In Our Image: Genesis 1:24-31

The sixth day began with God populating the land:

"Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind."

And the earth brought forth beasts.

Lions shook their manes in morning light. Elephants lumbered across savannas. Horses galloped through meadows. Cattle grazed on hillsides. Snakes slithered through grass. Every creature that would crawl or run or bound across the land emerged at God's word, the empty continents suddenly alive with movement.

But God was not finished. The climax was coming.

Then God said—and notice the shift to plural, the divine council, the mystery of the Trinity hinted at before it would be revealed—"Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Image-bearers. Not just another animal but something utterly new—creatures stamped with the likeness of their Creator, mirrors reflecting divine glory, representatives appointed to rule on God's behalf. Male and female, both bearing the image, both blessed, both commissioned.

God blessed them and said: "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground."

Dominion. Stewardship. The earth handed over to human care—not to exploit but to cultivate, not to destroy but to develop.

"I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food."

A vegetarian paradise. No death yet. No predator and prey. Just abundance, freely given.

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.

Not just good—very good. The Hebrew tov meod rings with satisfaction, with delight, with the pleasure of an artist stepping back from a masterpiece.

And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

The work was nearly complete. One day remained—not for creating but for resting.