Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter 4 Section 2
Chapter 4 – God’s creation
2. After God had made everything else, he created mankind. He made them male and female, with rational and immortal souls, endowed with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, after his own image. They had the law of God written in their hearts and had power to fulfill it. They were, however, under a possibility of transgressing, being left to the liberty of their own will, which was subject to change. In addition to this law written in their hearts, they received a command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. As long as they obeyed this command, they were happy in their communion with God and had dominion over the creatures.
In section 1, we acknowledged that God created the world and everything in it. He did it for his good pleasure in the space of six days and all very good…
Section 2 looks at three aspects of God’s final act of creation.
1) God’s crowning work of creation was man
2) Man was made in the image of God
3) God created man with free will
1. Man is God’s crowning work of creation
After God created the universe… he created a planet that can sustain life, and after that, he created the animals and after that, finally created man… In Genesis 2, we learn that God created man from the dust of the earth and breathed the breath of life into man. As the confession states, man was endowed with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, after his own image. Man was the made a little lower than angels as the psalmist wrote.
2. What does it mean that Man is made in God’s image? In Genesis 1 God made man in his own image, male and female he created them. A commentator says that man originally was an image of the Triune God in that he was made to function as prophet, priest, and king. As a prophet man was endowed with physical senses and mental ability to learn truth. As a priest, he possessed the desire to worship God in true holiness. And as king he had the ability to subject all to the purpose and will of God.
3. The last aspect of God’s final act of creation was that God created man with free will. Man had the freedom to obey the law of God. God gave man the ability to live life happily with God, but with that freedom also came the ability to break God’s law.
As we look at humanity today, we see the effects of man’s fall… we see the ugly side of man… but let’s also remember the original state of man… Man as highly regarded by God, man as the image bearers of God, and man that originally lived in perfect obedience and communion with God.
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