TEXT: Genesis 1:26-28

SUBJECT: Henry on Genesis 1 #10

Tonight, with the Lord’s help, we’ll move on in our study of Matthew Henry on Genesis 1. Henry was an English pastor and author. The book we’re using to guide us through the chapter is his great Commentary on the Whole Bible.

Henry was not only a highly gifted and godly man, but he had the advantage of living long before the rise of Darwinism and the cult of science. This allows him to read Genesis 1 as a paean of praise to God and not as a tirade against evolution.

Thus far, we’ve worked our way through five and one-half days of the Creation Week. Last time, we studied the lower mammals the Lord made on the First Friday; now, we’ll have a look at the Higher Mammals He made later that day.

Before he gets to the creation of man, however, Henry has a note on why the story is told in the first place,

Notice of, that we may know ourselves".

The Lord is a Great Storyteller, of course; all good stories are just variations on His own. But He doesn’t tell us about the creation of man merely to wrap up a good tale. No, He tells the story to impress upon us what we are and what we are--to Him.

What is Man? A library could be filled with books to answer that one, but the basic answer is also the most important—and forgotten one today: Man is a creature of the Creator. This means we are dependent on Him and obliged to serve Him.

The freedom He gives us to pursue our own happiness is always a freedom He gives—not one we take or have any right to.

Adam was a son of God; believers are children of God, but we are not God and not little gods either. This was true in Eden; it will be true in heaven. We are God’s most elevated creatures—not even angels have what we have—but that’s all we are: creatures dependent on the Lord and obliged to serve Him.

Man is not only the creation of God, but he’s the last thing the Lord ever made. Henry sees real significance in this.

This is something that never occurred to me, but it’s worth thinking about. If the Lord had created Adam on Day One, let’s say, the man might very well have thought that God couldn’t have done it without him! Or, if he knew better, maybe his grandchildren would one day think so. But the Lord would not allow this! He will not give His glory to another! Thus, Adam is made when everything else is already finished.

In addition to keeping us in our place (which is a high one, but not the Highest), the Lord made Man last to serve three other purpose. Here are the first two:

This is well said, isn’t it? If you have followed the Creation Week, you’ve seen that the lesser things were made before the greater things—the lifeless rock was followed by plant life which was followed by the lower animals (fish and birds), succeeded by the higher animals (cattle and beasts), with Man coming last because he is the highest creature God would ever make. This is quite an honor! The Lord might have turned things around on us. The lion is surely more powerful than we are, and had the Lord willed it, the big cats might have ruled us. But He didn’t will that. He made us last because we’re most important to Him.

In one way the animal rights people are right: torturing animals is sinful; letting your cat have twenty kittens and turning them loose to starve is too. But when these fanatics start equating dogs with humans or even putting cats above us, they’re not only talking nonsense; they’re talking rebellion. God put Man on top! We do the animals no favor by contradicting their Maker and ours!

Making Man last was not only an honor done us, but also a very great favor—another proof of the Lord’s goodness and love. In Bible days, couples didn’t marry and then start furnishing an apartment. They were eligible to marry, in fact, until the man had things ready—the house watertight, the land cleared, the oxen in harness, and so on. Only then was a man ready to bring his wife home. The Lord did something like this for Adam and Eve. It wasn’t until everything was up and running that He created them and put them in a world they could enjoy and live off.

A few inches down from this, Henry makes another good observation on why Man was made last,

Made the same day the beasts were, Man is humbled. But made after they were, he is reminded that he is not a beast and must not live as though he is!

The animals, of course, are not sinful. But they lack things we have, especially intelligence and love. A lion’s roar glorifies the Lord, but the lion doesn’t know that’s what he’s doing. But we do and we ought to glorify the Lord on purpose. Love is also missing in the animals. It’s true that a she-bear will protect her cubs, or that a bird will bring food to her little ones. But this is all done by instinct and not in love. C.S. Lewis calls this affection which is good in its own way, but falls way short of charity. But humans can love from the heart. And ought to.

The next thing Henry brings up is the wisdom of God in making Man. This has been mentioned before, of course: everything God made shows His great wisdom. But Man more than other things. Henry says,

It seems that making the sun or the moon or the trees or the fish was so easy for God that He just said it and they were made. But there’s more to making man than just saying a word. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (as it were) have to think it through and talk it out. Everything God made was perfect, of course, but Man more so. Special care went into our creation.

This shows that Man—unfallen—was exactly what God wanted him to be. He was fit to live in two worlds at the same time and without tension. His spirit was made to commune with God and his body was made to work the land, tame the animals, and kiss his wife.

This makes you want to cry. For, fallen into sin, we’re out of synch with everything—God, ourselves, other people, the natural world, you name it and we don’t quite fit in with it.

But it also makes you look forward to heaven when all things will be put right and our bodies and souls will be just what the doctor ordered.

One more thing here: We have another hint of the Trinity. "Let us make man in our image" doesn’t prove there are Three Persons in the Godhead, of course, but it hints at it and allows us to maintain the double truth that there is One God Only and that Jesus Christ is also God (along with the Holy Spirit).

The Lord did not only make us, but He made us in His own likeness and image. About this great favor, Henry says,

In three or four lines, Henry has produced a huge book of theology. Man resembles God in having a mind, a will, and a power other creatures don’t have. Animals do things by instinct or by training, but they don’t choose; they don’t make plans or carry them out. But all of these things are said of God and of us, too. Now, God’s knowledge, will, and power are far above our own, but they differ in degree, not in kind.

Because Man has a mind to think with and a heart to feel, he is given authority over the animals. The authority is under the Lordship of God, but it’s real dominion. In this way, too, we bear His Image in the world.

Before the Fall, Man was holy. He was not a blank slate or innocent only because of his primitiveness. No, Adam and Eve knew the will of God, loved that will, and—for a time—choose to do it. In this holiness, too, the first couple resembled their Maker. And we do too, to a far less degree, when we study our Bibles, love what we’ve read, and try to act on it.

The next thing you notice is that God created Man male and female.

I once heard a man say that Adam was sort of half male and half female. Wrong! Except for the Lord Jesus Christ, He was the manliest man who ever lived—not macho, but masculine. Eve wasn’t a tomboy either. She was the most feminine person who ever lived—again, I don’t mean some sissy girl—but womanly in the highest possible sense.

Both Adam and Eve were made in the Image of God. Though they were different in body and soul, they were identical as bearers of the Divine Image. But enough of what I say, let’s get back to Matthew Henry.

Everyone in the world is a cousin to everyone else. This means we ought to live as one big family. This was lost after Adam and Eve fell into sin, and lost again at the Tower of Babel, but in the coming of Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, God began putting the family back together. He’ll keep on doing this till all of His People will be and know that they’re brothers and sisters.

Next Henry says something about marriage,

As a Puritan minister, Henry believed that divorce was sometimes lawful. But he also knew that it was never the best. If you were a perfect man, I suppose it would be easy to live with a perfect woman, but it’s no longer so easy. Yet we ought to make every effort, deny ourselves often and dearly to live with husband or wife in love till death do us part.

Then, he brings up the kids,

This means that marriage is honorable and the bed is undefiled—and that kids are a blessing and not a burden, a mistake, or a curse.

Finally, Henry says something about the dominion God gave Man over the other creatures,

Dominion does not mean power; it means authority. Man has the power to do pretty much he wants to to the animals—including wiping them out (at least, many of them). But this is not what the Lord gave us. He gave us authority to care for them and to use them for His honor.

It is not wrong to butcher a cow, to shoot a deer, or to catch a fish. But it is wrong to be cruel or destructive. We can use the animals, but they don’t belong to us. They still belong to God and He put us here to exercise His authority over them. And His authority is always tempered with wisdom and kindness.

One last thing: Have you heard of Dominion Theology? It’s better known as Reconstruction. It claims to take this verse very seriously; it’s always urging us to take dominion over the world and to rule it for Christ.

The problem is, the dominion it wants is not over animals (which is what God gives us), but over men (which He doesn’t give us, at least not here!). Their argument, therefore, has to be looked at more carefully than some have done it.

Let’s be thankful that we are made in the Image of God. Let’s live up to His Image.

God bless you, everyone.