Checkpoint wrote: ↑Wed Apr 07, 2021 2:05 am
1). What is this Genesis 1:27 scripture telling us, as you understand it, about God, and about mankind?
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and assigned a host of angels to care for the earth.
Some of these angels, led by Satan, revolted against God and left their first estate.
God returned, re-created the earth to its good state, and then created mankind as follows:
Genesis 1:26-27
And 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 fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
There are two worlds according to the Bible – the physical world and the spiritual world.
The original beings assigned as earthly caretakers were immortal spiritual beings.
The words “us” and “our” refer to God and the other angels – or every “intelligent” being there at the time -- as man was not yet created.
In our image refers to the relationship between God and the other angels. That relationship being that God rules over everything in existence, but He has given dominion over the earth to other spiritual beings.
Mankind is created and given dominion over the earth, thus replacing the angels who failed. The God/man relationship mirrors the God/angel relationship.
Notice that mankind is created as “male and female.”
Being created male and female implies Adam and Eve are physical beings, living in the physical world!
That is, godly spiritual beings have no reason to reproduce -- being immortal.
Man was created originally with two differences between him and the angels! These two differences between men and angels are described in the book of Genesis. They are body type and knowledge of good and evil. Two trees in the Garden of Eden represented each of these differences.
Man became closer to being like the angels upon eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
The one remaining difference between man and the angels is body type, physical versus spiritual.
Jesus confirms this in the Book of John by stating there is only one thing man must do to become equal unto the angels. That one thing is to be born again of the Spirit.
Adam and Eve were not ejected from the garden because they sinned. They were expelled from the Garden of Eden so that they could not eat from the tree of life and live forever!
So being created in the image of God does not indicate man was created with immortality!