Devotion

I Corinthians 6:19-20 (EHV)

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God with your body.

In our lesson for today, we will see the miracle that happened on the sixth day of creation when God made Adam and Eve.  In the Hebrew language, Adam comes from the same word as "earth."  Which is appropriate since he was made from the ground.  Adam is also the word for all mankind.  So when God formed Adam he was the first man.  All people since then have come from Adam and his wife Eve which is actually not her Hebrew name but a mistranslation of the name Havvah.  

The text above tells us that our body is also a miracle.  In our day with abortion the rule of many governments, our human body is diminished in importance.  But Jesus death on the cross proved we are important and our lives are important to him.  

Separating our body and life is not easy for us to think about.  Jesus told the thief on the cross that because of his faith, TODAY they would be together in heaven.  He was not talking about his body, because the thief's body is still on earth.  He was telling the thief that eternity would start for him now.  

On the last day, all the dead will be reunited with their bodies and all believers will have that perfect gift of eternal LIFE.  Therefore glorify God with your body.

The lesson

Genesis 1: 26-31

Creation of Man

26 Then God said, “Let us make a man[i]—someone like ourselves,* to be the master of all life upon the earth and in the skies and in the seas.”

27 

So God made man like his Maker.

Like God did God make man;

Man and maid did he make them.

28 And God blessed them and told them, “Multiply and fill the earth and subdue it; you are masters of the fish and birds and all the animals. 29 And look! I have given you the seed-bearing plants throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food. 30 And I’ve given all the grass and plants to the animals and birds for their food.” 31 Then God looked over all that he had made, and it was excellent in every way. This ended the sixth day.[j]

1. Genesis 1:26 a man, literally, “men.” someone like ourselves, literally, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.”

2. Genesis 1:31 This ended the sixth day, literally, “And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day (or ‘period of time’).”

Notes

Background: 

Counteracting the teaching of evolution with the teaching of the image of God

"Sometimes it is stated as a difference between man and beast that man has a soul and a beast does not. But here we have to be careful lest in our doctrinal statements we go beyond the express words of Scripture. The King James Version in Genesis 1 and 2 introduces the word "soul" for the first time in Genesis 2:7 in connection with God's creation of man. "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." It would seem then that "soul" here is something that distinguishes man from the other creatures. However, a careful reader of Genesis 1 and 2 in the original Hebrew language recognizes that the words translated "living soul" are nephesh chayyah, and that the identical expression is used of the beasts in Gene sis 1:21 and Genesis 1:2^. "Let the earth bring forth the living creature (nephesh chayyah נפש חיה )." Likewise "the breath of life" in Genesis 2:7 is an expression that in almost identical terms is used of the animals and man in Genesis 7:22: "All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died." On this matter H. C. Leupold says: "Not this breath itself but the manner of its impartation indicates man's dignity. So also the claim that man became 'a living being,' or literally, 'a living soul,' (A. V.) does not point to the distinguishing glory of man. For the same expression is used of other animate beings in 1:2^. It must be remembered that the author is at this point chiefly reporting the fact that this lifeless clay be came animate by the breath of the Almighty. The fact that man is a superior being is indicated by the manner in which this is done, and this was already amply indicated before by the divine 'image' (1:26)"

JOT p 9

We know then what we should do and how important it is that we do it. But perhaps some practical suggestions as to how this can be done will be welcomed. We are thinking particularly of the Sunday School situation.

The creation account (Genesis 1), of course, gives us our first opportunity to impress on our students the

importance of the image of God. The beasts of the earth, although created also on the sixth day, were not

made in God's image. But human beings, both the man and the woman, were made in God's image. The Advanced Bible History explains: "Different from other visible creatures; resembling God: rational, knowing God, righteous,

holy." We have not used the word "rational" in defining God's image because the Bible does not so define it.

Nevertheless, the scientific study of nature as carried out by Adam surely indicated to him as to us a differ

ence in mental capacity and reasoning power between Adam and the other creatures. Compare animals and man with

regard to such matters as speech and prayer and planning for the future and remembering the past. Hurlbut's

Story of the Bible introduces man's standing up on two legs as a characteristic that makes him different from

the animals. Surely it is better to stick with God's explanation of the image of God.

The account of man and Paradise (Genesis 2) also gives us an opportunity to speak of the image of God.

There was no companion for Adam among the animals. But Eve, made in God's image from Adam, was a fitting com

panion.

Of course we teach these Genesis accounts as true history, not as legends or myths or as truth-teaching

fables. By listing Adam in Luke 3 as an ancestor of our Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit has certainly made it clear

that Adam and Eve truly were actual persons living on this earth at a definite time and in a definite place.

Jehovah vertically

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