Slideshow image

No creatures on the planet are as significant as the human race. Genesis 1:26 says, Then God said, “Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

Humanity has dominion over fish, birds, livestock, and every creeping thing. Genesis 1:29 adds they have dominion over the plant kingdom as well.

Humanity is set apart from all other created things. We alone are made in the image of God.

There is something categorically different about humanity...

Genesis 9:3-6 says, Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.

Notice it is not murder to take the life of a plant or an animal. But it IS murder to take the life of a fellow human.

Notice also that, even after the fall, we are still image-bearers of God!! Although all of God’s creatures are precious in His sight, humans are set apart because they are made in His image.

 

But what about angels? Psalm 8:4-5 says, What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.

The Psalmist seems to indicate that the angels are God’s greatest creation, and humanity is forever stuck at number two. But the writer of Hebrews helps us to understand this passage. He writes:

5 For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. 6 It has been testified somewhere, “What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? 7 You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, 8 putting everything in subjection under his feet.” Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. 9 But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. (Hebrews 2:5-9)

So Psalm 8 isn’t saying humanity is less valuable than the angels. It’s saying that Jesus deliberately lowered Himself for “a little while” so He could die on a cross to save His people!

Humans will judge the angels on judgment day (1 Corinthians 6:3). The angels long to look into the glories of the love that humans have received in the Gospel (1 Peter 1:12). Humanity is unique among all other creatures. We alone are image-bearers of God.