SCRIPTURE - Genesis 1:26-27
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 air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
COMMENT
You see an intimacy when you read that God decides to make one creature and only one creature in “Our image after Our likeness”.
God uses that word. When you come to Genesis 1 and 2, you notice God is creating by the power of His Word – “Let there be light, Let there be this and that” and by the shear power of Gods Word everything comes into existence. On Day 6 though, the language changes from “Let there be this and Let there be that” to “Let Us make man in our Image after Our likeness”. Suddenly it’s plural. It’s first person plural.
Theologians can debate why there is a change of language. You know there are various theories as to what that change of language means. Some people suppose that it is the plural of majesty, you know the way kings talk “We decree”. But that doesn’t explain why it wasn’t used before when creating the other things. Others suggest, that perhaps God is speaking to the angels, but once again nothing is mentioned of angels co-creating with God in Genesis. I don’t think the Early Church Fathers were off the mark in seeing in Genesis 1:26-27, a trace, a foreshadowing of something that wouldn’t become really clear until the New Testament.
And that is, when God makes man in their image, in “Our image after Our likeness”, He does it in a very significant way. We read about how God makes man male and female. Now He made dogs and cats with a distinction of gender but the distinction between male and female is only mentioned explicitly when God creates man in our image after our likeness to show us that in God’s plan this distinction between male and female is not merely biological but there is something theological. There is a mystery here planted as a seed that is waiting to unfold in human history.
When we realise that God makes man in the image and likeness of God there is a relational meaning to that. Theologians and philosophers debate what it means to bear the image and likeness of God. We have a rational mind, a free will and all of that is true but for the people who were reading this book, the ancient Israelite readers, would have recognised that the very next occurrence of the phrase “image and likeness” is found in the opening verses of Genesis 5 where we discover that Adam became a father of a son named Seth in his own image and likeness. So there is a concrete relational meaning to what it means for us to bear the image and likeness of God.
God has destined us to be more than just rational creatures. He has destined us. He is calling us to enter into a family bond.
The fact that God makes man male and female suggests something more intimate.
To become all that God has made us to be, we must grow ever more perfectly in his divine image. That means we must give ourselves completely. We grow perfect in the image of God only as we “become Christ”, in communion with Christ and in communion with others, in communion with the Church.
Source: Scott Hahn
Professor of Scripture and Theology at Franciscan University
Book and/or Audio Interview on: First Comes Love
Showing posts with label First Comes Love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label First Comes Love. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Genesis 2:1-4 - Why does God rest on the seventh day?
SCRIPTURE – Genesis 2:1-4
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all his work which 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,
COMMENT
God finished his work of creation by resting on the seventh day.
Why does God rest on the seventh day?
It is not because He needs the rest but because He knows we will need it.
He becomes our Father and we become His children.
Remember our Lord said “the Sabbath was made for Man, not Man for the Sabbath”.
God blessed and made holy the seventh day.
You have to understand God’s purpose for resting.
By sanctifying or making holy, God wants us to set the seventh day apart from the other days.
God uses the seventh day to reveal to Man his ultimate destiny. Man was made on the sixth day along with all the beasts. We work like all of the animals/beasts, but unlike the rest of the animals we have been created with the capacity that is divine. We are able to pray to God, we are able to love God as children love their father.
The sixth day is not enough for us. God knows that we are not made for work but for worship. We are not made to labour or for kingly dominion. We are not made for the earth but for heaven.
The Sabbath is the seventh day and the Hebrew word for “seven” is sheba. Yet sheba stands for not only for a number. Sheba is also a verb, and it means to swear a covenant oath – literally, to “seven oneself”. (see for example Abrahams covenant oath in Gen 21:27-32) The number seven is the unmistakable sign of a covenant. With the seventh day, God was making a covenant with mankind. God took Adam and Eve into His family. God made them His children.
With this shift in relationship comes a corresponding shift in language. In the first chapters of Genesis, we read of God as “Elohim”, a formal name, usually translated into English as “God”. Elohim evokes the divine power in the act of creation. In the second chapter, however – immediately in the wake of the seventh day – God appears as “Yahweh Elohim”, which is usually translated into English as “the Lord God”. “Yahweh” –which only appears after the seventh day, is a personal name, a family name.
God is not just our creator but our Father.
Source: Scott Hahn
Professor of Scripture and Theology at Franciscan University
Book and/or Audio Interview on: First Comes Love
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all his work which 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,
COMMENT
God finished his work of creation by resting on the seventh day.
Why does God rest on the seventh day?
It is not because He needs the rest but because He knows we will need it.
He becomes our Father and we become His children.
Remember our Lord said “the Sabbath was made for Man, not Man for the Sabbath”.
God blessed and made holy the seventh day.
You have to understand God’s purpose for resting.
By sanctifying or making holy, God wants us to set the seventh day apart from the other days.
God uses the seventh day to reveal to Man his ultimate destiny. Man was made on the sixth day along with all the beasts. We work like all of the animals/beasts, but unlike the rest of the animals we have been created with the capacity that is divine. We are able to pray to God, we are able to love God as children love their father.
The sixth day is not enough for us. God knows that we are not made for work but for worship. We are not made to labour or for kingly dominion. We are not made for the earth but for heaven.
The Sabbath is the seventh day and the Hebrew word for “seven” is sheba. Yet sheba stands for not only for a number. Sheba is also a verb, and it means to swear a covenant oath – literally, to “seven oneself”. (see for example Abrahams covenant oath in Gen 21:27-32) The number seven is the unmistakable sign of a covenant. With the seventh day, God was making a covenant with mankind. God took Adam and Eve into His family. God made them His children.
With this shift in relationship comes a corresponding shift in language. In the first chapters of Genesis, we read of God as “Elohim”, a formal name, usually translated into English as “God”. Elohim evokes the divine power in the act of creation. In the second chapter, however – immediately in the wake of the seventh day – God appears as “Yahweh Elohim”, which is usually translated into English as “the Lord God”. “Yahweh” –which only appears after the seventh day, is a personal name, a family name.
God is not just our creator but our Father.
Source: Scott Hahn
Professor of Scripture and Theology at Franciscan University
Book and/or Audio Interview on: First Comes Love
Genesis 2:18 - It is not good that the man should be alone
SCRIPTURE – Genesis 2:18
Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him."
COMMENT
After each act of creation, God looked at what He had made and pronounced it “good”. To crown His work, God created man on the sixth day and gave him dominion over all the earth. Only then did God look at His work and declare it “very good”.
Adam lived in a world custom made for his pleasure, a world without sin, suffering, or disease – a world where work was always rewarding, a world that, Genesis tells us, was unstintingly good. Yet God Himself looked upon this situation and, for the first time in the Scriptures, pronounced that something was “not good”. He said “It is not good that man should be alone” (Gen 2:18).
What a remarkable statement!
Remember, this took place before the Fall of humankind, before sin and disorder could enter creation. Adam lived in an earthly paradise as a child of God, made in God’s own image. Yet something was “not good”. Something was incomplete. The man was lonely.
Adam’s world seemed complete. He had a good job, a beautiful home, dutiful pets, and plenty to keep him busy. Yet he was incomplete. Even as the ‘image of God’. He was only complete when the woman, Eve, joined him in life. The man and his wife become “one flesh”.
For “God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth’ ”.
The image of God was made complete with the creation of the family. Only then was Eden truly paradise.
Source: Scott Hahn
Professor of Scripture and Theology at Franciscan University
Book and/or Audio Interview on: First Comes Love
Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him."
COMMENT
After each act of creation, God looked at what He had made and pronounced it “good”. To crown His work, God created man on the sixth day and gave him dominion over all the earth. Only then did God look at His work and declare it “very good”.
Adam lived in a world custom made for his pleasure, a world without sin, suffering, or disease – a world where work was always rewarding, a world that, Genesis tells us, was unstintingly good. Yet God Himself looked upon this situation and, for the first time in the Scriptures, pronounced that something was “not good”. He said “It is not good that man should be alone” (Gen 2:18).
What a remarkable statement!
Remember, this took place before the Fall of humankind, before sin and disorder could enter creation. Adam lived in an earthly paradise as a child of God, made in God’s own image. Yet something was “not good”. Something was incomplete. The man was lonely.
Adam’s world seemed complete. He had a good job, a beautiful home, dutiful pets, and plenty to keep him busy. Yet he was incomplete. Even as the ‘image of God’. He was only complete when the woman, Eve, joined him in life. The man and his wife become “one flesh”.
For “God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth’ ”.
The image of God was made complete with the creation of the family. Only then was Eden truly paradise.
Source: Scott Hahn
Professor of Scripture and Theology at Franciscan University
Book and/or Audio Interview on: First Comes Love
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