In Our Image (Genesis 1:1-2:3)

Ryan Scott Carrell - August 18, 2025

We’ve learned over the past few weeks that the Bible as we know it, the stories written and collected in this vast library, probably wouldn’t exist without a critical moment in history that served as the catalyst for these to be collected and written down. This event in history is the Babylonian Exile, which took place in the 6th century BCE, about 2,500 years ago.

During the Babylonian Exile, the residents of Jerusalem, following its siege and destruction, were forced to move from their city to live in a new city called Babylon, which is about 50 miles south of modern-day Iraq. In their new home of Babylon, the exiles from Jerusalem, sometimes referred to as Judeans, had to wrestle with how and why they ended up in exile as they encountered and adapted to the strange, new culture around them. As they did this, as they wrestled with this existential crisis, they began to tell and write down stories that, for generations, had been shared among their people as oral traditions. These stories helped them make sense of their world, not in a scientific or historical way, but in an existential and philosophical way. Along with this, these stories helped them explain their theology, what they believed their god and the god of the ancestors, particularly in light of exile.

Last week, we looked at one of those stories that we call the Garden of Eden story. And we talked about how the Hebrew people shared that story of the exile of Adam and Eve from the garden as a way to think about their own exile from Jerusalem. There is a lot that they were trying to say in that story, but we focused on this verse from it, which says, “then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” (Genesis 2:7 NRSVUE).

This verse was critical to their theology because these exiles were now distanced from their city and their temple, which felt like being distanced from God. But, because of the very air they breathed, the breath of God given, they could never be distant from their God.

Today, I want us to see another aspect of this idea, one that helped them continue to see God’s presence in their lives, written in a different way using different language. As we explore this, we will see how significant this is and what it means for how we live our lives today. To do that, we are going back one chapter to Genesis 1.

Genesis 2-3, which we read last week, is one creation story written like a narrative. But this other creation story, we’re about to read in Genesis 1, was written as a poem. So, I want you to try to hear the poetic language and flow. You might even imagine the words of the poem turned into pictures being painted on a mural, if it helps you creatively imagine these words.

Genesis 1:1-25 (NRSVUE)

When God began to create the heavens and the earth, 2 the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. 6 And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” 7 So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. 8 God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day. 9 And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. 11 Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. 12 The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening and there was morning, the third day. 14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. 17 God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, 18 to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day. 20 And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.” 21 So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day. 24 And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind and the cattle of every kind and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.

As I said before, these ancient stories reveal how the people who told them made sense of the world around them. They weren’t writing history or science textbooks like we do today. So, we shouldn’t look for these stories to serve that purpose. Instead, we should we what they were intended to do, which was to invite their listeners into a deeper reflection of who they were in light of the god they served. We begin to see that piece beginning in verse 26.

Genesis 1:26-2:3 (NRSVUE)

26 Then God said, “Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the wild animals of the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” 27 So God created humans in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them, 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 and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” 29 God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the air and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all their multitude. 2 On the sixth day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.

The verses we’ve read today could help us think about how we define goodness, why we should have a rhythm of rest in our lives, and the sacred responsibility we have to care for the world around us. These are all important lessons to learn from this passage, but today, I want to highlight what we find in these verses and their emphasis on the image of God.

Now, there’s a lot going on with the phrase the image of God, because it’s not limited to the Bible. Many cultures had ideas about the image of God. These concepts are what lead to the use of idols, and even more important for us, the worship of kings in the ancient world who reigned as the pictures of god on earth, if not gods themselves. But what we find here is a profoundly different view. The image of God isn’t in a particular someone but in the plethora of everyone. A later songwriter would attempt to capture this in song.

Psalm 8:4-6 (NIV)

4 What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? 5 You have made him a little lower than God and crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You have made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet.

What we’re learning through these passages is that these people believed the image of God is not the thing that makes us human, but what gives us purpose as humans. We are to represent God in this world, stewarding his creation, and seeing his glory and honor in the presence of everyone we encounter. That phrase “crowned him” is a statement ascribing royalty to humanity, and the author doesn’t limit that honor. We are to honor all the image bearers around us, and that means everyone.

But there’s also a tension here. Psalm 8 paints this beautiful picture of human dignity and calling, yet when we look around, it’s obvious we haven’t always lived up to that vision. We often fail to steward creation well. We don’t always treat others as crowned with glory and honor. Too often, humanity has done a better job at showing just how much we fail at this high calling. So, in some ways, Psalm 8 gives us the ideal, but we need someone to show what it looks like when humanity actually lives this out in its fullness as image bearers. And that’s where Jesus comes in.

We needed someone to embody Psalm 8, someone to actually live out the call and purpose for which we were made. We needed a life that showed us what it looks like to rule not with domination, but with love; to use power not for personal gain, but for the good of all; and to show what it looks like to see every person as crowned with glory and honor. And this is exactly what God gave us in Jesus.

When we look at the life of Jesus, we see all of this, but we are most astounded by his love, compassion, and grace for those he met. The stranger, the sick, and the marginalized all had a place at Jesus’s table because they were all image bearers in his eyes.

And this idea wasn’t a new idea. It’s a return to what the exiled people taught through their story of creation. All people bear the image of God. And what God wants for each of us is for us to accept that when we look in the mirror or at the face of another human, we are looking at the very face of God.

And that, my friends, is why they told this story.