Debrecen Messages #7 – The New Man: God’s Visible Image and Rule on the Earth

He has a purpose for you that is very big and glorious. What is His eternal purpose? I don’t know. I don’t know, but I’ve been preaching on it for 25 years. It is so vast, so great. There is no definition for His eternal purpose.

So, we came then to Genesis 1 and 2 reverently. Because we discovered that Genesis 1 and 2 has no sin in it. Therefore, Genesis 1 and 2 is unique to Scripture. There’s no fall. And we find in Genesis, the first two chapters, a great deal of the record of His purpose. And we have gone through chapter 1, verse 1 through 14, all the way up to 20? 26, I think. We’re in verse 26. And we’re finding His reason for creation all over the place. It has nothing to do with salvation, and we’re impressed. God had a vast and glorious idea when He created.

And now, if there’s anything that we can say either about His purpose, or His purpose within the fall, or our place in the fall, and our purpose within the fall, it’s in today’s message.

I have told you once before, when I brought a message on the eternal purpose, I said, this is what keeps my engine going. This is what keeps me stoked. This is what keeps fire in my belly. Well, I’m going to read another passage today. This is what drives me. It is a revelation.

And so we come to the sixth day. And I’m going to read this entire passage. Genesis 1:26.

And God said, let us make man. And I want you to pay attention to the us. And our. Pay attention to the our. And then we look at this word image. And it’s just not possible to exhaust that word. According to our likeness. In other words. They will be made in the image of a Trinitarian God. And let them rule. Rule over the fish of the sea. Over the birds of the sky. And over the cattle. And over all the land, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on it. That includes the snakes.

And God created man in his own image. In the image of God, God created man. He made a male in his image. And he made a female in his image. He created them. He blessed them. And said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. He did not say produce kind after your kind. And this is the only creature, or the only passage in which this is left out. We were not supposed to produce kind after our kind. This shows us something very incomplete about man.

I want to read this again. God blessed them and said, be fruitful. Brothers, there is purpose in being fruitful. In multiplying. In filling the earth. And subduing the earth. The earth. The fish. The sea. The birds. The sky. And over every living thing that moves on the earth. And then God said, behold. I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the earth, on all the earth. And every tree which has fruit yielding seed, it shall be food for you. He does not tell them to not eat of the tree of good and evil. I think it’s not here yet. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the sky, and to everything that moves on the earth which has life, I have given even green plants for food. And it was so. And God saw all that he had made,

and behold, It was. Very. Good. And that even includes the night. And the darkness. And there was evening. And there was morning, the sixth day. That is the end of the great sweeping drama. And in chapter two. He will focus, the Lord, or the writer will focus in on two things. And that’s man, and the woman.

I’m not big enough to bring this message. I am not capable of telling you what’s in this passage. I see some words.

I see, “Let us.” I see the word them, plural, not a man. I see the word image. And I see the word rule. I see the word earth. And all this was said before the fall, and right now, we look at this, we get a little bit of a feeling of inferiority. We who are believers are not ruling the earth. We even feel that we are not the image of God. Because we are fallen. Lay that aside for a moment. And remember something. Whether there is a fall, or no fall, or whether there is sin, or no sin, what God said in Genesis 1, He will complete.