god's creation of man essay

Internet Explorer is no longer supported. Try downloading another browser like Chrome or Firefox .

If you already have an account, Sign in.

• Answers in Genesis

Creation of Man: How Did We Get Here?

An overview about the creation of people, including when it happened, our role given at creation, and whether human evolution had anything to do with it.

How did we get here? A child may ask her friends such a question if they find themselves lost in a forest. Or a couple may ask it of each other after getting lost on a trip. It’s also a question people have been asking for millennia about our origin.

The Bible answers this very question in its opening chapters. In Genesis chapters 1 and 2, we learn that the first people were created specially by God. Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden of Eden and given work to do. After their fall into sin , they were banished from the garden. Simply put, the first couple eventually had children, and their children had children, and so on, until the present generation (though of course there was a cataclysmic bottleneck when all but Noah, his wife, sons, and daughters-in-law were lost in the global flood). That means all of us are descendants of Adam and Eve (and Noah’s family) according to God ’s Word (Genesis 3:20). But there’s more to the biblical narrative of the first couple.

In this overview, we will look at some common implications about the creation of man, including what it is, when it happened, mankind’s role given at creation , and whether human evolution , as is commonly believed, had anything to do with it.

Image of God and the Creation of Man

To begin an overview on the creation of man, let’s start at the only eyewitness source. The Bible tells us that God created man on the final day of creation week before he rested. First, however, God created light, a separation between light and darkness, day, night, dry land, seas, vegetation, the sun, the moon, the stars, sea animals, birds, livestock, insects, and everything else. And at the end of the creation week on day 6, he made land animals and finally people. Genesis 1:26–27 tells us,

Then 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 birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

God made man in his image. God did not create people to look like rocks, giraffes, or monkeys. God made people to be like himself.

The significance of this creative act cannot be understated. God made man in his image . God did not create people to look like rocks, giraffes, or monkeys. God made people to be like himself. This speaks to the intimate connection people have with God .

When Was the Creation of Man?

The next big question is When did it happen? Many people argue for a very old date for the creation of man. For instance, evolutionists claim Homo sapiens came into existence 200,000–400,000 years ago after millions of years of chemical and biological evolution . Although this belief does not align with the special creation of human beings apart from other animals, it is a popular yet unbiblical understanding about man’s inception.

This perspective opposes the biblical record on the creation of man. Internal evidence in the Bible suggests a much more recent creation for people. Taking Genesis as an accurate historical record (not as mythology or poetry), God clearly communicated that he created people relatively recently because of the genealogies found in Genesis 5 and 11, which he inspired Moses to record. When we add up the generations and ages in these genealogies with other known dates from biblical history, we learn people were created around 6,000 years ago. Even with potential allowances for gaps in the genealogies, estimates don’t balloon past 8,000 years—certainly not millions of years.

Creation Mandate: Man’s Role Given at Creation

God did not merely create people—he also had a plan for them and gave them something to do. Known as the “ creation mandate ,” God gave the first couple a job in the first chapter of the Bible , before sin entered the scene. God didn’t want people to lounge around in a perfect garden. Instead, he wanted people to order and manage the resources he gave them.

Entwined in our natures as image-bearers of God, we have an integrated directive as vice-regents over God’s creation.

Theologians throughout the centuries have highlighted this concept because of its prevalence in Scripture, though the term creation mandate itself is not found in the Bible . Originally revealed in Genesis 1:28, it gave people the authority to reign over and care for salmon, bald eagles, cattle, flora, fields, etc. Entwined in our natures as image-bearers of God , we have an integrated directive as vice-regents over God ’s creation . So man’s creation and function are closely related.

Human Evolution: People from Ape-Like Creatures?

Not everyone believes the Bible concerning the creation of man. Many argue that people arose from previous animals akin to the way Charles Darwin postulated in his book The Descent of Man (1871). Though modified since Darwin’s time, evolutionary theory is the ruling paradigm in mainstream biology. The plain reading of the Bible rejects such a theory.

In addition to believing Genesis, there are many scientific reasons to dismiss human evolution . The chief problem with molecules-to-man evolution is that there is no unambiguous evidence to support it. Supposed fossil evidence like australopithecines and Neanderthals can easily fit into a biblical worldview without invoking evolutionary dogma to explain them. And without evidence, human evolution is no longer scientific—it’s really part of a religious doctrine, a way to explain what cannot be observed.

Adam and Eve Were Historical People

Some evolution -minded Bible readers have opted for a different approach to Genesis. They take multiple avenues, but the impetus remains the same: they deny Adam and Eve were historical people—ultimately to appease people that are entirely antagonistic to the Bible and Christians, and often God himself. Sometimes those in the church will say the biblical Adam and Eve are mythological figures that teach theological lessons to an ancient Near Eastern people. At other times, they may say Adam was a head of a tribe and that he and Eve one of many couples at the time.

A plain reading of God’s Word not only records these inarguably important actual events but necessitates understanding that Adam and Eve were real, historical people.

On the other hand, a straightforward historical reading of Genesis affirms the special creation of Adam and Eve. Moreover, the rest of the Bible consistently affirms the historicity of the first couple in its genealogies outside of Genesis (1 Chronicles 1–9; Luke 3), in theological arguments depending on a historical Adam (Romans 5:12; 1 Corinthians 15:21–22), and in its affirmation of Satan’s deception of Eve as a historic event (2 Corinthians 11:3; 1 Timothy 2:13–14). A plain reading of God’s Word not only records these inarguably important actual events but necessitates understanding that Adam and Eve were real, historical people .

Application: People Occupy a Special Place in Creation

Finally, the biblical teaching about the creation of man is significant. We are not products of chance processes, random mutations, and billions of years of development. We were not formed by evolution. Instead, we descend from an historical Adam and Eve who were made in the image of God to work where God placed us. The human race has a history, a purpose, and an eternal destiny to fulfill through believing in Jesus . To answer the original question, How did we get here? the answer lies with our Creator: the maker of heaven, earth, and people.

You May Also Like

Recommended Resources

• Adam and Eve
• Archaeology
• Bible Characters
• Bible Contradictions
• Bible History
• Bible Questions
• Bible Study
• Bible Timeline
• Hermeneutics
• Is the Bible True?
• Noah’s Flood: a Historical, Global Catastrophe
• The Word of God
• Tower of Babel

Get the latest answers emailed to you.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA, and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for signing up to receive email newsletters from Answers in Genesis.

You can also sign up for our free print newsletter (US only).

Finish your subscription

You're almost done! Please follow the instructions we emailed you in order to finish subscribing.

Your newsletter signup did not work out. Please refresh the page and try again.

Answers in Genesis is an apologetics ministry , dedicated to helping Christians defend their faith and proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ .

• Customer Service 800.778.3390
• © 2024 Answers in Genesis

Understanding the Creation Story from Genesis

• May 1, 2018
• Share Twitter Facebook

How did the world begin? Was the world a cosmological mistake or an intentional creation? What existed before the universe as we know it? Questions like these have generated tons of discussion (and arguments) in the historical, scientific, and religious communities.

While most people are familiar with the creation story found in Genesis, there’s a richness that’s often lost. In The Torah Story online course , Gary E. Schnittjer, Cairn University’s professor of Old Testament, plumbs the depth of the creation story while answering important questions like:

• How did the author of Genesis receive the creation story?
• How does the narrative style of the creation story provide the backdrop for the rest of the biblical story?
• What does the creation story reveal about God?
• How are humans different than the rest of creation?
• What is mankind’s responsibility to creation?

This post is adapted from Dr. Schnittjer’s course.

What is the origin of the creation story?

The Torah begins with a beginning—“in the beginning.” It simultaneously serves as the introduction to the book of Genesis, the Torah, the Hebrew scriptures, and the entire Bible.

You may wonder, “The beginning of what?”

The story that follows reveals that this is the beginning of the human world—the setting for God’s story. Whether there are other beginnings or not remains a significant issue. The opening of Genesis, however, attempts to tell the story of the beginning of the human realm.

You may also ask, “How did the author learn of this story since there were no people to observe it?” We, as readers, can make guesses.

Perhaps the author learned the story from an ancient oral tradition. He could have imaginatively adapted his narrative as a polemic against an ancient written account like the Babylonian creation story, Enuma Elish. Perhaps he offered his own interpretation of how it might have happened based on his understanding of God, humanity, and creation. Or, perhaps God revealed it to him in a special way, such as through an oracle or vision.

The author does not disclose the source of the Genesis creation story . From ancient times, Judaic and Christian believers have embraced Genesis and its account of creation as Scripture—God’s word. The other biblical authors found in the pentateuchal creation narrative an account on which to construct their own writings.

Biblical readers are free to wonder about the source or sources of the creation account. An apprentice of the biblical writers, especially one who regards their writings as Scripture, needs to put the weight of his or her studies on what the biblical authors have written rather than on what they have omitted.

In this case, the author is not primarily explaining in historical or scientific terms the beginning of the human realm. Instead, the opening of Genesis theologically interprets the relationship between God and the human world, namely, that he created it by the power of his word.

Learn more in The Torah Story online course .

Formed from the wild and the waste

According to the storyteller, the world God created in the beginning was unformed and unfilled—wild and waste. The unformed and unfilled state of the earth set up the six creation days—three in which God formed the world and three in which he filled it. The relationship between the preformed and pre-filled world and the creation days is important for this passage and for the entire Torah (not to mention all Scripture).

In the creating days, the power of God’s word tamed what was wild and brought to life what was desolate. The Torah closes with the people at the end of a trek through the wild and barren wilderness hoping for blessing and life in the land God promised to their ancestors (see Deut. 32:9–11). What God did at the beginning and in the wilderness he can do again . Indeed, the Torah portrays a gracious God with a powerful voice that all readers need to obey.

The style of the creation story

Within these first verses readers are introduced to a distinctive biblical literary style that, in some ways and to varying degrees, was emulated by later biblical writers. In Genesis 1:2, for example, a “special word” is used, or better, an ordinary word is used in a special way.

The Hebrew word rûaḥ can signify one of several meanings depending on context. Here it seems to mean spirit—“the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” In the following chapters rûaḥ is applied in other contexts that at once give it a new sense and invite readers to consider the new use in light of this context.

In Genesis 3:8 God is said to have walked in the garden in the rûaḥ of the day (traditionally, in the “cool” of the day). If rûaḥ here means windy, then perhaps cool of the day or evening is appropriate. Still, the reader may easily think of the rûaḥ of the day in reference to the rûaḥ of God hovering over the waters in Genesis 1:2. The hiding humans and the chaotic empty world provide the contexts in which God is seeking and hovering.

In Genesis 8:1 God remembers Noah and sends the rûaḥ (wind) to make the waters of judgment subside so that Noah can again live on the earth. The fact that rûaḥ is sent by God to clear the waters for human life on earth to resume and that previously the rûaḥ of God hovered over the unformed and unfilled world prior to the creation days invites readers to compare and consider this word in a special way.

The dual imagery of the flood and the wind—judgment and new beginning—is similar to the imagery of Israel’s salvation from the Egyptians at the sea in Exodus 14. There God sends an east wind ( rûaḥ ) to provide deliverance to Israel and uses the waters to destroy his enemies.

The narrative of the sea crossing in Exodus uses imagery from Genesis 1 in order to depict the theological significance that God is creating a nation for himself (Gen. 1 language in italics):

“Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night Yahweh drove the sea back with a strong east wind [ rûaḥ ] and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left” (Ex. 14:21–22).

The imagery here can also be thought of in terms of “denotation” and “connotation.” The narrative of the sea crossing denotes or refers to the acts of God to save Israel from the Egyptian threat. Yet, the specific language used to tell the story of the sea crossing connects it by its imagery with the account of creation in Genesis. Thus, the sea crossing narrative connotes God as the Creator of his nation .

Genesis’ textual depth

Many biblical words are used in special ways that both reveal a need for close reading and show a depth, another dimension, to the text. This textual depth is among the reasons that ancient biblical interpreters—before and after the New Testament era—considered the Bible a cryptic writing with subtle and hidden meanings.

In a manner similar to the use of special words, Genesis 1:1–2:4a begins the biblical precedent for special numbers. The seven days set a pattern for a complete week—God finished his work and rested. Thus, in the biblical writings, seven often signifies completion or perfection.

In the following chapters of Genesis other numbers become special, such as three, ten, twelve, and forty. The special numbers become part of the fabric of classic biblical style. The use of special numbers invites readers to reflect on the later events in relation to earlier ones. The forty years that Israel was wandering in the wilderness, for example, encourages the reader to compare it to the forty days of rain in the flood narrative.

The use of special words and numbers are among the many distinctive characteristics of biblical narrative that begin in Genesis 1. The narrative style—somewhere between prose and poetry—displays:

• Rhythmic lines
• Characteristic repetition
• Symmetrical imagery
• The manifold use of “and” to connect lines and scenes
• Frequent intertextual allusions
• Earthy symbolic language

The literary features effectively create a narrative almost poetic with its intertwined realistic and surreal qualities so familiar to biblical readers. Later biblical narrators emulated, whether by intention or otherwise, many of these literary characteristics, always with their own flair, in such a way that their writings “sound like” the Bible .

What does it mean to create: the creation days

The creating days themselves demonstrate the significance of the entire story. Throughout chapter 1 there is a repetition of “God” plus verb—the fourfold repetition in Day 1, for instance: “God said,” “God saw,” “God separated,” “God called” (1:3–5).

The rhythm of God-plus-verb demonstrates several things: the power of God’s word; the relationship between God and creation, namely, the dependence of creation on God and God’s power over and ownership of creation; God’s interest in measuring the character of creation (i.e., “God saw that it was good”); and so forth. Above all else, the reader is confronted by God the Creator.

What does it mean to create? Whatever it means to form and to fill is synonymous with creating in the context of Genesis 1. To understand the Creator, therefore, one must comprehend what it means to form and to fill. In the first three creating days God formed the realms for existence in this world—light and darkness, skies and seas, land and vegetation. During the next three creating days God filled these realms successively with celestial lights, birds and marine life, and the land animals and humankind. The six creation days demonstrate, among other things, the power of God’s word to order and to grant life.

The first three creation days expose the difference between unformed and formed, chaos and order. The difference is separation. To create, in these cases, is to separate. The light was separated from the darkness, the skies from waters, and the land from the seas. Without grasping the essence of order as separation, the call to be holy, to be separate toward God, in Leviticus will not be rightly appreciated. The holiness required of worshipers is the basic characteristic for relating to the Creator.

The fourth, fifth, and sixth creation days likewise display the difference between unfilled and filled. The difference, in large part, is life. To grant life, or to fill realms with life, is, in these instances, what it means to create. The realm of illumination was filled with life-sustaining cosmic lights (these lights also function as time separators; thus the fourth day is transitional), the skies with flying beings, the waters with aquatic creatures, and the land with terrestrial beings. The Creator is the life-giver.

By conceiving of creation as forming and filling, separating and life-giving, the tools are in hand for uncovering the meaning of judgment. To be specific, to die is at once separation and life-losing. Death is the effect of the anti-creational acts of sin . Death is not separation to form but from form. It does not give but takes life. Therefore, the death that comes from defying God’s commanding word contradicts creation. Life, by analogy, is to accord with the word of God. When the nature of creation and judgment is recognized, the oneness of God as Creator and Redeemer comes into sharp relief.

Where does humanity fit in creation?

The story of the creating days not only reveals the relationship of God and the created realm and the meaning of creation itself, but also the place of humanity within creation. Specifically, creation is viewed in human-centered terms; the created realm itself tells of God’s grace toward humankind. The creation is the home or context for human life. Human beings make sense within their realm, namely, the creation of God. The human-centered view of the created world can be seen in the case of each of the six creation days. I will illustrate the human-centered orientation of the fourth day. On the fourth day according to Genesis 1, God created the celestial lights. The entire description is geocentric.

The earth-centered viewpoint of the fourth day is the opposite of the modernist perspective of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The “objective” perspective of modernity saw the rather ordinary star that is our sun as located in a remote area of the rather unexceptional Milky Way galaxy, which is one of billions of such galaxies.

This is one of the points made in the 1997 motion picture Contact , based on the late Carl Sagan’s book. Three times during the movie lead characters say something to the effect, “If human beings are the only life in the vast universe, then it sure is a waste of space.”

The objective view from “out there” makes the earth seem inconsequential within the universe of planets and stars and galaxies. One of the biblical poets, by contrast, reflecting on Genesis 1, marveled at God’s grace toward humans given the enormity of the skies and the celestial lights: “ When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them? . . . . You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet” (Ps 8:3–4a, 5 NRSV).

The vantage point of the fourth creating day is that of the earth-dwellers—“from here.” The great lights are those that rule the earth days and the earth nights, namely, the sun and the moon. Even describing the cosmic lights in terms of “day” and “night” is an entirely earth-centered point of view. The stars, moreover, are regarded according to their function of measuring the earth-dwellers time.

“And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.’ And it was so” (Gen. 1:14–15 NRSV; italics added).

By interpreting creation in a human-centered manner, the stage is set for the entire biblical drama. The story unfolds from this beginning. It is the story of humankind within the human world—both created by God—and their progressive relationship with the God who speaks, creates, evaluates, and gives.

Comparing humans to the rest of creation

On the sixth day God made land animals after their kind and humankind in his own image and likeness. The phrases “after their kind” for animals and “in his image” for human beings underscore the categorical difference between humankind and all other created beings—the unique ability to relate personally to God.

Although God prohibits making images of himself in the Ten Commandments, he made humanity in his image. Human beings reflect and represent God in a special sense. Their creational design defines them according to the Creator. This image is displayed vertically in responsible dominion over the creation and horizontally in mutual social relationships.

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them ” (1:26–27 NRSV; italics added).

The two great commandments—love God and love others—are direct implications from and applications of humanity’s being created in the image of God. Because humans are created in the image of God, it is their intrinsic responsibility to love him. And because all other human beings are created in his image, it is each one’s responsibility to love others as oneself.

The great commands of Leviticus and Deuteronomy are the natural extensions of creational design .

Human responsibility toward creation

Beyond the responsibility humans have toward their Creator and toward fellow humans is their responsibility toward the rest of creation. Humankind is related to but distinct from the Creator and the creation at the same time.

Human beings are creatures among other creatures who live within the created realm. Yet with respect to dominion, humans are responsible to rule over the other creatures by virtue of humankind’s distinction of being created in God’s image. Humans are creatures, but not like any other because they are like God. The idea of image signifying dominion was part of the ancient Near Eastern idea that statues or images of a king could be used to mark or define the realm of his domain. It is in this sense that humankind is the Creator’s royal representative ruler on earth. Human beings are the lords of creation because they are specially created in the image of God .

The creation days move in a direction. They move toward the seventh day, the day of God’s rest. The nature and significance of time itself is thus defined. Time is measured in earth days and counted in sevens or weeks. Each week moves invariably toward its completion—the sabbath. The perpetual repetition of celebrating the day of God’s rest provides a constant reminder of the human place within the world. Humankind lives in a world created by God, forever moving toward the day of God’s rest.

The creation story provides history’s backdrop

The biblical story, thus, begins with the human world created by God. Genesis 1 defines the manner in which the story is told and the way to hear and read the story. Moreover, the beginning provides the cosmological backdrop against which the rest of the story—the book of Genesis, the Torah, and the Bible—unfolds.

The events narrated in the remainder of the biblical story did not just happen in a remote historical context. They happened within the context of the entire human world, the world God created by his word. Because the beginning of the story is God’s creation of humankind within the human context, the story line is, in some way, about the relationship between God and humankind as they exist within his creation.

Books and articles that equip you for deeply biblical thinking and ministry.

9.5 hours of video

Thank you! Sign up complete.

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

An Essay on Biblical Worldview Key Truths about God, Creation, Man and Sin from Genesis 1-3

The first three chapters of the Bible is incredibly important for believers. An excellent understanding of the truths unveiled in this passage is required as it forms the foundation of the entire Biblical worldview. If it can be disproved, nothing else in the Bible would matter. The world seemingly continually challenges the basic truths as presented in these chapters and nowhere is it more evident than with the debate about the origins of the universe and man (Kapreilian 2017, chap. 2). The purpose of this essay is, therefore, to compare biblical to other worldviews about God, creation, man and sin against the reading of Genesis chapters 1 to 3. The following section briefly presents the biblical worldview on each of these four topics, along with a contrasting view.

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

Why Did God Create Man?

God, a Being of perfect selfless love, decided sometime in the eternal past that he wanted others to possess the same kind of wonderful existence and righteous character he had always experienced. Because the character God possesses cannot be given by fiat, he devised a plan whereby he would teach and train others in the ways of righteousness. His plan led to the creation of man.

The culmination of God's creativity, after bringing out of nothing everything we see around us, was to make man (Genesis 1, 2). Of all His wonderful creations we are his greatest achievement. His love for us was so great that he decided to use himself as the template for our existence (Genesis 1:26).

Although God started out small with man (Adam and Eve), He blessed them (and us) with the ability to procreate so that countless others could also be made with the potential of living forever.

Man, in the Garden of Eden, choose to reject God and instead accept guidance from his adversary the devil. This choice, however, was expected and part of the plan to ultimately save humans from Satan's way of life.

It was destined, before man was made, that we needed to taste the full effects of sin and disobedience and learn the consequences of deciding for ourselves what is right and wrong.

Why were we created to have flesh? God made man of temporary flesh and blood so that we could learn eternal lessons through a life of trials and troubles on earth. His great desire is produce multiple billions of beings like himself in which to share eternity.

Why did God create man? Perhaps a better question is how could anyone who possessed perfect selfless love and unlimited power not want to share it with countless others?

Man's potential is to become literal sons and daughters of God and a member of his spiritual Family (Genesis 1:26). His plan will result in the overwhelming majority of all humans (99%+) choosing to live and think as righteously as he does. This is why we were created!

• God Creates the World (Genesis 1:1-2:3)

The first thing the Bible tells us is that God is a creator. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1, NRSV alternate reading). God speaks and things come into being that were not there before, beginning with the universe itself. Creation is solely an act of God. It is not an accident, a mistake, or the product of an inferior deity, but the self-expression of God.

• God Works to Create the World (Genesis 1:1-25)
• God Brings the Material World into Being (Genesis 1:2)

Genesis continues by emphasizing the materiality of the world. “The earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters” (Gen. 1:2). The nascent creation, though still “formless,” has the material dimensions of space (“the deep”) and matter (“waters”), and God is fully engaged with this materiality (“a wind from God swept over the face of the waters”). Later, in chapter 2, we even see God working the dirt of his creation. “The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground” (Gen. 2:7). Throughout chapters 1 and 2, we see God engrossed in the physicality of his creation.

Any theology of work must begin with a theology of creation. Do we regard the material world, the stuff we work with, as God’s first-rate stuff, imbued with lasting value? Or do we dismiss it as a temporary job site, a testing ground, a sinking ship from which we must escape to get to God’s true location in an immaterial “heaven.” Genesis argues against any notion that the material world is any less important to God than the spiritual world. Or putting it more precisely, in Genesis there is no sharp distinction between the material and the spiritual. The ruah of God in Genesis 1:2 is simultaneously “breath,” “wind,” and “spirit” (see footnote b in the NRSV or compare NRSV, NASB, NIV, and KJV). “The heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1; 2:1) are not two separate realms, but a Hebrew figure of speech meaning “the universe” [1] in the same way that the English phrase “kith and kin” means “relatives.”

Most significantly, the Bible ends where it begins—on earth. Humanity does not depart the earth to join God in heaven. Instead, God perfects his kingdom on earth and calls into being “the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God” (Rev. 21:2). God’s dwelling with humanity is here, in the renewed creation. “See, the home of God is among mortals” (Rev. 21:3). This is why Jesus told his disciples to pray in the words, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10). During the time between Genesis 2 and Revelation 21, the earth is corrupted, broken, out of kilter, and filled with people and forces that work against God’s purposes. (More on this in Genesis 3 and following.) Not everything in the world goes according to God’s design. But the world is still God’s creation, which he calls “good.” (For more on the new heaven and new earth, see “Revelation 17-22” in Revelation and Work . )

Many Christians, who work mostly with material objects, say it seems that their work matters less to the church—and even to God—than work centering on people, ideas, or religion. A sermon praising good work is more likely to use the example of a missionary, social worker, or teacher than a miner, auto mechanic, or chemist. Fellow Christians are more likely to recognize a call to become a minister or doctor than a call to become an inventory manager or sculptor. But does this have any biblical basis? Leaving aside the fact that working with people is working with material objects, it is wise to remember that God gave people the tasks both of working with people (Gen. 2:18) and working with things (Gen. 2:15). God seems to take the creation very seriously indeed.

• God’s Creation Takes Work (Genesis 1:3-25; 2:7)

Creating a world is work. In Genesis 1 the power of God's work is undeniable. God speaks worlds into existence, and step by step we see the primordial example of the right use of power. Note the order of creation. The first three of God’s creative acts separate the formless chaos into realms of heavens (or sky), water, and land. On day one, God creates light and separates it from darkness, forming day and night (Gen. 1:3-5). On day two, he separates the waters and creates the sky (Gen. 1:6-8). On the first part of day three, he separates dry land from the sea (Gen. 1:9-10). All are essential to the survival of what follows. Next, God begins filling the realms he has created. On the remainder of day three, he creates plant life (Gen. 1:11-13). On day four he creates the sun, moon, and stars (Gen. 1:14-19) in the sky. The terms “greater light” and “lesser light” are used rather than the names “sun” and “moon,” thus discouraging the worship of these created objects and reminding us that we are still in danger of worshiping the creation instead of the Creator. The lights are beautiful in themselves and also essential for plant life, with its need for sunshine, nighttime, and seasons. On day five, God fills the water and sky with fish and birds that could not have survived without the plant life created earlier (Gen. 1:20-23). Finally, on day six, he creates the animals (Gen. 1:24-25) and—the apex of creation — humanity to populate the land (Gen. 1:26-31). [1]

In chapter 1, God accomplishes all his work by speaking. “God said…” and everything happened. This lets us know that God’s power is more than sufficient to create and maintain the creation. We need not worry that God is running out of gas or that the creation is in a precarious state of existence. God’s creation is robust, its existence secure. God does not need help from anyone or anything to create or maintain the world. No battle with the forces of chaos threatens to undo the creation. Later, when God chooses to share creative responsibility with human beings, we know that this is God’s choice, not a necessity. Whatever people may do to mar the creation or render the earth unfit for life’s fullness, God has infinitely greater power to redeem and restore.

The display of God’s infinite power in the text does not mean that God’s creation is not work, any more than writing a computer program or acting in a play is not work. If the transcendent majesty of God’s work in Genesis 1 nonetheless tempts us to think it is not actually work, Genesis 2 leaves us no doubt. God works immanently with his hands to sculpt human bodies (Gen. 2:7, 21), dig a garden (Gen. 2:8), plant an orchard (Gen. 2:9), and—a bit later — tailor “garments of skin” (Gen. 3:21). These are only the beginnings of God’s physical work in a Bible full of divine labor. [2]

• Creation Is of God, but Is Not Identical with God (Genesis 1:11)

God is the source of everything in creation. Yet creation is not identical with God. God gives his creation what Colin Gunton calls Selbständig-keit or a “proper independence.” This is not the absolute independence imagined by the atheists or Deists, but rather the meaningful existence of the creation as distinct from God himself. This is best captured in the description of God’s creation of the plants. “God said, ‘Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.’ And it was so" (Gen. 1:11). God creates everything, but he also literally sows the seed for the perpetuation of creation through the ages. The creation is forever dependent on God—“In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28)—yet it remains distinct. This gives our work a beauty and value above the value of a ticking clock or a prancing puppet. Our work has its source in God, yet it also has its own weight and dignity.

• God Sees that His Work Is Good (Genesis 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31)

Against any dualistic notion that heaven is good while earth is bad, Genesis declares on each day of creation that “God saw that it was good” (Gen. 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25). On the sixth day, with the creation of humanity, God saw that it was “very good” (Gen. 1:31). People—the agents through whom sin is soon to enter God’s creation—are nonetheless “very good.” There is simply no support in Genesis for the notion, which somehow entered Christian imagination, that the world is irredeemably evil and the only salvation is an escape into an immaterial spiritual world, much less for the notion that while we are on earth we should spend our time in “spiritual” tasks rather than “material” ones. There is no divorce of the spiritual from the material in God’s good world.

• God Works Relationally (Genesis 1:26a)

Even before God creates people, he speaks in the plural, “Let us make humankind in our image” (Gen. 1:26; emphasis added). While scholars differ on whether “us” refers to a divine assembly of angelic beings or to a unique plurality-in-unity of God, either view implies that God is inherently relational. [1] It is difficult to be sure exactly what the ancient Israelites would have understood the plural to mean here. For our purposes it seems best to follow the traditional Christian interpretation that it refers to the Trinity. In any case, we know from the New Testament that God is indeed in relationship with himself—and with his creation—in a Trinity of love. In John's Gospel we learn that the Son—“the Word [who] became flesh” (John 1:14)—is present and active in creation from the beginning.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. (John 1:1-4)

Thus Christians acknowledge our Trinitarian God, the unique Three-Persons-in-One-Being, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, all personally active in creation.

• God Limits His Work, Resting on the Seventh Day (Genesis 2:1-3)

At the end of six days, God’s creation of the world is finished. This doesn’t mean that God ceases working, for as Jesus said, “My Father is still working, and I also am working” (John 5:17). Nor does it mean that the creation is complete, for, as we will see, God leaves plenty of work for people to do to bring the creation further along. But chaos had been turned into an inhabitable environment, now supporting plants, fish, birds, animals, and human beings.

God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. (Gen. 1:31-2:2; emphasis added)

God crowns his six days of work with a day of rest. While creating humanity was the climax of God's creative work, resting on the seventh day was the climax of God's creative week. Why does God rest? The majesty of God’s creation by word alone in chapter 1 makes it clear that God is not tired. He doesn’t need to rest. But he chooses to limit his creation in time as well as in space. The universe is not infinite. It has a beginning, attested by Genesis, which science has learned how to observe in light of the big bang theory. Whether it has an end in time is not unambiguously clear, in either the Bible or science, but God gives time a limit within the world as we know it. As long as time is running, God blesses six days for work and one for rest. This is a limit that God himself observes, and it later becomes his command to people, as well (Exod. 20:8-11).

Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1–15 , vol. 1, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, 1998), 15.

For a helpful discussion of the interpretation of the "Days" of creation, see Bruce K. Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), 74-78.

For a long list of the many kinds of work God does in the Bible, see R. Paul Stevens, The Other Six Days (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2000), 18-123; and Robert Banks, God the Worker: Journeys into the Mind, Heart, and Imagination of God (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2008).

Bruce Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary , (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), 64-5.

Related Content

God’s Good Idea: Work (Devotional)

Work was God's idea from the beginning. God commissions people to participate in his work.

Popular Content

Calling & Vocation (Overview)

Explore what the Bible says about God's calling and your work.

God’s Purposes for Your Work - Tom Lutz

We explore what the Bible has to say about the purpose of your work with guest Tom Lutz.

What Does the Bible Say About Wealth and Provision? (Overview)

The Bible offers guidance for a Christian view of wealth and how wealth can be used for God's redemptive purposes.

How to Make the Right Decision (Devotional)

Biblical decision-making principles for tough situations at work.

10 Key Points About Work in the Bible Every Christian Should Know

10 key points from the Bible give a foundation for Christians asking what the Bible says about our work.

Table of Contents

• Introduction to Genesis 1-11
• God Creates and Equips People to Work (Genesis 1:26-2:25)
• People Are Created in God’s Image (Genesis 1:26, 27; 5:1)
• Dominion (Genesis 1:26; 2:5)
• Relationships and Work (Genesis 1:27; 2:18, 21-25)
• Fruitfulness/Growth (Genesis 1:28; 2:15, 19-20)
• Provision (Genesis 1:29-30; 2:8-14)
• God Sets Limits (Genesis 2:3; 2:17)
• The Work of the “Creation Mandate” (Genesis 1:28, 2:15)
• People Fall into Sin in Work (Genesis 3:1-24)
• People Work in a Fallen Creation (Genesis 4-8)
• The First Murder (Genesis 4:1-25)
• God Calls Noah and Creates a New World (Genesis 6:9-8:19)
• God Works to Keep His Promise (Genesis 9-11)
• God’s Covenant with Noah (Genesis 9:1-19)
• Noah’s Fall (Genesis 9:20-29)
• Noah’s Descendants and the Tower of Babel (Genesis 10:1-11:32)
• Conclusions from Genesis 1-11
• Continue to Genesis 12-50

Every resource on our site was made possible through the financial support of people like you. With your gift of any size, you’ll enable us to continue equipping Christians with high-quality biblically-based content.

Theology of Work Bible Commentary - One Volume Edition

The Theology of Work Bible Commentary is an in-depth Bible study tool put together by a group of biblical scholars, pastors, and workplace Christians to help you discover what the whole Bible--from Genesis to Revelation--says about work. Business, education, law, service industries, medicine, government--wherever you work, in whatever capacity, the Scriptures have something to say about it. This edition is a one-volume hardcover version.

Genesis 1-11 Bible Study

While every book of the Bible will contribute something to our understanding of work, Genesis proves to be the fountain from which the Bible's theology of work flows. Great for group or individual use, at home or at work on your lunch break, this study delves into what the story of Creation has to say about faith and work.

• Genesis 1-11

Contributors: Andrew Schmutzer and Alice Mathews Adopted by the Theology of Work Project Board June 11, 2013.

Author: Theology of Work Project

Theology of Work Project Online Materials by Theology of Work Project, Inc. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License . Based on a work at www.theologyofwork.org

You are free to share (to copy, distribute and transmit the work), and remix (to adapt the work) for non-commercial use only, under the condition that you must attribute the work to the Theology of Work Project, Inc., but not in any way that suggests that it endorses you or your use of the work.

© 2013 by the Theology of Work Project, Inc.

Unless otherwise noted, the Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, Copyright © 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and are used by permission. All rights reserved.

• Search Search

What Makes Man Unique in God's Creation

Stephen Dingley FAITH MAGAZINE September - October 2015

Stephen Dingley examines an essential question, frequently raised in debates and discussions about the nature of human life, and why humans matter.

Psalm 8 is a beautiful reflection on God’s creation and it asks an important question:

When I see the heavens, the works of your hands,

the moon and the stars which you arranged,

what is man that you should keep him in mind,

mortal man that you care for him?

What is man? To start with, we are animals. We are continuous with the rest of the physical creation. We have eyes and ears and muscles which are clearly like those of kangaroos and pandas; we are made of cells just like slugs and bananas; we are made of protons, neutrons and electrons just like washing machines and planets.

On the other hand, this does not mean we are merely animals, any more than we are merely heaps of fundamental particles. But we cannot ignore the obvious truth of our animal nature. Nor is it helpful to avoid the burning question which this fact raises: the origins of the human body. The overwhelming scientific opinion is that our bodies have come about through the natural processes of evolution. Nevertheless, some people even today deny human evolution, hoping to be good, orthodox Catholics—which is laudable in itself, but it leads to many problems.

The fact of evolution—that different species of life share a common natural origin—is beyond reasonable dispute. The evidence is overwhelming. Rocks of different ages contain fossils of different species. Many species show vestigial structures from their ancestry, for instance the remnants of limbs in some snakes. Above all, the astonishing similarity of living things, anatomically and genetically, demands an explanation. And whilst a supernatural cause can always be invoked, natural causes should not be overlooked. If two students hand in identical essays, God may have inspired them to write the same words, but it’s a pretty safe bet that some copying has been going on!

The basic motivation for denying evolution is fundamentalism—the tendency to interpret the scriptures completely literally, refusing to allow any symbolism or figures of speech. We should respond first by pointing out that this places unwarranted limits on how God can choose to communicate with us. But it is clear from a careful reading of Genesis that a naïvely literal interpretation is impossible. For example, in chapter 1 the plants are created before man; in chapter 2 they are created afterwards.

ST AUGUSTINE

Saint Augustine of Hippo was remarkably insightful about this nearly 1500 years before Darwin. He points out that the “days” of creation cannot be understood literally because days are defined by the passage of the sun—and the sun was not created until day four! He is also clear about the disastrous effects of denying scientific knowledge in the name of religion:

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and other elements of the world … Now it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an unbeliever to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics … How are they going to believe these books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven?

An authentic reading of Genesis even lends some support to the idea of evolution. For Adam’s body was not created directly from nothing but “from the dust of the ground” (Gen 2:7), that is, from something else that God had already created. Similar ideas are found for the animals: “Let the earth bring forth living creatures.” (Gen 1:24) Pope Pius XII, St John Paul II and the Catechism have lent increasing support to scientific views of the origins of the human body. The question of the soul, however, is another matter, and it is to that question we must now turn.

CONTINUITY AND DIFFERENCE

Having established the continuity between ourselves and the other animals, what are the differences—for they are many? For a start, sport. We are (seemingly) insanely interested in people we don’t know kicking balls between wooden posts or cycling around France for three weeks! Then there is culture: music, art, television, video games. We love exploring, be it going to the moon or just on holiday for a couple of weeks. We spend vast amounts of money and effort on science. Some of it we put to use in technology, but much ‘big’ science is for the sheer love of knowing how the universe began or what atoms are made of.

Two more characteristic features of human life are vital to mention. Firstly, we understand our actions to have absolute moral value, above and beyond their practical usefulness, and irrespective of whether we get found out! Our actions are absolutely good or bad. And we understand ourselves to be personally responsible for our actions, unlike the animals. For instance, we may put a dangerous dog down, but we blame its human owner for not controlling its bad behaviour.

Secondly, what most distinguishes us from animals is religion. Human beings throughout world and throughout history have looked for God, or for gods. We recognise that the world and ourselves are not self-explanatory but rather need some higher cause. Where authentic religion is absent, we do not find happy rationalists but rather false religions, superstitions, addictions of one kind or another—and despair.

Animals, frankly, are only interested in the ‘bare necessities’ of life: food, shelter, reproduction, and so on. They may have very complex behaviour, but it is essentially focused on biological needs. They just don’t go to concerts or football matches or church. We have biological needs too, and they are important to us. But ultimately we get bored with things of only biological relevance. They are not the meaning of our lives, not the things we cherish dearly. When through force of circumstance people’s lives have to focus exclusively on their biological needs we say they have been “reduced” to poverty. The phrase is telling.

TRANSCENDING

All of this means that we transcend our material makeup as animals. Being animals is not enough for us. We transcend control by our physical environment and our biological instincts. For example, we have an instinct to eat, but we can choose to fast instead. In other words, we have free will. Our bodies obey the laws of science, but we are not simply controlled by them—there is more to say. We are not robots.

What we choose to do is irreducibly personal: it cannot be fully understood in terms of external influences, brain chemistry, and so on, although these have a part to play. Nor are our actions random—free will is not about being chaotic. This idea of freedom has a certain mysteriousness for us. We cannot understand it in terms of the material world around us, because matter is not free. Matter obeys the laws of science, and that’s all. But when we honestly consider the meaning of our lives and our actions, that can’t be all.

LOOK FURTHER

So if we try to understand the difference between ourselves and the other animals, we need to look further than our brains. It is true, our brains are about three times larger than would be expected for a primate of our size. But brains are material things. Bigger brains just make smarter animals. In fact, however you study human beings in biology, whilst you will find out true and important things, you will never really understand what it is to be human—you will miss the point. The rational conclusion seems to be that we are more than just bodies, more than just animals. We have something else as well. We have spiritual souls.

This, then, raises the deeper question of how humanity came to be. It is a question which is vital to the theological system advocated by the Faith Movement. The key idea of this theological vision is that the whole of God’s plan for creation and salvation is expressed by a single wisdom or ‘law’, governing and directing all things—matter and spirit—to their fulfilment.

THE BIG BANG

From the Big Bang until the threshold of humanity this law takes the form of the laws of science, which ultimately bring about the emergence and evolution of life. Since evolution is controlled by the processes of natural selection (or, loosely, “survival of the fittest”) any physical characteristic will only develop within the parameters of what is biologically useful. Further development would be wasteful or harmful, and would not be naturally selected. This presumably applies to the brain too. However, as we have already seen, we understand the meaning of our minds in ways which go beyond biological relevance.

It seems reasonable, therefore, to suggest that the mutation for greater brain power than is biologically meaningful was not selected naturally. Instead, this is the moment God had planned all along at which to infuse the spiritual soul. The soul is therefore not an ‘optional extra’ or a gratuitous addition to our animal nature. The human body does not fully make sense without a soul—indeed, without the spiritual soul it dies. It would be meaningless and foolish for God to give a spiritual soul to a cat or a cabbage; but it would be equally foolish not to give a soul to a human body.

It follows that the soul did not evolve. Evolution is a material process governed by the laws of science. And, by definition, the soul is that aspect of man which goes beyond matter. The soul must be directly given by God; given first probably some 150,000 years ago; given every time a human being is conceived. This is the moment at which God’s ‘law’ begins to operate at the spiritual level as well as the material.

Finally we can delineate what the soul gives us. Firstly, it gives us free will—the capacity to choose what we do on the basis of our experiences and feelings, without being automatically controlled by them. Freedom makes us morally responsible for our actions; it also makes us capable of love—for true love must be free gift. Freedom, however, can be abused. We can disobey God’s law, which the animals cannot. Next, the soul gives us real intelligence—the ability to know the truth and value of things absolutely rather than just in terms of their pragmatic use for ourselves. Finally, because the soul is not material, it cannot decay in the way material things do. The soul is therefore immortal and gives us hope of life after death.

Thus our souls make us persons rather than just things, made in the image and likeness of God (cf. Gen 1:26-27). We have infinite value, from conception to bodily death and beyond. We should be infinitely valued by others; we are infinitely valued by God. He has made us to know Him and love Him personally, and for all eternity. It means therefore that religion is natural to us, as St Augustine famously commented: “You made us for yourself, and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you.” It means that God is our true ‘environment’. We need God more than we need food and water. For only God can really satisfy our deepest and most human yearnings, for absolute truth and absolute love.

Fr Stephen Dingley STL is Professor of Theology at st John's Seminary, Wonersh.

Faith Magazine

Related Articles

Wittgenstein's challenge to realism: book review, the impact of the real: a realignment of thomism.

Synthesising Kant with a philosophy of modern science. 

Jesus The Messiah

How can we present a messianic religion to our culture?

The Faith Vision

The Church refused to engage with modern science. The Second Vatican Council explained the urgent need to do so.

Dora Nash RIP - Obituary

Dora Nash, wife of Andrew and mother of four, known to fans of  Faith ’s crossword as ‘Aurora Borealis’, has died at the age of 66.

• Church Search
• Simplified Chinese
• Traditional Chinese
• Where Do I Begin?
• The Nine Marks
• Church Stories
• International Efforts
• Jonathan Leeman
• Our Funding
• Preaching & Theology
• Evangelism & Gospel
• Membership & Discipline
• Life Together
• Translations
• Conversations

1 Kings 3:16–4:34: On a List of People, a List of Stuff, and Solomon’s Platinum Age (Bible Talk, Ep. 114)

On the Doctrine of the Trinity, with Bobby Jamieson and Mark Feather (Pastors Talk, Ep. 264)

Man and woman in creation (genesis 1 and 2).

The Scriptures address the topic of the sexes on many occasions, but we discover its foundational treatment within the opening chapters of Genesis. This fact is itself an initial indication of just how closely entwined this subject is with the scriptural narrative more generally, and how important a theme it must be for any theology that faithfully arises from it. Therefore, the more closely we attend to Genesis 1–2, the more apparent it will be that gendered themes are subtly diffused throughout.

THE CREATION OF MANKIND IN GENESIS 1

Mankind’s creation is described in Genesis 1:26–31. From this account we notice a number of important points.

First, man has both singularity and plurality: man is first spoken of as a singular entity (“him”), then later as the plurality of male and female (“them”). Humanity has a number of aspects to it: humanity is a kind , a  race , and a  multitude . As a  kind , humanity is a unique species that finds its source and pattern in the original human being created in the image of God. Humanity is a  race  on account of its possession of generative potential as male and female and its spread and relationship to its origins through such unions. Humanity is a  multitude  as it realizes this potential and fills the earth.

Second, sexual difference is the one difference within humanity that is prominent in the creation narrative. Rather significantly, Genesis does not gesture toward the generic plurality of humanity. Instead, humanity’s maleness and femaleness renders us a race and establishes the primary bonds of our natural relations and the source of our given identities. We’ve been empowered as male and female to bring forth new images of God and of ourselves (cf. Genesis 5:3) and are ordered toward each other in a much deeper way than just as individual members of a “host.”

Third, there’s widespread agreement among biblical scholars that the concept of the image of God in Genesis refers to a royal office or vocation that humanity enjoys within the world, as the administrator and symbol of God’s rule. The image of God is primarily focused upon the dominion  dimension of mankind’s vocation. However, the  filling  dimension of mankind’s vocation—to which the maleness and femaleness of humanity chiefly corresponds—is not unconnected to this, as in the third part of the parallelism “male and female” is paralleled with the “image of God” in the first two parts.

Thus, by the end of Genesis 1, there are already a number of key terms, patterns, and distinctions in play. In subsequent chapters, these are given clearer shape as they’re unpacked and developed.

GENESIS 2: DIFFERENTIATION IN HUMANITY’S CREATION AND VOCATION

Whereas Genesis 1 focuses upon the creation, commissioning, and blessing of mankind in general and undifferentiated fashion, Genesis 2 offers a more specific and differentiated view of what it means to male and female. It’s important to read Genesis 1 and 2 in close correspondence with each other for precisely this reason.

This gendered differentiation in the fulfilment of the divine commission is hardly surprising, especially when we consider the tasks that lie at the heart of mankind’s vocation. Although both sexes participate in both tasks, “exercising dominion” and “being fruitful” are not tasks that equally play to male and female capabilities, but rather are tasks where sexual differentiation is usually particularly pronounced.

In the task of exercising dominion and subduing creation, the man is advantaged by reason of the male sex’s typically greater physical strength, resilience, and willingness to expose itself to risk. He’s also advantaged on account of the greater social strength of bands of men. In the task of being fruitful, multiplying, and filling the creation, however, the most important capabilities belong to women. It’s women who bear children, who play the primary role in nurturing them, and who play the chief role in establishing the communion that lies at the heart of human society. These are differences seen across human cultures.

As G.K. Beale has argued, the Garden of Eden is a divine sanctuary and there are many clues within Genesis 2 to this fact. In verse 15, the man is placed in the Garden to cultivate and guard it, the same words that are repeatedly used to refer to the Israelites who are set apart to serve God and keep his word, or the priests who keep the service or charge of the tabernacle. God walks about in the midst of the Garden. The Garden is the site of holy food, some of which is forbidden. The man   is also given a law concerning the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which he must uphold.

One might surmise a gendered differentiation in relation to the human vocation in Genesis 1. But by Genesis 2, and certainly by the Fall of Genesis 3—in which Adam and Eve overturn God’s intended order—such a gendered differentiation becomes more explicit, not least in the fact that the priestly task chiefly falls to the man, rather than his wife.

There are a series of sharp and important contrasts between the man and his companion, the woman, in Genesis 2:

First, and perhaps most obvious, the man is created before the woman (cf. 1 Corinthians 11:7–9 and 1 Timothy 2:13).

Second, the man alone can stand for humanity as a whole. In Genesis 2, the creation of mankind isn’t the creation of an undifferentiated population of people, but the creation of an  adam  from the  adamah  (earth), followed by the later creation of a woman from the  adam ’s side. It’s in this particular being that the human race finds its unity. This is a point borne out in the rest of Scripture: Adam is the representative head of the old humanity. This humanity is  Adamic  humanity, not  Adamic–Evean  humanity. Mankind is particularly summed up in the man.

Third, the image of God is especially focused upon the  adam . He’s the figure who peculiarly represents and symbolizes God’s dominion in the world. The  adam  is placed within the Garden as the light within its firmament (the lights on day four are established as rulers) and charged with upholding the divisions that God had established, performing the royal function associated with the divine imaging. Like God, in his great dominion and subduing acts of the first three days of creation, the man names and orders the creatures.

Fourth, the  adam  is created to be a tiller and guardian of the earth, while the woman is created to be the helper of the  adam , to address the multifaceted problem of his aloneness. The sort of help that the woman is expected to provide has been a matter of considerable debate. However, it isn’t hard to discover the core of the answer. If it were for the naming of the animals, the task is already completed. If it were purely for the labor of tilling of the earth, a male helper would almost certainly be preferable. While men can undoubtedly find the companionship of women very pleasant and vice versa, beyond the first flush of young love it’s in the companionship of members of their own sex that many men and women choose to spend the majority of their time. The primary help that the woman was to provide was to assist the  adam  in the task of filling the earth through child-bearing, a fact that is underlined in the later judgment upon the woman. The problem of man’s aloneness is not a psychological problem of loneliness, but the fact that, without assistance, humanity’s purpose cannot be achieved.

Fifth, the  adam  was created from the dust, with God breathing into him the breath of life. The woman was created with flesh and bone from the  adam ’s side while he was in a deep sleep. The woman’s being derives from the man’s, the man’s being from the earth—the  adamah . Adam was “formed” while the woman is “built.”

Sixth, the  adam  was created outside of the Garden and prior to its creation; the woman was created within it. The woman has an especial relationship to the inner world of the Garden; the  adam  has an especial relationship with the earth outside of the Garden. Also, unlike the woman, the  adam  probably witnessed God’s Garden-forming activity as part of his preparation for his own cultivation of the earth.

Seventh, the  adam  is given the priestly task of guarding and keeping the Garden directly by God; the woman is not. He is also given the law concerning the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, while the woman is not. It’s the  adam  who will be held peculiarly responsible for the fall in the Garden. Notice also that on both occasions when God subsequently speaks of the law concerning the tree (3:11, 17), he addresses the  adam  in particular, speaking of it as a law both delivered to him alone and as a law concerning him most particularly and the woman only by extension. The difference between the  adam  and the woman here helps to explain how the woman could be deceived, while the man was not (the serpent plays off the information the woman had received first-hand in 1:29 against the formation she had received second-hand from the  adam ).

Eighth, the  adam  is given the task of naming, as a sign and preparation for his rule over the world, while the woman is not. The  adam  also names the woman twice (first according to her nature as “woman” in 2:23, then by her personal name “Eve” in 3:20), while she does not name him.

Finally, in Genesis 2:24, the establishment of a marriage is described asymmetrically, with the directionality of a man leaving his father and mother and joining his wife. I don’t believe this is accidental. The bonds of human relationship and communion are chiefly formed by and in women.

Later, in the Fall of humanity, there’s a breakdown in God’s established order. The adam  fails to serve and keep the Garden; he fails to uphold the law concerning the tree. He allows the woman to be deceived, when it was his duty to teach and protect her. The Fall was chiefly the fall of the adam . The woman in turn fails in her calling as helper. In the paralleled judgments that follow, both the man and the woman are told that they will experience difficult labor in the fundamental area of their activity—the man in his labor upon the ground, the woman in her labor in child- bearing—and both the man and woman will be frustrated and dominated by their source . In other words, the woman will be ruled over by the man and the man will return to the ground.

The created order is disrupted—and disorder, death, and sin come into the world. However, the promise and hope of salvation is also given in the divine declaration concerning the seed of the woman and in the  adam ’s naming of the woman as the mother of all living. Sexual difference is variously disordered by the fall, but it’s also a means through which the disorder introduced by the Fall will be overcome.

GENESIS, GENDER, AND SEXUAL DIFFERENCE

The difference between the sexes is a central and constitutive truth about humanity, related to our being created in the image of God. Humanity has two distinct kinds: a male kind and a female kind.

Men and women are created for different primary purposes. These purposes, when pursued in unity and with mutual support, can reflect God’s own form of creative rule in the world. The man’s vocation, as described in Genesis 2, primarily corresponds to the tasks of the first three days of creation: to naming, taming, dividing, and ruling. The woman’s vocation, by contrast, principally involves filling, glorifying, generating, establishing communion, and bringing forth new life—all tasks associated with the second three days of creation. The differences between men and women aren’t merely incidental, but integral to our purpose. They’re also deeply meaningful, relating to God’s own fundamental patterns of operation. God created us to be male and female and thereby to reflect his own creative rule in his world.

These differences will unfold and expand over time, varying from culture to culture and context to context. The root differences are expressed in unique and diverse forms from culture to culture, from individual to individual. They exceed any single culture and any single individual, although each individual and culture expresses and participates in them in some particular limited form.

Men and women are formed separately and differently; there’s a correspondence between their nature and their purpose. Again: the man is formed from the earth to till the ground, to serve and rule the earth. The woman is built from the man’s side to bring life and communion through union. The biblical account is primarily descriptive, rather than proscriptive: men and women are created and equipped for different purposes and so will naturally exhibit different strengths, preferences, and behaviors. It should come as no surprise that the more fundamental reality of sexual dimorphism is accompanied by a vast range of secondary sexual differences that typically correlate with key requirements of our primary purposes.

Humanity’s varying creational vocations in Genesis don’t represent the full measure or scope of men and women’s callings—as if women only existed to bear children, and men only to be farmers. Rather, they’re the seeds from which broader callings can thematically develop. Each man and woman must find ways to bring their gendered aptitudes, capacities, and selves that God created them with to bear upon the situations he has placed them within. Although our callings’ center of gravity differs, man and woman are to work together and assist each other, each employing their particular strengths to perform humanity’s common task. Neither can fulfill their vocation alone.

In Genesis 1 and 2, the differences between men and women are chiefly focused upon their wider callings within the world, rather than upon their direct relationships with each other. The woman has to submit to the man’s leadership, not so much because he is given direct authority over her, but because his vocation is the primary and foundational one, relating to the forming that necessarily precedes the filling in God’s own creation activity. She is primarily called to fill and to glorify the structures he establishes and the world he subdues. It’s less a matter of the man having authority over the woman as the woman following the man’s lead. As the man forms, names, tames, establishes the foundations, and guards the boundaries, the woman brings life, communion, glory, and completion. Neither sex accomplishes their task alone, but must rely upon, cooperate with, and assist the other.

The differences between the sexes are also embodied differences. Possessing a womb is not something that can be detached from what it means to be a woman—nor possession of a penis from what it means to be a man. It’s not insignificant that the opening of wombs and circumcision are such central themes throughout the book: the conceiving, bearing, and raising of children are integral to the fulfilment of God’s purpose. In bringing about this purpose, the man’s phallic pride in his virility must be curbed by a sign of God’s promise and his weakness (i.e. circumcision); furthermore, the woman’s insufficiency to bear offspring must be remedied by the power of God.

Socially developed differences of gender extend out from and symbolically highlight the primary differences of our created natures and purposes. Social construction of gender is real, but it operates with the natural reality of difference between the sexes, rather than creating difference  ex nihilo . The exact shape of the gendered differences between men and women varies considerably from culture to culture, yet the presence of a gender distinction between men and women is universal. Each culture has its own symbolic language of gender difference. Already within our natural bodies we see features whose purpose is not narrowly functional, but which exist for the purpose of signaling traits associated with virility or femininity to one’s own or the other sex. Hair is a good example here (e.g. long hair on women, beards on men). Most cultures take amplify and symbolize these natural differences by means of such things as clothing. Scripture highlights the importance of such social differences in 1 Corinthians 11, where Paul discusses hair, and in Deuteronomy 22:5, where women who wear men’s gear and men who wear women’s robes are condemned.

Expressing sexual difference in a vast array of culturally conjugated ways can display the  beauty  of our particular differences. Our differences are more than merely random and unstable assortments of contrasts between two classes of persons. Far from it. Our differences are musical and meaningful, inseparably intertwined.

Recognizing this truth, most cultures celebrate sexual difference by developing gendered customs, forms, norms, and traditions. Rather than treating gender, as our culture is often inclined to, as a restrictive, stifling, and legalistic constraint, this approach welcomes sexual difference as an often liberating manifestation of meaning and beauty that resonates with the deep reality of the creation.

Genesis emphasizes not so much the difference between man and woman, but the depth and love of their one-flesh union. Men and women are different, yet those differences aren’t designed to polarize us or pit us against each other. Rather, they’re meant to be expressed in unified yet differentiated activity within the world and in our closest of bonds with each other.

It’s not about difference  from  each other, but difference  for  each other. What makes the woman unique is her capacity for complementing labor in profound union with the man. The animals are also helpers, but only the woman is a suitable counterpart for the  adam  in his vocation; only the woman is the spouse with whom he becomes one flesh. The differences between men and women are precisely features that make them fitting for each other.

This article is adapted from “The Music and the Meaning of Male and Female.” Used with permission from Primer Issue 03 – True to Form. Primer is Copyright © 2016 The Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (FIEC). All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.  fiec.org.uk

Alastair Roberts (PhD, Durham University in England) works for the Theopolis, Davenant, and Greystone Institutes. He participates in the Mere Fidelity and Theopolis podcasts, blogs at Alastair’s Adversaria, and tweets at @zugzwanged.

From the 9Marks Journal:

Free Download

PDF, ePub, and Kindle files will be sent to this email address. As part of our community, you will receive content & communication from 9Marks. You may unsubscribe at any time.

  Purchase a Print Edition

See past Journals

Support 9Marks

Our work is possible by the generosity of our readers. Give Today

More Articles

9marks mailbag.

Offering counsel on a wide-range of questions from actual readers like you!

Read Now » Ask a Question »

Building Healthy Churches

• Copyright © 2024 9Marks
• Privacy Policy
• Website Design by openbox9

• Featured Essay The Love of God An essay by Sam Storms Read Now
• Faithfulness of God
• Saving Grace
• Adoption by God

Most Popular

• Gender Identity
• Trusting God
• The Holiness of God
• See All Essays

• Conference Media
• Featured Essay Resurrection of Jesus An essay by Benjamin Shaw Read Now
• Death of Christ
• Resurrection of Jesus
• Church and State
• Sovereignty of God
• Faith and Works
• The Carson Center
• The Keller Center
• New City Catechism
• Publications
• Read the Bible

U.S. Edition

• Arts & Culture
• Bible & Theology
• Christian Living
• Current Events
• Faith & Work
• As In Heaven
• Gospelbound
• Post-Christianity?
• TGC Podcast
• You're Not Crazy
• Churches Planting Churches
• Help Me Teach The Bible
• Word Of The Week
• Upcoming Events
• Past Conference Media
• Foundation Documents
• Church Directory
• Global Resourcing
• Donate to TGC

To All The World

The world is a confusing place right now. We believe that faithful proclamation of the gospel is what our hostile and disoriented world needs. Do you believe that too? Help TGC bring biblical wisdom to the confusing issues across the world by making a gift to our international work.

The Doctrine of Creation

Other essays.

The doctrine of creation states that God, who alone is uncreated and eternal, has formed and given existence to everything outside of himself. He did this from nothing by the word of his power, and all of it was very good.

Historical Christianity has always believed—as indicated in both The Apostles’ Creed and The Nicene Creed—that God is the creator of the universe. This article will focus on providing an examination of the historic doctrine of creation and many of the relevant theological implications that flow from it. Attention will be given to the main aspects of this doctrine that have been broadly embraced by Christians throughout the centuries rather than to those areas about which Christians have disagreed with one another. In tracing out these main aspects, the following article will start by examining two important phrases from Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God” and “God created the heavens and the earth.” After that, the article will spend time reflecting upon some of the things that those phrases imply theologically, namely, that God is the source and sustainer of everything, that God created everything good, that God invested His creatures with responsibility and significance, that this diversity within creation is reflective of the doctrine of the Trinity, and that God’s creative actions are not identical with those of human beings.

Introduction

It is hard to imagine that there is any topic within Christianity that has been responsible for more debate and disagreement than the doctrine of creation. The question of whether or not God created everything in the universe is a line in the sand, so to speak, that immediately divides everyone in the world into two camps: those who believe in creation and those who don’t. 1 But this question doesn’t just divide the world into two opposing camps, it also raises a number of secondary questions, the answers to which have frequently been the cause of further division and disagreement, especially among believers. Questions pertaining to the length of the creation days, the age of the earth, and the relationship between creation and evolution—just by way of example—have fostered great debate among Christians. These matters have often taken center stage when the doctrine of creation has been discussed and have frequently overshadowed the more fundamental aspects of it. In this article, our main focus will be to examine some of these more fundamental aspects of the doctrine of creation about which there has typically been broad consensus among Christians, as well as many of the theological deductions that flow from them.

“In the beginning, God”

The first four words of the Bible place immediate emphasis upon God. They tell us from the very beginning that before anything else in the universe existed, God already was. Nothing brought him into being. Nothing gave him existence. He was around long before anything else was. He was around long before there was even such a thing as time itself.

God’s name and the way in which it was given to Moses in Exodus 3 both confirm and highlight this independence of being. The name YHWH in verse 15, which is typically translated by the English word “Lord” (in all capital letters), is connected to the “to be” verb in verse 14. In other words, when God gave his name to Moses, he expressed that name in terms of being: “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you’” (Exod. 3:14). This tells us that God is the being one, the one who is. And he gives his name to Moses from the midst of a bush that was burning but not being consumed (3:2-3). In other words, the fire in the bush was not in any way dependent upon the bush for its energy to burn. It was independent, self-existent, and self-sustaining.

This is the picture of God presented to us in the opening words of the creation account. Before anything else existed, God existed. He alone is uncreated and eternal (Psa. 102:25-27; Rev. 1:8). Nothing gave him existence. Instead he gave existence to all things outside of himself.

This means that God did not need to create in order not to be lonely. He did not need to create in order for him to be able to love. He was self-sufficient; he needed nothing outside of himself. For all eternity, he had been enjoying perfect fellowship and perfect love as the three-in-one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Creation was an overflow of his perfection not a manifestation of his inherent imperfection or lack. 2

God created “the heavens and the earth”

When the Bible says that God “created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1), it does not mean to suggest that he only created those two things and nothing else. The Bible is here employing a figure of speech called merism, in which two contrasting terms are used to express totality. We do the same thing regularly in our marriage vows when we pledge to love one another “for better or for worse” or “for richer or for poorer.” Our pledge is not just for the two extremes of life but for the extremes and everywhere in between. We are using two contrasting words to express totality. We are promising to love one another all the time , regardless of circumstance. Likewise, when the Bible says that God “created the heavens and the earth,” it is saying that God created the heavens and the earth (the extremes) and everything in between. It is expressing totality. The point is that God has created everything in the universe (cf. Gen. 14:19). 3

Even though God has created all things, he has not created them all alike in significance or value. The Bible is clear that humankind is the apex of God’s creative work. Human beings were the final creative act of God on the final “day” of creation, created in the image of God and charged with exercising dominion over everything else (Gen. 1:24-8). And while we don’t know exactly what all the image of God entails, it is fairly obvious from Scripture that it at least involves a creative element. In other words, it appears that God has created human beings to mirror His image as creator. To be sure, human beings cannot and do not create in the exact same way that God does—a point to which we will return shortly. But it still remains true that part of what it means to be created in the image of God is that we are made to be vice-creators (Gen. 1:27-8; cf. Gen. 3:7; Gen. 6:14-16; Gen. 8:6; Gen. 11:4; just by way of example).

God is source and sustainer of everything

The fact that God is the only uncreated and eternal being in the universe, who is also creator of all, means that he is the source and sustainer of everything that exists. We not only “have our being” in him, but we “live and move” in him as well (Acts 17:28; cf. Heb. 1:3; 2 Pet. 3:7). This means that every person in the universe is subject to God and dependent upon him as creator and sustainer. No one is autonomous or independent. We are all derived and dependent creatures. We belong to God, the absolute owner of everything (Gen. 14:19, 22), and that means that we are accountable to him (Rom. 3:19). 4

It is this aspect of the doctrine of creation that paves the way for the gospel. No doubt this is why Herman Bavinck, Francis Schaeffer, and many others emphasized the importance of the doctrine of creation as, what Bavinck called, the “starting point of true religion.” 5 Without accountability, the need for grace and forgiveness evaporates. No doubt this is also why so many non-Christians seek to undercut or disprove the doctrine of creation. It gives them the freedom to do what is right in their own eyes (Judges 21:25) without incurring any kind of feelings of guilt.

God created everything good

These initial aspects of the doctrine of creation also mean that good and evil are not competing powers in the universe, as dualistic worldviews might suggest. God is good, and the creation he brings into existence reflects that goodness. Evil—which I take to be an anti-God posture, what the Bible calls un godliness—was not a part of the original creation in any way. It was introduced into the universe by the very creatures that God made. 6 Evil is, therefore, subject to the sovereignty of God in the same way that those creatures who choose to reject him are as well.

God invested his creatures with responsibility and significance

The fact that God created humankind in his image and invested us with the right to exercise dominion means that we are stewards of his creation and accountable to him for how well we care for what he has made. We are responsible not only for how we personally take care of God’s creation as individuals, but for how everyone else does as well. After all, we are our brother’s keeper (Gen. 4:9; Mal. 2:10).

In addition to being created to be creators, human beings are also equally invested with significance and value. There is no hierarchy among humankind in God’s creation. No one tribe, tongue, or race of people is created to exercise dominion over all others. Every human being is created in God’s image, regardless of what he or she might look like, where he or she might live, or what he or she might do. In this sense, it is proper to speak of the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man (Mal. 2:10) in this sense. Every human being receives life from the same “parent.” This means that there is no place in the world for racism or prejudice of any kind based on skin color, hair color, gender, height, weight, ancestry, or anything else that is a part of the created order.

The diversity in creation is suggestive of the Trinity

The human race is incredibly diverse. Differences in physical appearance, gender, mental capability, personality, gifting, and relationship all exist in the human race from the moment of creation. The fact that God has created the entire human race in His own image indicates that his image obviously encompasses the incredible diversity that we see all around us. That is at least suggestive of the diversity, or maybe better, complexity, that exists within God himself. To be sure, the creation account does not make this explicit. But it does make more suggestions in this direction by making special mention of the “Spirit of God” (Gen. 1:2) and by recording the way that God speaks about himself in the plural: “let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gen. 1:26, emphasis added).

This isn’t a full-fledged doctrine of the Trinity. But it is at least a hint in that direction. And it is enough of a hint that we should not be surprised at the full-fledged doctrine. It was foreshadowed in the diversity of the image of God in creation. 7

God’s creating is not the same as human creating

As mentioned previously, God’s creative action is different from ours. When we make something, we use pre-existing materials to do it. We do not create anything that did not already exist. But when God created the universe, he did not use anything that was pre-existing, because “in the beginning” God alone existed. This means that God created the universe ex nihilo , or out of nothing. He did not use pre-existing material. That is the point of Hebrews 11:3, where the apostle says that “what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.” It is the point of Romans 4:17, which tells us that God “calls into existence the things that do not exist.” And it would also seem to be the point of the Hebrew word bārā’ in Genesis 1:1 (translated “created”). This word, when it occurs in the Qal stem, is only and always used of God and the kind of creating that He alone does (see Ex. 34:10). 8 It is never used to describe the secondary creation that human beings carry out by manipulating things that already exist.

If creation is not ex nihilo then a difficult theological issue results: where did the pre-existent material come from? If we say that it was created, then many questions arise: Who created it? When? Why? Was God not able to create it? What is the relationship between this “creator” and the God of the Bible? If we say that the pre-existent material is eternal, then we are saying that a rival god exists who, like the God of the Bible, is eternal and uncreated but who, unlike the God of the Bible, is wholly impersonal and uncommunicative. The Bible’s teaching about the nature of God requires ex nihilo creation. Anything less would undercut the Bible’s picture of God as sovereign, eternal, holy, and free.

God’s act of creating is also different from ours in the way in which it was carried out. God spoke his creation into being (Gen. 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 14-15, 20, 24, 26; Ps. 33:6; 148:5). He did not put it together by hand or with the use of special tools. He spoke, and it was. This tells us that our God is a communicating God. He is a God who speaks and makes himself known (Rom. 1:18-20). Once we understand this, we should not be surprised that he would later choose to reveal himself specially in the written word and in the person of his Son—the incarnate Word of God (John 1:1-2; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2).

God’s creative work may not be identical with that of human beings, but it clearly sets the pattern for it. Not only is human creativity a product of God’s work in creation, but the weekly cycle of work and rest is as well. This weekly pattern is mirrored in eternity, as human beings work for their lifetimes and then enjoy an eternal Sabbath rest in heaven through faith in Jesus Christ. The doctrine of creation, therefore, ultimately points us to that reality and calls us to “strive to enter that rest” by holding fast to Jesus Christ by faith to the end (Heb. 4:9-11).

Further Reading

• Herman Bavinck, In the Beginning: Foundations of Creation Theology
• Henri Blocher, In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Genesis . See a Book Review here .
• D. A. Carson, “A Theology of Creation in 12 Points”
• D. A. Carson, Video: The God who Made Everything
• John D. Currid, A Study Commentary on Genesis
• Jonathan Edwards, A Dissertation Concerning the End for Which God Created the World
• Anthony A. Hoekema, Created in God’s Image
• Douglas F. Kelly, Creation and Change: Genesis 1.1 – 2.4 in the Light of Changing Scientific Paradigms . Also see Blog Comments
• Ian A. McFarland, From Nothing: A Theology of Creation . Also Video Interview
• Matthew Miller, “The Bible’s Conflict-Free Creation Story”
• Guy M. Richard, “Where Did Satan Come From?”
• Paul Tripp, “The Doctrine of Creation”
• E. J. Young, In the Beginning: Genesis Chapters 1 to 3 and the Authority of Scripture

This essay is part of the Concise Theology series. All views expressed in this essay are those of the author. This essay is freely available under Creative Commons License with Attribution-ShareAlike, allowing users to share it in other mediums/formats and adapt/translate the content as long as an attribution link, indication of changes, and the same Creative Commons License applies to that material. If you are interested in translating our content or are interested in joining our community of translators,  please reach out to us .

This essay has been translated into French .

Genesis 2:4-15 English Standard Version

The creation of man and woman.

4  ( A ) These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

5  When no ( B ) bush of the field [ a ] was yet in the land [ b ] and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man ( C ) to work the ground, 6  and a mist [ c ] was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— 7  then the Lord God formed the man of ( D ) dust from the ground and ( E ) breathed into his ( F ) nostrils the breath of life, and ( G ) the man became a living creature. 8  And the Lord God planted a ( H ) garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9  And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. ( I ) The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, ( J ) and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

10  A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. 11  The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of ( K ) Havilah, where there is gold. 12  And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13  The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. 14  And the name of the third river is the ( L ) Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

15  The Lord God took the man ( M ) and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

• Genesis 2:5 Or open country
• Genesis 2:5 Or earth ; also verse 6
• Genesis 2:6 Or spring

Cross references

• Genesis 2:4 : ch. 1:1
• Genesis 2:5 : [ch. 1:11, 12]
• Genesis 2:5 : ch. 3:23
• Genesis 2:7 : ch. 3:19, 23; 18:27; Ps. 103:14; Eccles. 12:7; 1 Cor. 15:47
• Genesis 2:7 : ch. 7:22; Job 33:4; Isa. 2:22
• Genesis 2:7 : Job 27:3
• Genesis 2:7 : Cited 1 Cor. 15:45
• Genesis 2:8 : ver. 15; ch. 13:10; Isa. 51:3; Ezek. 28:13; 31:8; Joel 2:3
• Genesis 2:9 : ch. 3:22; Rev. 2:7; 22:2, 14
• Genesis 2:9 : ver. 17
• Genesis 2:11 : ch. 10:7, 29; 25:18; 1 Sam. 15:7
• Genesis 2:14 : Dan. 10:4
• Genesis 2:15 : ver. 8

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

Bible Gateway Recommends

OpenBible.info Geocoding Topical  Bible Labs Blog

What does the Bible say about ?

A ‣ B ‣ C ‣ D ‣ E ‣ F ‣ G ‣ H ‣ I ‣ J ‣ K ‣ L ‣ M ‣ N ‣ O ‣ P ‣ Q ‣ R ‣ S ‣ T ‣ U ‣ V ‣ W ‣ Y ‣ Z

100 Bible Verses about Creation Of Man

Genesis 1:26 esv / 48 helpful votes helpful not helpful.

Then 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 birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

Genesis 2:7 ESV / 44 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

Genesis 1:1-31 ESV / 42 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. ...

Genesis 1:27 ESV / 40 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Genesis 1:1 ESV / 39 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Romans 1:20 ESV / 35 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

Genesis 2:1-25 ESV / 29 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, ...

Genesis 1:26-27 ESV / 29 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Then 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 birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Genesis 1:2 ESV / 28 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

Genesis 1:3 ESV / 27 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

Hebrews 11:3 ESV / 24 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

Genesis 3:1-24 ESV / 24 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” ...

Genesis 2:3 ESV / 24 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

Psalm 33:6 ESV / 23 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.

Genesis 2:18 ESV / 23 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

Ephesians 2:10 ESV / 22 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Matthew 19:4 ESV / 21 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female,

Genesis 1:31 ESV / 21 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Genesis 1:1-2 ESV / 21 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

Mark 10:6 ESV / 19 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’

Genesis 2:1 ESV / 19 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

John 3:16-17 ESV / 18 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Genesis 5:2 ESV / 18 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created.

Genesis 2:2 ESV / 18 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done.

Colossians 1:16 ESV / 17 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

Romans 11:36 ESV / 17 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

Isaiah 42:5 ESV / 17 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Thus says God, the Lord , who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it:

Genesis 2:4 ESV / 17 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

1 Corinthians 15:45 ESV / 16 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

Isaiah 45:9 ESV / 16 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ or ‘Your work has no handles’?

Genesis 1:28 ESV / 16 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Genesis 1:1-3:24 ESV / 16 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Acts 17:28 esv / 15 helpful votes helpful not helpful.

For “‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’

Exodus 20:11 ESV / 15 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Genesis 1:24-25 ESV / 15 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Revelation 4:11 ESV / 14 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”

Psalm 104:1-35 ESV / 14 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Bless the Lord , O my soul! O Lord my God, you are very great! You are clothed with splendor and majesty, covering yourself with light as with a garment, stretching out the heavens like a tent. He lays the beams of his chambers on the waters; he makes the clouds his chariot; he rides on the wings of the wind; he makes his messengers winds, his ministers a flaming fire. He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved. ...

Genesis 5:1 ESV / 14 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.

Genesis 2:17 ESV / 14 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Genesis 1:5 ESV / 14 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

Revelation 5:13 ESV / 13 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”

2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV / 13 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

1 Corinthians 11:7 ESV / 13 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man.

1 Corinthians 8:6 ESV / 13 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

Jeremiah 32:17 ESV / 13 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

‘Ah, Lord God ! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you.

Isaiah 40:28 ESV / 13 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.

Ecclesiastes 12:1 ESV / 13 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”;

Psalm 124:8 ESV / 13 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Our help is in the name of the Lord , who made heaven and earth.

Psalm 90:2 ESV / 13 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

2 Peter 3:5 ESV / 12 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God,

James 1:18 ESV / 12 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

Hebrews 3:4 ESV / 12 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

(For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.)

Hebrews 3:1-4:16 ESV / 12 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in all God's house. For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, ...

Galatians 5:25 ESV / 12 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

Romans 8:19 ESV / 12 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.

John 1:1-3:36 ESV / 12 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. ...

Amos 9:6 ESV / 12 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Who builds his upper chambers in the heavens and founds his vault upon the earth; who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out upon the surface of the earth— the Lord is his name.

Isaiah 45:1-49:26 ESV / 12 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped, to subdue nations before him and to loose the belts of kings, to open doors before him that gates may not be closed: “I will go before you and level the exalted places, I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and cut through the bars of iron, I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hoards in secret places, that you may know that it is I, the Lord , the God of Israel, who call you by your name. For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by your name, I name you, though you do not know me. I am the Lord , and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me, ...

Ecclesiastes 3:11 ESV / 12 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-11:10 ESV / 12 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; ...

Psalm 139:13-14 ESV / 12 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

Psalm 139:2 ESV / 12 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.

Psalm 124:1-128:6 ESV / 12 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

A Song of Ascents. Of David. If it had not been the Lord who was on our side— let Israel now say— if it had not been the Lord who was on our side when people rose up against us, then they would have swallowed us up alive, when their anger was kindled against us; then the flood would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us; then over us would have gone the raging waters. ...

Psalm 121:1-2 ESV / 12 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

A Song of Ascents. I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the Lord , who made heaven and earth.

Psalm 118:24 ESV / 12 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Psalm 33:1-36:12 ESV / 12 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Shout for joy in the Lord , O you righteous! Praise befits the upright. Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre; make melody to him with the harp of ten strings! Sing to him a new song; play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts. For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness. He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord . ...

Genesis 2:15 ESV / 12 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.

Genesis 2:1-3:24 ESV / 12 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Genesis 1:1-28:22 esv / 12 helpful votes helpful not helpful, genesis 1:1-26:35 esv / 12 helpful votes helpful not helpful, revelation 1:1 esv / 11 helpful votes helpful not helpful.

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John,

Romans 5:12 ESV / 11 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—

Psalm 139:14 ESV / 11 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

Nehemiah 9:6 ESV / 11 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“You are the Lord , you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.

Genesis 1:20 ESV / 11 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.”

1 Corinthians 15:2 ESV / 10 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

John 1:2 ESV / 10 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

He was in the beginning with God.

Isaiah 43:7 ESV / 10 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”

Genesis 1:12 ESV / 10 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Romans 8:2 ESV / 9 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

Jeremiah 32:2 ESV / 9 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

At that time the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the guard that was in the palace of the king of Judah.

Isaiah 40:2 ESV / 9 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord 's hand double for all her sins.

Psalm 104:2 ESV / 9 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Covering yourself with light as with a garment, stretching out the heavens like a tent.

Psalm 95:6 ESV / 9 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord , our Maker!

Genesis 9:6 ESV / 9 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

“Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.

Genesis 3:19 ESV / 9 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Genesis 1:24 ESV / 9 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so.

Genesis 1:6 ESV / 9 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.”

Revelation 5:3 ESV / 8 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it,

2 Peter 3:8 ESV / 8 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

Hebrews 11:4 ESV / 8 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.

1 Timothy 2:13 ESV / 8 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For Adam was formed first, then Eve;

Ephesians 2:10-12 ESV / 8 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

1 Corinthians 5:2 ESV / 8 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.

Romans 11:2 ESV / 8 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel?

Romans 1:20-22 ESV / 8 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools,

John 1:1-3 ESV / 8 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

Song of Solomon 8:1-14 ESV / 8 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Oh that you were like a brother to me who nursed at my mother's breasts! If I found you outside, I would kiss you, and none would despise me. I would lead you and bring you into the house of my mother— she who used to teach me. I would give you spiced wine to drink, the juice of my pomegranate. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand embraces me! I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases. Who is that coming up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved? Under the apple tree I awakened you. There your mother was in labor with you; there she who bore you was in labor. ...

Psalm 95:2 ESV / 8 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!

Genesis 3:2 ESV / 8 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden,

Suggest a Verse

Enter a verse reference (e.g., john 3:16-17 ).

Visit the Bible online to search for words if you don’t know the specific passage your’re looking for.

Unless otherwise indicated, all content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License . All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles , a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Contact me: openbibleinfo (at) gmail.com.