Theme 1: Human beings are created in the image of God (1:26-28)

• We are God’s Prime Ministers over creation (God is King), ruling over life in the
  three domains God created: sea, land, and air. Whatever else is entailed by our
  status as God’s image-bearers, the creation account makes clear that the
  capacity to know God intimately and commune with him lies near the heart of the
  matter.

Theme 2: Human beings are created male and female (1:27)
Two Implications of themes 1 and 2:

•  Being created in the image of God gives human beings a unique dignity, while
  grounding all human responsibility.
• Our creation in the image of God ensures that human beings are endlessly restless if we suppress or deny this truth.

Theme 3: God’s commission to human beings (1:28): “Be fruitful and increase in number (multiply)”

Original context: Adam and Eve were commissioned by God to be fruitful and increase in number. They were to fill the earth, subdue the earth, and rule over all the earth (1:28), which means they were to extend the geographical boundaries of the garden sanctuary, until Eden covered the whole earth . . . and with it, God’s special revelatory presence. One of God’s goals in creation was to magnify his glory throughout the whole earth by the means of his faithful image bearers inhabiting the entire world. 


Developed canonically: This is how Gen. 1:26-28 is fulfilled in God’s New Covenant: through the means of preaching the gospel over the whole world, and people being saved from every tongue, tribe and nation. These Christians, filled with God the Holy Spirit, are becoming part of a great eschatological temple.

*Three books were a big help in crafting this sermon: The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism (Carson); The God Who is There: Finding Your Place in God's Story.