(Gen 1:26-31 KJV)And 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 fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish 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 all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, whereinthere is life, I have givenevery green herb for meat: and it was so. And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold,it wasvery good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
There are a lot of things happening here in this section, first it should be noted that it is note until everything else is made that God creates man. It’s almost like he is saving the best for last. So God creates man in his image giving him dominion over all created creatures on earth. If we look at the word dominion for a moment, it’s meaning is the power or right of governing and controlling; sovereign authority. Man was to be the head of the creatures and rule the planet being second only to God the creator. Now that also means that man ruled the plants as well. This section shows that he was to rule the entire creation.
Some people seem to think of God as a singular being, but if we take a look at the fact that He creates things with dual aspects, male and female for example it seems that He is a being of many aspects, and encompasses all the aspects of man kind. I am certainly not saying that God is an effeminate hippie here, just that he contains with in Himself all the aspects of the human race. Also to be created in the image of God one must understand that we are a Trinity of things – body, mind and spirit, with spirit being the most important of these. It is our spirit that will live eternally, and our spirit which is the true image of God, as God is a Spirit.
And after all of this, after man has been created, God pronounces things very good. An interesting thing to notice here, is that through put Genesis Chapter 1, everything is always declared good, no mention of evil at this point. This is because at this point in history there is no sin yet, all is well.
One final note on Chapter one, which I must give credit to J. V. McGee for as I didn’t discover this but did hear on his program, God is mentioned through the thirty-one verses of this chapter thirty-two times. Interesting that this averages out to just slightly more than once per verse. Now I know God isn’t mentioned by name in every verse, but the fact that thirty-two times in only one chapter He puts his name out there for all to see, for all to realize that He is the author of Creation.
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