The Bible is a record of two men, the old man and the new man. The record of the Old Testament is a record of the old man, and the record of the New Testament is the record of the new man. According to the entire revelation of the Bible, God’s intention is to have a man for the fulfillment of His eternal purpose. For God to accomplish His eternal purpose, He needs a man. God’s eternal purpose is to express Himself. For this reason God created man in His own image (Gen. 1:26). God is invisible, yet the invisible God has a visible image. His purpose is to make Himself, the invisible One, visible through a man.
Man was created for the purpose of expressing God. God could only be expressed in man and through man. The angels are wonderful, but the angels cannot express God. Some of the Chinese give their daughters the name of a bird. That means they have a high appreciation for birds. In Europe and America it is a high compliment to a woman if someone says, “She is just like an angel.” The term angel is a term of appreciation. People may highly regard the birds and the angels, but God’s intention is to have a man. Angels were not made in God’s image. Only man was made in the image of God.
What is the image of God? Colossians 1:15 and 2 Corinthians 4:4 tell us that Christ is the image of God. Therefore, when God created man in His own image, He made man according to Christ. Furthermore, according to Genesis 1:26, where God’s image is, God’s dominion follows. Wherever God is expressed, there is the reign, the ruling, of God. God’s authority, God’s kingdom, and God’s dominion always follow God’s image. If we have God’s image and God is expressed, we surely also have God’s kingdom, God’s dominion.
God’s intention in creating man was to have a vessel to express Himself and to exercise His dominion. However, not long after man was created, he fell. The verses at the beginning of this chapter should help you to see the real significance of man’s fall. It was the intention of God’s enemy that, through man’s fall, man would be divided and scattered. Chapter 3 of Genesis begins to speak of the fall of man, but it does not show us the significance of man’s fall. The significance of man’s fall is revealed in chapters 10 and 11. There we can see clearly what Satan’s intention was in causing man to fall. It was to make man useless in God’s purpose by dividing and scattering mankind.
After the flood, mankind was divided into nations and was also scattered in different directions to different lands. Around the time of the building up of Babel, mankind was divided according to their families, their genealogies, their languages, their lands, and eventually, according to the nations (10:5, 20, 31). Different families, different genealogies, different languages, and different lands eventually issued in different nations (v. 32). All were divided and scattered. Then mankind was no more one. God did not create men; rather, God created man. Man in Genesis 1 refers to mankind. The whole of mankind was intended to be one man.
The function of any vessel, when it is divided and scattered, is annulled and voided. A vessel should not be broken; a vessel should not be divided and scattered. Man, as a vessel to contain God, to express God, and to exercise God’s dominion, should be one. He should not be divided or scattered. However, in chapters 10 and 11 of Genesis this vessel was shattered into pieces and was scattered. The entire Old Testament is simply a record of the divided mankind.
© Living Stream Ministry All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.