4.1 Key themes⤒🔗

• God made us very good, in his image.
• To be in the image of God means to show what God is like in all our relationships:
  1. Relationship with God – loving him, glorifying him, and enjoying his love.
  2. Relationships with other people – living together in love and harmony.
  3. Relationship with God’s creation – ruling over and enjoying the creation.
• We are all united to Adam, like branches to a tree.
• When Adam rebelled against God, the whole human race fell into sin.
• Every human being is two things at the same time:
  1. The image of God
  2. A sinner

4.2 Genesis 1:26-31a←⤒🔗

^1:26 Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness, so they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth.”

^1:27 God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them.

^1:28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply! Fill the earth and subdue it! Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that moves on the ground.”

^1:29 Then God said, “I now give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the entire earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.

^1:30 And to all the animals of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to all the creatures that move on the ground – everything that has the breath of life in it – I give every green plant for food.” It was so.

^1:31a God saw all that he had made – and it was very good!

© NET Bible

4.3 Genesis 2:16-17←⤒🔗

^2:16 Then the LORD God commanded the man, “You may freely eat fruit from every tree of the orchard,

^2:17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will surely die.”

© NET Bible

4.4 Created in God’s image←⤒🔗

In Lessons 2 and 3 we learned that we are all sinners. But how did we become like this? Did God make us this bad? The Bible’s answer to this question is: No! God made us very good.

Every human being wants to know, “Who am I?” We want to know where we come from and where we are going. That is why there are so many different stories about human life. There is the story of evolution, which says that we have come from animals. Other stories say that we have come from gods or spirits.

But the Bible tells us the true story about ourselves. God made us. He made us to be different from the animals and different from the angels. He made us in his image (Genesis 1:26).

Think of a photograph that is taken of a king. The photograph is not the king. But the photograph shows us what the king looks like. We are like photographs of God. We are not God. But we show what God is like. That is what it means to be made in the image of God. It is a very special privilege and responsibility.

4.5 The image of God and our relationships←⤒🔗

In Lesson 2 we saw that God made us for three kinds of relationships:

• A relationship with God himself
• Relationships with other people
• A relationship with God’s creation

In all our relationships we must show what God is like:

Our relationship with God←↰⤒🔗

There is great love between God the Father and God the Son. The Father brings glory to the Son, and the Son brings glory to the Father. Because of this, we can say that God loves and glorifies himself. If we are made in God’s image, then we should also love God, glorify him, and enjoy his love.

Our relationships with other people←↰⤒🔗

God is not alone. He is three Persons: Father, Son, and Spirit. God also did not make us to be alone. He made a wife for Adam. He wanted human beings to be fruitful and fill the earth (Genesis 1:28). God created us to become a big human race who will live together in love and harmony.

Our relationship with God’s creation←↰⤒🔗

God is the King of creation, and he made us to be his “under-kings.” We must rule over creation (Genesis 1:28). We must do this in a kind and wise way, just as God our King is kind and wise. We were also made to enjoy God’s creation. In the beginning the world was a good place to live in. It was easy to enjoy life in God’s creation (Genesis 1:29).

4.6 We are united to Adam←⤒🔗

There are billions of people on the earth today. Sometimes we focus on our differences. We think that it makes a big difference if we are black or white, rich or poor, Chinese or American, educated or uneducated. We also think that it makes a big difference which family we come from.

But in reality these differences are not so great. We are all human beings, made in the image of God. We all come from one father and mother: Adam and Eve. We are all united to Adam, just as branches are united to a tree.

4.7 We all fell into sin←⤒🔗

In Genesis 1:26 God says that creation is “very good.” But two chapters later in the Bible, God says that creation is “cursed” (Genesis 3:17). What has happened?

God gave Adam the freedom to choose for God or against God. There was one tree that Adam was not allowed to eat from. God warned Adam that he would die if he ate of that tree (Genesis 2:17).

The tree was a test. Would Adam trust in God and obey him, or would Adam rebel against God?

Adam rebelled against God. He chose to trust Satan, not God. In that moment, the whole human race fell into sin. Death entered God’s creation. The whole creation was placed under God’s curse.

You may be thinking, “I was not there! Why must I suffer for something that Adam did?” But remember that you are united to Adam. If a tree dies, then all its branches die too. After Adam sinned, sin came into all of us. David says, “Surely I was sinful[35] at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5).

The truth is: We are just like our father Adam. We also sin. We also make our own plans, instead of listening to God. We also fall for Satan’s temptations. We are guilty before God, just like Adam.

Every human being is two things at the same time: (1) the image of God and (2) a sinner. We are like photographs that have been damaged. There are still good things in our lives, because we are still made in the image of God. But we are not the good images that God made us to be. All our relationships have been damaged by sin.