So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
GEN.1.27
Genesis 1
1In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2Now the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. 3And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4And God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. 5God called the light “day,” and the darkness He called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. 6And God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters, to separate the waters from the waters.” 7So God made the expanse and separated the waters beneath it from the waters above. And it was so. 8God called the expanse “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day. 9And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered into one place, so that the dry land may appear.” And it was so. 10God called the dry land “earth,” and the gathering of waters He called “seas.” And God saw that it was good. 11Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth vegetation: seed-bearing plants and fruit trees, each bearing fruit with seed according to its kind.” And it was so. 12The earth produced vegetation: seed-bearing plants according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day. 14And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to distinguish between the day and the night, and let them be signs to mark the seasons and days and years. 15And let them serve as lights in the expanse of the sky to shine upon the earth.” And it was so. 16God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night. And He made the stars as well. 17God set these lights in the expanse of the sky to shine upon the earth, 18to preside over the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day. 20And God said, “Let the waters teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the sky.” 21So God created the great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters teemed according to their kinds, and every winged bird after its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters of the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day. 24And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, land crawlers, and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. 25God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that crawls upon the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 26Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, and over all the earth itself and every creature that crawls upon it.” 27So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth.” 29Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit contains seed. They will be yours for food. 30And to every beast of the earth and every bird of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth—everything that has the breath of life in it—I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31And God looked upon all that He had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
Setting
Nothing has happened yet. There is no Israel, no covenant, no law, no temple — only God, and then a world that was not there before. Genesis was given to a people who had lived four hundred years among Egyptian gods and were headed toward Canaanite ones. Their neighbours told creation stories too, and in those stories the world is made from the corpse of a defeated god, and people are made as an afterthought to do the gods' manual labour. This chapter is not written into a vacuum. It is written into a crowded room, and its first hearers would have recognised immediately how much it refuses to say. No struggle. No rival. One God, speaking, and a world that obeys.
Explanation
The chapter is built, not merely told. Days one to three form what was formless; days four to six fill what was empty. Light, sky, land — then lights, birds and fish, animals and humanity. The problem stated in verse 2 is that the earth is "formless and void," and the six days answer it in order, term by term. This is a deliberate structure, and noticing it is not a modern imposition; it is how the text presents itself.
God creates by speaking. That sounds unremarkable now, and it was not. In the surrounding literature creation is something the gods achieve — by combat, by struggle, by effort against resistance. Here there is no resistance. "Let there be light," and there is light. The deep waters that other nations personified as a hostile goddess appear in verse 2 as simply dark water, unnamed and inert, no more a rival to God than clay is to a potter. What is being denied is as important as what is affirmed.
Then the pattern breaks. Six times God has said "Let there be." Now he says, "Let Us make man in Our image." The deliberation is new, and so is the result: a creature that resembles him. In the ancient world an image of a god stood in a temple, and an image of a king was erected at the borders of his territory to declare who governed there. Genesis takes that language and does something startling with it — the image is not an object in a shrine but a living pair, male and female together, placed in the world to rule it on God's behalf.
And then, six times, "good" — and once, at the end, "very good." A world that did not have to exist, made by a God who did not need it, and pronounced good before anyone had done anything to deserve the verdict.
Christ connection
John opens his Gospel by reaching back to this one: "In the beginning was the Word." What Genesis says God did by speaking, John says God did through the Son — and the same Word who called light out of darkness later enters the dark he made light in. The image that is defaced by chapter 3 is not abandoned. Paul calls Christ "the image of the invisible God," the thing we were made to be and stopped being. So the story does not run from creation to rescue as though rescue were a change of plan. The one who makes is the one who comes.
One thing
Today, treat one person as an image-bearer at the exact moment they are least useful to you.
Verse 27 is not a compliment paid to humanity in general; it is a claim about particular people, including the ones who are slow, wrong, or in your way. The ancient world reserved the language of divine image for kings. Genesis hands it to everyone — male and female, without qualification, before any of them has accomplished anything. Notice where that grates. The cashier who is holding up the queue. The colleague whose email you have already decided not to answer carefully. The relative whose politics you find embarrassing. You are not being asked to feel warmly toward them. You are being asked to act as though the text is true about them when it costs you four minutes.
Prayer
God, before anything existed, you did. You spoke and there was a world, and you called it good before it had earned anything. Teach me to receive this day as something made rather than something owed, and to see your image in the people I would rather hurry past. Amen.
Secondary reading — Matthew 1:1-17
1This is the record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham: 2Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers. 3Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram. 4Ram was the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon. 5Salmon was the father of Boaz by Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, 6and Jesse the father of David the king. Next: David was the father of Solomon by Uriah’s wife, 7Solomon the father of Rehoboam, Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asa. 8Asa was the father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah. 9Uzziah was the father of Jotham, Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah. 10Hezekiah was the father of Manasseh, Manasseh the father of Amon, Amon the father of Josiah, 11and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon. 12After the exile to Babylon: Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel, Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, 13Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor. 14Azor was the father of Zadok, Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud. 15Eliud was the father of Eleazar, Eleazar the father of Matthan, Matthan the father of Jacob, 16and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. 17In all, then, there were fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Christ.
On the secondary reading
Matthew opens the New Testament with a list of names — a strange way to begin, and a deliberate one. "A record of the ancestors" echoes the phrase that structures Genesis, so the New Testament starts by pointing back to the book you have just opened. And watch who is included: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba, named in a genealogy under no obligation to mention any woman, not one of their stories respectable. The line to the Messiah runs through them.
Word study
tohu wabohu (תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ) — formless and empty
Tyndale renders this pair as a terse idiom meaning something like "wild and waste." It states the problem that the six days then solve: days 1-3 give form, days 4-6 fill the emptiness. The phrase is descriptive of a condition, not the name of a rival power — Genesis mentions the deep waters (tehom) without granting them any of the personality that neighbouring myths gave them.