Gen 1:26–31 — God’s Viceregent on Earth

The title of today’s sermon is “God’s Vice-Regent on Earth.” A vice-regent is a subordinate king who reigns under a great king and represents that king’s authority. This is what we see in our text. God, having created the world, now makes a vice-regent. That is, he creates man in his own image to have kingly authority and dominion over the rest of creation.

Last week we looked at the foundational doctrine of creation out of nothing: in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. We considered the first five days of creation and the beginning of the sixth day in verses 24 and 25. Today we will look more closely at the sixth day. In these six days, God is creating the cosmos to be a cosmic temple in which he will dwell.

We see that in the text, the main clue to that is the reference there to the Spirit of God. It says, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

The reference to the Spirit of God reminds us of that same glory cloud, which is also called the Spirit, later on in the Bible. The same glory cloud that inhabited the temple. After Solomon built the temple, the cloud of glory filled the tabernacle and filled the temple. We also see references to this glory cloud, the spirit of glory coming to dwell in reference to Christ himself.

At the virgin birth, the Holy Spirit overshadows Mary and forms the human body of Christ within her womb. That same spirit came upon him at his baptism, anointing him and setting him apart to his messianic office. And that same spirit of resurrection power raised him from the dead and exalted him to heaven. And so we see this idea of the Spirit of God dwelling in this creation that God has made. There are also other passages later on in the Bible, there are many places in scripture that reflect back upon the creation account.

For example, in Isaiah 66, verse 1, it says, heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. And so this is clearly looking back upon Genesis 1 and saying, when it says that God created the heavens and the earth, we are to think of this as a cosmic temple. Heaven is God’s throne and the earth is his footstool. He is filling heaven and earth with his glory.

Another passage as well that we could turn to would be Job chapter 38. At the beginning of God’s response to Job, remember Job has been suffering and crying out to God for an answer. Why am I going through all these struggles and sufferings? Finally God answers him out of the whirlwind in Job chapter 38. But Job does not get an answer that satisfies him, he simply gets the manifestation of God’s glory.

And Job says, or God says in Job 38, where were you? When I laid the foundation of the earth, talking to Job. Where were you? Tell me if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely God is being a little bit sarcastic here, is he not, to Job. Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

The point is that God here is looking back on the creation account and confronting Job with his ignorance and saying, you have no idea what it is like to be the creator. Were you there when I first took the measurements and like an architect laid the foundations and created this cosmic temple? No, you have no idea. You were not there. You do not understand how it was done. You know nothing. You are just a creature.

And of course, that was what Job needed to hear. It did not provide the answer to his question of why he was suffering, but it did provide him with this sense of awe of the majesty of God. And so he repented in dust and ashes and said, You are God, I am not. And he submitted to God’s sovereign power.

But the important thing is to bring out here that in this passage in Job 38, we see that God is pictured as an architect who is building a cosmic house where he is going to dwell. Another key thing that is important is that it refers there to the angels being present at creation. They are referred to here as the Morning Stars and the Sons of God. That is just a different title for the angels. And they are there at creation. They are rejoicing as they see God build this magnificent temple. The angels themselves were created at the very beginning.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the heavens there, as we said last week, refers to the invisible heaven where God dwells with his angels. And they are actually referred to in our text in Genesis chapter two, verse one, thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them, the host of the heavens being the angels. So that is what we saw last week.

We saw this foundational concept that not only is God the creator of all things and that he existed alone as God from everlasting to everlasting. Before creation existed, all that existed was God himself. But we also see this foundational doctrine that when God created the world, he created the cosmos to be his dwelling place, to be a cosmic temple. Now today, as we come to our text, which is beginning in verse 26 and following, we have the climax of creation.

We have the pinnacle of creation. God created all the different realms and he created the creaturely rulers that reign over those realms, such as the light and the luminaries to reign over the darkness and the night, such as the birds to reign over the realm of the earthly heavens, that is the visible heavens, the sky, and he created the fish to rule over the realm of the seas. Now on day six, when God says to let the earth bring forth living creatures, God also creates the pinnacle of creation, that is, man himself, who, like those other creatures, has a ruling function. Just as the luminaries, the sun, the moon, and the stars rule over their respective realms, and just as the fish and the birds rule over the waters above and the waters below, so also man is given dominion to rule over not just the land, but over everything else. He rules over all of those subordinate kings and their subordinate kingdoms.

He is the pinnacle of creation. Of course, God is the ultimate king. God is the great king. But now God is making a vice-regent. He is making a subordinate king to reign under him and to represent God’s authority. And so this is the doctrine of the image of God. What does it mean that man is made in the image of God? Well, it means that he is made to be God’s vice-regent on earth. Let us look first at the origin of the image of God, then at the glory of the image of God, and finally at the mission of the image of God.

The Origin of the Image of God

First, the origin of the image of God. What is the origin of the image of God? Well, it says in our text in verse 26, then God said, let us make man in our image. That language there, let us make man, points us back to the beginning of our text, where we see the triune God hinted at in our text. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters, and we also see the second person of the Trinity implied in the fact that God said let there be, and there was.

And so we see the word of God, which we know from John 1:1, is the second person of the Trinity. So we see the triune God, it is only hinted at here, it is going to take more revelation as progressive revelation unfolds to clarify that God is triune, but we do see it hinted at here in our text.

Then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness. And in particular, we see the second and the third person of the Trinity involved here. Because the second person of the Trinity is the Son of God who will become man. And that is prepared for by this passage here. Because man himself is made in the image of God, it is appropriate that the second person of the Trinity would become a man. And that he would fulfill that image of God through his incarnation and through his person and work.

We also see the third person of the Trinity implied here, because in making man after the image of God, This is connected to the Spirit of God that was hovering over the surface of the waters. How so? Well, we saw already that the Spirit of God was the archetype that was forming and fashioning this void and formless world into an orderly cosmos.

That is what the word cosmos means, . It means an orderly arrangement of things. That is why the word, you know the word cosmetics? Cosmetics has to do with making things look good, with an aesthetic order and structure to them. And it is related to this word cosmos, which is the orderly structured architecture of the world that God is making. The orderly architecture of this cosmic temple is that it is the Spirit of God who is the Spirit of power and order that is now manifesting and replicating itself in the creation itself, in the cosmos itself.

How much more then is that true with the creation of man? Just as the Spirit of God is hovering over the surface of the waters and then fashioning the formless and void into an orderly cosmos, so also the Spirit of God is present at the creation of man in order to make man into a little temple.

You have the big temple of the cosmos. But now you have man himself as a little temple. Man himself representing the image of God. The order of God. The structure of God. Man himself is made to be a temple of the Spirit. And therefore the Spirit of God is hovering not only over the surface of the waters of creation, but hovering over man himself.

And we see this brought up later on, as I mentioned already, at the virgin birth. The Spirit of God was overshadowing the Virgin Mary and replicating and creating Christ himself in his human body to be the fulfillment of the image of God. So the origin of the image of God is the triune God, focusing specifically on the role of the Spirit in creating man in the image of God.

There is also perhaps here another secondary reference to this plural language, let us. Let us primarily points to the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as we see in the context and also looking at that canonically and looking forward to the New Testament. But there is also possibly a secondary reference here in this plural language because there are other verses in the Old Testament where you hear this language of let us. And the let us language seems to imply some kind of conversation of God with the counsel of the heavenly beings.

For example, I already mentioned Job 38 verse 7, when all the sons of God sang for joy at creation. Later on in other verses, for example, in Psalm 82, verse 1, it says, God takes his seat among the heavenly council, among the council of the heavenly beings. Psalm 89, verses 6 and 7, mentions that as well. Or in Isaiah 6, remember in Isaiah 6, when Isaiah saw the vision of God seated upon his throne, surrounded by all the seraphim who were worshiping God and crying out, holy, holy, holy?

Well, a few verses later, you hear this phrase, this same let us language. Who is going to go for us? Who shall we send for us to represent God’s purposes on earth? This is the call of Isaiah. But you have that same let us language in the plural sense.

The primary references to the Trinity, the triune God, deliberating among themselves and accomplishing these various moments of work of whether it is creation or creation of man or the sending of Isaiah as a prophet. But there is also a secondary reference to God in the midst of the counsel of the heavenly beings, the angels themselves. Who are a reflection of God’s glory.

And so they are there with God. Now, of course, the angels do not create. So when it says, let us make man in our image, it is not as though the angels are being asked to be involved in this work of creation. Angels are creatures themselves, so they cannot create. Nevertheless, they are there as witnesses.

They are there to flesh out the fullness of God’s triune life. So that we can see it reflected in glory. Not only among the council of the angels, but even in man himself. Man himself is going to be brought into that divine council. You ever wondered about the reference in the book of Revelation to the 24 elders that are around the throne? What does that mean? What are the 24 elders? Well, I think that those are angels, but they are being pictured like a council, like a council of elders who are there to be with God, to deliberate, and to plan, and to think about God’s purposes, and to execute those purposes. We see this throughout the Bible.

The angel Gabriel, heard in Daniel chapter nine, was there in the heavenly council when the prayers of Daniel ascended to heaven. And the angel Gabriel then was sent by the divine council, by God himself, to come to Daniel and to reveal God’s purposes for the messianic age that was to dawn in the future. The angels then are an important part of our worldview, of our biblical understanding of the world.

They are creatures, they are not God, but they are there with God even in this work of creating man. So that is the origin of the image of God. Man is an earthly replica of this heavenly authority that is primarily the authority of the triune God, but that is also reflected even in the heavenly realm in the council of the heavenly beings. That dominion and authority that the heavenly council has is reflected in man’s dominion as God’s vice-regent. Secondly, what is the glory of the image of God? We have seen the origin of it. It comes from the triune God, and secondarily, the counsel of the heavenly beings.

But what is the content? What is the glory of this image? Well, it is that man is participating in, in a creaturely way, the glory of God as the creator. That is an astonishing thing. How can that be that this creature of dust who is nothing, he is just a creature, yet how can he be elevated to this high glory of sharing in the glory of God? And there are three aspects in which man shares in the glory of God. Three aspects of what it means to be made in the image of God.

The Content of the Image of God

First, man shares in God’s moral goodness. And secondly, he shares in God’s dominion over creation. And thirdly, he shares in God’s bodily, physical glory, which refers to the resurrection of the body or the glorification of the body. First of all, man shares in God’s moral likeness and God’s moral goodness.

Man is created to be like God morally and ethically, having the capacity to make God-like judgments Now at this point, Adam has not yet confronted evil. That will happen in chapter three when the serpent comes into the garden. So at this point, man does not know what evil is, but he does know what goodness is because he is made in the likeness of God. He is made to be like God, to reflect God, to imitate God, and to have that God-like quality of moral excellence and goodness.

One of the key ways that we see this is in the fact that God has given man something that is unique that the animals and the other creatures do not have. God has given man an intellect, given man the ability to use his mind, to use his mind not only to know God and to worship God and to obey God, but to use his mind also in reference to the rest of creation and to exercise dominion over creation.

Later on in Genesis chapter two, we will see that God told the man to, to name all of the creatures. God brought all the creatures to man to see what he would call them. And in naming each of the creatures, this is in Genesis 2 verse 19, in naming each of the creatures and giving them names, he was acting as a scientist. He was acting according to this divine intellect that God had given him to be able to analyze each creature and to know what its purpose was. And giving it names means that he is identifying its purpose and function.

And he is exercising that intellectual, rational capacity over creation. And this is all part of the first element of the image of God, which is that man shares in God’s moral excellence. And that focuses specifically on man’s capacity to have this God-like intellect, not only to know what is good and true and to know God, but also to exercise that intellect in ruling over creation. Man also has a will, in addition to his intellect, that is his capacity to know, to know the truth, whether it is the truth of God or the truths in creation, but also he has a will, and that is that his will is subordinate to his intellect and is supposed to choose that which his mind has identified as being good. God has placed within him not only a mind to know the good, but also a will to follow the good. Having perceived what the good is through this God-like mind and intellect, he now chooses the good and desires to obey God and to implement God’s will in creation.

That is a helpful thing to think about, that the intellect and the will of man, they are not like two separate components of man. The human soul, which is the non-physical part of us, the human soul is utterly simple. It does not divide into different parts. It is not like the soul has an intellect and a will as separate mechanisms or engines within us. But the intellect and the will are two different aspects of our soul.

This God-like soul that God has placed in us has both an intellect aspect and a will aspect. That is a knowing function and a choosing function. And that choosing function, the will, is subordinate to the mind, to the intellect. The intellect is ruling over the will. And the will must do and execute that which the intellect has properly perceived. Now that is how it was ordained at creation before the Fall.

But of course when sin came into the world, everything was turned upside down. One of the big problems that you see, maybe in your own life, or when you look at people out there in the world who do not know the Lord, is you see that the order is reversed. Instead of the intellect being in charge, and properly knowing God, and properly understanding the world, and then allowing the will to implement what the mind has perceived to be good, things are upside down. The will is in charge. And the intellect takes a second seat, maybe even is denied.

Many people today are post-modernists. They do not even believe that truth is real. All they believe in is my truth. And what is that saying? If you say all you believe in is my truth and there is no absolute truth, you are just saying that ultimately the will is in charge. And so whatever I want, that is what determines truth. And so you see how the will now has taken the first place, it is now the engine running things, and the intellect is denied, suppressed, and people do not believe in the truth anymore.

That is a result of the fall. The fall has disordered the way man is supposed to be. So that is the first aspect of the image of God. Man participates in, man shares in God’s moral excellence. And we see that through his intellect and his will in their proper order. Secondly, man also shares in God’s dominion over creation. We see this in our text very clearly. Part of the image of God is expressed for us in this command.

God blessed them, verse 28, and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea Referring back to day five when God said, let the waters be fruitful and multiply and fill over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens, also day five, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Referring to the other creatures that were created to live on the land on day six. The dominion that man has, his authority over the lesser realms of creation and the lesser creatures under him, the animals and the plants and so on, is godlike. It is a reflection of God’s dominion as the great king over all creation.

In Psalm 8, It says, this is a reflection upon the creation account. Another one of those passages like Job 38 and so on. Psalm 8 says that God says, you have given him dominion. This is a song of praise to God. Praising God for giving him, that is man, dominion over the works of your hands. Psalm 8 verse six.

And that is a direct allusion to Genesis 1:28, when God commanded them to be fruitful and multiply and have dominion over the earth. Clearly, God is the one that gave this dominion to man.

Psalm 8:6 makes that clear. You have given him dominion. It is a delegated authority.

Just like a great king will delegate authority to his vice-regent, Remember in the story of Joseph, this happened when Joseph was brought before the king, before Pharaoh, and Pharaoh had these dreams about these, that he did not know what it was, but when Joseph explained it to him, it was a dream about a coming famine. And then Joseph said, here is what you do. Take all of the excess grain that you collect and save up for this famine.

And the pharaoh, the king of Egypt, was impressed by Joseph’s wisdom. And so he delegated Joseph to be his vice regent. He set Joseph over the entire land of Egypt. It says in Genesis 41 verse 42, then Pharaoh took his signet ring from his hand and put it on Joseph’s hand and clothed him in garments of fine linen and put a gold chain about his neck.

These are the insignia of royal authority. The ring, and he took it from his own hand. The Pharaoh took it from his own hand and gave it to Joseph and put it on his hand. The second part of the insignia is this clothing. He clothed him in garments of fine linen and then he put a gold chain, the third thing was he put a gold chain about his neck.

Do not these things, these royal insignia remind you of the image of God? It reminds you of Genesis 1. It reminds you of, you are seeing God creating his vice-regent, Adam, and he is clothing him with glory and honor and giving him this authority and power so that man himself He is acting in creation as if he is like God. He has God-like authority. He is representing God. He is God’s image, acting as God’s vice-regent upon the earth. And then the third element of the image of God is that man shares in God’s physical glory as well.

Now this part is not immediately obvious because as he was created in Genesis 1, man did not yet have that glorification of the body. His body was still not glorified, it was still an ordinary body that was capable of dying and capable of being injured. Although, of course, we know that before the fall, before Adam’s sin, that God would not let him die and God would not let him be injured. But it was still capable of those things. It was a non-glorified body.

But the hope was that he would eventually achieve that through his obedience to God. The image of God contained within it a hope of transformation into the full glory of God, reflecting the radiant presence of the glory spirit. We see a picture of this at the transfiguration of Jesus. Remember when his face shone like the sun and his garments became white as light? And the disciples, it says in 2 Peter 1, were eyewitnesses of his majesty when he received honor and glory from God the Father. That was the transfigured Christ, which of course would then be fulfilled later at his resurrection. The transfigured Christ was a picture of what Adam would have achieved if he had kept the covenant and passed the test. But that is a third element of the image of God. The image of God itself contains within it a hope of being perfected, of being brought to this higher state and of receiving God’s glory in that full physical way.

That is also hinted at in Psalm 8. I mentioned Psalm 8 verse 6, you have given him dominion, but also the verse just before that in Psalm 8 verse 5, it says you have crowned him with glory. You have crowned him with glory and honor. That is what Adam was looking forward to, and what he could have achieved, and of course, what he lost because of sin.

The Mission of the Image of God

The third point of the sermon, so the first point was the origin of the image of God. The second point was the glory of the image, looking at those three facets. But now the third point of the sermon is the mission of the image of God, which is this mandate that God gave to man to be fruitful and to multiply. Meaning what? Meaning to replicate the image. The image of God that was in man was not just for Adam only and then all the rest of humanity is devoid of the image. No, the image of God was to be replicated by being fruitful and multiplying.

The mission of the image of God was that man was called to expand God’s kingdom from the Garden of Eden into a worldwide, glorious, global manifestation of God’s glory. And he would do this primarily through procreation. And the earth then would be filled with little image bearers multiplying even across generations until the whole world is full of image bearers reflecting God’s glory. Adam is God’s vice-regent on earth so that through procreation he will multiply and replicate this image so that God’s will will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Through Adam’s fulfillment of the cultural mandate, the earth would be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.

That was the mission that God had placed before man. Now, of course, we know that all of this glorious prospect, this wonderful hope, came crashing down in Genesis chapter 3 when Adam and Eve sinned, they ate of the forbidden tree, And the fall happened and the curse was brought into this world. And so it seems as though the fall has disrupted this whole purpose. It is marred the image itself and then it is also disrupted this glorious plan of replicating the image of God through procreation to fill the earth. It seems as though the fall has made it all come crashing to the ground as if it is never going to be restored.

Christ Restores the Image

But the wonderful news of the gospel is that Christ is the second Adam. He is the image of the invisible God and he has restored it. He has restored the image of God and he is also restoring the image of God in his people and He is also being fruitful and multiplying. How is Christ being fruitful and multiplying like Adam was supposed to be?

Obviously in the fulfillment in Christ as the plan that was originally given at creation is now being fulfilled through Christ. It is a little bit different. It is not through physical procreation. Although even that is used and taken up by Christ within the covenant of grace through covenant nurture as we as believers have Christian families.

But the primary way that Christ is fulfilling the cultural mandate is by saving his people through the effectual calling of his elect. Whenever he takes a sinner whose Representation of the image of God is marred by sin and he takes that person and he brings them into his kingdom. He is beginning to restore the image of God in that believer. Christ is restoring the image of God through the preaching of the gospel and through effectual calling and through the sanctification of his people as the image of God is being renewed in us.

Colossians 3:10 put on the new man which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

Or to use another verse, 2 Corinthians 5:17. I love this one, is this not great?

2 Corinthians 5:17 says this, if anyone is in Christ, there is the new creation. Most of the translations get that a little bit off, and they say if anyone is in Christ, he is the new creation. As if each one of us is a new creation. You are a new creation, you are a new creation. That is not quite what Paul is saying.

What he is saying is, if anyone is in Christ, there you are seeing the new creation being instantiated, being evidenced, being brought about in this one person. The new creation is the glorious new creation that Christ is going to fulfill when He comes back.

When He comes back and He is going to come in glory with all of His angels, there is the heavenly council again. He is going to come with all of His angels in the clouds of heaven, and He is going to gather all of His elect from the four corners of the earth. He is going to purify this earth, removing all evil from it, casting the wicked into hell. And He is going to renew the image of God ultimately, not only through our sanctification, but through our glorification. When He gives us glorified bodies, And then he will populate this whole new creation with all of his image bearers that he has been working on through effectual calling and sanctification in this life.

And we will be with the Lord forever in the new creation. If you are an individual believer in Christ, you are not the new creation, but you are an expression, you are a little advance anticipation of this glorious new creation reality that is going to happen, already happening right now in you by the work of the Spirit. Christ has restored what Adam lost. Christ is the second Adam. He has restored it in principle through his resurrection. He is the seed of the new creation. And he will restore it, in fact, at his second coming when the new creation is fulfilled.

And then we will have all those three aspects of the image of God perfectly restored. The first aspect of being like God with moral excellence. We will no longer struggle with sin. We will be perfected. We will perfectly reflect the moral uprightness and goodness and holiness of God. Secondly, we will have dominion over creation. And thirdly, we will be glorified. Our bodies themselves will be glorified and become like God’s own glory.

Right now, because of the fall, we live in a sin-cursed world. And in this sin-cursed world, everything is upside down. Our wills are in charge of our intellects instead of our intellects being in charge of our wills. Or even just in terms of the world and the physical realities of creation. Tragedies happen, hurricanes happen, when the physical creation itself has dominion over us. People die in tragic events that happen in this world.

Just think of how little control you have. When you look at the original plan, in Genesis 1, where man is created to have this dominion over everything, dominion over all the creatures, dominion over creation itself, and then you compare that with our lives now, we have hardly any control over creation. The very fact that we get sick or that we are going to die unless we are alive when Christ returns, death itself is an inversion of the order. Death itself is where the creation is now having dominion over us.

Just think how tragic it is when somebody gets cancer and how they feel about that when they are diagnosed with cancer. Just the helplessness of it. They had no control over this thing that is happening to their body. It is abnormal. It is not supposed to be that way. There is not supposed to be cells in your body that are multiplying out of control and devouring your body and killing you. That is not the way it should be.

And so when you get cancer, you are just like stuck with this reality of how much everything is inverted from the way it was supposed to be. There was not supposed to be cancer in creation as it was originally created. Man was to have dominion over everything, dominion over creation. Not being subjected to it, not being under its thumb and hurt by it, leading to death.

The wonderful reality is that Christ has already begun the reversal. Even though we are still living in fallen bodies and mortal flesh in this world, and we still struggle with cancer and natural disasters, and everything is still topsy-turvy, and we even struggle with that issue of our wills not being properly aligned with our God-given intellect. Yet, in principle, Christ has already begun to make things right. That moment on the first day of the week when he rose again from the dead, that is when the image of God and the proper dominion that man is to have over creation began. And now you, brothers and sisters in Christ, you are in him. And that victory and that dominion that Christ has over all of creation is in principle a fact even for you.

Yes, the Lord does call you to suffer with him through this present age until the day when Christ comes back. And yes, we do experience the inversion of the proper order of things. And we do experience suffering, and death, and sickness, and tragedies, and sorrow. But you can endure those things in hope. You can endure those things in the confidence that Christ has already begun to make a difference in this world and in your own life. And one day it will be revealed in fact. You do not see it now. But by faith, we lay hold of this truth that Christ has indeed been raised from the dead and he is restoring the image of God in us and he will bring it to completion one day.

That gives us hope, that gives us strength to persevere in our trials. We do not experience all of those sad things like cancer and tragedies. We do not experience them the way the world does, with hopelessness. With a nihilistic spirit of there is no purpose to this life. This life is meaningless in their eyes. We experience those same things, but we do so in Christ.

We do so in the confidence that Christ is the Lord of all creation. That he has been raised from the dead and exalted to the right hand of God. And what did he say? He said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Echoing the language of the dominion mandate given to Adam back at the beginning. Christ has already begun it. He is the seed of the new creation.

And so in that strength, in that confidence, let us be patient, let us humbly endure the sorrows of this life knowing that Christ has already won the victory and that victory is assured and can never be taken away from you.