Genesis 1

Genesis 1:26

THE .–Genesis 1:26-31; Genesis 2:1-3. GOLDEN TEXT.–In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.–Genesis 1:1. TIME.–Unknown. Placed by Usher B. C. 4004. PLACE.–Eden. HELPFUL .–Genesis 1:1-26; Genesis 2:4-25; John 1:1-5; Hebrews 1:1-5; Acts 17:22-31. LESSON .–1. The Creation of Man; 2. The Commission to Man; 3. The Sabbath Instituted.. Genesis is the “Book of Beginnings.” It gives the beginnings of the history of the world and of man. It is the oldest authentic history in existence.

It is the first of the “Five Books of Moses,” that portion of Holy Scriptures which was compiled or composed by Moses as the medium of inspiration. Of the object of Genesis Dr. Conant says: “It is to reveal the origin of the material universe; man’s origin and relation to the Creator, and the equality of all men before him; the divinely constituted relation of the sexes; the divine institution of the Sabbath; the origin of physical and moral evil; the primeval history of the human race, and the origin of nations; the selection of one as the depository of the sacred records, and of the divine purpose and method for man’s redemption; the history of its ancestral founders, and their relation to its subsequent history. Of these truths, to the knowledge of which we owe our present advancement in civilization, it is the object of the book to furnish a divinely accredited record.” Our lessons open with the 26th verse. The preceding part of the chapter has revealed the creation of the heavens and the earth at some unknown period of the past, followed by a long formative period of darkness and emptiness, and the five periods, or days of creation in their order. When the sixth dawns the earth is prepared for rational beings. Had the creations ended with the fifth period there would have been no being upon the earth which could recognize and adore the Divine Creator and Ruler, but the creation of man reveals the purpose that God had in view from the beginning. I. THE OF MAN.— 26. And God said, Let us make man. The ancient Christians, with one mind, see in these words of God that plurality in the Divine Unity, which was more fully revealed when God sent his only begotten Son into the world, and when the only begotten Son, who was in the bosom of the Father, declared him to mankind.–S. C. It is insisted that the language implies consultation and deliberation. It is held there that there was communion with him “by whom all things were made that were made.” It cannot be denied that the language is of entirely different form from that used in the preceding creations. Conant, however, insists that it should be translated, “We will make man,” the language of purpose and resolve, and that the plural form “does not necessarily express anything more than the dignity and majesty of the speaker; being often appropriated, by way of distinction, to personages of exalted rank and power.” The plural of the word meaning God, the plural of dignity, Elohim instead of El, is almost constantly used in Genesis to represent the Creator. Man. The Hebrew word is Adam, a word kindred in meaning with ground. Since the proper name is used to indicate the new creation some have held (see Prof. Winchell’s Preadamites) that there were already human beings of lower races on the earth, but that a new and higher and more spiritual race was now created. It is probable, rather, that the name is used collectively. In our image, after our likeness. This does not refer to the human body, or physical nature, but to the moral and spiritual being of man. The brute creatures had no self-determining will, no power to choose between good and evil, no power of self-education, no moral character, and no conscience. Man, endowed with all these and capable of reasoning, is in these respects in the divine likeness. And let them have dominion. Because the human race was created in the divine likeness it was fitted for and endowed with the right to rule all other animated beings. While the physical powers of man are far inferior to those of many brutes, his reason has made him superior to and the ruler of all.

Genesis 1:27

27. So God created man in his own image. In the first two chapters we meet with four different verbs which express the creative work of God, viz: (1) To create; (2) to make; (3) to form; (4) to build. The first (to create) is used of the creation of the universe (verse 1), of the creation of the great sea monsters, whose vastness appears to have excited special wonder (verse 21), and of the creation of man (verse 27), the head of animated nature, in the image of God. Everywhere else we read of God making, as from an already created substance, the firmament, the sun, the stars, the brute creation, etc.–S. C. In his image. The image of God consists in knowledge, righteousness and true holiness (see Colossians 3:10; Ephesians 4:24; Ecclesiastes 7:29). Though the image was greatly marred by the fall it was not, wholly effaced; hence, murder is made the most awful of crimes, because it strikes at the Image of God (Genesis 9:6). Male and female created he them. There was one and only one created of each sex, and it was thus taught to all ages that it was the divine will that a man should have but one wife, and a woman but one husband.

Genesis 1:28

II. THE TO MAN.— 28. And God blessed them. The nature of the blessing is explained in the rest of the verse. He made them fruitful, capable of reproducing rational beings like themselves, and gave the empire of the earth and its tenantry to them. Replenish the earth, and subdue it. It was the will of the Creator that man should not only occupy the earth, but bring it under his control. The savage does little or nothing to obey this command and the earth remains a natural wilderness. It is only when the earth is “subdued” that it furnishes an abundance of food for the race. The wild fruits are scanty and furnish only a precarious support, but it is when man has recovered the soil from the state of nature that it yields its harvest. The great food products, wheat, corn, etc., only exist in a state of cultivation, and without it would soon become extinct. The earth affords a productive soil and abundant materials, but these have to be made ready for use by human labor.

The metals have to be reduced before they are useful, the forests leveled, the natural turf broken up, timber converted into houses and useful implements, and, indeed, man has everywhere to “subdue” before be gets the right of ownership or adapts to his use. Labor subdues and gives ownership.

It is the power of subduing, or converting the products of nature to useful ends, which measures progress in civilization. Our own age has been remarkable for the advance made. The applications of steam and electricity to the service of man have revolutionized commerce and human industries. Nor are the collateral and remote less important than the direct and immediate results. He who takes a piece of timber from the common forest, and forms a useful implement, thereby makes it his own, and it cannot rightfully be taken from him, since no one can justly appropriate to himself the products of another’s skill and labor. He who originally takes possession of an unappropriated field, and by his labor, prepares it for his own use, thereby makes it his own and it cannot be rightfully taken from him. Hence, arises the right of property, the origin and bond of civil society; and thus all the blessings of society, and of civilization and government, are due to the divinely implanted impulse, “fill the earth and subdue it.”–Conant.

Genesis 1:29

29. I have given you every herb-bearing seed. In this and the following verse are given the provisions made for the sustenance of man and the lower animals. To man is assigned every herb yielding seed, as the different kinds of cereal grains, and every fruit tree, suffering him to choose those which were adapted to his taste and nature. It will be observed that only a vegetable diet is assigned. The traditions of almost all nations point to a golden age when flesh meat was not eaten and all was harmless innocence. I suppose that if man had never fallen he never would have become an eater of flesh, and there is no divine warrant recorded for its use until after the flood (Chap. IX.), but at the same time we must remember that man was to have dominion over “the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heavens,” etc. They were created to minister in some way to his use.

Genesis 1:30

30. To every beast of the earth. To animals there is assigned for food “every green herb.” While there are animals that live upon grain or fruits, or even upon other animals, the great source of food of the brute creation is the herbage of the earth. “All flesh is grass,” and is either sustained by the grasses of the earth, or by the flesh of herb-eating animals.

Genesis 1:31

31. God saw everything that he had made and it was very good. He contemplated it and pronounced his approval upon the entire finished creation. Nothing but what was good, unless perverted, could come from the hand of an all-wise and benevolent Creator. Even after the distortion which has been caused by sin, there are countless proofs of the benevolence and perfection of the divine works. A blasphemer of Portugal, King Alphonso, asserted that if he had been consulted he could have suggested a better world, and the great modern blasphemer, Ingersoll, has got off as original the same blasphemy, but those who look deeper see that for such a creature as sin has made man this is the best possible world. When completed nothing had been corrupted or impaired by sin. The evening and the morning were the sixth day. Each day, or period, begins with evening, for darkness was upon the earth before light. The Jews always followed the order of Genesis and began the new day with the evening, a necessity also from the fact that their calendar, the beginning of their months, their year, and the time of the feasts were regulated by the new moon, which, of course, was always seen first in the evening. IN THE BIBLE AND IN SCIENCE.–Whether we regard the six days as six periods of indefinite duration, of which the day was a symbol, or as six natural days, all scientists are agreed that the place assigned to man in the order of creation is that agreed upon by science. Man was the last of the creations, and his fossils or remains are found only in the most recent formations. Nor can it be doubted that the general order of the creations, given In this chapter, are in harmony with the teachings of science. The successive stages are: 1. The creation of matter; its condition of “waste and empty” chaos, the divine influence imparting to it active properties, the production of light. 2. The separation of the fluid mass into waters and vapors or clouds, waters below and waters above. 3.

Separation of land and water; beginnings of vegetation. 4. Sun, moon and stars appear. 5. Animal life, beginning in the waters and followed by winged fowl. 6. Terrestrial animals, followed by man. “In the succession,” says Prof. Dana in his Manual of Geology, p. 745, “we observe not merely an order of events, like that deduced from science; there is a system in the arrangement, and a far-reaching prophecy, to which philosophy could not have attained, however instructed.”