A Special Animal

Genesis 1:26-27

God completed his creation with one special animal. It was made to be like God in certain aspects, although not an exact copy. The concept of an image is seen in luke 20 when Jesus said, “Show me a penny. Whose image and superscription hath it? They answered and said, Caesar's.” While the picture portrayed a recognizable likeness, it was not alive or of flesh and blood like Caesar. In the same way, we are not exactly like God.

“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.” (Genesis 1:26)

Man was to be like God in several respects. Many have insisted that the likeness is in our physical form, but John 4:24 states, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” As Jesus said in Luke 24:39, “…for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.” The physical form cannot be what he means by likeness.

Two New Testament passages give a clearer picture of what that likeness consisted of. Colossians 3:10 describes the Christian as having the image renewed. “And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:” Ephesians 4:22-24 stresses that we are to submit willingly to that renewal. “That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”

Clearly the image of God had to do with our mental capacity, and our attitudes. They were more like that of God than any other being, including the angels. In Genesis 3, we find that man’s actions corrupted that image. But it can be renewed as the New Testament verses make clear. II Corinthians 3:18 says that the renewed image will be refined by the Holy Spirit through developing our personal relationship with the Lord. “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

That special mental ability and attitude would enable man to oversee and direct the welfare and affairs of the other animals and plants, and God intended that as one of his responsibilities.

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” (Genesis 1:27)

Later, in Genesis 2, we will look in greater detail at how man was created, but in Genesis 1, God just gives a general outline of creation. This is a style God used several times in scripture, giving a quick birds eye view to get perspective before getting down to specific details. Much misunderstanding of scripture results from a failure to correctly identify where a passage fits in the overall picture.