Sunday Night Bible Study @ RHCC July 12th 2020
Chapter 21: Doctrine of Man: The Creation of Man
Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem
Outline
Key Points:
• God created all humanity in His Own image and named us “Man.”
• Human beings bear the image of God in their relationships, their moral capacities, their
spiritual natures, their emotional and cognitive faculties, and so forth.
• The fall corrupted the image of God in mankind, but redemption in Christ can
progressively restore this image.
Questions:
• Why Did God create us?
• How did God make us like Himself?
• How can we please Him in everyday living?
The pinnacle of God’s creative activity is the creation of human beings, both male and female, to be
more like him than anything else he has made.
I. EXPLANATION AND SCRIPTURAL BASIS
A. The use of the Word Man to Refer to the Human Race
1. The usage of the term man has Scriptural warrant
Genesis 5:1-2
This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day when God created man, He made him in the
likeness of God. He created them male and female, and He blessed them and named them Man in the
day when they were created.
2. The Hebrew term translated “Man” is ‘ אָָדםâḏâm, the same term used for the name of
Adam and the same term used as of man in distinction from woman.
Genesis 2:22
The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the
man.
Genesis 2:25
And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
Genesis 3:12
The man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.”
Ecclesiastes 7:28
which I am still seeking but have not found. I have found one man among a thousand, but I have not
found a woman among all these.
3. Therefore the practice of using the same term to refer
a. to male human beings and
b. to the human race generally is a practice that originated with God Himself, and
we should not find that objectionable.
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4. Genesis 5:2 specifically describes God’s activity of choosing a name that would apply to
the human race as a whole.
Genesis 5:2
He created them male and female, and He blessed them and named them Man in the day when they
were created.
5. The fact that God did not choose to call the human race “woman,” but “man,” probably
has some significance for understanding God’s original plan for men and women.
B. Why Was Man Created?
1. God did not need to create man, yet He created us for His Own glory.
John 17:5
Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.
John 17:24
Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see
My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.
Isaiah 43:7
Everyone who is called by My name,
And whom I have created for My glory,
Whom I have formed, even whom I have made.”
Ephesians 1:10-12
In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who
works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would
be to the praise of His glory.
1 Corinthians 10:31
Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
Objection: is it wrong for God to seek glory for Himself?
Answer:
2. What is our purpose in life?
a. God created us to glorify Him (see above) and to find enjoyment in Him
John 10:10
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it
abundantly.
Psalms 16:11
You will make known to me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.
Psalms 84:1-2
How lovely are Your dwelling places,
O Lord of hosts!
My soul longed and even yearned for the courts of the Lord;
My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.
Psalms 84:10
For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand outside.
I would rather stand at the threshold of the house of my God
Than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
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b. When we begin to appreciate the nature of God as the infinitely perfect Creator
who deserves all praise, then our hearts will not rest until we give Him glory
with all of our “heart…soul…mind, and…strength”
Mark 12:30
and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your
mind, and with all your strength.’
C. Man in the Image of God
1. The meaning of “Image of God”
Definition: The fact that man is in the image of God means that man is like God and
represents God.
a. The more that we know about God and man the more similarities we will
recognize, and the more fully we will understand what Scripture means when it
says that man is in the image of God.
Genesis 1:26
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.”
Genesis 5:3
When Adam had lived one hundred and thirty years, he became the father of a son in his own
likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth.
2. The Fall: God’s Image is Distorted but Not Lost
Genesis 9:6
“Whoever sheds man’s blood,
By man his blood shall be shed,
For in the image of God
He made man.
James 3:9
With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of
God;
a. After the fall we are still like God, but His image is distorted in us.
b. Humans, therefore, are a useful but still inadequate picture of God’s character
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3. Redemption in Christ: A progressive recovering of more of God’s image.
Colossians 3:10
and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the
One who created him—
a. We are changed into more of His likeness in our thinking
Colossians 3:10
and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image
of the One who created him—
b. And in our lives and character
Romans 8:29
For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His
Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;
2 Corinthians 3:18
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 from the Lord, the Spirit.
4. At Christ’s return we will experience the complete restoration of God’s image.
1Cor. 15:49
a. The purpose of God in creating man in His image was completely realized in
the person of Jesus Christ.
2 Corinthians 4:4
in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might
not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
Colossians 1:15
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
1 John 3:2
Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know
that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.
5. Specific aspects of our likeness to God.
a. Moral Aspects:
1. We are morally accountable before God.
2. We have an inner sense of right and wrong that sets us apart from
animals (who respond from fear of punishment or hope of reward).
3. We can reflect His likeness through righteous behavior (though, by
contrast, we show unlikeness to God when we sin).
b. Spiritual Aspects:
4. We have immaterial spirits and can act in significant ways in the realm of
the immaterial, spiritual realm.
5. We have a spiritual life that enables us to relate to God as persons, to
pray, praise Him, and to hear Him speaking His words to us.
6. We have immortality.
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c. Mental Aspects:
7. We can think logically and with reason, problem solve (e.g., no history of
canine theology).
8. We can use complex, abstract language.
9. We have an awareness of the distant future.
Ecclesiastes 3:11
He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet
so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the
end.
10. We are creative in areas such as art, music, literature, and scientific and
technological inventiveness.
11. We have complex emotions.
d. Relational Aspects:
12. We reflect the nature of God in marriage in the fact that as men and
women we have equality in importance and difference in roles from the
time that God created us.
13. We have been given the right to rule creation.
Genesis 1:26
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.”
Genesis 1:28
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.”
Psalms 8:6-8
You make him to rule over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under his feet,
All sheep and oxen,
And also the beasts of the field,
The birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea,
Whatever passes through the paths of the seas.
e. Physical aspects:
14. We must be careful not to think that our physical bodies imply that God
has a physical body.
John 4:24
God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
Exodus 20:4
“You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on
the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.
15. Yet almost everything we do is done by use of our physical bodies—
thinking, moral judgments, prayer, praise, sight, smell, hearing, etc.
16. Our physical bodies display something of God’s character. They also
enable us to bear and raise human beings who are like ourselves.
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17. The ways in which we are like God can be enhanced (e.g., our moral
behavior can reflect more and more of God’s character through study of
the Scriptures and prayer).
2 Corinthians 7:1
Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement
of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
1 Peter 1:16
because it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
6. Our great dignity as bearers of God’s image.
a. We are more like God than any other created thing.
b. This has profound implications for our conduct toward others (the mentally ill,
elderly people, unborn children, etc., deserve equal dignity and rights).
QUESTIONS FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
1. According to Scripture, what should be the major purpose of your life? If you consider the
major commitments or goals of your life at the present time (with respect to friendships,
marriage, education, job, use of money, church relationships, etc.), are you acting as though
your goal were the one that Scripture specifies? Or do you have some other goals that you
have acted upon (perhaps without consciously deciding to do so)? As you think about the
pattern of most of your days, do you think that God delights in you and rejoices over you?
2. How does it make you feel to think that you, as a human being, are more like God than any
other creature in the universe? How does that knowledge make you want to act?
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II. SPECIAL TERMS
• Image of God – The nature of man such that he is like God and represents God.
• imago Dei – A Latin phrase meaning "image of God."
• Likeness – A term referring to something that is similar but not identical to the thing it
represents, such as man's being made after God's "likeness" (Genesis 1:26, translating Hebrew
ḏemûṯ)
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III. SCRIPTURE MEMORY PASSAGE
Genesis 1:26-27
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.
NOTE: This outline is based on the outline published outline of Wayne Grudem when teaching this chapter to his
enrichment class at Scottsdale Bible Church.
“Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible® (NASB),
Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973,
1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation
Used by permission. www.Lockman.org“
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IV. HYMN
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