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“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 creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that 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 over 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, and 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. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on 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” (Genesis 1:24–31).
God pronounced everything He had made to be very good. Although a full exposition is well outside of the scope of this book, we will do well to briefly note a few things. This passage is one of the most crucial in Scripture:
God made mankind in His image. Remember that when you interact with others.
God made us either male or female; there are not any other options.
God put the earth into human hands as stewards (or managers) of His creation; the earth is not some sacred entity on which humankind is a contaminant. “For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens (he is God!), who formed the earth and made it (he established it; he did not create it empty, he formed it to be inhabited!): ‘I am the Lord, and there is no other’” (Isaiah 45:18). As further evidence of this, observe that God created both wild animals and livestock, and provided food for both people and animals.
“And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and 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. You shall have them for food’” (Genesis 1:28–29). Here God was speaking not to Adam37 only as an individual, but in Adam’s capacity as the representative of the whole human race. These commands are universally recognized in orthodox Christianity as the Dominion Mandate to all Adam’s descendants in recognition of Adam’s representative status. Adam’s representative status is also why, when he sinned, all mankind fell with him. “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).
Evolution teaches that modern humans evolved from earlier primates. But we see here that God explicitly, directly, and personally created Adam, the first human. By contrast, God’s creation of animals was far less intimate: “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds…” The end of Luke’s genealogy of the Lord Jesus also confirms for us that Adam was the first human: “the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God” (Luke 3:38). Further, God did not take an ape and from the ape make a man; He made Adam from dust and personally breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.
37Eve, if present, was present only for herself, not in the same representative capacity as Adam.
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