Genesis 1:26

THE BEGINNING. -- 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 READINGS.-- Genesis 1:1-26; Genesis 2:4-25; John 1:1-5; Hebrews 1:1-5; Acts 17:22-31. LESSON ANALYSIS. --1. The Creation of Man; 2. The Commission to Man; 3. The Sabbath Instituted.

INTRODUCTION.

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. 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. 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 CREATION 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,. 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. 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.