Verses 26 and 27, please stand if you would for the reading of God's inspired word. Genesis 1. Verse 26. 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. Look down at chapter two, verse seven, if you would please. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. Thus far the reading of God's holy word. May the Lord add his blessing to it. Let us pray for that same blessing upon the preaching and hearing of God's word. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you. That before Abraham was, Jesus Christ said, he is, I am. And we thank you that you, who in the beginning created the heavens and the earth, also made man to be reasonable and immortal as male and female. So bless us as we consider your word, that it may be profitable to us in Jesus' name. Amen. Please be seated. In review of our last study together, we considered creation in the space of six days and all very good. We performed a survey of church history after having looked at the six days of creation, the seventh day of the Sabbath. The fourth commandment and the ten commandments making reference not to the six million years of labor and one million years of rest, but six days labor and one day of rest. We also saw the historic opinion of the church, being that the earth is very young. In the days of the church fathers, they considered it five to six thousand years of age. We looked at Theophilus of Antioch, we saw Origen, some of the later church fathers such as Augustine, Basil, Leo the Great, we looked at John Calvin, William Perkins, James Usher, and gave other references for further study that the position of our confession is accurate that God created all things visible and invisible in the space of six days and all very good. Not six kabillions of years, six days, ordinary days. The world is very young. Matter is not eternal. Now then, let us consider male and female with reasonable and immortal souls concerning the creation of man. Verse 26, God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness. What sort of God do we serve? Well, God is a spiritual substance. He is reasonable. He is reason itself. He is immortal. He possesses in himself the incapacity to die from eternity to eternity. The image then of God must reflect something of the nature of the original. If man is a copy of God, he must have some likeness to God. Man's soul does in fact possess some likeness or resemblance to the nature of God. Verse 27, after having spoken in the plural, let us make man, he now is spoken of in the singular. So God created man in his own image. The plural Godhead created a singular image, the singular God. He's plural and he's singular. Our image, his image. And thus God sets the stage for the revelation of who he is throughout the scriptures. It says, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them. Here note the two sexes, male and female. There is not a third, there is not a fourth. I'm sorry, the Talmud is incorrect. There are not seven genders, there are two, that's it. One and the other. God created them male and female. And the two make a complete pair. The two become one flesh, as we'll see in chapter two, verse 24, were we to read it. Now, verse seven of chapter two. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. First note that God formed man of the dust of the ground. From the dust he was taken. And by the way, the name Adam comes from the word for ground, adamah. That's the word for ground. Adam is the one from the ground, from the clay, from the dust. Adam is the man of the earth. He is earthy. First Corinthians 15 verse 47, his body was derived from the earth. And this origin in dust is also shared with the beasts of the earth. Where did they come from? Verse 19 of chapter two. And out of the ground, the Lord God formed every beast of the field. You see what man shares in common with the beasts? He has a body formed of the dust of the ground. We're just like animals according to our body. But then note, not only was Adam formed from the dust of the ground, it says that God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Not from the dust. but from the spirit of the living God. See the difference? One comes from where the animals come from, dust. The other comes from where the animals most certainly do not come from, the spirit of the living God. Job 33.4, which we looked at previously says this, the spirit of God hath made me, And the breath of the Almighty hath given me life. How did he know that? Well, it's an instinct of nature. We're the offspring of God. The heathens understand that. Job understood it as well. God breathed into the nostrils of Adam by his spirit, the spirit of the living God, and he gave him life. Please open to Ecclesiastes chapter three, verse 21, page 696 of your Pew Bibles. Ecclesiastes chapter three concerning this two parts in man. And the contrast between man and animal. Ecclesiastes 3.21. Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward? And the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth. You see that? Where does man's spirit come from? God. Therefore, when he dies, where does it go? Back to God. Where did the spirit of the beast come from? The earth. Where does it go back to when he dies? To the earth. Please open to chapter 12 of Ecclesiastes, verse seven, page 702. 12, seven. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit, where shall it go? It shall return unto God who gave it. The spirit of God is God, by the way. The spirit of God gave this spirit to man at the first. God formed his body of the dust of the earth, so when he dies, his body goes back to the earth. He gave him the spirit from the breath of God himself, and there his spirit, therefore his spirit returns to God. The dust to the earth as the beasts will happen, the same to them happens to man, but God gave man the spirit of life. The spirit of God made man to become a living soul by this act, combining the flesh, that the beasts have with the spirit that the beasts do not. Man became a living soul. What makes man unique is the combination of dust and the breath of life. One part animal, one part image of God. You see, we share this spiritual part with the angels, And we share this animal part with the beasts. Man is composed of two parts, body and spirit. He became a living soul. That's the combination of those two parts, is the living soul. Now, the beast has a body, God is a spirit, and this living soul not subject to the death of cessation, but rather to the death of damnation, or to the life that never ends, the spirit of man. This soul may live forever or perish forever. But in either case, the spirit or soul of man cannot be annihilated. It cannot be eliminated. It is immortal in reflection of the image of God. Please open to Psalm 49, page 615 concerning the immortality of the soul. Some foolish men believe that the immortality of the soul is a Greek doctrine. No, it's the other way around. After the Jews were dispersed throughout the whole world, the Greeks happened to have Jews nearby and they would read their Bible and discuss with these Jews the Old Testament. Then, in order to avoid the suspicion of being like those people, they would teach some of the doctrines the Jews taught them without using the same words. You see, Plato borrowed from us, we don't borrow from him. Psalm 49 verse 14, Like sheep, They are laid in the grave. That's like Ecclesiastes. They die like beasts, right? Like sheep. They're laid in the grave. Death shall feed on them, and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning. And their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling. But God shall redeem my soul from the power of the grave, for he shall receive me. Now look, the wicked are laid in the grave and their body perishes. When is this morning when we'll have dominion over them? And what sort of dominion will we have over them? I thought they were annihilated. I thought they were gone. I thought their spirit was deceased and fell into the grave and it's gone. No, it's not. The wicked shall rise at the last day, just as the just will. And at that last day, the righteous shall have dominion over them, and they shall be punished forever. But they'll still be alive. They'll still have their spirits. They'll still have their souls. Their souls, though dead, shall be immortal. Not with a mortality of cessation, but a mortality of damnation. But here note, on the other hand, the righteous. God, he says, shall redeem my soul from the power of the grave. I will not stay. God will raise me immortal. I will have my body and my spirit brought together again as a living soul at the day of the resurrection. Please open to Matthew chapter 10, concerning the immortality of the soul. Matthew chapter 10, verse 28. Fear not them, which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul. What? I thought when the body dies, the soul dies. Nope. Not true. But rather fear him, which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. You see, there is a death of damnation for the soul. That's true. God will destroy them forever. Not for a minute. Not for a thousand years. And then it's done. It's going to go on. But the soul of the wicked, as well as the soul of the righteous, is not subject to any cessation. Matthew 22, verses 31 and 32. Matthew 22, 31. But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have you not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Where were Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when Jesus spoke these words? Where were their bodies? Lying in their graves, perhaps already back to dust. Where were they? Well, they were with God in heaven. God takes them as his own. In fact, in the parable, when Lazarus the beggar dies, where does he go? To Abraham. Where? In heaven. Because Abraham's soul is still in existence. It did not die, it did not sleep. Luke 23, verse 43. Luke 23, verse 43. The thief on the cross. Our Lord promises him. Verily I say unto thee, this is nothing to scoff at, nothing to doubt. This is a very true statement. He says, verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou, his body? No, his soul. Today shalt thou be with me in paradise. Your soul shall go to paradise. It shall live on after this life. Acts 7, verse 59. Again, Stephen's sermon, which we looked at earlier today. Stephen is being stoned. He calls upon God saying, Lord Jesus, what? My spirit's now going to be annihilated. I'm done for. I'm going to dissolve into nothing. No. He says, receive my spirit, take it to yourself, bring it up to your heavenly kingdom. The spirits of just men made perfect at Mount Zion. Bring me to Mount Zion, Lord. Revelation chapter six, concerning the spirits of those now dead. Revelation six, verses nine and 10. concerning the fifth seal. And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar, what? The souls of them that were slain for the word of God. Were their souls slain? No. The spirit went back to God after the body died and was laid in the grave. The spirit of them that were slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held, notice, and they, that is those souls, they cried with a loud voice saying, how long, oh Lord, holy and true does thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth. They remember, these souls do. They think back upon what happened to them in this life. They can pray and ask God that he would do specific things on their behalf to avenge them. Turn over to chapter seven, next page, verses nine and 10. After this, I beheld and lo, a great multitude which no man could number, of all nations and kindreds and people and tongues, stood before the throne and before the lamb, clothed with white robes and palms in their hands, and cried with a loud voice saying, salvation to our God, which sitteth upon the throne and unto the lamb. Who are these? Departed saints, saints of the living God who died and are left from this earth. Where are they? Well, their bodies are in the grave. Where are their souls? They're in heaven. Chapter 20, verse 15. Chapter 20 of Revelation, verse 15, page 1252. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life, his soul was annihilated, right? No. He was cast into the lake of fire. Man's soul will not cease to be, it is immortal. It will either be fed upon by the grave or in the grave by death, or it will have dominion in the morning. It will either be commended to the Lord Jesus, received into paradise, pray and sing praise to God and the Lamb, or it will be cast into the lake of fire. But I assure you, in God's name, It was made like its maker, immortal, undying, partaking in some measure of immortality. And that immortality shall be a blessed immortality or a cursed life, a life so cursed that it can be more easily described as an endless death. I note then this doctrine. After God had made all other creatures, he created man, male and female with reasonable and immortal souls. God made us like himself. He made us reasonable thinking beings so that we could remember, so that we could sing his praise, so that we could have a conscience, all these things, so that we could think and reason. And he also made our souls immortal, undying. living on after this life. This then stands as a rebuke to all careless indifference to the most important part of you. What is your most important part of who you are? Your looks? Maybe it's your clothes. Maybe it's the food you eat. Maybe it's the things you possess. Wrong on all counts. We feed ourselves. We dress ourselves. We drink to stay hydrated. We bathe ourselves. We keep ourselves from harm. We try to prevent ourselves from getting hurt. We dress our wounds. We comb our hair. We make sure we get a decent night's sleep. But what is the thing we ought to concern ourselves with the most? Well, the thing that doesn't die. Body's gonna die. Clothes fade away. Food, perish with the using. Not gonna last. What is the highest and best part of us but our soul? And what amount of our time, our talent, and our treasure do we give to take care of this most important possession that we have? What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, our Lord asks, and lose his own soul, forfeit it to perdition? How much care will we take for things of lesser importance? And how much effort will we take to cultivate the mind, wisdom, virtue, knowledge, the fear of God, and obedience to his laws? This immortality of the soul is a rebuke to the Epicureans who believe that man is just the genetic information floating through, kind of came together, these atoms came together. It's kind of like evolution in some sense. And so therefore the best thing in life is just to minimize the sufferings of this life. That's the idea of the Epicurean. Just live a nice, comfortable life and you'll be okay. As long as you have your health, what do you have, they say? What do the Epicureans say? You have everything if you have your health. Is that true? What if you have your health and you're going to hell when you die? Do you have everything? What if you lose your own soul? No, you don't have everything if you have your health. All atheism is rebuked. Oh, man is just, well, he's pond scum on steroids. Kind of grew up out of the ooze, eventually became some kind of fishy, and then the fishy came on to the landy, and then the landy came on to the monkey, and then the monkey came to the human. Yeah, right. Uh-huh. No. God made man from the dust of the earth, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, so that he is one part, you might say, like the animal, and one part like God himself. All animalism, that man should just focus on his body, or his appetites, or worship a belly god. This is a rebuke to annihilationism, that the soul of man goes away upon his death. or the idea of soul sleep that the saints don't live unto God. In exhortation, I beg you, please make certain of your eternal state. The one thing that will live on when you die and depart from this life, make sure that that immortal soul goes to the right place. It shall live on beyond this world, either in endless torments or with God who is life itself. Be certain that you are looking to Jesus who will raise us up from the earth. Our Lord descended into hell that we might be raised up to heaven. Our Lord was made flesh so that he could bear our transgressions in his own body on the tree. Our Lord took upon himself a true body and a reasonable soul so that he might actually be capable of dying and to raise us to a blessed immortality. Therefore, I beg you, look to Christ, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. You shall have bread that will satisfy all your hunger. You shall have drink that will quench all thirst. And thus far, the exposition of Genesis chapter one, verses 26 and 27, and chapter two, verse seven.