Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“God said, “Let’s make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”“
Genesis 1:26

God said ‘let us’. But WHICH ‘us’ is He referring to? There are those who believe He was speaking to the heavenly hosts. The Court of Heaven. The angels. In a sense, humbly conferring with the lower order about what He wanted to do. There are those who believe He was speaking to the Earth. Speaking in partnership about the human to be created – Earth providing the physical vessel and God providing the spiritual. And there are those who believe He was speaking to Himself. Either in the sense of the royal ‘we’ of majesty or in the sense that God is Three-in-One and was therefore speaking to Himself. Whichever of those you believe, God was again following the pattern that He had followed with the rest of creation. Having thought it out, He was speaking it forth. Declaring in WORD what was about to occur.

God does not HAVE to have an image. He is Spirit. He IS. Above all things, source of all things, undefinable by human thinking or ANY thinking but His own. He is unique and also omnipresent (everywhere at once). How can the Earth hold Him? How can ANYTHING hold Him? Yet He has chosen again and again to appear to us as a human being’s form. Perhaps only as something we can understand and therefore visualize. But the language in this verse clearly speaks to more than filling a form (like with the beasts, the birds, the fish, and the creeping things). We are clearly meant to be ‘shadows’ of the Almighty. We are an inferior likeness to Him – lacking some dimension that only He possesses. Yet we are called to live up to that shadow. To live like He calls us, be moral according to His character, to emulate Him and live as He does in every way that we can (Psalm 91:1). We are not after the types of the living creatures of this world. We are after God’s type. We are meant to have a glorified state (which Adam had and then rejected, but that we can again have IN JESUS – 2 Corinthians 5:21). It is this image that is to surround us and protect us – which it did until Adam fell (Genesis 2:25).

Humanity is after the likeness of God. There should be a side of mercy and love to us. A knowledge of moral character and the desire to embrace it. We have the capacity built into us to be similar to God. It also speaks to our authority, or dominion (stewardship, not domination) over the Earth and all that live there. As God rules us, we rule the Earth and its living creatures. The same hand of loving guidance that God shows us, we should show this world and all upon it. This likeness gives us the power to comprehend and discern. God speaks and it comes to pass. Likewise, every word we speak is a seed (Proverbs 18:21), and every word (regardless of context, location, or company) is IMPORTANT (Matthew 12:36-37). When we are in alignment with His Word, His will, and His commands, we too can speak with power and authority in Jesus (Matthew 18:18). We have been given freedom of choice. It is up to us to choose to live according to our purpose – being His likeness.

Dominion is NOT domination. It is NOT subjugation. It is STEWARDSHIP with authority. We are to steward this planet, its resources, and all the living creatures on it. We have authority over them. We can speak to them and if we are speaking according to the WORD, we have authority over them. Not for our whims. Not against what they have been given to do. But in accord with God’s will toward them and toward us. This is a great responsibility. We can uproot and pull down, we can dig and hew, we can guide and breed. But to what end? Never to our selfish pleasures (James 4:3). Always to the purposes for which they were created, according to His will, and under His guidance. Ruling justly, not dominating willfully [There will be more on this in Genesis 2.]. The authority we were given here is without fine print. There were no other clauses. We had the choice and the ability to do whatever we liked, however we liked [we’ll pick this up in Genesis 3].

We are created last. The culmination of God’s creation. God created the stuff of physical things right at the beginning (Genesis 1:1), and called form from that physical stuff the various aspects of Creation. Plants, landfowl, insects, and animals came from the Earth. Fish (creatures of the sea) and waterfowl came from the water. But humanity God made Himself. God was active and involved. He FASHIONED us, He didn’t just call us forth. The highest level, right under Himself (Hebrews 2:7-9; Psalm 8:5) – oh, how FAR we fell. Everything in Creation was placed for our benefit. Everything that was made (including the angels – Hebrews 1:14), was made for US to enjoy or be blessed by. We are NOT ‘just animals’. We have NOT evolved. We were made in His image and in His likeness, separate from ALL OTHER living creatures, and SET ABOVE them ALL. This ONLY shifted when we rejected God and rebelled. It ONLY shifted when we FELL. We have little idea of what this looks like because all our human records, human thinking, and human-collected evidence has been AFTER we fell. The only example we have are a few verses in Genesis 1-3 and the example of Jesus. We cannot base anything on the Genesis material, because it is not enough. But we CAN base our behaviour, thinking, actions, and words upon Jesus. He IS our example. Our pattern. The image and likeness which we should aspire to be. We don’t have to work to make it happen, we can rest and partake in what He has finished FOR us. We were the point of Creation. In Jesus, we can be again. Humbly submitted to the rightful will of God and servants to our Lord Jesus, our Saviour, and our King. Doing what He shows us to do and saying what He gives us to say. By CHOICE, because we LOVE Him. Servants, not mindless slaves.