Blueletterbible.org (for looking up scripture references)

Lesson Two: The Creation of Man (Pastor Barbara Caesar-Stephenson)

Important Terms:  Fellowship, spirit, soul, body, spiritual death, physical realm, spiritual realm, senses, will

We have seen that man is the reason for creation. In the light of this fact, we turn to study the man whom God created to meet the cry of His being for fellowship.

Genesis 1 gives the account of the preparation God made for man before He created man. First, He planned a universe for man, and in the heart of that universe He purposed a home. When Love laid the foundation of this universe, he planned and purposed it all to be the home for His man. At the completion, God put His stamp of approval upon it. It will meet man’s every need. The home is now ready for man. (Genesis 1:25) God now makes the solemn declaration that He wishes to make man in His own image (Genesis 1:26). Knowing that fellowship is the reason for man, we can easily understand that man could not meet the reason for his very existence unless he were created in God’s image.

In order to partake of God’s life, he must be in God’s class, in God’s realm. He must be made in the image and likeness of Creator. He must be created as near like Deity as possible in order to be God’s child and heir. Genesis 1:27 records the creation of man in the image of God.  Adam was the first man. Genesis 2:7. Adam’s sin caused the fall of man. Man, after the fall, in his condition of spiritual death, could not know what the image of God was, without a revelation from Him. In John 4:24 Jesus Christ, the Incarnate One, revealed that the Father was a Spirit Being. In I Thessalonians 5:23 Paul in his revelation disclosed the fact that man is a triune being, consisting of a spirit, soul and body. The spirit is the real man, created in the image of God. The soul includes the reasoning faculties. The Father-God created man in His own image, a spirit being, with a soul and body. Man’s soul and body fit him for his life upon this material universe which has been created for him.

The real man is spirit. Man was to walk in fellowship with the Father God in His realm which is the realm of the spirit. Your body is not you. Your mind is not you. You have a mind which you use. You possess a body which you use. Your mind and body are merely the instruments of your spirit, the real you. The man who is spiritually dead dos not realize the fact that he was create din God’s image, to walk with Him. This is due to the fact that all the natural man is able to know about reality, he gains through the five senses belonging to his physical body. These physical sense organs of the human body can only receive a stimulus from a like substance, matter. Therefore, man’s senses can perceive only for him a physical or material realm. There exists, according to the scriptures, a spiritual realm as well as a physical. The Father, the Holy Spirit, the Angels, Satan and Demons, are all Spirit Beings, our physical senses do not contact this spiritual realm. Ephesians 6:1-20 reveals the spiritual warfare surrounding us from which our sense organs receive no stimuli. (Read also: 16:7-15; Hebrews 1:14; John 14:23; I Corinthians 3:16; I Peter 5:8; Mark 16:17; I John 4:16; James 4:7)

We are not aware through any physical contact, of the presence of the Holy Spirit or Angels. Because the doctor with the point of his knife, has not been able to locate the spirit of man, the materialists and atheists have said that the body is the whole man. Man has refused to have God in his knowledge, because he has not been able to see Him with his physical eye, hear Him with his physical ear, or touch Him. (Romans 1:18-25, 28) A fish might just as well say there is nothing outside of water, as for a man, limited to Sense Knowledge to say there exists nothing but matter.

We conclude that man is primarily a spirit being, created to walk with the Father God on His level. We realize that when He created man, God had no body; yet man’s fellowship was perfect and complete with Him. This reveals that man’s body was subordinate to his spirit, and that his spirit was to dominate. Man’s spirit was to rule his mind and his body. The body exists only for the spirit and soul of a person. The spirit operates through the soul or intellect, and these in turn operate through the physical body. At death the man and his soul leave the body. When man has left his body, the body has no reason for existing; therefore, dissolution and disintegration set in at once.

Another crowning feature which the Father God gave to His man was man’s will. The will has the power of choice, the ability to choose, to determine one’s actions. God assumed a great responsibility in creating a being with a will. Yet no other type of being could have answered the reason for creation. Without this will, God’s created one would have been a machine, not a man, a puppet or robot instead of a person. The desire of the Father is for fellowship. This fellowship must come from man, not as the response to an instinct, but as a result of his deep love, his own choice. There could be no fellowship with a puppet. (Luke 9:23)  Obedience to Him is a result of love. (John 14:21-24)

The Scriptures declare that when man was created he had a mind, intellectually of such character that he was able to name the entire animal creation. “And out of the ground Jehovah God formed every beast of the field, and every bird of the heavens: and brought them to man to see what he would call them: and whatsoever man called the living creature, that was the name thereof. And the man have names to all cattle and to the birds of heaven, and to every beast of the field.” (Genesis 2:19-20) When we realize that there are over 500,000 bugs, birds, worms, animals, fish and reptiles that Adam names, we can understand that he possessed intellectual capacities that enabled him to rule creation. We know that the reason for man’s existence is the Father-God’s craving for fellowship. Therefore, man’s mental capacities were such that his mind could fellowship with the mind of his Creator. When man was created, he was planned a perfect human being with an endless human life. His body was not mortal nor immortal. The word mortal means “death doomed” or “Satan ruled.” Man was an eternal spirit being in God’s class, with an eternal human body. Adam’s body was perfect and fit to be the temple of God’s under ruler. Reading the Scripture through the mind ruled by the sense, we have overlooked the tremendous place man held in the heart of God. He was the object of the Father-God’s love and affection. It was the joy of the Father to give His man dominion over the works He had created. This man had by creation the ability to rule the universe. (Genesis 1:28)

Psalm 8:3-9 is a revelation of the creation of the first man as the Father God desired him to be and to live.  Psalm 8:5 “ … Made him but little lower than God. The King James Version reads  angels but the correct translation is God. The Hebrew word used in this verse is Elohim, it is the same word that is used in Genesis 1:1 “ In the beginning God or Elohim. The thought of the Hebrew is that man is just a shade lower than God. Man was created as nearly like the Father God as was possible. Man was to be God’s companion and under ruler. His dominion reacted to the utmost star and planet. His dominion was as far reaching as Christ’s rule (the second Adam) shall be when He shall take over the dominion of the universe. Hebrews 2:5-8 is a revelation of Adam’s dominion. Hebrews 2:8 reveals that man no loner holds that dominion. Hebrews 2:9 shows that the lost dominion of Adam has been given to Christ by virtue of His sacrifice on man’s behalf. Hebrews 1:3 gives to us a suggestion as to the way Adam ruled God’s creation.  Jesus now upholds all things by the Word of His power. Adam ruled creation by his word. His voice was like the voice of his Creator in its dominion over creation. Adam possessed such complete authority over creation that he had in his hands the legal right to convert that dominion to another being. We will see later in another lesson that he did this very thing. It is impossible to over estimate the responsibility of Adam. He was responsible for the heart joy of the Father God for the human family yet unborn.

God could have spoken the entire human family into existence at once, but He did not choose that way. In Genesis 1:28, he made Adam and Eve fellow workers with Him in bringing the human family into the world. God gave to man the ability to reproduce himself or beget children. These children were primarily for the joy and glory of God. Instead of creating the human race by one single word, the Father-God created one man and woman. He said to them I permit you to give birth to My children to rear, educate and care for them, teaching them to love Me, and to respond to My yearning. So man’s real business was to give birth to God’s children. (what does this mean for Gay people?)  This gives a real responsibility to man that can only be measured by eternity. Man gives birth to eternal personalities, to children who will live as long as God lives. Man then is the custodian of God’s joy. We have dwelt in detail on the creation of the human race in Adam for a very definite reason, the renewing of your mind.

Spiritual Death:  Until the time that we were born again, we lived in the realm of spiritual death. We had known of no condition for humanity outside of the bondage of that realm. During that period we all became familiar with the creation of man as given to us in Genesis 1 and 2, but we know it only through the word (carnal?) mind, which is enmity toward God.  (Romans 8:7)

In the story of Creation, we did not see that man was the reason for the existence of the universe, to us, man played a minor role. Our spirits alienated from God, we did not grasp the Father God’s longing for children and His joy in creating a man in His own image, with dominion over creation. We saw instead a God for whom we felt no love or nearness, a “policeman” type of God.We saw the creation of man as a pitiful failure, the creation of a poor, weak, worm of the dust. We saw it as Satan would have us see it. I Corinthians 15:45-49 tells us of two creations, the creation of Adam and the new spiritual creation in Christ. In Adam we see man marred by the entrance of spiritual death, losing his fellowship with the Father-God and his authority over creation. In Christ, we see spiritual death destroyed and man made a new creature – as free from the dominion of spiritual death as though Adam never sinned. As you learn about the place and reason for the first creation, you will know what you mean to the Father-heart of God. A low conception of the creation in Adam has given to us a low conception of the new creation in Christ.

Study Questions:

Why did the Father-God create man in His own image?
What kind of a being is God? Is man? (give a scripture for each.)
Why is that natural man does not recognize the existence of the spiritual?
In what realm was man to live?
Why did God give to man a will?
What incident reveals the type of mind Adam had?
What kind of body did Adam possess?
What scriptures reveal the authority that Adam had before the fall? What authority was his?
How near like God had Adam been created?
Why is it necessary for us to see the place the first creation held in God’s plan?