when I say Genesis 1. Bad chapter break. God is used 35 times. Heaven 21. Earth 21. There's seven days. There's seven words in the first line. In the last line, there's 35 words. There's a key use of the number seven throughout the whole piece. The seventh day is mentioned three times in sentences of seven words. There's a structure. There's a beauty. There's poetic uses of words throughout the whole thing. And some of the key parts, as we just look at it, and God said, let there be. That's what we call the creation formula. It's repeated over and over again. And God said, let there be. Then you have the affirmation. And it was so, in case you were wondering if it happened. Then there's that approval. It was good. One of the most amazing parts of this hymn, is what I would call it. I believe it's a hymn of praise. It's how it's structured and ordered. You have an introduction, verses one and two, and then you go through key stanzas that are all organized according to the day. So you've got six key days of work. And if you look at day one, Day 1, God creates the lights, and so He separates light from darkness. Day 4 corresponds with Day 1, because He takes those lights and He reforms the stars and the moon and the luminaries in the sky. And so Day 1 and Day 3, or Day 4 rather, sorry, they correspond because God is creating the light and then He creates the sun and the moon and the stars. They correspond. Day 2 and Day 5 correspond. Because Day 2, God creates an expanse. See, the whole world is water at this time. And He expands some water to be up high and some water to stay down low. That's Day 2. Well, Day 5, what does He create? Fish in the water and birds in the air. There's a clear correspondence between the days. And it becomes all the more clear in Day 3 and Day 6. Because on day three he separates the land from the water, puts vegetation on that land, and then on day six he creates the mammals, those who will roam the land, and he creates man who rules the land. Day three and day six also correspond because they're the only two days that have the double command, and God said. You see in chapter three, or day three, verses 9 and 11, and day six, 24, And 26. Now, we look at that structure. Let me now read this and hear the repetition. You're supposed to constantly be hearing and God said, because what this is supposed to do is not make you wonder about what a great creation, but what a great creator. This is a hymn of praise describing and declaring to you how great the God is. who has created all that we know. Genesis 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light and there was light and God saw the light was good and God separated the light from the darkness and God called the light day and the darkness he called night and there was evening and there was morning the first day and God said let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters and let it separate the waters from the waters and God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were that were above the expanse and it was so and God called the expanse heaven and there was evening and there was morning the second day and God said let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place and let the dry land appear and it was so God called the dry land earth And the waters that were gathered together he called seeds, and God saw that it was good. And God said, let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind on the earth. And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good and there was evening and there was morning the third day. And God said, let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth. And it was so. And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night. and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning the fourth day. And God filled up the water swarm with swarms of living creatures and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens. So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good, and God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters and the seas, and let birds multiply on earth in those evening and those morning the fifth day. And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds, livestock and creeping things, and beasts of the earth according to their kinds, and it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeped from the ground according to its kind. And God saw it was good. Then God said, let us make man in our image. after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So, God created man in His own image. In the image of God, He created him. Male and female, He created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit, ye shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the heaven, and to everything that creeps in the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food. And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made. And behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning the sixth day. Thus, the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them. And on the seventh day, God finished his work that he had done and restored on the seventh. And he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. Now, I hope you heard that repetition. There's something else you would have heard as well as parallelism. This is a key instrument in Hebrew poetry. You see the parallelism most importantly, most effectively in verse 27. God created man in his own image. In his image, God created him. That's a very key way that Hebrew poetry functions because it says the same thing twice in reverse order. It's a key tool that they use to help you remember things that you often forget. There's something else interesting. There's an inclusio in this. An inclusio is how you start with the same word or phrase and you end with the same word or phrase. And the words that the inclusio starts with is God created heavens and earth. And look at the very last, chapter 2, verses 1 through 3. They're done in reverse order. The heavens and earth were finished. God rested from His creation. They're in that last verse. Those key phrases that it begins with are repeated in the last section. I believe to form an inclusio, again, pointing to a high poetic nature. But what I would like to call a hymn of praise. Now, let's get into the things that we all want to discuss, and that is, how is this a polemical piece? How is this a piece of work for argument? Well, the first thing we want to do is, if we look at it for an apologetic piece, or a polemical piece, we have to see that it was first used in its own context as a polemical, apologetic. There was a creation account called Enuma Elish. It's a Babylonian creation account. It's not really focused on creation. It's actually talking about how all these things started. And many people have argued that the Genesis account is similar to the Enuma Elish account. And there are some similarities. They talk about the beginning of the water separating and plants growing. But there's a lot of intentional disagreement with the Babylonian account. First, in the Babylonian world, the sea monsters are always opposed to God. They were always a threat to God. But if you look, in verse 21 particularly, God creates the sea monsters, the sea creatures. Secondly, in the Babylonian account, the sun, the moon and the stars are usually objects of worship. But in the creation account, they're gods. The One Creator who we're supposed to worship creates them and then He orders them. They obey Him. There's a major change or a major contrast there. Thirdly, in the pagan accounts, in the Babylonian accounts, man is really an afterthought. The gods create man so that they don't have to supply food to the animals. They're really just an afterthought of the whole process. Whereas in our creation account, man is the climax of creation, and God supplies him food. The point of the Babylonian account, Iluma Elish, is to present Marduk as the supreme god in the pantheon of gods. Whereas the creation account is to say there is one god, and we are to worship him alone. Finally, and most importantly in terms of the apologetic, The Babylonian account is a creation out of chaos. This is the creation account. There's a goddess, Tiamat. She's a dragon lady of the sea. It's the sea creature that we were referring to earlier. She has lots of children. These certain gods over here, they kill off her children. She gets angry. These gods are opposed to these gods. Tiamat is chosen as the greatest warrior, the dragon lady of the sea. to fight on their behalf, and then the Marduk is chosen as the great god who would fight on the other half. So here's this great cosmic battle, Marduk versus Tiamat. And Marduk wins. And what he does is he cuts up Tiamat's body, and he takes her body parts, the dragon lady's body parts, and he throws them out into the abyss, and that is how we became. That's the beginnings of the heaven and the earth. You see, the Babylonians, they looked out into the world and they saw such chaos. And that's why their gods are always so chaotic. That's why their creation account is a creation account of chaos. If we look into the world, we can see harmony, we can see unity in the world. But what's really overwhelming us is the chaos and the pain. And you see, the Babylonians, they made a creation account after their own likeness or after the world that they understood. Their creation account was one of chaos. Everything came out of this battle. I believe God wanted to set things straight. That this world as we know it is not the way it's supposed to be. This world was created good. This world was created with structure. That's why there's six days that correspond with another in a perfect unity, in a perfect harmony. That's why God wanted us to see that His creation was orderly, and perfect, and structured. Because the world wasn't meant to have chaos. The world was meant to be a place of worship. Now, I don't think anyone here is tempted to believe in the Tiamat Marduk creation story. If you are, I would love to talk to you. What we're more concerned about is Well, not creation from chaos, but creation from accident. Creation from chance. That's the major creation account or the major origin story that we have to wrestle with. Well, last week we discussed that there's a clear declaration that we have to believe in God as the creator. We also learned that maggots come from fly eggs. That's a side story. If you weren't here, don't worry about it. We learned that. Today, we're going to look at the age of the earth problem. And I am much less passionate about this problem than the former problem. Who created? So as we look at Genesis, or if we look at any of the creation Psalms, Psalm 8, Psalm 95, Psalm 134, 136, 138, if we look at all of them, I don't think any of them have their primary purpose being declaring how old the earth is. They may say something to the effect that gives us some hint as to how old the earth is, but Moses doesn't care how old the earth is. Moses cares that we see that the earth is orderly and beautiful and organized and structured so that we can praise the God who is orderly and beautiful and wise. He's not worried about how old the earth is. And so, when we ask that question, we have to realize we're asking a difficult question on a text that may not answer it as specific as we hope it does. Now, I do think it's a good question because, well, with Darwinism and evolution, and now Darwin isn't really in style anymore, but there's the new atheisms that continue to spring up, we kind of have to think about how we're going to answer them. How are we going to fit the latest scientific hypotheses, and we have to remember there are scientific hypotheses, with the creation account that I hope we hold first and foremost. Well, the whole debate is surrounded about the word day, which is the Hebrew word yom. And if we look in the creation account, yom is used in a variety of ways. In Genesis 2-4, Yom is referring to the entire six day event, or the seven day event. In Genesis 2-4, Yom is referring to that day in which God did all this. Yom can refer to a long period of time. Yom can refer to the sermon time, or the time you're going to eat. We're going to have our next Yom. But, I do recognize that it is very clear in the creation account that Yom has with it the modifier There was evening and there was morning. There's a 24-hour cycle with Yom. And I think that gives us some inclination that at least the week was used to present how long creation took. And I believe that this is the clearest reading and the most simple reading of Scripture. This is my preferred reading of Scripture. that creation took place in a six-day, 24-hour cycle. And to be honest, the reason I believe that is because it's simply easier theologically. I do see that science has lots of data in terms of how long the stars would take to reveal their light to us, given time, space, travel, excellent adventures. I don't get a lot of that. There's a lot of scientific data that point to an old earth and not a six day, 24 hour creation. The two do relate to one another, but I have to hold what's clearest in Scripture. I have to decide to prioritize the clarity and the simple reading of Scripture and trust that the two books of God's revelation are going to somehow work together and correspond. I'm okay with tension here. I'm going to hold that God created all the world with six days and 24 hours. And I'm okay with science saying that the light would take too long to reveal itself here, unless we had millions of years. And I'm going to say one day this problem is going to be answered. And I'm going to be glad I don't have to answer it. Now I could, maybe, maybe you would accuse me of being lazy. But here's the thing, I could look into this. I could really study all the science, all the theology. I could study all of it much more. But when I think about, what am I going to get out of having a clear, definite answer as to how old the world is? Well, first, I don't think I can. I'm not going to be edified more. I'm not going to be more spiritual for looking into this more intensely. What I have to realize is that there's certain parameters as to how I think about the creation. There's certain parameters as to how I think about what Scripture says and what science says. And I'm going to try to stay within those parameters and allow tension to exist. Friends, there's much greater theological issues to think about that require a lot more mental strength, such as the Trinity or the Incarnation. These things are things we should be adamantly studying. and desiring to know more about that are much more complicated and will provide much more spirituality to you. So, am I punting on this? No, I want you to stand firm, 6 days, 24 hours. If you have a problem with holding that tension with science, don't feel less spiritual. If you have a hard time recognizing it's 6 days, 24 hours because of science, don't think you're less spiritual because of that. Don't think you're a heretic because of that. But you do have to ask yourself, how am I putting the two together? As we do this, I want to give some simple parameters. The first people I want to talk to in terms of parameters are those who are not Christians here. If you're not a believer. You know, I know many non-Christians who want to say that until I can figure out this whole creation versus evolution thing, I don't want to hear anything else. Your biggest problem isn't how old the earth is. Your biggest problem isn't trying to figure out how the cosmos began. Your biggest problem is your sin. Your biggest problem is that there is a holy God who has created. We can see that clearly in Scripture. There is no question about that from what God has revealed in the Scripture or His creation. There is a God and He is holy. And your problem isn't intellectually trying to figure out how science and religion relate. Your problem is trying to figure out how you can be reconciled to this God against whom you have sinned. Your problem isn't scientific intellectual knowledge. Your problem is a rebellion against God. For the first thing you need to do is not study science and scripture. The first thing you need to do is look at the cross and the resurrection. The first thing you need to do is realize you have sinned against God and His wrath will be poured out against you. But or unless you confess Christ to be your Savior. You see, we have rebelled against God. We are disobedient to God. And God Himself saw us in our disobedience, saw that we had no hope, knew that His wrath would destroy us in His holiness. And God Himself came to take on the form of a man. And He lived in perfect obedience. So that when He died on the cross, He could die for those of us who are disobedient. And when God looks at us, those who have confessed Christ as our Savior, we can know that His wrath is no longer on us, but His blessing and His love. Friend, if you are wrestling with Christianity or God or science, please come talk to me. Talk to anyone in this church. We would love to share the gospel with you. We'd love to walk with you through these dilemmas. But let's make first things first. The second parameter, and this is for Christians, as we think about creation, and what science says, and what Scripture says, we cannot deny an intentional creation of God. God created ex nihilo. There is nothing that preexisted God. God was perfect in His being, not dependent upon anything, and He created everything that there is. So, when we think about how we're going to fit the science with what Scripture says, we have to know that the original creation was intentional, it was out of nothing, and that it was created good. Secondly, and this is particularly for those who are more attracted to an old earth, well, it's only for those who are attracted to the old earth that the warning comes, I don't see how you can deny an original Adam. That's the real sticking point for the old earth position. The original Adam is what made me realize I can't deny a 6-day, 24-hour because I don't know how you get an Adam otherwise. If you deny Adam, you deny so much more theology throughout Scripture. Your problem really isn't with Genesis if you deny an Adam. Your problem is with Paul. Because Adam has to stand as the head of the entire human race physically because we are all in his sin. And we have to realize that so that we can confess that we have a new head, Jesus Christ, who stands as the head of a new human race. So, as you wrestle with the old earth, new earth, realize that there's no such thing as a free lunch. or ideas have consequences. Once you start going down a certain road and you start denying and cutting off or molding and forming those ideas, those decisions, they have consequences for other parts of your theological understanding. All right, so we've gotten through Genesis as literature. We've gotten through Genesis as polemic. Now, Let's get to the point of Genesis. Genesis as theology. And I'm going to give us seven truths that Genesis shows. And yes, I was very intentional in choosing seven. The first thing we see is that God is self-sufficient. If you want to be fancy, He's a saint. That was for... never mind. God is creative. The word there is bara. It's a very unique Hebrew word. Barah in me a clean heart. It's creating something out of nothing in most situations. It's not taking metal. It's not taking an idea or a substance and forming it to be something new. No. God speaks and that which He declares to be becomes. It was so. This is a unique self-sufficiency. God is not dependent upon the things like we are. He doesn't need air. He doesn't need water. He doesn't need shelter. God created everything else that exists. He's not dependent upon anything. The heavens and the earth are really a metaphor for totality. God created everything that exists. He does not need anything. He is perfect in his own being. And God's self-sufficiency points us to really a second great theological truth. God is free. God is free. God didn't have to create us. God did not have to create this world. He chose to do so. God does not have to be patient with us in the midst of our sin. But it is mercy He chooses to do so. Because God is not dependent upon anything, He's free to do as He chooses. He's free to act out of His good and gracious and holy will. When we think about God, we often think about what do we have the right to declare from God? What does God owe me? What can God do for me? God doesn't need us. God chooses to create us. God chooses to love us, even when we are so unlovely. For us to realize that God is free to choose to do whatever He wants. We praise Him because He chose to create us. He's chosen to be patient with us. And He's chosen to love us who know Him. His grace is a free gift from God. We didn't deserve it. We don't deserve to sit here and listen to God's Word. We don't deserve to have the Holy Spirit illuminate our hearts so we can understand it and glorify Him. We deserve hell and wrath. But God in His freedom, He gives such good gifts. Related to that is the truth that God is sovereign. If you look at creation, He names everything. When we go next week, it'll be interesting to see that Adam actually names all the animals, and that is an exercise of his dominion over the animals. For all the other parts of the world, God names them. There's something authoritative in naming something. Whenever you're a parent and you name your child, you're declaring an authority over them. I just had some friends that adopted a little girl, and part of the process of adopting her was to rename her, to show their authority over her. God shows he is sovereign. And the fact that he names everything, and then more so, he instructs everything. Hey, son, you rule over the day. Moon, you rule over the night. It's like he's called a football player. He's telling people what to do. He's ordering the stars and the sun and the moon with just a declaration of His voice. What a sovereign God. And He makes sure that each one fulfills His purpose. He's the grand orchestrator of all that there is. Fourthly, He's good. His creation as it originally stood reflected His nature. He declared it was good because He made it good. And we'll get into the problem that happened in two weeks. God is powerful. He spoke it into existence. Now we go and we look at things like the Golden Gate Bridge and skyscrapers and great buildings of the world to look up and say, wow, these are amazing works of man. It's amazing what we can do because we are made in the image of God. It's amazing what kind of creative and engineering capacity we have. But it's nothing like God, who speaks things into creation, who speaks the beauty into creation, who speaks such diversity into creation with all the different animals and species, how glorious His wisdom must be. How glorious his power must be to declare so many things into being. Six, God is personal. Now, some will say this is reading into the text. I read the Old Testament from the New Testament. I believe already here we see a triune being. We see the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We see the Father, here designated as God, doesn't mean the other two aren't God, but the Father He creates. And He creates by speaking His Word. What I think John 1 that Brian read is going back and showing that really Jesus was there all along as the Creator. He is creating with God. 1 Corinthians 8.6 says, The Father are all things through the Son are all things. What a great paraphrase of what takes place in Genesis 1. And then you see the Spirit hovering over the face of the earth. You see these three persons relating to one another. God in His own nature is personal. But then He creates us. We see that He's personal. That He created us. for personal relationship. We see that He created humanity for a personal relationship. We are to know Him, and to love Him, and to worship Him, because He loves us, and cares for us, and is worthy of worship. That really leads us to our last truth about God that we see, and that is God is praiseworthy. Because of all these things, because of all these attributes of God, He is praiseworthy. Again, it's not because of the things He does for us that we should praise Him. No, it's because of who He is that we should praise Him. Finally, let's get into our last point. Genesis 1 as anthropology. The climax of creation is day 6. And it really stands out in a lot of ways with these poetic features. Again, the creation of command, God said, happens twice. It also is declared to be really good. And it has the strongest poetic parallelism there in verse 27. And what this tells us is that we are created persons. We are personal like God is personal. Although we have less capacity because we're finite and He's infinite. We are created persons because, well, we're created in the sense that we're completely dependent upon God for any choice we make. It's only because God sustains us that we're able to make any choice. But we're persons because He lets us make choices. We're created persons because we get to decide we're going to move our fingers. But we're created persons because it's only by God's grace and strength and sustaining that I can move my finger. We are completely dependent upon Him, but He has given us great freedom and responsibility. in the choices that we make. Now, to get more specific, we're not just created persons. As this passage declares in verse 26 and on, we are made in God's image and after his likeness. I believe that this is parallelism or repetition again. These two aren't two different things. They're the same thing. So what does it mean to be the image of God? Well, We can begin by saying there's some truths before we get into the specific definition about the image of God. Notice that both male and female are made in the image of God. Both male and female are ordained, sanctified lives. One is not more valuable than the other. It's not declared really good until there's a man and a woman. So when we think about our roles, our relationships, our status as husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, male, female, we're all created with the equal honor and glory from God, being both made in His image. And as we follow Paul, and the fact that there are different roles between a man and a woman, we have to keep in mind that that doesn't mean there's a difference in honor. or value. We can even see in 1 Timothy 2 that Paul, going back to the passage that both are made in the image of God, he goes in the order of what they're made, male and female, to argue that there is a role difference between the man and the woman. But something we must realize is that this does not mean one is more valuable or honorable or more of the image of God than the other. Secondly, the image of God cannot be lost. If it could be lost, it already lost it. We see in Genesis 9-6 that man is still referred to as being made in the image of God. He has not lost the imaging. Okay, so that said, what does it mean to be made in the image of God? Well, this language, image of God, is actually used in idol worship. It's kind of weird, but follow me. If I were to make an image, if I were to worship Baal, I'm a worshipper of Baha'u'llah in the ancient Near East world. I'm going to create, I'm going to carve out of wood or form some copper, whatever it is, a little idol of a cow. And I'm going to put that on my mantle. And if I'm really a believer in Baha'u'llah, I'm going to believe that that cow is an image of Baha'u'llah. And what that means is the spirit of Baha'u'llah actually is in that cow, and that cow is a mediator between Baal and I. What that means is that I can go to that cow and I can make requests known and that wooden cow is going to send those requests right up to Baal himself. And Baal is going to rule my life through that little mediator. Being an image, in other words, this language is loaded, being an image of something means that you're reflecting that thing. You see, that cow is reflecting Baal to me. Whenever that cow is imaging Baal, he's revealing Baal to me at some level, that I don't believe in Baal, nor do I believe in the use of cows for worship, for eating. Absolutely. So what does it mean to be made in the image of God? Well, I believe if we think about the language of image and then we just follow what Moses says here, let them have dominion over the fish of the sea. Look in verse 28, fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion. For us to be imagers of God means we have a purpose in his kingdom. The image of God, I believe, is a large part a function of what we do. You see, God is the king of all creation. There's language there that shows that God is the king of all creation. Guess who we are? We're supposed to be the vice regents of that creation. We are supposed to be representing God to all of creation so that we mirror him and reflect him to all of creation. We are supposed to be exercising a dominion over all of creation that reflects God in all of what he's done. We're supposed to be leading all of creation in worship of the one God. We are supposed to be the creatures that God has especially designed and gifted and equipped that can show the rest of creation what God's order is supposed to be like and then take all the rest of creation and lead them up to worship God in an orderly way. We have that power. We have that capacity. That's what makes us special is that God gave us that position in creation. We're supposed to be maestros leading the world in a great orchestra of praise. But instead, because we're sinful and rebellious, We lead the world in malice, murder and mayhem. We're supposed to be sending a great doxology to God because we have the capacity to lead all of creation. But we're full of destruction and death, and that's what we spread in this world. You see, creation is the greatest arena or venue or platform for worship. Everything is supposed to be led to worship God. And we're supposed to be there as the grand conductors of it. But instead of seeing this world as a venue for worship of God, we've seen it as our own personal playground. We see it as a place to amuse and entertain ourselves. To take what we want and not worry about what we do to itch for God's glory. We failed. We have failed in fulfilling that special function God has given to us. We were supposed to be the image of God to the world. And since we failed, God himself, well, he came to show us how it's supposed to be done. Again, Jesus Christ. Fully God, fully man. The perfect man who was obedient. The perfect man that when asked, will you show us the Father? He said, if you see me, you have seen the Father. And what he's saying there is that if you see the works that I do, you would see the works that the Father is doing. That's what we're supposed to be doing. We're supposed to be reflecting God in everything we do and say. So we failed. Jesus came. And He fulfilled our duty. He acted in obedience in every way. So that He could show us not just how it's done, but He could replace us in our wrath for not fulfilling our duty. For instance, look at one last thing. And that is the Sabbath. Chapter 2, verses 1 through 3. The goal of creation is God's rest. The goal of creation is God's rest. This ends intentionally with God resting. It ends intentionally and rather abruptly. It's just like the hymns of old, where most classical hymns, the last line is always a great reflection on heaven. Amazing Grace, we've been there 10,000 years. Most of your great hymns end with a reflection on heaven. End with a reflection on the end. And that's what this hymn does. It ends giving creation its end goal. And that is to participate in God's Sabbath rest, to participate in God's Sabbath joy. Now, a lot of things have happened since Genesis. The Sabbath day is technically Saturday. It's the last day of the week. Now the question is, shall we continue to observe it and to rest on it and not do anything as commanded in the Old Testament? Well, I'm going to give a brief answer to this. I don't believe the Sabbath remains the same in the New Covenant. Jesus came and said the Sabbath isn't for God, it's for us. And then I believe Jesus himself freed us from the Sabbath command to rest because he himself became the Sabbath. That's the entire argument of Hebrews, or that's a major part of the argument of Hebrews. Sabbath isn't just one day anymore. Sabbath is the entire life that the Christian gets to enjoy. Sabbath is us always participating in the rest of God because Jesus is our rest. It's just like Israel is no longer the special land. All of the land is holy because God has declared it holy. Every nation is holy because God has declared them holy. It's not one day of the week. It's not the last day of the week that's holy. No, friends, a major change took place in Christian worship to symbolize this. We meet on the first day. We don't recognize the Sabbath. We now meet on the Lord's Day. This is a special day that we set aside. And why? Because this is the day that Jesus rose again. Jesus rose on the first day of the creation week to symbolize a new created order, a new way of living, a new rest. Now, every day is holy. Every day is an opportunity for worship. Every day is to be set aside for God as you are a maestro. You are supposed to be a maestro, leading this world, leading others to worship God. Friends, we think about Jesus as our rest. He's our only hope. He is our joy. In Him alone, not in legality, not in our goodness, not in our work. Nothing we can do can give us rest and assurance. It is only in Jesus Christ, in Him declaring a new creation, a new heavens and earth for which we long for. Let us pray. Such great truths revealed here, Lord. How wonderful is your word as we open it up. Give us ears and eyes to truly see the beauty and the depth of your revelation. Those things that were prophesied so long ago, how glorious they now are, even more so in Jesus Christ. We thank you. We thank you, Lord, for freeing us Freeing us from our sin. Freeing us from being doomed to wrath. Freeing us to worship You every day, all day long, with all that we do. Help us, Lord, to not fail. Help us, Lord, not to fail like Adam in this. Help us, Lord, to fulfill Your Word, Your promise, Your calling to us. to love you with all our hearts, to love one another as you have loved us. Proclaim your gospel until you return. In your name we pray. Amen.