Scripture Daily

Context No. 1081 of 4322 · Genesis

Context · Reflection

Genesis 1:26-31: in context

26God 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.” 27God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them. 28God blessed them. God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29God said, “Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree, which bears fruit yielding seed. It will be your food. 30To every animal of the earth, and to every bird of the sky, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food;” and it was so. 31God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. There was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.

The climax of the creation account. God says, let us make man in our image, and creates humanity, male and female, in his own image, blessing them and giving them dominion over the earth, to be fruitful and fill it and care for it. He gives plants for food to people and animals alike. And then, surveying everything he has made, God pronounces the verdict that has echoed ever since: it was very good.

Two truths sit at the heart of this passage. First, human beings are made in the image of God. Whatever else that means, it sets an infinite value on every person; the poorest, the weakest, the least impressive human being carries the image of the Creator. There is no one you will ever meet who is not an image-bearer, which is why scripture ties murder and even cursing another person back to this fact: to attack a human is to attack the image of God. Second, the verdict over creation, and over humanity in it, is very good. Before anyone had done anything, before the fall, God looked at what he made, including the man and woman, and called it very good. The world was not made broken; it was made good, and its goodness is God's own assessment. That original goodness matters, because it means the brokenness we now see is an intrusion, not the design, and it fuels the hope of redemption: what was made very good is what God intends to restore. We are image-bearers, made good, in a world made good, marred but not made for the marring.

Do I treat every person I meet as an image-bearer of infinite worth, and do I let God's verdict of very good over his creation shape my hope that what was made good can be restored?

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