Lord’s Day 3
Q6. Did God, then, create man so wicked and perverse?
No, on the contrary, God created man good and in his image, that is, in true righteousness and holiness, so that he might rightly know God his Creator, heartily love him, and live with him in eternal blessedness to praise and glorify him.
Scripture Proofs — King James Version
Genesis 1:31
“And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”
Genesis 1:26–27
“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”
Ephesians 4:24
“And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”
Colossians 3:10
“And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.”
Commentary — Zacharias Ursinus (1616)
Having established the proposition that human nature is depraved, or sinful, we must now enquire, did God create man thus? and if not, with what nature did he create him? and whence does this depravity of human nature proceed? The subject of the creation of man, therefore, and of the image of God in man, belongs properly to this place.
It is also proper that we should here contrast the misery of man with his original excellence: first, that the cause and origin of our misery being known, we may not impute it unto God; and secondly, that the greatness of our misery may be the more clearly seen. In proportion as this is done, will the original excellency of man become apparent; just as the benefit of deliverance becomes the more precious in the same proportion in which we are brought to apprehend the magnitude of the evil from which we have been rescued.
Of The Creation Of Man.