"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them" (Genesis 1:26,27).

1. THE CREATION OF MAN

1. Man was made in the image and likeness of God. "Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made He man" (Genesis 9:6).
2. "Image means the shadow or outline of a figure, while likeness denotes the resemblance of that shadow to the figure. The two words, however, are practically synonymous. That man was made in the image and likeness of God is fundamental in all God’s dealings with man (I Cor.11:7; Eph.4:21-24; Col.3:10; James 3:9)" – William Evans, The Great Doctrines of the Bible.
3. The expression "image of God" does not refer to physical likeness because "God is a spirit" (John 4:24) and He is invisible (Col.1:15; I Tim.1:17).
4. The image of God consists in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness – moral, not physical likeness (cf. Eph.4:23,24; Col.3:10).
5. A careful study of the Scriptures as well as history demonstrates that man has been degraded from his high original state to his present state – the very opposite of what the evolutionists teach (cf. Romans 1:18-32).
6. Man did not develop from some protoplasm or germ-cell, nor did he evolve from a fungus or a tadpole or a monkey. "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul" (Genesis 2:7).
7. For the Christian who accepts the Bible as the inerrant Word of God, the theory of evolution is totally unacceptable. There are many problems with evolution; here are a few from Basic Theology by Charles C. Ryrie:

1. Problems in mutation. For example, mutations are rare and almost always harmful; no mutation has ever produced a new species or even a new organ or system in an existing species. Yet this had to occur if evolution is valid.
2. Problems in natural selection. Dr. Ryrie has pointed out, "The inter-reaction of mutations and natural selection to explain evolution is a circular argument. Julian Huxley admitted it clearly: ‘On the basis of our present knowledge, natural selection is bound to produce genetic adaptations; and genetic adaptations are thus presumptive evidence for the efficacy of natural selection’ (Evolution in Action, p. 43)."
3. Problems in the length of time required. Dr. Bolton Davidheiser tested the well-known statement that if a million monkeys were permitted to strike the keys of a million typewriters for a million years, they might by chance type a copy of a Shakespeare play. Setting up a controlled experiment with only capital letters, continuous typing at a uniform rate of speed, and requiring only the first verse of Genesis, he shows that a million monkeys would never type Genesis 1:1, let alone a Shakespeare play in billions of years (Evolution and Christian Faith, pp. 362-3). Even to type the first line of "Hamlet" would require on the average of a number of repeated experiments 284 trillion years, a period considerably longer than it took evolutionists to do all it supposedly did.
4. Problems with the second law of thermodynamics. This law states that though energy in the cosmos remains constant, the amount available to do useful work is always decreasing (and entropy, the measure of unavailable energy is increasing). Everything then, is moving toward less orderliness or greater chaos. This runs directly contrary to the theory of evolution. In a debate with Dr. Ryrie, an evolutionist glibly remarked that evolution was "the grand exception to the second law" of thermodynamics.

2. THE FALL OF MAN

1. The account of the fall of Adam and Eve is given simply and plainly in Genesis 3. While the modernists (religious liberals) have attacked it as allegorical or even mythological, there is no doubt that the Lord Jesus Christ considered it as literal when He said to the Pharisees, "Have ye not read, that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female" (Matt.19:4).
2. Likewise, the apostle Paul referred to the fall of man as a literal, historical event (Rom.5:12-19; II Cor.11:3; I Tim.2:13,14).
3. As a result of the fall, man was no longer the same and all men now possess a fallen, sinful nature. Man is alienated from God – "by nature the children of wrath" (Eph.2:3), "dead in sins" (Eph.2:5), "having no hope, and without God in the world" (Eph.2:12).
4. Sinning does not make a man a sinner, he sins because he is a sinner. By nature and by practice man is a wicked, hell-deserving sinner (Rom.3:23; 6:23).
5. Creation itself was changed by the fall of Adam and Eve – briars and thorns were introduced, labor and sorrow were added, and man was banished from the garden of Eden (Gen.3:14-24).
6. But thought the sin of Adam was imputed to his posterity (Rom.5:12-14), the sin of man was imputed to Christ when He died on the cross for our sins (II Cor.5:21).
7. "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive" (I Cor.15:22).

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