The work of the sixth day of creation
commences in much the same way as do the other days, “Let the earth bring forth”, but the record
suddenly takes an individual and more personal character when the creation of man is
described. For the first time a
conference is indicated in the counsels of the Most High. “And God said, Let Us make man in Our image,
after Our likeness.” The Companion Bible refers this statement to
the figure of Hendiadys, and suggests
the reading, “In the likeness of Our image.”
Ten times in this chapter do we read of various parts of creation being
made “after his kind”, and now we have the marvellous statement quoted
above. To the simple mind, this early introduction of
plurality in the reference to the Persons of the Godhead is
self-explanatory, and we do not feel that we are justified in embarking upon a
series of controversial articles on this subject. The dispensational place of the creation of
man is our more immediate concern. If we
accept the rendering, “In the likeness of Our image”, the first question that
seems to demand an answer is, To what does this image refer? If we take the expression to have reference
to the attributes of God, it hardly seems possible to draw a line and say,
“From this point the likeness ceases”.
Man as created was neither Omnipotent, Omniscient, nor holy. The
fact that man after the fall is spoken of as being the image and likeness of
God (Gen. ix. 6; I Cor.
xi. 7; James iii. 9), shows that we are not to look for the likeness
on the moral plane. Yet it does appear a
difficulty to think that man, physically, is the image of God, Who is
Spirit. We must give heed for a while to
the teaching of Scripture regarding Christ, and this will enable us to
understand, at least in some degree of clearness, the meaning of Gen. i. 26.
Colossians i. 15, 16 ascribes the
creation of all things visible and invisible to “the Son of His (the Father’s)
love”. It is written, “God is Spirit”,
“God, Whom no man hath seen, nor can see”, and therefore from the first moment
of creation the creature has needed a mediator.
The supplemental title therefore, if we may use the expression, that
follows in Col. i. 15, is that He Who is the image of the invisible
God, is the firstborn of all creation.
II Corinthian iv. 4, in a
different context, speaks of “the gospel of the glory of Christ Who is the
image of God”. If man therefore was made
in the likeness of the image of God, he was made in the likeness of Christ, for
He is the image of God. This places man
upon the earth in a typical capacity.
That the first man was a type of Christ is readily seen from
Scripture. Take for example I Cor. xv. 45-47, “The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam a life-giving spirit”. “The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven.” The passage immediately goes on to speak of
the image of the earthy, and the image of the heavenly. There are some honoured teachers who believe
that the creation of man in Gen. i.
26 refers to a totally different person
from the man who was made out of the dust of the earth as recorded in Genesis ii.
It is beyond question that the first man Adam
is the one whose creation is recorded in
i. 26, where the word “man” is in
the Hebrew Adam. He is the first Adam. I Corinthian xv. 45 says that it is written, “the first man Adam
was made a living soul”, but this is not written in Genesis i.,
but in Genesis ii., which links the two passages together. Romans
v. 14, under another aspect, tells us
that Adam was a figure, or type, of Him that was to come. In both cases the type is eclipsed by the
antitype. The true and last Adam is a
bearer of glory and blessing that the first knew not of.
Something
of the typical position of man is indicated in
Gen. i. 26 by the words, “let
them have dominion”. Notice that the
pronoun “them” is used four times. We
are by no means limited to one man and one woman in this passage, although
actually only one man and one woman were created. Mankind is viewed in this work of the sixth
day, and not the individual of the species.
We are told that man, unlike the other orders of creation, was created
in the likeness of the image of God, that he was given dominion over the fish,
the fowl, the cattle, all the earth, and every creeping thing. In chapter ii. we are told how God made man of the dust of
the earth, and not only so, but when this
took place, “in the day, etc.”, verse 4.
Verse 4 commences the first of the eleven generations that sub-divide
the book of Genesis. “The generations of
the heavens and the earth when they were created.” When we read in Gen. v. 1, “This is the book of the
generations of Adam”, we are likewise given a definite time from which to
start:--
“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.”
This man Adam,
whose creation is recorded in Gen. i.
26, lived 130 years and had a son whose name
is Seth. The Adam of Genesis i.
and the Adam of Genesis ii. are therefore identical. The generations of Adam, of Noah, and of
others, are their immediate descendants.
This must be the meaning, however figuratively interpreted of the first
reference, the generations of the heavens and of the earth.
Special
attention is drawn in Gen. ii. 4, 5 to the fact that the creation of “every plant
of the field” must be believed to have taken place “before it was in the earth”,
and
“every herb of the field before it grew”. This indicates that a great amount of detail
is withheld from us in Genesis i. When we
read, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed”, we are to
remember that Gen. ii. 4, 5 tells us that a creative work had already
been done. So when we read, “Let us make
man”, we are prepared to find that further details will be given of that which
so vitally concerns ourselves. These
details are given in Genesis ii. under the generations that there
commence. Man was created in the image of God (i.27), he was formed of the dust of the ground.
The elements that enter into the composition of the herb, the tree, and
the cattle, enter into the composition of man.
The generic name for man, as well as the name of the first man, is Adam, for he was formed of the dust of
the ground (adamah). Man is of the
earth, earthy. But, one may interpose, "You
forget that of Adam it is written, ‘and man became a living SOUL’, a statement
that is not said of the lower creatures in
Genesis i.". It is true that the word soul does not occur in the A.V. until the record concerning man is
reached, but this is by reason of the power of tradition. The translators of our wonderful authorised
version apparently believed that man was possessed of an immortal soul, and
consequently, when they met the Hebrew words translated “living soul” in the
passages that speak of animals and creeping things, they assigned to them a
lower meaning; the ordinary reader is consequently at a
serious disadvantage. A ray
of light is shed from the
margin of Gen. i. 30, where the reader will discover that the word
“life” in the sentence, “everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein is
life”, has the marginal note, “Hebrew, a
living soul”. This fact shatters the
conception that man alone is a living soul, and with it goes the fabric of
error that has grown up upon that fundamental falsehood.
In Gen. i. 20, 21, 24 & 30, the Hebrew word nephesh (“soul”) is used of the lower
orders of creation. In chapter ii.
two words occur twice. When they
have reference to man they are translated “a living soul”, but when they have
reference to animals they are translated “living creature”. Out of the first thirteen times that nephesh occurs in Genesis, ten of these
occurrences refer to animals. It is
evident that the Apostle Paul, when writing to the Corinthians, had no idea
that Gen. ii. 7 taught the immortality of man, for he uses
this very passage to prove the reverse. In I
Cor. xv. 44 he says, “It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body”. We must bear in mind that the word “natural”
is literally “soul-ical”, if such a word is allowable (psuchikos). In this state it
is “sown”. The reader will observe that
the “soul-ical” condition is also linked with corruption (42), “dishonour” and
“weakness” (43). It is not a necessary,
nor an illuminating interpretation that makes the “sowing” to mean the burial
of the dead. Dead seed is not sown. The entry of man into this world is his
“sowing”. Since Adam’s fall that sowing
has introduced his children into corruption, dishonour, and weakness. The Apostle clinches his argument concerning
the low estate of man by nature by referring to Adam himself, and not to Adam fallen, but Adam as he left the hands of
his Maker, “and so it is written, the first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam a life-giving spirit”. The first man is also “earth” in contrast to
the second man who is “heavenly”. After
emphasizing the contrast between the “earthy” and the “heavenly”, the Apostle
concludes:--
“And I say this, brethren, because flesh and blood cannot inherit the
kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.”
It will
be observed that Adam, as created and
unfallen, is unfit for the kingdom of God.
Man by nature is of the earth, independently of sin.
“The soul
of the flesh is in the blood … an atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that maketh an atonement by reason of the soul” (Lev. xvii. 11,
R.V.).
It is clear
from this inspired reasoning that the “soul” is linked to “flesh and blood”,
and is in no sense “spiritual” in its nature.
Indeed, “soul” is contrasted with “spirit”. Hebrews iv. 12 distinguishes between the two, as does I Cor. xv. 44. The “natural” man receiveth not the things
of the Spirit of God (I Cor. ii.
14).
In James iii. 15 we have the word psuchikos translated “sensual”.
“This wisdom descendeth not
from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonical.” The whole of the teaching of Scripture
regarding the soul points to it as the sum of natural life. All that goes to make up the individual
feelings, desires, and experiences of each living being is expressed under the
Bible word “soul”. Just as man became “a
living soul”, so he becomes at death “a dead soul” (Num. xix. 11, margin). Hunger, and the pleasures and functions of
eating (Prov. vi. 30, xiii. 25,
xix. 15, xxvii.7), and all the natural enjoyments of this life (Eccles. ii. 24, margin, “delight his senses”, Luke xii. 19) are attributes of the soul. One of the strangest series of passages, and
a series whose testimony is as opposite to the ordinary conception of the soul
as can be imagined, is that in which the O.T. associates it with the various
organs of the body, these organs as it were in their functions making up the
living soul. We will give a few
examples:--
Gen. xlix. 6. “O
my soul … Mine liver” (A.V.
“honour”).
Psa. xvi. 9. “My
heart is glad, my liver (A.V. ‘glory’) rejoiceth.”
Psa. xxxi. 9. “Mine
eye … yea, my soul and my belly.”
Prov. xiii. 25. “Satisfying
of his soul; but the belly of the wicked
shall want.”
Psa. xvi. 7. “My
kidneys” (A.V. “reins”, Jer. xvii.
10).
The
figurative use of the organs of the body are based upon a fact, namely, that the combined organism is the soul.
It is
common mistake to speak of the soul of man as something separate from himself; Gen.ii.7
does not say man became the possessor for the time of a living soul, but
that man himself became a living
soul. A living man is a living soul, a
dead man is a dead soul, an immaterial independent “spiritual” something is not
the “soul” of the Bible. The Hebrew word
“soul” (nephesh) is closely related
to the word “to breathe”, which is naphach. Exodus xxiii. 12, “be refreshed”, naphash, have time to breathe.
The Hebrew word “nostril” is also similarly connected, aph meaning a breathing organ. Seeing the close connection that the inspired
language makes between “soul”, “breath”, and “nostril”, and having seen
sufficient to dispose of the general teaching that the soul is synonymous with
the spirit, we may be able to learn the lesson of man’s lowly place from Genesis ii. 7, instead of finding there a God-breathed
immortality. We have often heard the
idea urged that the fact that God
breathed into Adam must of necessity convey to Adam something of the Divine
nature. “The breath” of life of Genesis ii. 7
is used in Josh. x. 40 (“utterly destroyed all that breathed”) as an equivalent for “soul”
in verse 37 (“utterly destroyed all the souls”). So also
Josh. xi. 11, 14. Has it ever struck the reader that the
“nostrils” are a strange entrance for immortality to enter into man? The fact that man is one whose “breath is in
his nostrils” is used in the Scriptures to indicate his helplessness; if tradition were truth it would lend
encouragement to the doctrine that man by nature is allied with the
Godhead. Genesis ii. 7 gives no warrant for teaching that there was
anything spiritual about Adam at all. As
every other “soul” that was to become a “living soul”, he breathed with (not “into”, see usage of Hebrew
preposition beth) his nostrils the
breath of life, and man became a living soul (a “breather”, nephesh). The passage does not say, “God breathed”; it says “he breathed”, and the context alone
can decide to whom the “he” refers.
We feel
that it is essential, if we would not make a most fundamental error, to see the
true nature of man at his creation. As a
perfect man he was placed upon the earth, but the perfect man was “natural”,
not super-natural. He was “flesh and
blood”. He was innocent, nevertheless he
was not righteous. His communion with
God was that of an unfallen creature.
All that is said of his surroundings were of a nature to attract “a
living soul”, the fruit trees good for food, the garden, etc., but nothing for
the spirit. I Corinthian xv. tells us that the spiritual was not first, that man as a living soul was
not spiritual, he was earthy, and flesh and blood. A being that is not spiritual cannot have a spiritual fall. If he transgresses, his sin and his
punishment must be within his own sphere.
The death penalty threatened to Adam could not have been “spiritual
death” unless Adam had a “spiritual” nature.
The “spiritual” nature of man came after the fall, where faith and hope
were called into exercise, where sacrifice and worship and longing for the new
life began to take hold upon those who believed. Adam as created was placed at the head of
physical creation. From this position he
fell, and that position will be taken up with added glory by the Son of man
when He comes again.
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