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… By reason of His complacency in His own nature, God desires to manifest Himself — to express and to make known His own being — to develope His own character of life. God is also disposed to hold fellowship with His spiritual universe. Had He preferred solitude, He could have dwelt alone in His own eternity, or have created merely these material forms which, like a sea of glass, should have reflected His nature in the cold distance of an unconscious and inanimate likeness. But willing to hold fellowship with His creatures, determining to make Himself visible, and delighting in His own nature with infinite complacency — He made man in His own image. This reflection of Himself was pleasant to God. He rejoiced in this work. He looked upon what He had made, and to Him it seemed good. He ceased to create when He bad made man, and entered on His sabbath satisfied with this masterwork of His hand. His own blessedness was increased because livingly reflected. As the artist rejoices when his metal, or marble, or canvas expresses his ideal — as the poet leaps with pleasure when his metaphor and rhythm breathe the inspiration of his heart — as the father glows with gladness to behold in his firstborn boy his own features — so God delighted in the image of Himself in man. Distance from God! Distance! Where was distance then? As the shadow to the form — as the fruit to the tree bough — as the recent born to the mother — man in God's image was to God. (S. Martin.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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. |
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