A PORTRAIT OF THE 6TH DAY (Blogging Genesis)

Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind”; and it was so.

God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good.

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

. . .

God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (Genesis 1: 24-31)

Fingerprints of the Artist

Have you ever been in a working artist’s studio?  It’s pretty cool.  Painting and prints in varying stages of completion are set on easels and stacked on pallets.  Step back and scan the room.  The faces on the canvasses are different, but there’s sameness to all of them.  Depictions of building and babies, of landscapes and dreamscapes differ in content and color, but if you zoom in each unique image emerges from the same brushstrokes from the same creative hand.

On the 6^th day, God created the ancestral forms of land-based animals, including social animal groups which Genesis generically calls cattle.  Herds, colonies, flocks, packs, etc.  God drew color from the existing materials on the earth, developed biological themes He’d used in earlier days, and formed unique creatures which, when we zoom in, closely bear the same genetic brushstrokes of a single creative hand.

Then God created us.  Humans.  Social creatures who live in herds called families and packs called nations.  A little bit prey, a whole lot predator.  Same Artist, same Earthy palette, but a fresh, new theme. 

Imago Dei

Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.

All previous creatures, plant and animal, God made after their kind.  They are defined by their biology and instincts.  Being  animal means being the same kind of thing as the rest of their species.  God didn’t make people after their kind.  A person is greater than the sum of his/her evolutionary biology.  To be human is to be defined by choices that arise from mind, will, and spirit.  Human be-ing means how we reflect or distort the nature of God. God made people after His kind.

Humanity is God’s self-portrait, but the image is so complex that He created the picture in two parts. 

. . . in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

That’s unusually gender specific for the Old Testament.  Usually Scripture will say man or mankind to encompass both genders, but in the very first reference to humanity in the Bible, the Holy Spirit inspired the male, patriarchal author of Genesis to very specifically impress the point that men and women are both, each, and equally made in the image of God (the imago dei). 

Notice in the Creation  that God never blessed a singular him or her.  He only blessed them.  Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:28)

After Eve, none of the women for the next several chapters of the Bible are named, but God reiterated His point about valuing both genders equally in chapter 5.  He created them male and female, and blessed them and called them Mankind in the day they were created. (Genesis 5:2)

Men are not a rough draft of God’s image which God perfected in women.  Women are not an afterthought built only to make men’s lives easier.    Male and female were both part of God’s intended Creative plan, which is why God declared that “it is not good that man [male] should be alone” (Genesis 2:18).    We love, provide, birth, show mercy, build, organize, communicate, and do justice for other people.  We most perfectly reflect the imago dei in community.  We need each other to fully realize our God-given purposes.

Dominion vs. Domination

God said to THEM, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion…”

God gave animals and people the same basic blessing, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill” the earth (Genesis 1:22, 28).  But for people, the Lord added the command to subdue and have dominion.  Humans and animals share a primal drive to consume resources so we can perpetuate our genetic material, fill the earth with our offspring.  When we fail at dominion, all we have is that primal drive, and we become like animals.

Dominion, as commanded in Genesis 1:28, was assigned to THEM, not to him. Dominion is cooperative, self-less, and focused on the Biblically-defined good of all (persons, places, and things) under human authority.  The God-ordained dominion of humanity over the planet is fulfilled when the god-ness of women works together with the god-ness of men by for the glory of God. Since Genesis 1, time and sin have skewed our course from dominion to domination.

Domination is the selfish, self-seeking pursuit of profit for the benefit of the few most dominant humans, regardless of the consequences on persons, places, and things under their sway. Predation, pollution, misogyny, misandry (look it up), corruption, hoarding, and the diverse and creative menu of systemic injustices are all acts of domination.  Domination makes us look like animals, which makes God look like less than who He is.

That’s not the look God was going for on the 6^th day.  We’ve painted a counterfeit imago dei and sold it to ourselves.

We need to be re-painted.  In 2 Corinthians 3:15-18, Paul lays out the Artist’s process in 2 Corinthians 3: 15-18:

But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. ¹⁸ But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

We go back to the studio and turn to the Jesus so He can remove the screen of domination. Then, being led by the Holy Spirit, we read the Creation with clear eyes, and “unveiled face.”  We look into the mirror of God’s Word and see ourselves as we are, a marred portrait overlayed with the image of God which we are meant to be.  We sit for a new portrait, not as the subject, but as the canvas.  It may take a while, but the God who curated all of Creation into a 6 day exhibit will “transform [us] into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

Then we’ll be, as the original picture was, “very good.”

---Anderson T. Graves II   is a writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.

Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in Fairfield, Alabama;  executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO);  and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).

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