Chapter 1, I'm going to read from verse 20 through chapter 2, verse 3. Then God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind, cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind. And it was so. God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind, and God saw that it was good. Then God said, Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the cattle, and over all the earth. and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it. and rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Then God said, Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed, it shall be food for you. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the sky, and to every thing that moves on the earth, which has life, I have given every green plant for food, and it was so. God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts, By the seventh day God completed his work which he had done and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because in it he rested from all his work which God had created and made. Let's pray and ask the Lord's blessing. Oh Lord we come to you And we speak to you tonight because we bear your image and we have your likeness. And we ask, O Lord, that you would speak to us through your word, that you would grant us understanding and insight and a conviction and a desire to obey and implement your word of truth. We ask that you would keep us from error But we pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. In this world, there are two things that every person should know. First and foremost, men and women, boys and girls, should know God. Who He is, and what He's like, and what it means to be in a right relationship with our maker, defender, redeemer, and friend. But mankind must also know certain things about mankind. What is man? Who is man? Calvin begins his Institutes of the Christian Religion with this observation. Quote, nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts, the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But while joined by many bonds, which one precedes and brings forth the other is not easy to discern. End quote. What Calvin is saying is that The knowledge of God, theology, is all tied up and tangled in our understanding of man, anthropology. And so our knowledge of God and our knowledge of man are interwoven. And determining which comes first and which produces the other is nearly impossible. We have spent some good time on our Sunday evening studies. on the topic of knowing God, of exploring who he is and what he's like. We want to move on now to another not unrelated topic of knowing man. And as we know ourselves, we will know something more about God in the process. To help our study along, I am going to consciously borrow from Thomas Boston's great book, Human Nature in its Fourfold State. You had a bulletin insert this morning in your bulletin and you may have wondered, what is all this about? I was sending the heavy artillery in to prep the field for the invasion. This gives you something of the importance of Boston's great work and something of the structure that he uses. And he goes through in that book and he talks about the four states that mankind has or will enjoy. And we start tonight with the first state, the state of innocence, the created state. Next week, Lord willing, we will look at that second state, the state of fallenness, of sinfulness. We will be following up then in the subsequent weeks with the states of grace, the redeemed state, and the state of glory, that heavenly state that we will enjoy for all eternity. But tonight we need to start with the first state, the state of innocence. So I want to look tonight from Genesis chapter 1, first of all at man the creature. Then consider mankind's original purpose and close with some thoughts on the lingering effects of God's good work. Well as we begin the story of the human race, We are confronted immediately with the significant fact, right off the bat, man is a creature. He is a finite creature created by God, the great creator. And that is pointed out to us in verse 26 as God says, let us make man. God, the Creator, determining to create man. The theme is then fleshed out in chapter 2, verse 7, as the Lord God formed Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life so that man became a living being. Likewise, the Lord God created Eve, the woman, by fashioning the rib of Adam into this marvelous and excellent and beautiful creature. It's no wonder that when he saw her, Adam said, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, ah, this is what I wanted and needed. There was delight in his eyes as the Lord brought Eve to Adam. And so both man and woman are creatures. They are created beings. They are formed and they are fashioned by the hand of God, their Creator. But not only are they creatures, they are good creatures. God proclaims them to be good. In fact, he looks at his whole creation and he looks at the crown of his creation and he says, this is very good. Now you or I might make an assessment of something. And we might be radically wrong in our assessment. We may go to a restaurant and we might say, boy, that was good food at that restaurant. That was a good restaurant. And then we tell all our friends and they go and they say, that was horrible. What was wrong with your taste buds? We can make mistakes in our assessments. God never does. And so when God says they are very good, that is no overstatement. That is no falsehood. That's really the truth. They were good, very good in God's sight. And so from the outset we understand that humanity, all humanity, whether they know it or not, whether they believe it or not, whether they accept it or not, all humanity owes its very existence to God, its maker. Everyone has received the breath of life from the mouth of God. Well, we also see from verse 26 that God decided to make mankind in our image according to our likeness. And what he determined he then did in verse 27 as it records that God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. And so from the very moment of their creation, God designed our race to bear his likeness, to be like him. Now nothing else in the entire created order has this great privilege. None of the fish of the sea or the birds of the air or the animals that creep along the ground, none of them have this privilege. Man and man alone is made in God's image. Now the image of God and man is as complex as it is important. There are some aspects of God's image in us that relate to the natural gifts and endowments of man. And whether you understand it or not, whether you realize it or not, we are experiencing it this very moment in this room. Because God is a rational thinking being. His image bearer is a rational thinking creature. If I'm making any sense to you tonight, if anything I've said has connected in any meaningful way for you, It's because you bear the image of God. The same thing can be said about speaking. God is a speaker. That's the very first thing that God does on day one. And God said, let there be light. And there was light. God, the divine speaker, creates his image bearer to be a speaking creature. and this is the wonderful thing really about prayer that we can speak to God using that image that he has made in us to address our creator and he speaks to us in and through his word and there is a conversation going on between God and his image bearers I heard recently someone suggest that mankind was made to converse and that it is in conversation that we become the people we were intended to be. I had never really thought about it before, but I think there's something right about that. That as we converse with one another, and as we converse with God, it brings out our being, because this is part of God's image. Well, there's more to the image of God. The Lord also endowed man, the creature, with certain spiritual qualities, and those would be knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. Mankind was given not only the capacity for knowledge, but he was given a clear and a sinless knowledge. Now our thinking and our understanding is always clouded by our sinfulness. We have errors within our thinking that arise because of the fall. Adam and Eve in their original condition had perfect knowledge. Now it wasn't infinite. They weren't omniscient. But they had a sinless type of knowledge. And they understood things without the clouds of sin getting in the way. I don't think we can really relate to that. We can't understand that. But that's what they were given. That's what they experienced. Man was also made righteous. He was created with original righteousness. Now in understanding this, we need to realize that it's not that God made man the creature and then infused righteousness into him. He created man a righteous being from the very beginning. There was never a moment when man was even neutral. Man was righteous from the very beginning of his existence. And so he was upright in all of his dealings. And he related correctly and rightly to God and to others. Likewise man was created holy. From the very start, Adam and Eve were holy, they were in a holy condition, and they shared very naturally in God's holiness. Because He was holy, they too reflected holiness. And so for a very short window of time, between the creation and the fall, Adam and Eve experienced humanness. in the way it was originally intended to be. All of us since the fall have never really had the opportunity to be truly human because the fall has done so much to undo our humanness, our humanity. Adam and Eve were for that window of time knowledgeable, righteous and holy. And yet God created man as a free moral agent, and this is also part of the image. He was given the inclination and the ability to honor and obey God's commands, and yet he was also created mutable. He was created subject to change. This is what Boston indicates in the first state. that man was able to sin and able not to sin. In that original condition, it could have gone either way. They were able to sin. They were able not to sin. They were created good, but they were subject to change. They had a truly free will. And sometimes we blanch at that as Reformed people. Free will. Free will. Can't touch that with a 10-foot pole. Yes, we can. Adam and Eve had a free will. They had the freedom and the ability to sin or not to sin. And when they exercised their free will and made their choice to disobey God, it was a free action by free moral agents. They could have kept the commands and enjoyed God's everlasting blessing, Or, as they did, they could break God's law and experience the curses. Finally, man reflects God's image in his role as God's vice-regent. God assigned to man the task of ruling over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over every living thing that moves on the earth, even over the whole earth itself. And as man exercises dominion over the creatures, God's glory is reflected. Man, the ruler, reflects and glorifies God, the ultimate governor of all things. And so this is man, the creature. Boston sums it up nicely in the following statement. He was the favorite of heaven, He shone brightly in the image of God, who cannot but love His image wherever it appears. While He was alone in the world, He was not alone, for God was with Him. His communion and fellowship were with His Creator, and that immediately. For as yet, there was nothing to turn away the face of God from the work of His own hands. seeing sin had not yet entered, which alone could make the breach. Man is the favorite of heaven. He is in uninterrupted, immediate, direct fellowship with God. As they walked in the garden in the cool of the day, there was nothing to split them apart. Nothing to make God turn his face away from man. there is direct love flowing between God and His image bearer. This leads us then to consider mankind's original purpose, or perhaps I should say purposes, for they are multiple. And I want to sum up mankind's purposes with three R's. Mankind was made for relationships, for rule and for rest. The first R is probably the most important. Man was made to relate. Relate? Relate to whom? Well, relate to God. We were made for fellowship with Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Although God never needed us, He delighted to make us so that we might become His sons and His daughters. You see, God made you for Himself. We see God's tender love for His people as God fashions the dust of the ground into man and then breathes into his nostrils the breath of life. We see this as God looks at man in his existence and says, it's not good for man to be alone. And then as God takes that rib and fashions the woman and makes this suitable helper and brings her to him and the two are brought together and united by God as one flesh. You see, God loves man and he is relating in love to man. As mankind experiences the love of God and as he experiences that relationship with God, mankind also begins to enjoy and experience human relationships around him. The first human relationship of all is the marriage relationship. And so man and woman are brought together and married. The two become one flesh and possess a bond and a connection which is deep beyond description. Together they become fruitful and multiply. They fill the earth with their offspring and as they are obeying that command, more relationships are born. As parents love children, as children love parents. as children relate to children, and as they grow and marry and have children of their own. As the world is dawning, and as the human race is beginning, there are relationships all over. As we track on our race through history, we see them develop and maintain relationships in the broader spheres of life too, in church and in society. Human beings are surely relational creatures. It is through relationships that our personalities really flourish and thrive. If you take a person and put him away from all human relationships, if he has no one to interact with, he slowly begins to die. we are made for relationships and as we are relating and as we are interacting we are drawn out we had a delightful experience of this over our dinner table today we had some unnamed guests we sat around and we talked and we laughed and we shared and we related And there is a kind of drawing together and a drawing out that happens when you have those kind of relationships going on. I think that's one of the reasons why hospitality is such an important thing for the church. Because it's in hospitality that you have those opportunities to build those strong, firm, relational bonds. Man was created for relationships. A lot of people will affirm that and agree with that because they think that relationships help them get something. Relationships become the means to the end. I want to suggest to you tonight that relationships have intrinsic value in themselves. It's not just for what you can get out of a relationship, but a relationship has value in and of itself because that's what you were created for. And so mankind is a relational creature. The second R is rule. Mankind was made to rule over the earth, to take dominion for God's glory. We see this in verses 26 and 28. Let them rule over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. And then in verse 28, he commands them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Friends, we are not parasites, just existing at the expense of the creation. We are not extras that have just been clogging up the works and killing off species. God placed us on this planet so that we might rule this world. That we might fill the earth and subdue the earth. Man is not the problem. Man is the answer. Man is God's answer. And so we need to be good stewards of the earth. We need to fill the earth, but we also need to subdue the earth. And that means that every thought acted to Christ. That we are seeking for every knee to bow and every tongue to confess that Jesus is Lord for the glory of God the Father. We were made to rule. The last R stands for rest and this is represented in the Sabbath day which is found in verses 1 through 3 of chapter 2. The Sabbath day. What a blessed and beautiful day this is. This is a day that God has made and given to us as one of his greatest gifts. It is a day which is a foretaste. of the glorious eternal Sabbath rest that yet awaits the people of God. It's a day when we can set aside all the cares and concerns and work of the week and say, I'm done with that. This is my holy day. My day in which to rest in Christ. And as God rested on the Sabbath day, so I am going to rest. on this Sabbath day. Now our culture has given up on the Sabbath a long time ago. Our culture considers the Sabbath to be an outmoded institution. 24-7, that's the only way you get ahead in life. It's work and work and work and work, and then work and work and work some more. And our culture is very predictably working itself into the grave. They won't take their Sabbath rest and so they are killing themselves in this machine which is producing profits and gains and corpses. The Christian church has always understood that the Sabbath is something essential for our sanity. It's something that is woven into the very fabric of the universe itself And it's something that is absolutely important for us to retain our sense of well-being and direction. It's also a great testimony to the world around us that there is something more important than the bottom line. There is something more important than corporate profits and dividends for the investors. The Sabbath rest is good in and of itself. Now, I said that you were made for relationships. I said that you were made to rule. I will also say you were created in order to rest. And I think that's something that should bring great comfort to you. To rest and to enjoy rest is something that God has given us. It's not a lazy, habit that we have formed to escape from what God has created for us. He is not the evil taskmaster that's driving us ahead with a whip constantly saying, no rest, no rest. He's the one that leads us into green pastures and settles us down for times of rest. And he is creating an eternal home for us where we will be able to enjoy perfect rest. This is something that really speaks to our weary being. We live in a dog-eat-dog world and we feel ourselves wearing down and God beckons us to come and to rest from our works and to rest in His perfect love. Why is it important for us to focus back on this original created condition? After all, it was lost at the fall and it doesn't really have any bearing on us today, right? No, wrong. I think there are a lot of things about this that help us in our thinking. I believe that understanding mankind's original created condition does a lot for our worldview. In order for us to understand things as they truly are, to have a truly biblical, full-orbed worldview, we need to understand some things about that created condition. I mean, just the fact that we are finite creatures is such an important concept for everything else in our view of the world. And so if you're going to have a really biblical worldview, you need to see man in each state and particularly and especially in his unfallen creative state. One of the other ways that this helps us is that it helps us to understand that God designed the human race for dignity. We were designed for dignity. He gave us a very high calling and a very holy purpose. He set us up as the image bearers to carry out that great work of ruling the world for His glory. And as we see that in its original condition, we can appreciate that even today, men and women still have worth and value as image bearers. Now in the fallen condition, the image of God is warped and twisted, it is damaged, it is buried almost beyond recognition and yet it is still there in some sense. And so as we look around at people in this world, we recognize that they have value and purpose and meaning and dignity because God created them in His image. We live in a culture that is filled with hate. We can appreciate even fallen men because they were image bearers of God. This is also one of the reasons that we are so opposed to the sin of murder and particularly the murder of the unborn. abortion is slaughtering image bearers and as we see that image of God defaced though it is through the fall destroyed wantonly in the abortion industry we are outraged not only because it strikes at man as man but because it strikes at God through his image bearer and so murder is heinous because man bears the image of God. Looking back at our condition of innocence is further important because the created purposes, the R's, still stand. Are men and women still made for relationships? Yes they are. Now sin enters the equation and suddenly relationships are much more difficult. If you have any relationships that are worth anything, you know what a monkey wrench sin can be in your relationships. But man are still made to relate. The same is true about ruling. We are still to subdue this world for the glory of God and for the name of Jesus. Sin puts up thorns and thistles and makes it a hard road to go. But we are still to do that work. And so these original purposes still stand and rest as well, that eternal Sabbath rest. The final reason that our created condition is so very valuable for our understanding is because it sets the table for what's coming. If I tell you man has fallen, You can ask, fallen from what? And I say fallen from that. Fallen from that pristine condition. Before you can understand what devastation sin wrought in the world, you have to look back to the Garden of Eden and see the favorite of heaven shining in the image of God. And when you see what man was, and then what he did to himself, you begin to understand the great travesty of the fall. But you also can then begin to appreciate what God is rebuilding through grace and what God is preparing for us in glory. And so we've laid our foundation, we've set the stage, we have put the context up, so that we can look at those other states and appreciate them and enjoy them. Let's pray. Oh Lord, we thank you that you created us to be your creatures, very good, bearing your image. We thank you that you have made us for relating to you and to our fellow man. We thank you that you have given us the task of ruling this world, and you have promised us an eternal Sabbath rest. O Lord, prepare us, work in us, that we might fulfill these purposes and show forth your image as it is remade in us. For we pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.