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WHY DO WE EXIST?

Lessons from the Creation of the World

"Worthy art thou, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for thou didst create all things,
and by thy will they existed and were created."

REVELATION 4:11

In Genesis 1:1, the Bible’s first verse, we find the most fundamental assertion in all of Scripture about who God is: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Notice that this assertion is a concrete description of what God has done (God has created) rather than an abstract statement concerning one of his attributes (God is the all-powerful Creator). God has revealed himself primarily through his activities in time and space, not through a philosophical discussion of his nature. The Bible is the record and interpretation of God’s self-revelation. The Bible begins, therefore, by asserting that God is the sole and sovereign Creator of the universe. Genesis 1:3-25 then recounts “how” God made our world, including its plant and animal life, emphasizing that every aspect of it was good. Finally, God crowns his creation by fashioning mankind in his own image and giving them the mandate to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth, and to bring it under their supervision and authority (Gen. 1:26-28).

THE IMAGE AND KINGDOM OF GOD

Thus, the Bible also begins by presenting the most fundamental statement we have concerning the nature and purpose of mankind. The other living creatures are created merely according to their “own [various] kinds,” which is to say that they are brought into existence in accordance with their different natures as merely physical creatures. In a shocking turn of events, however, humanity is not created simply as yet another “kind” of living creature but in accordance with God’s own character: “Let us make man inour image” (Gen. 1:26, emphasis added). Though mankind is part of the created order, the point of comparison has suddenly changed: rather than being created merely like one another (“according to its kind”), mankind was also created like God!

Not surprisingly, given its obvious importance, students of the Bible have suggested many different interpretations of what it means to be created in the “image of God.” But whatever else it might entail, Genesis 1:26-27 indicates that mankind “reflects” or “images forth” God in the fundamental sense that men and women are given responsibility and authority over the earth just as God takes responsibility and exercises authority over them.

Then God said,“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness