The Statement of the Case.--In Genesis 1:26 we are told that God said,
"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." In Genesis 2:7 the
narrative relates, "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" (see Psalm 8:4-8). These passages have a great
representative character and the truth expressed in them has lived and
will live under all theories of the appearance of man upon this
earth. In the Bible man is shown as the latest and highest creation of
God, the last and best of His work in the animal world, but with a
difference that is world-wide between him and the brute creation.
Here is an animal, coming up out of the dust, endowed with spiritual
qualities which place him not only at the head of the animal kingdom,
but dominating it. The most radical evolutionist must admit that man
is the last in the list of uplifts in the animal world, that he has
qualities which elevate him far above it and by which he dominates
it. Somewhere back there, again, he must admit that there came a
change and the dust-born animal was changed into a God-born soul. The
great truth then remains, man is an animal but endowed with a growing
marvellous self-conscious, self-determining personality. As the Bible
is a progressive revelation, showing us more and more the greatness of
spiritual truths, it represents man as starting from no high plane of
civilization and as a learner through the ages. Man is even now in the
process of making; he has not yet come to his best estate.

The Image of God.--What is the likeness of God? "God is Spirit" (John
4:24) and that part of man which counts is his spiritual kinship to
God.

Man's intelligence, moral nature and will constitute "the image of