Man is a curious creature. Not a mineral, a vegetable, or even an animal, man stands alone, unique among earth’s creative works. Man, in fact, is the crowning achievement of God’s Creation. “What’s that?” you say. ” What about the universe containing its many stars, planets, comets, asteroids, meteors, gas clouds, and so forth?”
They are not as great among God’s creatures as Man!
According to Genesis, the five creative periods before the creation of man were seen by God and the pronouncement wwas made that they were “Good.” On the sixth creative day, a number of things occurred, with part of that being the creation of Man. At the completion of the first creative work-week, God said it was “very good.” Granted, He may have been summing up the week in its entirety, but doubtless He also had in mind the creation of Man, who was special!
Special? In what sense? Let’s let God’s own Word provide us with the answer.
“And God went on to say: “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and the domestic animals and all the earth and every moving animal that is moving upon the earth.” And God proceeded to create the man in his image, in God’s image he created him; male and female he created them. Further, God blessed them and God said to them: “Be fruitful and become many and fill the earth and subdue it, and have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and every living creature that is moving upon the earth.” And God went on to say: “Here I have given to you all vegetation bearing seed which is on the surface of the whole earth and every tree on which there is the fruit of a tree bearing seed. To you let it serve as food. And to every wild beast of the earth and to every flying creature of the heavens and to everything moving upon the earth in which there is life as a soul I have given all green vegetation for food.” And it came to be so. After that God saw everything he had made and, look! [it was] very good. And there came to be evening and there came to be morning, a sixth day.”
It Was Very Good
Yes, God created Adam in Eve in His and Jesus’ own image. What does that mean? Not that we look like them. They are spirits! We are nothing like them in that regard. How, then, are we like them? In our personalities. We have been given free-will. We have a desire to know about our past, our present, and our future, and we desire to pursue the higher things of life! Animals have no such desire, let along the inanimate creation. Hence, we are part of the sixth day of creation that was proclaimed, “very good.”
But that was then. This is now. We are no longer perfect, having inherited sin and death from Adam.1 In addition, some of us deliberately go even beyond the sinfulness we inherited. Some among us desire to do evil, and not good.
Having a Proper View of Ourselves
Since such is the case, we need to readjust our view of ourselves, and realize that we are no longer, collectively, very good. Rather, we need to prove what we are to God. He will help us, but we need to show him our determination to serve him forever out of love. Only in this way will we once again have the attribution applied to us, “very good.”
In addition to all this, though God himself describes us as part of what is very good, he doesn’t approve of us becoming haughty about ourselves.2
In today’s world, many are haughty. They think they are number one, special, superior, and so forth. On the other hand, and of serious concern, some feel they are nothing, they are dirt, they are trash. This is not true at all!3 Rather, it is a ploy of Satan’s to make us think God views us as not worthy of his attention.
Maintaing a Healthy Balance
So, by way of summing up, we need to keep a balanced view of ourselves in the outworking of God’s Will. We need to view ourselves, humbly, as ones God is interested in, but who are in need of his forgiveness of our sins. We need to look to him and his word to discern his will for us as humans, and we need to show our thanks and appreciation to him by all we do and say.4
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1 Romans 5:12
2 Isaiah 40:22, 23
3 Isaiah 41:10
4 1 Corinthians 10:31
