by Timothy W. Burnett
Starting with Genesis 1:26-27, "And God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.'"
"So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him, male and female created He them." Two interesting things about the above verses are that God created man and woman in His image, and that He originally created man to have dominion over His other creations.
This dominion was from God in heaven. In essence, Adam had authority over all the creatures and plants that God made on the earth. God gave him authority to rule over these things.
A more extensive study of Adam's dominion will show that he relinquished his authority at a later time. According to Genesis 2:16-17, God commanded that Adam could freely eat from every tree of the garden, but he was not permitted to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which would result in death.
So man and woman were originally designed to not experience death. After they disobeyed God, the nature of death entered into their genetic make-up. It stands to reason upon Adam's first disobedience of God, he would have given up his authority over what God made.
This abdication of man's authority and power is confirmed in Luke 4:6-7, "And the devil said unto him, 'All this power will I give you, and the glory of them. For that is delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will, I give it, if you will worship me, all shall be yours.'"
The devil offered to give Jesus all the power that he has if Jesus bowed down to worship him. One thing we can learn from this is that the devil wanted to trick Jesus into giving up his own power and authority, which was from his Father in heaven. With this in mind, we can see that Adam gave up his authority from God and transferred it to the devil.
Another thing we learn from Genesis 1:26-27 is that God created mankind in his image. God repeats it three different times between verse 26 and 27. To understand what it means to be created in God's image we must understand what God is made of. One verse which provides a clear answer to this is found in John 4:24, "God is a spirit�"
The image and essence of God is spirit. Spirit has no shape or form for our five senses to perceive with. Therefore, to create man in God's image must be related to His spirit. In other words, God would have put His spirit in the man and communicated with him by the same spirit.
According to Genesis 2:7, God formed man from the elements of the earth. He then breathed in his nostrils the breath of life making man a living soul. It would have been at this point that God put His spirit in the man.
More information can be found in 1Thessalonians 5:23, "�and I pray to God that your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved�" A complete individual is somebody who is of body, soul and spirit. The references to body and soul align with the part of Genesis where God formed man out of the earth and then breathed life into him. The man's body was first formed, and then his soul life started when God breathed air into his body.
God finished his work with man by putting His spirit in him. This made him a complete man made in God's image. In the name of Jesus Christ, people can believe the Gospel unto being filled with holy spirit and get born-again. In the name of Jesus our Lord, they become complete with a body that was formed in the womb, soul life that began upon their first breath of air outside the womb, and God�s holy spirit.
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