Genesis 1:26-27: Who Are "Us"? The Trinity in Creation

Hello, and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has taught home-style Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting, people say, the time seems to fly by. And now, here's Les Feldick. Glad to have you with us again tonight, and let's just go right back and pick up where we left off last week, and that was in Genesis chapter 1 and verse 26. Now, you remember we merely spoke of the fact that the plural pronoun here refers to the triune God, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. And the triune God is going to create a creature after His own image. Now, that's hard for us to comprehend, because at this point in time, God is Spirit. As we pointed out a few weeks ago, He was an invisible Spirit being. Now, you can't very well make an image of something that's invisible, but yet God did. And I think the point taken is that you and I, as members of the human race, even though we think of ourselves as someone that we can see and we're a visible image, yet the real you, the real me, is invisible. And I guess the best way, again, if we can just put this on the board, is that the best way I can picture man is again go back to circles, if I can call them that, and let's divide man into what the Scripture calls him as body, soul, and spirit. Now, in order to pick that up scripturally, turn back with me to Thessalonians, because I know there are some theologians who speak of man as simply spirit. Others will say, no, he's soul, and then there are a few like myself who say, well, you can divide soul and spirit, because the Bible does. Now, I know there is a very close affinity between the soul and the spirit, and yet the Scripture does divide them. I'd like to have you come back to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, and let's look at verse 23, and then while you're looking for that one, if you happen to hit Hebrews, we're going to go look at Hebrews for just a second in chapter 4, verse 12. But for starters, let's look at 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 23, merely to establish that Scripture does speak of us as body, soul, and spirit. 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 23, where Paul writes, "...and the very God of peace sanctify you wholly, or completely, and I pray God that your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." There you have the three parts, body, soul, and spirit. Now if you'll flip over to Hebrews chapter 4, Hebrews chapter 4, drop down to verse 12, the Scripture very plainly divides the soul from the spirit. They are not one and the same, albeit, like I've said, they certainly have a close affinity. It is hard to make a difference, but yet the Scripture does. Hebrews 4, verse 12, it says, "...for the word of God is quick," or it's alive, "...powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder," or the separating, "...of soul and spirit." There it is, just as plainly as you can get it. "...the word of God is able to separate between the soul and the spirit, the joints and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." So man, if I may take you back again to Genesis 1, verse 26, is now created in the image of God, not so much in His physical appearance, not so much in the body, because certainly we know nothing of God having a body or a physical appearance, but in the area of the soul and the spirit they are invisible. Now what I like to do in order to make this a little plainer and easier to understand, that in the area of man's soul we again become a trinity of sorts, and here is definitely the invisible, and that is that we are made up of mind, the will, and the emotion. Usually if you go into a college psychology course, those are the first things you will learn, that we are a make-up of mind, will, and emotion, and I like to call that the soul. Now if you will analyze these three words carefully, you suddenly realize that they are all definite entities. We certainly have a mind, and there is no doubt about it, but it's invisible. You can dissect the brain, and you can put brain cells under a microscope, surgeons can look at the brain, and they can even determine what little parts of the brain make other body functions operate, but yet the mind is invisible. No one has ever been able to put it on the table and examine it. The same way with our will. The will is a definite entity, or you wouldn't be here today. You came by exercise of the will, but you can't put your finger on it, you can't see it, you can't analyze it, it's invisible. And the same way with our seat of emotions. Now the emotions of course are those things that make us cry, they make us laugh, they make us happy, they make us sad. They are certainly a bona fide entity. It's something that we know is there, and yet we can never see it. Now these three aspects then of our innermost being is what I like to call the personality, or the person, the real you, the real me. Now is that hard to comprehend? Now put this also then into the three members of the Godhead, and again let's put them up here. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Each one of those have enough scriptural verses to back me up when I say that God the Father has mind, will, and emotion. God the Son has mind, will, and emotion. God the Holy Spirit is also a person, and He too has mind, will, and emotion. Now that's what makes a personality, and it was in that area then of the person that we were created in the image of God, because God has all of these attributes. Now doesn't that help? Now then, when God created Adam, and He gave him that invisible personality, He also placed within Adam a spirit concept that would connect Adam with his Creator, or with God. So that right from the beginning, Adam has total and complete fellowship with his Creator. Now, the body then is just simply, as the Bible calls it, a tabernacle. It's a temporary dwelling place. And the other word for tabernacle is the simple word, tent. A tent is certainly not very permanent. It's just something that you use temporarily. And that's what our body is. Our body is just a tent in which God has placed the person, the personality, the invisible personality of the mind, the will, and emotion. And then He also put alongside of it a spirit concept, or a spirit entity that is capable of communication and fellowship then with His Creator. The body is something that is just functional only in what I like to refer to as the five senses. You take away the five senses, and what have you got? You've got a vegetable. If you can't smell, or hear, or taste, or touch, you're nothing. And that's all really the body becomes, is the exercise of the five senses. It's a tent, it's a dwelling place for the real you and the real me. Now the other point we have to make is that since this is the direct creation of God, it comes straight from the very heart of God. That makes it what? Eternal. This part of us will never die. It's eternal as God is eternal. Now we're introduced to this right off the bat in the book of Genesis, because it naturally follows then that since God has created man with a will, it is for the purpose of making a choice. And it's going to be a choice between being obedient to God, or we can be disobedient. And man is left with that exercise of the will. Now, starting out of course, Adam is created sinless, he's perfect, he's got a body that will never have to die, he's got a soul that is in perfect fellowship and communion with God as is his spirit, he is a perfect creation. Now all of this to say that as we said in our last half hour, God is creating mankind as the very epitome, it's the very crowning act of creation. And we are created in the image of God, given a will, so that we can choose to either be obedient or disobedient, and the whole concept of this thing boils down to the very attitude of marriage in the human relationship. In other words, God has already had myriads of angels. But you see, the angels were never beings that He could fellowship with, that He could have love extended and love returned. But now He's going to create mankind for the sole purpose, by giving Him a will, and by man choosing to be obedient to his Creator, the Creator will have someone that He can fellowship with, He can extend love to, for all eternity. And as I see Scripture, this is the primary reason for man being created in the first place, that God wants a creature that He can love, and will see that love return. Now I said it comes right down to the marriage relationship. And we're living in a time, of course, where marriage and the home is under ferocious satanic attack, and that's all it is. But yet if you'll turn with me, and I want to use this verse for a two-fold purpose, to help our attitude concerning marriage, and the home, and the husband and wife relationship, but also to establish that this is the reason that man was put here in the first place, because the relationship is so much the same. Turn back with me, if you will, to Ephesians. The letter of Paul to the Ephesians in chapter 5, and I know over the years I've had a lot of young people in my classes, single people. And especially to the young men, I will always direct this particular portion of Scripture, because I'm of the mentality that if a home survives or doesn't survive, I blame the man. Now I know there may be alternatives to that, but for the most part, I think the success or the failure of the home or the marriage is primarily the man's responsibility. All right, come back with me to Ephesians chapter 5, and let's jump down to verse 21, where Paul is dealing with this very thing, the marriage relationship. And he writes, "...submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God, wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands." Now I always have to stop there a moment. Now that doesn't mean that you have to be a slave, and that you have to be a gopher. It merely means that the woman recognizes that God has ordained that the man is to be the head of the home. Now he's not to be a taskmaster, he's not a slave master, but he is simply given that place of authority, and lest we abuse it, all we have to do is look at the succeeding verses. And what does it say? "...wives, submit unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord," there's the key, and then verse 23, "...for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church. And He is the Savior, not just of the soul." Now that's usually what most of us have heard over the years, is the salvation of the soul. And that's all that too many spiritual people, theologians, concern themselves with. But what they're missing is God is just as concerned about our body. We're going to have a new body someday, but until we do, it's not just the salvation of the soul God is concerned with, but with the whole person, the body, the soul, and the spirit. All right? And here He says He is the Savior of the body. Now verse 24, "...therefore, as the church," the body of Christ, "...is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be subject unto their own husbands in everything." Now when you bring this into that same relationship as the church is to Christ, and Christ is to the church, between the husband and the wife, see there's no room for abuse of that authority or of the submission. Everything is just so perfectly ordained if we will just do it God's way. All right? Verse 25, now here's the verse that I use for putting the responsibility on the husband. And it says, "...husbands, love your wives." And I've told young men that over and over and over again. That is a commandment, that the husband is to love his wife. And do you know what? The Scripture never tells the wife to love the husband, never. Now I know Peter says that mothers are to instruct their daughters on how to love their husbands, but that's a far cry from commanding it. Now the reason is, and this is why I tie this in with Genesis chapter 1, just as surely as God put man on the scene with a will, that when God would extend His love and His grace and all His blessings to this creature, God expected love returned. Now it's the same way in the marriage relationship. I still maintain that, with rare exceptions, if the husband will truly love his wife scripturally as Christ loves us, the church, then it automatically follows that the wife is going to respond to that love. If a woman doesn't, there's something wrong with her, because God has created within the woman that responsiveness, that when the man extends his love, she's going to respond and you have a happy relationship. It just can't be otherwise. But it all began back here when God created man, and the whole concept is, He's going to give us a will, and God is going to give us the very best that He can give. And what does He expect in return? Obedience. That's all He asks for, is obedience. All right, now then, if you will, let's come back to Genesis, and for the few moments that are left, come back again to chapter 1, seeing that He was given, as we mentioned last week, He's going to be given dominion over all of creation, under God, naturally. And this is why God has given him the mind, and the will, and a set of emotions, so that as a created being, he has all the capabilities for this dominion. Now I don't think any of us can really understand the tremendous intelligence and the perfection of this man, Adam. He had everything going for him. He was, for all practical purposes, immortal. He wouldn't have had to die. He was made incorrupt. There wasn't a corrupt cell in his body. Everything was put in place that he could have lived forever. Now I say could have. That was his potential. But what did God also know? That he wouldn't. But that's beside the point. God puts him on the scene with that opportunity of living forever. He could have been the progenitor of a perfect race of beings. It was his potential. All right, now then, in verse 27, we're introduced to a thought that I think a lot of people can't quite comprehend. And that is that when God created Adam, within Adam were both the male and the female. Look what the next verse says. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God created he him. Male and female created he them. Now we're not going to come to the creation of Eve until quite a few verses down the road. Now the verse I guess that woke me up to this several years ago, and it hasn't been all that long, is go back with me to Genesis chapter 5. And this is what I try to get folk to do as they read their Bible and they're studied, is analyze every single word. That's when things start popping up at you. If you just simply read to be reading, you miss 90% of it. But here in Genesis chapter 5, I suppose it was while I was teaching, because that's a lot of times when I'll see these things. As I'm reading to a class and I'm teaching, there it comes. Oh, here was one of them. Chapter 5, verse 1, this is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man in the likeness of God made he him. Now this is a recap. This is a summarization. Now look at verse 2. Male and female created he them, and blessed them, now watch the plural pronouns, and called their name Adam. Not Adam and Eve. Not even Adam and woman. But he blessed them and called their name Adam. In the day when they were created. Now if you'll come back with me again to chapter 1. Now I guess we even have to go into chapter 2, all the way into chapter 2. And Adam has already, verse 20, Adam has already had all the created beings, the animals and so forth, brought before him so that he could name them. Now if you don't think that took some intelligence, I'd like to know what did. And so many of the species as we still know them today, their original name goes all the way back to Adam. All right, now look at it. Adam is still alone. He hasn't got a help meat yet. But, verse 18, and then we'll go into 19, the Lord God said it is not good that man should be alone. I will, and that's a future tense verb, he hasn't done it yet, but he said, I will make him a help meat. Someone that would be called alongside to help. All right, but now then verse 19, even before God does that, verse 19 comes into operation, and he brings all of the things that were created unto Adam to see what he would call them. And whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, to the fowl of the air, and to every beast, but for Adam there was not found a help meat. Now get the timing here. Adam has already been on the scene long enough, and the animal creatures have come to probably a maturity of sorts, and I don't think they necessarily had to be created in maturity, but now God is bringing them all before Adam so that he can put a name on them. Now I think it follows, just like it did at the flood, I think all these creatures probably came two by two. And poor old Adam realizes that even the animal kingdom and the birds and everything else have already got their mate, but he's alone. Ever thought of it that way? Everything is coming before him paired. And Adam, I imagine, his heart was just about going out, and he thought, Now God, why is it that everything in creation has its own mate, but I'm still just one? And this is what touched the very heart of God, when it says that God in verse 18 said, "...it is not good that the man should be alone." So now then, after seeing all of these creatures come by, realizing that they've already had their mate assigned to them, now God says, Adam, we're going to do the same for you. Now we won't have time, we've only got about two minutes left, so we haven't got time to go into the detail of that, we'll wait until next week for that, but I just want you to realize that Adam now is created body, soul, and spirit, a three-part entity, a copy of the Trinity if you want to refer to it as such, and within that there is another Trinity of sorts in the mind, the will, and the emotion. His spirit is in complete fellowship and communion with his God, his body is perfect, his mind is perfect, he is a tremendous individual, but within Adam is both the male and the female. Now we haven't got time tonight, probably won't even have in the next half hour, to really bring out the necessity of that. It had to be that way, because you see, turn back with me, we've got two minutes left I think. Let's go back to Romans. Whenever we begin to deliberate about something in the Old Testament, and Genesis in particular, you've got to literally run to the New Testament to find the answer, and the reason for it. Now in Romans 5, verse 12, and what do you see? Romans 5, verse 12, "...wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin." Now have you ever stopped to realize that it doesn't say that by two people sin entered? It doesn't say by Adam and Eve, and even though Eve ate first, it never gives the blame for it to the woman, but the New Testament tells us that it was Adam who brought sin and death into the human race. Now, we're going to look at it next week. Why did Adam have to contain the progenitors, the cell makeup of the female, even before she was created? We'll have to let you hanging by a thread, we'll pick it up next week, and I think we've got all the scriptural answers for it. ...that Adam was first formed, Paul writes to Timothy, and then Eve, and even though Eve ate first, Adam is responsible. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. If you would like to be part of our studio audience, call 1-800-369-7856, that's 1-800-369-7856. Or, if you would like a copy of today's Bible study on tape, send your gift of $5 or more to Les Feldick Ministries, Kinta, OK 74552.