Do you love Fridays? We sometimes celebrate the end of the work week. “TGIF,” exclaim the students at schools, “Thank God, it’s Friday.” Someone might say, “We were made for Fridays.” Actually, if we number the days of creation, humankind was created on a Friday. After God spoke the animals into existence and saw that they were good, he did something different.
God saved the best for last, when he said, “Let us make mankind in our image.” Distinctive in all of creation, humans were created in the image and likeness of God so that we might rule over the rest of creation. God created humans, male and female, all in his image. After he blessed humankind, God told them to be fruitful and fill the earth so that they might rule over all of creation. Only after God created people did he call his work, not just good, but “very good.”
In the modern oratorio, Saviour, Bob Farrell and Greg Nelson offer us a musical dialogue between God and mankind. God asks,
Who will hear the music that I hear
Who will hear the sound that fills the air
Who will see a radiant beam of light
Dancing for a sun that warms a morning sky
Who will know the beauty of My earth
Sense the joy and wonder of its birth
Who will see the glory of the world that I have made
And who will walk beside me in the garden in the coolness of the day
Creation's glorious song that comes from my heart
Expresses strains of love but only in part
I long to say the words, the words that are true
Someone to hear my heart belongs to you
And who will feel the summer wind
That moves across the water as it flows
Who will enjoy the orchestrated mystery
That soars within My soul
Who will hear the glory of the music that I hear
I will create man to be in My own image
Form him from the dust of earth and breathe into him My own breath of life
Remember four words capture the metanarrative or big story of scripture. We may summarize the grand sweep of God’s story with four words: good, bad, new, and perfect. God approved his world as good and his image bearers as very good. We do well to see other human beings as created in the image of God. We were designed by God for a purpose. The good God who invented Fridays created humans on the sixth day. Thank our good and gracious God for giving us life today!
