Man Made in the Image of God
By G. E. T.
“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 creepeth 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.” Gen. 1: 26, 27. “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” Gen. 2: 7. How vastly different is this sublime account of the creation of man, from the scientific conjectures of the present time! The Mosaic account of the creation is discounted by the skeptical speculations of science and higher criticism. Men whose names are not worth remembering, oppose their infidel fancies and shallow dicta against the words of the ever-living God which have been revered through millenniums and have plowed their way through centuries of unbelief. According to the science of evolution, creation began with a “speck of protoplasm,” or some atom of “transparent jelly,” or “monad,” somewhere away down under the tenanted sea, in the mud, so small that it would be barely visible under the microscope. By a process of evolution through numberless ages of a past eternity, this “organism without organs,” this “structureless structure,” evolved itself into mollusks, oysters, tadpoles, fishes, frogs, monkeys, etc., and finally man appeared on the stage of being. Man thus came from the simian stem direct. Those who believe this, must expect to find their ancestors in the zoological gardens; but the writer is not looking for his ancestry in the cages of monkeys and apes. The awful and sublime “Scripture of truth” declares that man was formed from dust by the plastic hand of God, made in the very image of his Creator. There was no evolving. God spoke, “and it was.” How degrading to both God and man are the infidel teachings of science and higher criticism! How much better to believe the noble, dignified account of man’s Creator as given in Holy Writ! “It introduces man upon the earth in the character of the king of the world, made immediately by God’s hand in God’s image.” But the claim is put forth that as the Creator breathed into the nostrils of Adam the breath of life, he thus becoming a “living soul,” this conveyed to him the attribute of immortality. But notice the language: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground.” That which was formed from the ground was not the house in which the man was to tabernacle, but was the real man himself. Those who believe in the immortal soul theory claim that the soul is the real man; but the real man was formed from the dust, and life was given him by the breath of the Almighty. To claim, as some do, that the words “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” prove the immortality of the soul, leads to a necessary but most shocking conclusion. Of the time of the Flood we read: “And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.” Gen. 7: 21, 22. The psalmist declares, “Thou hidest Thy face, they are troubled: Thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust.” Ps. 104: 29. If the term “breath of life” means that man has an immortal, deathless spirit, it would mean the same when applied to the animal kingdom, and all creatures would thus be made immortal. That which proves too much, and leads to such a horrible and disgusting conclusion, must be abandoned as untenable. We have the benefit of a special comment by the apostle Paul concerning the meaning of the phrase “living soul”: “It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. . . . The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.” 1 Cor. 15: 44, 45, 47. “The apostle’s argument is lost in the misleading English version. The English reader must understand that the word translated ‘natural’ in verse 46, is an adjective formed from the noun psuche, translated ‘soul’ in the phrase ‘living soul,’ of the Greek version of Genesis. It is as if our word ‘soul’ stood for ‘animal,’ and we had such an adjective as ‘soulical’ formed from it. The comment of the apostle then becomes clear. ‘There is a soulical or animal body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul, or animal [a phrase distinctly applied in the Scripture to the brutes]; the last Adam was made a life-giving spirit. The first man was of the earth, a man of dust: the second Man is the Lord from heaven.’—‘Life of Christ,’ page 91.” The term “living soul” is not a term equivalent to “immortal soul”! It simply means a living being, or man. The fish of the sea are spoken of as “living souls,” but we are not to conclude that they are immortal, or deathless, for we are told that under the pouring out of the second plague they all die. That man was not clothed with the attributes of immortality, and therefore with an endless life, is clear from the fact that the Lord, in order that sin might not be perpetuated through all eternity, cut off man’s access to the tree of life as soon as he sinned. “And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of Us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever: therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So He drove out the man; and He placed at the east of the Garden of Eden cherubim73and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.” Gen. 3: 22-24. Man was not therefore immortal. In order to live forever, he must be permitted to eat of the tree of life. Not one of the human family has ever passed this “flaming sword,” so there is not an immortal sinner on the earth to-day. Our hope of life, therefore, is through Christ, who came that we might have life, and “have it more abundantly.” John 10: 10.