A sermon on Genesis 1 and 3 by Rev Richard Keith on Sunday 24 May 2026
French philosopher and mathematician, Blaise Pascal, once used these words to describe the paradox of the human condition:
“What a chimera then is man! What a novelty! What a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, feeble earthworm, depository of truth, a sink of uncertainty and error, the glory and the shame of the universe.”
And he wasn’t wrong. Human beings compose symphonies and commit genocide. They build hospitals and concentration camps. They love their children with a passion but can also turn against their closest friend for the smallest of reasons. Human beings reach for truth, beauty, and justice but are also pulled constantly to something darker in a way that is hard for any of us to resist.
It’s not just a contradiction that we feel in our hearts, but one we find in our Bibles. In our passages today in Genesis chapters 1 and 3, we find that God created us for glory in his image. In his own likeness no less. But from this position of privilege we have fallen into ruin. For we still long for love and life and community, but there is a brokenness within us that we cannot fix ourselves. That ultimately only God can heal.
It is written in Genesis chapter 1:
“Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
These words describe the crowning act of God’s work of creation. That work began with light shining in the darkness. It continued with order being imposed on the primordial chaos and the filling of the world with plant and animal life. It ended with the climax of God’s announcement that all of it is very good. But none of it was complete without the creation of humanity.
Human beings are not a plague that has been visited upon the natural world by an angry god to destroy it. We are not monsters who blindly destroy everything we touch. We have been designed and made by our creator. We are his children, the object of his love and care. And this planet, this blue marble hanging in the darkness and emptiness of space, is our home. We belong here. We are as natural as the mountains and the sea. We are as beautifully made as the rainforests and the coral reefs. For we have been made in the image of God.
For centuries theologians have argued back and forth about what it could possibly mean to be created in God’s image. Some have said that it is our ability to think and reason. Others, that it is our capacity for love and relationship. Others again, that like our maker we too are creators, building bridges and cathedrals and writing stories and songs.
They are excellent guesses and possibly all of them wrong. But from the text itself we can at least observe a few facts.
The importance of this idea of the image of God can be clearly seen in it being repeated three times in just a couple of sentences in Genesis chapter 1. It is also inextricably linked to God’s likeness. We are not invisible spirits like God. We are not everywhere and we don’t know everything. Nevertheless, in some more tangible way we are like him. In many ways we are like other animals. Like cattle and horses we have hearts and lungs. Like chimpanzees and sea otters we can use tools. Like orangutans and elephants we love our children. But we have also been made to be like God.
And perhaps the New Testament itself points us in the right direction. For when it speaks about becoming like God, it often does so in moral and spiritual terms.
The Apostle Paul speaks about believers being renewed in the image of their creator. He speaks about putting on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
And when the New Testament speaks about becoming like Christ, it does not mean that we become divine or all-powerful or all-knowing like God. It means becoming like him in character. For Jesus loved the unlovable. He showed mercy to sinners. He spoke the truth. He was humble and obedient to his Father. He used power not to crush others but to serve them.
So part of what it means to bear the image of God is that human beings were created to reflect something of God’s own character. We were made not only to think but to love. Not only to create but to be holy. Not only to rule the world but to do so with righteousness, mercy, and truth.
And that matters greatly, because people often speak about evil and cruelty as though they are simply “human nature.” But only in one sense is that true. Yes, we’ve all seen enough of the world and enough of ourselves to know how selfish and cruel human beings can become. But according to Genesis, that is not the whole truth. Human beings were not created to hate and devour one another. We were not made for lies and greed and violence. We were made to reflect the goodness of God. We were made for truth and holiness and love.
And this is part of the hope held out to us in the gospel. For in Jesus Christ we do not merely receive forgiveness for what we have done. But through him, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we begin to become what humanity was always meant to be. To rediscover our true humanity. Not perfectly in this life. Not without struggle. But truly and increasingly, as we are remade in the likeness of Christ.
It’s also worth pointing out the connection in Genesis chapter 1 between being made in the image of God and God’s command to the first people to rule over the fish and the birds and the animals. Our creator has given us a unique position within his creation. Human beings possess a power and a privilege unlike any other creature on earth, through which we can bring great blessing and also do great harm. We can shape the world around us for good or for evil. We can cultivate forests and gardens or strip the land bare. We can protect life or destroy it.
This is one of the reasons why it matters so much that we were made to reflect the character of God. For when human rule is separated from righteousness and mercy and truth, it quickly becomes tyranny. The power to rule creation becomes the power to exploit it. Human selfishness turns stewardship into domination and brings suffering not only to ourselves but to the world around us.
So we should never speak as though care for creation was someone else’s concern. This world belongs to our heavenly Father. The forests and rivers and oceans are the work of his hands. Human beings were placed within creation not as vandals but as caretakers. If anyone should love the natural world, it ought to be the people who believe it was made by God, declared good by God, and entrusted to us by God.
Creation is not divine and we do not worship it. But neither is it worthless. It is part of the good world that God has made and that Christ has come to redeem.
And this too belongs to the promise of the gospel. For God’s plan of salvation is not merely about rescuing individuals from the earth. The promise of Scripture is nothing less than the renewal of creation itself.
And the Bible ends not with souls escaping the world, but with a new heaven and a new earth, filled with the presence of God. For in Jesus Christ, God is at work making all things new. Not just you. Not just human society. But the whole natural environment that we are a part of. And as human beings are remade in his likeness, they begin once again to exercise authority not with cruelty and greed, but with wisdom, care, and love.
We don’t love nature less because we don’t worship it. We love it more because we worship the one who made it and we were made in his image.
“O, Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”
This is the glory for which we were made. In the image of God and in his likeness and called to rule his creation to reflect his goodness and love. This is the height from which we have fallen into ruin.
We turn from Genesis chapter 1 to chapter 3.
Into the garden in which the first man and woman lived came the serpent. A creature.
It reminds us that the temptor, Satan, the great enemy of humanity is not a rival evil god, equal to our heavenly Father. Like us, he is a creature. Like us, he will be brought to account for his actions. And for all his menace he will not win.
The serpent came into the garden and said:
“Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
The serpent knows exactly what God said. He gets it almost right so that he can get it purposely wrong. Just enough of a twist to make our first parents wonder. To make them doubt. To make them feel that perhaps they had misunderstood. Perhaps God had been unreasonable. Perhaps there was room for a different interpretation.
This is the serpent’s oldest trick. Not outright denial. Just a question here. Just a small adjustment there. Just enough doubt to make the word of God feel less certain than it actually is. And when we begin to doubt what God has promised and twist what God has commanded, we deny ourselves the very blessings that faith and obedience were meant to bring.
Eve’s reply is almost right. But almost is never enough.
“We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'”
But God never said don’t touch it. He just said don’t eat it. And it is not just any tree in the middle of the garden. It’s the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And that’s important because they are good. They know good. The only thing that fruit can teach them is what evil tastes like.
These seem like small errors. An extra word here. A missing name there. But God’s commands are not arbitrary, and they are not to be improved upon. Not edited. Not softened. Not added to. Even with the best of intentions. The moment we begin to adjust what God has said to make it more manageable, we have taken the first step away from him.
The serpent replied:
“You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
He could hardly have contradicted the word of the Lord more directly. Adam and Eve had been told that the punishment for eating the forbidden fruit was death. Yet the serpent denied it completely and cast doubt upon the goodness of God himself. He was not their loving heavenly Father, and his commandment was not for their benefit. He was withholding something from them. Keeping them from a higher destiny. Preventing them from becoming gods themselves.
And this was the great lie.
They were already like God. That’s precisely what Genesis chapter 1 had just told us. Made in his image. Made in his likeness. The crowning act of all his creation. The serpent was offering them what they already possessed. And in grasping for it they would lose everything.
For the serpent convinced them that life and wisdom could be found apart from their creator. That they could become more than they were by rejecting the word of the one who made them. That they would never truly be free, never truly be themselves, never truly be happy, until they cut their ties with him. It was a lie then. It is still a lie now.
So Eve took the fruit and ate it. She gave some to Adam and he ate it too.
It was humanity’s first sin. And the tragedy is that it began not with ignorance but with doubt and distrust. They already lived in the goodness of God. They walked in his garden. They received life from his hand. There is no place on earth where the grass could possibly be greener. And yet the serpent convinced them that God could not be trusted. That obedience was bondage. And their true destiny could only be found on the other side of rebellion.
This is how temptation works. If sin ever came across as evil we’d never fall into it. Instead it presents itself as wisdom. As liberation. As fulfillment. As the path to becoming better than we were before. As the only way to happiness. But every sin begins with the suspicion that God is holding something back from us. That his commands are restrictive. That life would somehow be richer, fuller, and happier if we ignored his word.
But the serpent lied. When they reached for independence from God, Adam and Eve didn’t become more human. They became less. The image of God in humanity wasn’t destroyed, but it was twisted. The likeness remained, but it was broken and corrupted.
And the ruin they fell into spread into every part of their lives. They were filled with shame. They feared God and ran away and when confronted with their choices they blamed anyone but themselves.
For sin doesn’t bring freedom. It brings fear. It breaks fellowship with God, with one another, and even with ourselves. Even then the ruin spread further. Into marriage. Into family. Into work. Into society. Into creation itself. The harmony of Genesis chapter 1 becomes the sorrow of chapter 3. Pain enters the world, followed by conflict, frustration and death. The image bearers of God become exiles east of Eden.
And yet even here, there is mercy. For God does not destroy humanity on the spot. Instead, he makes a promise. Speaking to the serpent, he says:
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
Right there, in the middle of judgment, comes hope. A descendant of the woman would one day come to destroy the serpent and to break his power. The wound of sin would not have the final word. Humanity would not remain forever in ruin.
And that promise leads us all the way to Jesus Christ. For where Adam failed, Jesus obeyed. Where humanity grasped for glory, Jesus humbled himself. Where sin brought death, Christ brought life. The Son of God became truly human not to destroy our humanity, but to restore it.
The New Testament calls Jesus “the image of the invisible God.” He is what humanity was always meant to be. In him we see true righteousness, true holiness, true love, and true obedience. And through his death and resurrection, God begins restoring in us what sin has broken.
The gospel is more than self-improvement. It’s not about becoming nicer people. It’s about new creation. It’s about reclaiming our true humanity and restoring our broken relationship with God. It’s about being remade in the likeness of Christ. One day, that restoration will be complete. No more death. No more shame. No more hiding among the trees.
This is the story of the Bible. The glory we were made for. The ruin we fell into. And the grace of God that never abandoned us. In Jesus Christ, there is forgiveness for the guilty. There is hope for the ruined. There is restoration for the broken. And there is life again for those who return to the God in whose image we were made.