Chapter 2: Differentiation and the Creation of Man
chapter 2
differentiation
and the
creation
of man
God the Creator is our portion. He calls us to love and to worship him for his bringing into being all that is. The Bible is not silent concerning why this should be so.
“Created”
The word created (Heb. bārā’) is used only a limited number of times in Scripture. This is especially true of the specific form used in Genesis 1:1, 21, 27 and 5:1-2. In the unfolding creation this is used at three crucial points. The first of these is the point at which God created out of nothing (Gen. 1:1); the second the point at which God created conscious life (Gen. 1:21); and the third the point at which God created man (Gen. 1:27).
The third passage is especially interesting because the word created in this special form is repeatedly used: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” It is as though God put exclamation points here to indicate that there is something special about the creation of man. This is strengthened as we turn to the summary in Genesis 5:1-2: “This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.” Both passages put a triple emphasis on the word. God is saying that three aspects of creation–creation out of nothing, creation of conscious life, and creation of man–are unique.
Differentiation
Genesis 1:2 reads: “And the earth was without form [this can be translated that the earth was waste], and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” At this point in the process of creation that which has been made up to this time lacks differentiation. In other words, it would seem that we have here the creation of bare being. What God has made is without form; there is no differentiation between the parts. Then, as we go on into the third verse and beyond, we find a continuing, unfolding differentiation. There are thus two steps: (1) creation out of nothing and (2) differentiation.
The second step is not to be confused with the first. For one thing, in almost every case differentiation is introduced with let. For example, “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light” (Gen. 1:3) or, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters: . . . and it was so” (Gen. 1:6-7). In short, God says something like “Let it be this way,” a different kind of act than creation itself.
The word let has an even more general usage in some verses. For example, in Genesis 1:14, after God says, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven,” he goes on to say, “Let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years.” And in the second portion of verse 26 he says, “and let them [men] have dominion.” That is, in these places God is not so much making something come into being, or even differentiating it as being, as he is indicating what this sort of being means. Note, however, that in most of the uses of the word let in this chapter God is still working by fiat, just as he did in creation. He is saying, “Let this take place,” and it takes place.
True Communication and Exhaustive Communication
We are considering here matters which lie far in the past and concern cosmic events. That raises a question: Can we really talk in any meaningful sense at all about them? It is helpful, first, to distinguish between true communication and exhaustive communication. What we claim as Christians is that, when all of the facts are taken into consideration, the Bible gives us true knowledge although not exhaustive knowledge. Man as a finite creature is incapable of handling exhaustive knowledge anyway. There is an analogy here with our own communication between men; we communicate to each other truly, but we do not communicate exhaustively. A Christian holding the strongest possible view of inspiration still does not claim exhaustive knowledge at any point.
The Bible is a most efficient book. We must remember its purpose: It is God’s message to fallen men. The Old Testament gave men what they needed from the Fall till the first coming of Christ. The Old and New Testaments together give all that men need from the Fall until the second coming of Christ. Many other details which we need are also given, but the main purpose is kept central and uncluttered. For example, angels are touched on many times, but the Bible is not a book on “angelology.” What is told us about angels is true and propositional but always in relation to men. Heaven is the same; we are given factual knowledge concerning what we need to know about heaven but not a great deal of detail. Cosmic creation is included because we need to know these things which were before the Fall. What the Bible tells us is propositional, factual and true truth, but what is given is in relation to men. It is a scientific textbook in the sense that where it touches the cosmos it is true, propositionally true. When we get to heaven, what we learn further will no more contradict the facts the Bible now gives us than the New Testament contradicts the Old. The Bible is not a scientific textbook if by that one means that its purpose is to give us exhaustive truth or that scientific fact is its central theme and purpose.
Therefore, we must be careful when we say we know the flow of history: We must not claim, on the one hand, that science is unnecessary or meaningless, nor, on the other hand, that the extensions we make from Scripture are absolutely accurate or that these extensions have the same validity as the statements of Scripture itself. But all that does not change the fact that biblical revelation is propositional, to be handled on the basis of reason in relationship to science and coordinated with science. The content of Scripture is not upper-story, and the whole of Scripture is revelational.1
As we look at the differentiations that occur when God says “Let it be this way,” we can have confidence that this is true history, but that does not mean that the situation is exhaustively revealed or that all our questions are answered. This was the case with our forefathers; it is so for us and will be for everyone who comes after us. Indeed, as we stand before God in time to come, even as we see him face to face, his communication then–certainly being more than what we now have–will still not be totally exhaustive, because we who are finite can never exhaust the infinite. What we know can be true and normative and yet not be a completely detailed map containing all of the knowledge which God himself has.
God Divided
After the initial creation out of nothing, therefore, come the various differentiations. The first differentiation comes in Genesis 1:3-4: “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.” (The word divided, or separated, is the key, for it is repeated over and over throughout this chapter.) The first differentiation is between darkness and light. When I was younger, I was puzzled by the fact that light is referred to at this particular place, and yet today we know that it fits with what science says at this moment. With the splitting of the atom the discussion shifted; light is closely related to energy, and it is not surprising that out of bare being light (in contrast to the sun) is spoken of as the first differentiation.
The second differentiation comes in verse 6: “And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” Some scholars who have tried to minimize the teaching of the Bible have said that the word firmament indicates that the Jews had an idea of a brass or iron covering over the world. But this is not the picture at all. Firmament simply means “expanse.” It is a rather broad word, as we can see from the fact that the firmament is where the moon and the sun and the stars are (v. 14). Perhaps for our generation the word space would be the best equivalent. But it is also the place where the birds fly (v. 20). In any case, the idea that it is merely a hard covering and reflects a primitive notion of a three-story universe is in error. Rather what is being referred to is differentiation in the area of being–a differentiation of the openness that is about us.
In verse 9 the differentiation continues and concentrates on earth itself: “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.” Now we have sea and land. There is a constant refining, as it were, as we come down through these steps.
Verse 11 contains a fourth differentiation: “And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, vegetation, the plant yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.” So the earth puts forth vegetation and we have here a differentiation between non-life and life of a vegetable sort.
Differentiation continues in verses 14-16 where God makes lights in the firmament and divides the day from the night on the earth. It is verse 16 which gives the most difficulty: “And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.” However, the primary emphasis is that on the earth the day is divided from the night. The primary thrust is a continued differentiation as existence moves from bare being to light (or energy) and on into a differentiated space, areas of water and earth, the nonliving, and the living plants, and day and night on the earth.
Verses 20 and 21 take up one of the most crucial differentiations–that between conscious and unconscious life. Let me point out, again, that it is at this particular place that the word created in its special form is used: “And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales [or great sea creatures], and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.” Thus comes conscious life on two levels–conscious life in the waters and conscious life in the air. In fact, a better translation of the second half of verse 20 is “Let fowl fly.” The word let is not in the Hebrew, but the form of the word to fly requires it. In other words, let is used throughout this section–in verses 3, 6, 9, 11, 14 and now twice in 20. But at this point of conscious life, the unique note of create is stressed, just as it was previously at the unique original creation out of nothing.
In verse 24, we come to the seventh differentiation: “And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creatures after their kind, cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth after their kind: and it was so” (ASV). In this division conscious life on the earth is distinguished from conscious life in the water and conscious life in the air. At this point, everything has been produced and differentiated with the exception of one thing, and that is man. And so we come, finally, to the distinction which is so overwhelmingly important to us.
God sets man apart from bare being, vegetable life, and the conscious life of fish, birds and animals. Genesis 1:26 reads: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Man stands in marked contrast to everything which has been created before. First, as we have already seen, the word create is applied to him and that means that God made man in a special way. Furthermore, we know something about this special way: Man was made “in the image of God.”
We should see this passage in relation to Genesis 2:7, where additional detail is added: “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” Lest we make too much of the word soul, we should note that this word is also used in relation to other living things with conscious life. So in reality the emphasis here is not on the soul as opposed to the body but on the fact that by a specific and definite act God created man to be a living thing with conscious life. God made man in his image by a specific act of creation. This is strongly emphasized, as we saw before, by the fact that the special word create is used three times over, in both Genesis 1:27 and 5:1-2.
Genesis 1 and Genesis 2
Some scholars today see Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 as two separate accounts, almost as if they were watertight compartments in which nothing from the one relates to anything from the other. But, according to Scripture’s own exegesis of these chapters, this is not allowable. Actually, the first and second chapters of Genesis form a unit; neither account stands complete in itself. The two passages are complementary, each containing unique material that is important for an understanding of man.
But there is a stronger case for unity than the simple recognition of interplay and overlapping between the two accounts. Jesus himself ties them together. Hence, in order to set this unity aside, we would have to deny the way Jesus approached the two chapters. In answering the Pharisees’ question concerning divorce, Jesus said, “Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female. . . .” Jesus is alluding here to Genesis 1:27. But he continues: “And [God] said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh.” These latter words in Matthew 19:4-5 are a quotation from Genesis 2:24. So Jesus puts the passages from Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 together as a unit.
Mark 10:6-8 gives further indication of the unity: “But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.” This hearkens back to Genesis 1:27. Immediately following it Jesus says, “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife.” This derives from Genesis 2:24 and thus again the two are linked as one. Then Jesus goes on: “And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh.” These passages tied together are the basis of Jesus’ moral standard concerning marriage. Jesus reaches back, puts together the creation of man in Genesis 1 with the creation of man in Genesis 2 to show a unity that forms the basis for his view of marriage.
More light is shed on the relationship between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 by a consideration of a literary structure that occurs throughout the entire book of Genesis: First, less important things are dealt with rapidly, and then the things more important to the central theme of the Bible are returned to and developed more fully. This is so, for example, in the account of Isaac and his two sons Jacob and Esau. Esau’s story comes first, but it is Jacob’s which is most fully developed. Likewise, Genesis 1 first deals briefly with man in his cosmic setting, and then Genesis 2 turns to man and puts him at the center of the theme of the book. The Bible is, as we have said, the book of fallen men. Its purpose is to tell us, on this side of the Fall, who we are and what God wants us to know. Consequently, after God has dealt with man in his cosmic setting in the first chapter of Genesis, he puts man at the center, beginning midway in chapter 2. While the accounts in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 have a different emphasis in this way, they are not pitted against each other.
The Historicity of Adam and Eve
Jesus’ treatment of Genesis 1 and 2 also brings to the fore the issue of the historicity of Adam and Eve. It is difficult to get away from the fact that Jesus was treating Adam and Eve as truly the first human pair in space and time. If we have any questions concerning this, surely they are resolved as we consider other New Testament passages.
Romans 5:12, for example, contains a strong testimony that Adam and Eve were in fact space-time people: “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin. . . .” Thus, there was a first man, one man. Paul continues in verse 14, “Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression. . . .” Adam, it is obvious, is viewed as being just as historic as Moses. If this were not the case, Paul’s argument would be meaningless. Verse 15 strengthens this: “But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of the one, the many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by the one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.” Here, therefore, is a parallel between the historicity of Adam (the first man) and two others–Christ and then ourselves. He is dealing with men in history when he deals with “the many,” and so he makes a triple parallelism–the historicity of Adam, the historicity of Christ, and the historicity of me.
The point Paul makes in Romans is strengthened still further in 1 Corinthians 15:21-22: “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” The emphasis is again on the parallel between the historicity of Jesus Christ (whom you must remember Paul had seen on the Damascus road) and the historicity of the man he here called Adam. Verse 45 continues the same thrust: “And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.” The “so it is written” alludes to Genesis 2:7. If one wishes to dispense with the historicity of Adam, certainly he must wonder at such a strong parallelism between Adam and Christ.
Often it is said that this parallelism is only Pauline, but the Gospel of Luke gives us exactly the same thing. Tracing the descent of Jesus backwards, Luke lists a number of characters of history, including such people as David, Jesse, Jacob and Abraham, and ends as follows: “Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God” (Lk. 3:38). Thus we have another triple parallelism–a parallelism between the objective, historic existence of a whole group of people we know to be historic through the Old Testament and New Testament references, the objective, historic existence of Adam and the objective existence of God himself. If we take away the historicity of Adam, we are left rather breathless! If we tamper with this ordinary way of understanding what is written in the Bible, the structure of Christianity is reduced to only an existential leap.
But let us go further. In 1 Timothy 2:13-14, we read: “For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.” Here is something additional: Not only is Adam historic, but Eve in the midst of her rebellion is seen to be historic as well. And 2 Corinthians 11:3 further testifies to it: “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.” The parallel here is between Eve and myself. Paul appeals to those of us who are objectively real–who are in history–not to fall into a like situation. And without embarrassment, Paul obviously expects his readers to assume with him the historicity of Eve and the historicity of the details set forth in Genesis.
Notice too how clearly this is the case in 1 Corinthians 11:8-9: “For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.” Here the fact that Eve was created after Adam is an important part of Paul’s argument. One would also have to take into account the way in which Paul quotes the early part of Genesis in 1 Corinthians 6:16 and in Ephesians 5:31. (And finally, in 1 John 3:12, Cain is taken as historic, and in Hebrews 11, Abel, Enoch and Noah are placed as parallel to Abraham and all that followed him in history.)
We have, therefore, a strong testimony to the unity of Genesis 1 and 2 and to the historicity of Adam and Eve. They bear the weight of the authority of Paul and Luke as well as that of Jesus.
The Creation of Eve
In Genesis 2 Adam is’created prior to Eve. There is no human being standing before him. He is alone. Adam, being created in a specific, unique fashion in the image of God, differentiated from all that has preceded him, finds that nothing corresponds to him. In the Hebrew one can feel the force of this especially in verse 20: “But for Adam there was not found an help meet for him [that is, a helper opposite to him].” The emphasis here is on a counterpart to Adam, someone parallel to him yet someone different. This counterpart, which we now know so very well in the man-woman relationship in life, simply didn’t exist at this time. Something wasn’t there.
“And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make an help meet for him” (Gen. 2:18). And the biblical statement continues: “And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the LORD God had taken from the man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now [this can be translated this one at this time which gives it the historical emphasis]–This one at this time is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh” (Gen. 2:21-24).
The intriguing thing here is that Jesus, in a passage we have already looked at in the New Testament (Matt. 19:4-5), calls what is given in verse 24 a direct statement of God. God says this because of the way Eve was made, taken out of the man. So it is hard to tamper with this straightforward way of speaking of the early portion of Genesis without losing the possibility of real meaning in language or in communication. We are told that God made woman in this particular way.
Certainly the fact of the woman’s creation out of the man has a very definite philosophic importance, because it means that mankind is really a unit. Man didn’t just come out of nowhere. Nor has he sprung up from numerous starts. There was a real beginning, a beginning in a real unity in one man, one individual, differentiated from all that preceded him, and then differentiated in terms of male and female. It is this picture of man which gives strength to the Christian concept of the unity of mankind. The world today is trying to find a basis for claiming all men are one, but the Christian does not have this problem, for he understands why mankind is really united.
Furthermore, we can begin to understand something about marriage because God himself ties the marriage bond into the reality of the unity of mankind. Hence, we can understand something of that particular union when the male and female constitute one whole, become one flesh. Man, with a capital M, equals male and female, and the one-man, one-woman union reunites that unity.
As Christians we should not let this section of Genesis in regard to the creation of Eve be shoved aside as something unimportant. At first it might seem that we would not lose much, yet eventually it would bring real destruction. The Bible describes the creation of Eve as a specific differentiation, in its own way as much a differentiation as the creation of Adam himself.
There is special force, therefore, in Genesis 5:1-2: “This is the book of the generations of mankind. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name mankind [or man], in the day when they were created.”2 The second time the word created is used in this passage, it appears in relationship to both male and female. This is parallel to Genesis 1:27: “Male and female created he them.” The structure is now complete.
Hence, to summarize where we are in the flow of history, we can say that there is first creation out of nothing, then differentiation in various forms, then differentiation of man from all that preceded, and then, in a very special way, differentiation of Eve from Adam, woman from man. The whole sequence testifies to Adam and Eve standing in space-time history.
The Image of God
What is it that differentiates Adam and Eve from the rest of creation? We find the answer in Genesis 1:26: “And God said, Let us make man in our image. . . .” What differentiates Adam and Eve from the rest of creation is that they were created in the image of God. For twentieth-century man this phrase, the image of God, is as important as anything in Scripture, because men today can no longer answer that crucial question, “Who am I?” In his own naturalistic theories, with the uniformity of cause and effect in a closed system, with an evolutionary concept of a mechanical, chance parade from the atom to man, man has lost his unique identity. As he looks out upon the world, as he faces the machine, he cannot tell himself from what he faces. He cannot distinguish himself from other things.
Quite in contrast, a Christian does not have this problem. He knows who he is. If anything is a gift of God, this is it–knowing who you are. As a Christian, I know my differentiation. I can look at the most complicated machine that men have made so far or ever will make and realize that, though the machine may do some things that I cannot do, I am different from it. If I see a machine that is stronger than I am, it doesn’t matter. If it can lift a house, I am not disturbed. If it can run faster than I can, its speed doesn’t threaten me. If I am faced with a giant computer which can never be beaten when it plays checkers–even when I realize that never in history will I or any man be able to beat it–I am not crushed. Others may be overwhelmed intellectually and psychologically by the fact that a man can make a machine that can beat him at his own games, but not the Christian.
The Christian knows that in the flow of history man comes from a different origin. It is not that God has not made both man and the great machine of the universe, but that he has made man different from the rest of the universe. And that which differentiates man from the machine is that his basic relationship is upward rather than downward or horizontal. He is created to relate to God in a way that none of the other created beings are.
It is on the basis of being made in the image of God that everything is open to man. Suddenly, personality does not slip through my fingers. I understand the possibility of fellowship and of personality. I understand that because I am made in the image of God and because God is personal, both a personal relationship with God and the concept of fellowship as fellowship has validity. The primary factor is that my relationship is upward. Of course, I have relationships downward as well, but I am differentiated from all that is below me and I am no longer confused.
This differentiation makes genuine love possible. One cannot picture machines as loving. Though one computer may combine with another computer to bring forth a combined answer to some sort of question, we would not call this a love relationship. Furthermore, if we are made in the image of God, we are not confused as to the possibility of communication; and we are not confused concerning the possibility of revelation, for God can reveal propositional truth to me as I am made in his image. Finally (as theologians have long pointed out), if man is made in the image of God, the Incarnation, though it has many mysteries, is not foolishness. The Incarnation is not irrational as it surely is if man sees himself as only the finite in face-to-face relationship with a philosophic other.
Consequently, I should be thankful for the comprehension given here in Genesis–that in the flow of history man has been made in the image of God, for it gives an intellectual, emotional and psychological basis to my understanding of who I am.
The Dominion of Man
It is on the basis of being created in the image of God that man has dominion over the other things in the world about him. It isn’t that man is simply stronger; as a matter of fact, he isn’t always stronger. Dominion itself is an aspect of the image of God in the sense that man, being created in the image of God, stands between God and all which God chose to put under man. As that which was created, man is no higher than all that has been created, but as created in the image of God he has the responsibility to consciously care for all that which God put in his care.
Furthermore, being created in the image of God frees us from the burden of thinking that whatever is therefore must be right. We have been given a dominion which puts a moral responsibility on us. We don’t need to succumb therefore to the ethics of the Marquis de Sade, where might or whatever is, is right.
But let us go further. We read in Genesis 1:26: “. . . and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” These words are soon repeated: “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill [the King James’ replenish is inaccurate] the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat” (Gen. 1:28-29). We should clarify this translation, for the word herb is not meant to be a contrast with other plants, but rather indicates the total plant life, and the phrase bearing seed is, in the Hebrew, “seeding seeds.” Furthermore, the word meat simply means “food,” not meat as opposed to vegetables. So perhaps one could more clearly translate verse 29 this way: “I have given you every plant seeding seeds, which is upon the face of the earth, and every tree which is the fruit of a tree seeding seeds; to you it shall be for food.” Thus, man in his dominion is to have the plants for his use.
A further implication of his dominion is brought out in Genesis 2:19-20: “And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field.” Thus the implications of his dominion extended beyond the plant kingdom all the way to that which has conscious life.
Perhaps one of the most striking expressions of the concept of man’s dominion is found in Psalm 8:5-8:
For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou hast made him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: All sheep and all oxen, yea, and beasts of the field; The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the sea.
This passage does, of course, have a prophetic reference to Jesus Christ, but it is also applicable to mankind in general. All of these elements of reality–animals, birds and marine life–are under the dominion of man, and man has a responsibility for them as well as the right to properly use them.
Psalm 115:16 further testifies to the fact but adds a qualification: “The heaven, even the heavens, are the LORD’s: but the earth hath he given the children of men.” Not all of creation, therefore, but a certain area is spoken of as being specifically put under man’s reign.
By the way, this does not mean that man as he was originally created had no work to do: “And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it” (Gen. 2:15). As we shall see later, the work he was then to perform was not work as we now know it, but man’s life was not just one long period of indolence. Man had work to do before the Fall. He was given dominion, and even though he administers it very badly since the Fall, he still has that dominion.
The Image of God and Fallen Man
It is important to note that fallen man still retains something of the image of God. The Fall separates man from God, but it does not remove his original differentiation from other things. Fallen man is not less than man. Thus we read in Genesis 9:6: “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.” Man is such a special creation that to take his life in a wanton, murderous way deserves a particular punishment. I sometimes feel that often the hue and cry against capital punishment today does not so much rest upon humanitarian interest or even an interest in justice, but rather in a failure to understand that man is unique. The simple fact is that Genesis 9:6 is a sociological statement: The reason that the punishment for murder can be so severe is that man, being created in the image of God, has a particular value–not just a theoretical value at some time before the Fall, but such a value yet today.
We find a parallel in James 3:9: “Therewith [speaking of our tongues] bless we the Lord and Father; and therewith curse we men, who are made after the likeness of God” (ASV). This likeness is parallel to the term, the image of God.
The Christian, therefore, has a sociological base which is extremely strong. As humanists are fighting today against prejudice, they have little philosophical base for their battle. But as a Christian I do: No matter who I look at, no matter where he is, every man is created in the image of God as much as I am.
So the Bible tells me who I am. It tells me how I am differentiated from all other things. I do not need to be confused, therefore, between myself and animal life or between myself and the complicated machines of the second half of the twentieth century.
Suddenly I have value, and I understand how it is that I am different. I understand how it is that God can have fellowship with me and give me revelation of a propositional nature. Furthermore, I can see that all men are so differentiated from non-man, and I must look upon them as having great value. Coming back to Genesis 9:6: Anyone who murders a man is not just killing one who happens to be of a common species with me, but one of overwhelming value, one made in the image of God. As James says, any man, no matter who he is, stranger or friend, a Christian or someone who is still in rebellion against God, is made after the likeness of God. A man is of great value not for some less basic reason but because of his origin.
Thus the flow of history has tremendous implications for every aspect of our lives. I stand in the flow of history. I know my origin. My lineage is longer than the Queen of England’s. It does not start at the Battle of Hastings. It does not start with the beginnings of good families, wherever or whenever they lived. As I look at myself in the flow of space-time reality, I see my origin in Adam and in God’s creating man in his own image.