God’s Image: Male and Female

September 8, 2013 Background Scripture: Genesis 1, 2; 5:1, 2 Lesson Passage: Genesis 2:18 – 25 What is God like? Where is He? Why can’t I see Him? How do I know He is listening to me when I talk to Him? Why are spirits invisible? Can spirits feel pain? Inquiring minds want to know. Whether one is saved or lost, these questions will still nag us every now and then. Children will sometimes grasp the answers quicker than adults will. For instance, studies have shown that a child’s first impression of what God is like is based on the “father figure” in his or her life. That’s an excellent start to answering the rest of those questions. Our lesson today helps us to see this much clearer. “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:” There are some serious implications in this statement—especially in light of the fact that it is a direct quote from God. One implication is that one can answer many of the questions above by starting with a healthy understanding of mankind. Of course the catch here is the adjective “healthy”. Unregenerate mankind lives in a fallen state of sin. Once a person is saved then the Spirit of God lives in him. At that point, many of those questions become irrelevant to that individual because the Spirit leads us into all truths. Man was created in the image and likeness of God. After the fall of Adam from grace, this image and likeness became tarnished because of sin. Even so, there are still many parallels between man and the attributes that God has revealed about Himself. God experiences emotions including those that are joyful and painful. God is intelligent or rational. God has revealed Himself as having a triune nature—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. God is sovereign and rules over all. Likewise, man experiences both joy and sorrow. Man is rational and capable of logical assessment. Man is triune in that he is spirit, soul, and body. Even in the most primitive of societies, man establishes some recognizable form of government where ruling factions are apparent. It has long been recognized that man is both material and immaterial in composition. Thoughts, emotions, and will are all immaterial aspects of man. What we haven’t always come to grip with is that even primitive societies engage in rituals of religion or worship of a higher power. This is indicative of man having a spiritual component in his immaterial self. Religious behavior is not observed in other living creatures on earth. Even in a fallen state, man reflects characteristics that are parallel to what God has revealed about Himself. When man accepts God’s offer of salvation, God’s image and likeness become more evident to the saved person because they are manifest in the spirit. Anger gradually gives way to tolerance. Joy begins to supersede happiness as a higher state of emotional well-being. Indifference is overcome by compassion. Not only do we more easily recognize the image and likeness of God, we also begin to reflect God’s glory. Note that none of these characteristics are gender specific. “In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; male and female created he them;” Robert C. Hudson August 28, 2013

God Creates

September 1, 2013 Background Scripture: Psalm 104 Lesson Passage: Psalm 104:5 – 9, 24 – 30 Psalm 104 is Genesis 1 put to song. The psalmist celebrates God’s work of creation by presenting the creation with a backdrop of drama. In this psalm, the inanimate is given life and personality. The elements respond to God’s voice with fear and complete obedience. They remain wherever God sends them and steadfastly refuses to do anything contrary to His word. God is not presented here as building or constructing physical things but rather putting life into everything and having it obey His instructions. In the beginning, the waters went wherever they desired. Even today we say that water is unstable and continuously seeks the lowest level. But at God’s command, the waters recognized boundaries that previously were unknown and respect them continuously. The obedience of nature to God’s voice is perfect and without any sign of wavering. There is no sin or disobedience in nature. The earth will never again be covered completely by water because God has decreed it. I believe that global warming is real but I know that there are absolute limits to even that because God has set the boundaries. No matter how much the polar icecaps melt they will never be able to completely cover the earth with water. God’s creation is so vast that scientists are consumed with trying to comprehend the earth while pondering the expanse of space that appears to be ever expanding. Every year new creatures are discovered on land as well as in the great depths of the oceans. There are many oceanic regions that have never been seen or visited by man. Every time man goes a little deeper into an ocean, new life forms are discovered that are so unique that we create a new category just to classify them. Even the different oceans have different types of creatures living in them. In spite of the harvesting and burning of forest lands that occur annually, there are still forest areas in the world that yield new creatures to the investigative eye. After all of these years of scientific study and books being printed, we still run across a frog in a forest that’s never been recognized by science before. When the psalmist exclaimed “how manifold are thy works”, it was a statement that still applies today even if one considers just sea life. All of these creatures are at God’s mercy. They depend on Him for their food and they appear to rejoice at His provision for them. When God does not provide the things that are needed to sustain life, the creatures of the wild become disturbed. When He takes away their oxygen, they die and their bodies decompose and once again become part of the earth. Yet the earth remains and life flourishes because God sends forth His life-giving Spirit to replenish it. All of nature, what we call inanimate and animate, responds to God’s voice. Life springs up and gives movements that appear to be random and what we call inanimate responds to what seems to be invisible laws of nature with predictable ebbs and flows. Everything is in perfect harmony even as it was in the beginning. All of this wonder exists because God chose to create. Robert C. Hudson August 26, 2013