The creation of man in Genesis 1:26 is markedly different compared to everything God has previously done. Until this point, God has simply been issuing commands to create. Now He allows us to overhear the sacred conversation between His own triune persons regarding the creation of man.
The Lord God is doing something very special here. Francis Schaeffer, in Genesis in Space and Time, says, “It is as though God put exclamation points here to indicate that there is something special about the creation of man.”
The Lord created us in such a wondrous, solemn way for several reasons:
● Because we alone were to bear God’s image (Gen. 1:26);
● Because we alone were to be God’s deputies, His vice-regents, on earth (Gen. 1:28);
● Because we alone were given immortal souls (Gen. 2:7); and
● Because the Son of God was to appear in our nature (Isa. 7:14).
The creation of mankind has important ramifications for two issues commonly raised today. First, some people wrongly assert that Genesis 1 and 2 represent contradictory accounts of creation. The two accounts are complementary, not contradictory. Genesis 1 deals with man in his cosmic setting, that is, against the whole background of creation; Genesis 2 puts man at the center of creation, showing us that the focus is on man as the pinnacle of God’s creative work. Genesis 2 is simply a more detailed, complementary account of God’s creation of man, setting before us in an orderly way a progressive focus on man in God’s world.
Second, the special creation of mankind stresses that Adam and Eve were real people, not just mythical beings. You and I belong to a different order from everything that God had previously created. The New Testament decisively speaks of Adam and Eve as historical individuals. For example, Romans 5:12 says, “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” Paul here parallels the two Adams: the actual Adam, through whom sin entered the world, and a second Adam, Christ Jesus, through whom salvation came to us. Paul maintains the historicity of both Adam and Jesus.
