The Crown of Creation

The date was July, 1925. The place—a crowded, sweltering courtroom in the little town of Dayton, Tennessee. 600 people were jammed into that little courtroom to witness what many were calling the Trial of the Century. The defendant was John T. Scopes, a football coach and substitute biology teacher at the local high school. Scopes had been charged with violating the laws of the State of Tennessee by presenting the theory of evolution in a public school classroom.

The prosecution was led by William Jennings Bryan, a well-known lawyer who had served as Secretary of State and been a three-time presidential candidate. The prosecution team included various Christian leaders of the day who supported Biblical creation.

The attorney for the defense was a famous criminal lawyer—Clarence Darrow of the American Civil Liberties Union. Newspaper reporters packed the courtroom and breathlessly reported each day’s proceedings to the American public. They dubbed it the Scopes Monkey Trial, because it revolved around the evolutionary teaching that man had descended from apes.

The most sarcastic and widely read journalist was H. L. Mencken of the Baltimore Evening Sun. Mencken, a skeptic, painted Bryan and the creationists as a bunch of fanatical, ignorant yokels.

During the trial, Clarence Darrow maneuvered Bryan into taking the stand as an expert witness on biblical creation. In his ruthless questioning, Darrow succeeded in completely humiliating Bryan. In fact, William Jennings Bryan died just days after the trial was over. Many people felt that he died of shame.

What is forgotten today is that Darrow and the evolutionists actually lost the trial. The jury found John Scopes guilty, although the conviction was later overturned on a technicality – that technicality being that the judge had mistakenly imposed the fine rather than the jury.

But in many ways, the legal outcome was beside the point. The Scopes Monkey Trial was a public relations triumph for those who supported the theory of evolution. It was a watershed event culturally, because it marked a very real turning point in the way that the question of human origins was presented to the public. For the remainder of the 20^(th) century, evolution became the “politically-correct”, educationally accepted view, while creationism was discredited as the view of uneducated religious fundamentalists.

A good measure of how far we’ve come is when you consider the fact that while 77 years ago, you weren’t allowed to teach evolution in the public schools, today in 2002, you aren’t allowed to teach biblical creation. Things have certainly changed!

Let me read to you an excerpt of a statement made by the Academy Of Science of The Royal Society of Canada which was delivered to each Provincial Minister of Education in Canada in 1985:

“Scientific creationism” does not belong in any discussion of scientific principles or theories, and therefore should have no place in a science curriculum. In its modern form, the Theory of Evolution remains the only explanation for the diversity of life on this planet that is acceptable to the scientific community.

The Bible’s view of human origins—the view that Adam and Eve were real people who were the parents of the human race is forbidden by law to be taught in the public schools in many parts of North America because it is seen to be essentially religious not scientific.

What IS being taught is the Theory of Evolution. The Theory of Evolution holds that man has evolved upward from lower life forms over a period of millions of years. Man can trace his family tree back through the monkeys and the mammals and the reptiles and the fish to simple one-celled organisms, which themselves sprang to life from inanimate chemicals.

The Theory of Evolution teaches that man is still in the process of evolving, still getting better, smarter, and more noble. Someday in the future, we will be much higher and more sophisticated beings than we are today. This is the popularly presented view of human origins today.

Oddly enough, however, in spite of the past 77 years, the Theory of Evolution has not succeeded in universally winning over the minds of the people. Today, in 2002, surveys indicate that a half of the population, and a growing number of scientists, are questioning the validity of the Theory of Evolution and are increasingly adopting a position that life on earth is the result of Intelligent Design.

The book of Genesis teaches us that man indeed is the result of Intelligent Design. He did not evolve—he was specifically created by God—carefully formed as a complete individual. Furthermore, Genesis teaches us that there was a first man and a first woman, and that all human beings descended from these original parents.

Let’s examine how Genesis presents this information to us. I would invite you to turn to Genesis 1:26…

Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Last week, we saw that the whole creation account of Genesis 1 moves to a climax on the Sixth Day. There is much indication of that in the text. For example, God spoke differently on Day Six. On the other days, when God created things, He said “Let there be…” and there was. But on the Sixth Day, when he came to make man, he saio “Let us make man in our image” (v.26) Notice the plural pronoun “us”—it may be simply the plural of majesty, or royalty, but it may also hint at the doctrine of the Trinity which will be developed later in Scripture.

A few weeks ago, we looked at the Hebrew word “bara” – to make, or to create. It is a very special word that is only used in the Bible with God as the subject. The word “bara” is used five times in Genesis 1. First, it appears in Genesis 1:1 where God created the heavens and the earth. It appears in verse 21, where God created animal life—the birds of the air and the fish of the sea.

But then it appears three times in one verse, Genesis 1:27, where God created man. This repeated use of the verb “bara” is an important indication that man is the greatest of all God’s creative works. He is literally the crown of creation.

In Genesis 2:7 we read that “the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” And this introduces a new name for God into the creation account.

All the way through chapter 1 God is referred to as just plain God—“Elohim” in Hebrew. But here, as he creates man, God is presented in a new way—as “Yahweh Elohim”—the Lord God. Yahweh is a special name for God. It is the name he used in all of his dealings with his people. It’s the name that means he’s the one who enters into a covenant with man. It is the name of the Promise Keeper. It’s the name that the Jewish people regard to be so sacred that they won’t even say it. It’s the name that speaks of relationship between God and man.

So that’s significant. When God created man, He revealed himself by a new name – the name of one who enters into relationship with this creature he has just created. That indicates just how important we are in God’s creation, and also how different we are from the rest of God’s creation.

This is what the Bible presents as the origin of man. Man is a being who was specifically created by God, whose creation marks the crowning work of all God’s creative activity (the piece de resistance) and whose purpose in being created is so that he might enjoy a relationship with God.

This is completely at odds with the Theory of Evolution, which states that man is not a specific divine creation, but merely the product of millions of years of random molecular activity; that he is not in any sense the “crowning work” of a creator, but merely an organism in the process of evolving into something else; and that the very idea of there being a creator, let alone the possibility of being in relationship with that creator, is merely a product of this organism’s survival instincts.

If that is true, then the Bible cannot be true. But if the Bible is true, then the Theory of Evolution cannot be true. These two views are mutually opposed.

Let’s look more closely at the Bible’s view of man’s origins to see whether or not it is credible – whether it is true to our experience of what it means to be human.

In these verses in Genesis 1, the Bible says that when God made us, He gave us four things:

1. Personhood

2. Position

3. Posterity

4. Possession

Let’s look at each of these things.

1. Personhood

Look at verse 26 - Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.” God made us in his image and likeness. The words there are not meant to be understood physically – we don’t physically resemble God because God is a spirit. But we DO resemble God in that we also have an immaterial spiritual part of us.

We are physical beings, and in that sense, we resemble the animals. In fact it is our physical resemblance to the animals that makes the Theory of Evolution seem perhaps plausible. Our bodies work on the same principles as their do.

• Skeletons

• Muscles

• Blood

• Breathe oxygen

• Need food

In fact, Genesis 2:7 confirms this physical component when it says:

Genesis 2:7 The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground…

The word “formed” is the word “yasa” and it is the word from which the Hebrews took their word “yoser”—potter, one who works with clay. God formed us physically from material that already existed. And in that sense, we are no different from the animals, because God formed them the same way, as it says in Genesis 2:19. So as human beings, we have a lot of resemblance to the animals.

Someone has calculated the value of the chemicals and minerals that are found in the human body to be worth about $20. The old Bible commentator Matthew Henry said that man was not made from gold dust, or powder of pearl, or diamond dust, just ordinary old dust.

But the fatal flaw of the naturalist is to say that that is ALL that we are. The assumption that the Theory of Evolution rests upon is that we are ONLY material physical organisms – that when you understand the physical component of us, you understand everything about us.

So that makes it easy for us to kill unborn babies and euthanize elderly people who are no longer productive and potentially create clones of ourselves so that we can harvest organs. As if the human race were nothing more than a big ant colony.

And that is not true. Because the Bible says that there is not only a physical component to man, there is a spiritual component as well. There is an immaterial part of our being that you cannot explain on the basis of anatomy, or the biological processes that are taking place inside of us. We are physical beings with a spiritual component – a component that has been put there by God, and that resembles God, and that is therefore sacred and not to be trifled with.

When God created man, it says in Genesis 2:7…

Genesis 2:7 He breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

God wasn’t performing physical CPR there – he wasn’t just getting man’s physical lungs started. No he was doing something far more important. This is the Bible’s way of saying that God was imparting to man the image – the spiritual component of his being. Man didn’t just become a “living being” as the NIV states; he became a living soul (KJV).

The word for breath in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin is identical with the word for spirit in those languages. For instance, in Latin, the word for spirit is “spiritus”. But that is also the word for “breath”.

We can see this in a lot of English words that have been derived from Latin. When people “aspire” they take a deep breath and try harder. When they “conspire”, they put their heads together and breathe in and out with each another. A man is “inspired” when someone else blows some wind into his sails. We “perspire” by breathing out through our skin. When we “expire”, we breathe out for the last time. We die.

In Greek, the word for spirit is “pneuma”, and that is also the word for “breath”. We’ve got some English words that reflect this, too. A tool that is pneumatic - like a pneumatic drill - runs on air. When we get pneumonia, our ability to breathe is impaired.

The Hebrew word for breath is the word “ruach”, and you have to breathe out to even say it properly. The Bible is telling us that when God breathed into man the breath of life, He imparted to Adam a spirit. He gave him an invisible component that would make him much more than just a pile of dust, but a living, breathing, eternal being.

When he gave us that spiritual component, that image of himself, He gave us personhood. Personhood is what makes us each totally unique and totally valuable. Personhood is what gives a sanctity to each human life that is not true of animal life. There is a sacred value to each and every human being, from the unborn baby in a mother’s womb to an elderly Alzheimer’s patient who can no longer communicate. We bear the image of our Creator.

Personhood is what makes us self-aware. Personhood is what gives us the capacity to wonder and imagine and love. Personhood is something the animals do not have – even the highest and most intelligent of them.

There have been sophisticated experiments to teach certain higher animals to communicate using a simple language of symbols. But what trained gorilla ever passed on that accumulated learning to its children? What chimpanzee possesses a real sense of right and wrong? What dolphin shows any desire to worship? What animal has a hope of immortality that reaches beyond the grave?

When did you ever see a dog admiring a sunset, or a horse standing amazed before a majestic mountain range? Did an orangutan ever compose a symphony? Does a whale ever recite poetry? Do lions laugh? Do cows cry?

No, these are the kind of things that only a person can do—a self-conscious, self-aware person. God has an intellect—so he has given us one too. God has a will—so he has given us one too. God has emotions—he has given us emotions too. He has a moral component—He knows right from wrong, and he has given us that capacity too through our conscience. God is love, so he has given us the capacity and desire to love also.

God has made us in his image and likeness, and that makes us unique in all creation. Apparently, not even the angels share in the image of God. But one of the angels—Lucifer—wanted to be like God. He rebelled against God’s perfect plan for him and became the devil. And that may explain why Satan is so hostile to the human race. Because he sees man possessing something that he wanted to have but was denied.

So here we are, an interesting combination. We are high; we bear the image of God, and yet we are low; we are made of the dust of the earth. We are spiritual beings, but we are also physical beings. And part of the experience of being human is to come to grips with that strange, sometimes awkward and painful dichotomy.

2. God gave us a Position.

Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

God gave us dominion over creation. He created us to rule over all the earth. And

God confirmed that position by bringing all the animals to Adam to name, as we see in chapter 2. And remember in the Bible, the person who named something had power and authority over that which he had named.

In Genesis 3, we are going to see that man fell morally. Because of that Fall, and because of our alienation from God, our relationship with creation has been disastrously affected. Our dominion over the earth has not been beneficial, or good for the earth. We have used this planet and its resources irresponsibly. We have spoiled much of the land, we have polluted the atmosphere, and we have fouled the seas in our fevered desire to find the good life we are missing.

You ask, What would it look like if we were to take our responsibility over creation seriously? What would it look like if we were to use our position of authority for good rather than for selfish ends?

Well, I confess that I don’t really know what a biblical theology of the environment should look like. After thousands of years, it is almost overwhelming to think of how we can undo the wrong we have done. But I have a feeling that we might find the beginnings of what that would look like in the life of Jesus – the one human being who ever lived who didn’t abuse the environment.

He was a carpenter, so in that sense he used wood, and he used technology to produce things; he was a productive part of the local economy. But his use of the environment didn’t leave his world the worse for wear.

When Jesus became involved in his public ministry, we see the kind of dominion and sovereignty over nature that Adam was supposed to exercise. Remember, Jesus had dominion over the fish of the sea, when he said to his disciples “Put down your nets on the other side” and they emerged bulging with fish. He had dominion over the birds of the air, when he told Peter that a rooster would crow at the precise moment when Peter denied his Lord.

He had dominion over the animals, when he rode an unbroken donkey colt into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.

He had dominion over the sky above when he stilled the storm and the sea below when he calmed the waves. He had dominion over the plants when he multiplied a little boy’s barley loaves into a banquet for five thousand, and when he turned ordinary rainwater into sweet wine without the benefit of grapevines.

Jesus, in effect, shows us what Adam could have been, and thanks to Jesus one day that position will be redeemed and restored.

I would challenge some of our young people to think in terms of getting involved in formulating a responsible Christian view of the environment, and how we use the environment. It’s part of the position God has given us.

3. God gave us a posterity

God told us to be fruitful and multiply…

Genesis 1:28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.

This verse is often thought of as a command, but it is actually a statement of blessing. God is pronouncing a blessing on Adam and Eve when he tells them to be fruitful and multiply.

God blessed us by granting us the privilege of being involved in creating future human beings—a posterity. If you have ever had children you know that to be involved in the mystery of conceiving and giving birth to a baby—a unique new person who himself, or herself, bears the image of God—is to participate with God in a miracle. And God gave Adam and Eve, and all of us as human parents, that remarkable privilege.

The Bible says that Adam and Eve were our first parents, and in so doing it goes against the doctrine of evolution, which says that there was no real personal “beginning” to the human race—we simply evolved gradually from lower life forms.

Many people today reject the idea that Adam and Eve were real people. They like to think of them as mythical characters who never really lived, but whose story is included in the Bible to teach us some moral lessons.

If you take that view, though, there are some pretty far-reaching implications. You would have to throw out a lot of the New Testament. For example, Jesus’ genealogy in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 3, traces his family ancestry back to Adam.

The Apostle Paul believed that Adam and Eve were real. He told the Athenian philosophers that “From one man God made every nation of men.”

He taught in the book of Romans that sin entered the world through Adam, the first man, and that death passed to all of us because of Adam’s sin – something that wouldn’t make sense if Adam weren’t our forefather. But Jesus, whom Paul calls the “last Adam”, came to undo what the first Adam had done. But if the first Adam wasn’t real, then Paul’s whole argument about what Jesus did is pointless.

Theologically speaking, there is an unbreakable link between Genesis 1 and the rest of the Bible. If you throw out one, you have to throw out the other. If Adam wasn’t a real person, then Jesus couldn’t have been a real Savior. The historical reality of Adam and Eve is vitally important to many other Bible doctrines. We’ll see more of that later when we get to Genesis 3.

4. God gave us a possession

Genesis 1:29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.

God gave us the whole earth and its provision. From the moment he created us, God has been concerned about our welfare, and our needs. He’s always giving and providing.

Paul said:

Acts 14:17 He has shown kindness by giving us rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides us with plenty of food and fills our hearts with joy.

So that tells us that God is benevolent. He is generous. He cares about us. And the appropriate response is for us to live our lives with thanksgiving for what He has done for us.

So what have we learned today?

God has given us a possession—the earth and all its bounty. He has blessed us with a posterity—the ability to work with him in bringing other human beings into existence. He has placed us in a position—we are part of nature, but we are also over nature.

And he has blessed us with personhood. We resemble God, we bear his image, and in that respect we are unique in all of His creation. Yet that image has been marred and distorted and almost lost because of the terrible thing that happened in Genesis 3.

And the result is that we are now far from what God intended us to be. But the rest of the Bible tells us that God did something about that. He found a way to give us back what we lost—and to give us much more besides.

I believe that without this basic understanding of where we came from, and who we have been created to be as human beings, we cannot truly know what it means to be human.

To deny that God is our creator and that we are made in his image is to wander into a desolate wasteland where there is no basis for morality, no protection for the underprivileged, no respect for the dignity of life, and no sense of purpose in living. These are the bitter fruits of the Theory of Evolution, and I thank God that the book of Genesis tells us the truth.