God’s Word for You

Genesis 5:1-2 The image of God

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Thursday, October 15, 2026

There are ten “accounts” in Genesis, in Hebrew called toledoth. This, the second, is the only one described as a “written account.” Perhaps Moses stresses that this was a written account because it deals with a genealogy and the ages of men when they became fathers of the next in line, their ages when they died, and the number of years in between those events. In simpler terms, for each man, Moses lists his (1) birth, (2) other births, and (3) death, and the man’s age at those later stages. Only in the cases of Adam, Enoch and Noah are there any variations. Perhaps because of all the repetition and the many numbers involved, Moses might be saying with the single subtle word, “written,” that, “I had to look this up.”

What was it he used to look this up? The word we are considering is sepher, most likely a scroll or a clay tablet. “God made available to Moses an old document, a written tradition which had been handed down from generation to generation and which listed important data about the ten patriarchs from Adam to Noah” (Jeske). Not all of the sons are named, nor even the oldest sons, but only the one that is in the line of the Savior. The Holy Spirit caused this to be included through the miracle of inspiration, and this old document was copied here and included to be “useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16). In this case, it is especially useful for correcting everyone who had their own ideas about the world before the Flood, or the beginning of mankind. This is God’s holy Word. We should note also that Genesis 5 is a part of the genealogy of our Lord Jesus in Luke 3.

5:1 This is the written account of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the image of God. 2 Male and female he created them, and he blessed them when they were created. and he called them “man.”

Here Moses gives us a starting-point before he lists the ten generations of Adam’s line from the Creation to the Flood. The most important spiritual message in this chapter is the difference between the way Adam was made, “in the image of God,” and the way that his descendants were conceived, which is “in his (Adam’s) image.”

The image of God was at first ideal and perfect. It was a spiritual likeness, set in the soul and reflected in the lives of Adam and Eve. The image of God was a blissful knowledge of God (Colossians 3:10) and it is perfect holiness and righteousness in life (Ephesians 4:24; Ecclesiastes 7:29). It means no evil, no sin, and complete innocence. In their original state Adam and Eve were in a kind of probation, since they had the ability to sin, and also the ability not to sin. Since the fall, their children and all descendants born in the natural way are born in the sinful image of Adam, which means that all of us except for Christ have lost the perfect image of God and are born with original or inherited sin, and also that all of our inclinations are evil (Genesis 6:5).

But let’s notice the blessings that Moses reviews in these first verses: Almighty God is the Creator of all things. He created Adam in his own image, and made Eve to be Adam’s ideal spouse, also in his own image; even “in the image of his own eternity.” By creating the two of them and blessing them with marriage, God arranged to have life pass down from generation to generation. And God blessed mankind, guaranteeing that this arrangement will continue throughout history.

Professor Jeske notes: “Moses’ statement here leaves no room for an evolution of the human species up from the slime of some prehistoric pond over eons of time. It was ‘very good’ (Genesis 1:31).”

Although the image is lost, Paul tells us that it is renewed somewhat through faith. The “old self is being made new in the attitude of your minds” (Ephesians 4:23). For in the revealed knowledge of God, the law and gospel in the Scriptures, we begin to know God once again, and the Spirit of Christ helps us to be eager to obey God’s commands (2 Chronicles 15:15; Psalm 78:34), and makes each of us “an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work” (2 Timothy 2:21). So now, as Luther says, “after baptism original sin is like a wound that has begun to heal. It is really a wound, yet it is becoming better and is constantly in the process of healing, although it is still festering, is painful, and so forth. So original sin remains in the baptized until their death, although it is in the process of being rooted out. It is rendered harmless, and so it cannot accuse or damn us” (Table Talk). We are wounded, to be sure, but by the wounds of Christ we are healed (Isaiah 53:5).

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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