“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). God created the light, the firmament of heaven, the earth and seas, day and night, living creatures in the ocean and air, living creatures on the earth and saw “that it was good.” Yet, there was something missing, and He created “man” to fill that void. Not only did He create man, but He created man in His own image. The creation of man was His crowning glory, and following it, God said “It was very good” (v. 31).
When God created man, He blessed him and said, “Be fruitful and multiply, replenish the earth and subdue it, have dominion over the fish of the sea and fowls of the air and over every living creature” (Genesis 1:29-30). From the beginning, it was God’s intent that mankind produce offspring after his kind, and He gave men a brain unlike any other of His creation so that man could think and reason to be able to meet God’s mandate to replenish and subdue the earth and exercise dominion over the rest of God’s creation.
God created man because He chose to do so. He didn’t need man to do anything for Him because He is quite capable of doing all things for Himself and for all others. He created man to take care of the rest of His creation and to worship and serve Him. We’re told in Ecclesiastes 12:13, “Fear God and keep His commandments for this is the whole duty of man.” “Whole” means complete, full, all of. Obeying God is what man is to do. In his book entitled, For This Cause, Stanley Sayers said, “It is as though the earth (man’s great house) was built especially for him and completely furnished to the utmost detail and then the man, the keeper of the house, was invited to live in this house and be master to all things in it.”
Man’s existence came about so that God would have someone to “dress it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15); man was created to be the keeper of the earth. Still, there were others things man had to do. From the beginning man was told what not to do. God told Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and if they did, they would die. They did eat of that forbidden fruit, and that day they died spiritually because they were separated from God, and they began to die physically. God had to put into motion a plan whereby man could be reconciled to Him (through Jesus).
“The Lord has made all things for Himself” (Proverbs 16:4), and that includes mankind. Psalm 149:4 tells us that “the Lord takes pleasure in His people.” When God spoke to Moses about the exodus out of Egyptian bondage, He said, “I am the Lord…and I will take you to Me for a people and I will be to you a God and you shall know that I am the Lord your God” (Exodus 6:2, 7). God is still the same. He still loves His creation and will take care of the needs of His people. “My God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory” (Philippians 4:19). Man was placed on the earth by God, and His people are to “worship God and serve Him only” (Matthew 4:10).
Man is not here by accident. From the Garden of Eden until this day, God has a plan. He has always been very open about His expectations of men. He has always given assurance to the faithful with such being “the peace of God that passes understanding” (Philippians 4:7). He has also told men what would happen if they failed to do His bidding. “These will go away into everlasting punishment” (Matthew 25:46). There will be no surprises at the Judgment.
God created us to faithfully serve Him, but when we fail, He has a plan. “If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not His own Son but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:31-32). The plan is forgiveness through the blood of Christ.
