Gluten Free & God Seeking: Why Did God Create Man in Genesis 1:26?

Sunday, August 23, 2015

Why Did God Create Man in Genesis 1:26?

God created man. Not everyone believes that, but that's what the Bible says. That poster that hangs in a lot of science rooms of man's evolution from apes just never seemed right to me. It discounts the brilliance of the Almighty--like God couldn't do it right the first time. Why can't people just believe Genesis 1:26? Man is unique in the universe because man was made in the image of God:

And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of heaven and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.

For years I thought dominion was just a matter of man being like a caregiver over all the creatures on the earth. I really didn't get what dominion was really all about until I read this study on Genesis.

In chapter 6 I learned that God created man for 2 purposes, and they're seen in the words image and dominion. In chapter 6 Witness Lee shares how man's being created in the image of God is just like a glove is made in the image of a hand. When we opened our hearts to the Lord, He came into us. Finally "the hand" came into "the glove." This was God's original intention even before man fell in Genesis 3!

Secondly, man was created so that he would exercise dominion over God's enemy Satan, implied in the words "every creeping thing." I learned in my reading that it would have been easy for God to demolish Satan, but He wants man to deal with His enemy. I read chapter 7 of the Life-Study of Genesis with a new believer, and we were both amazed at what we read on page 81:

God wants to regain the earth. The earth has become a crucial place, a place that Satan wants to hold and a place that God wants to regain. The battle is over the earth. Whoever gains the earth is the winner. If Satan can keep the earth under his hand, he has the victory. If God can regain the earth, He will have the victory….The church must fight the battle to regain the earth, if not the whole earth, at least some stepping stones, some outposts for the Lord Jesus to put His feet upon. The earth is crucial (Lee, Witness. Life-Study of Genesis. Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1974, Print).