I think the first thing we noticed as we read was, that after the verses which speak of the beasts and creeping things which God made on the SIXTH DAY, there is, as it were, a close to the history, and then a fresh beginning.
We read, "And God saw that it was good." There is a full stop there; and again we read—now for the eighth time—the three words, "And God said."
But this is not all; a very wonderful expression, which had not been used in connection with any part of the work of God, is employed to tell us of the creation of the man who was placed by God as the head of all that He had made, the one to whom He gave dominion, after He had made the earth, and brought it all into order.
God had said, "Let the waters bring forth…. Let the earth bring forth" living creatures. "And God made the beast of the earth"; but before man was created He said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."
Of no other creature could it be said that he was made in the likeness of God, and of no other do we read that he was "formed" by God "of the dust of the ground," and that the Lord God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life"; then, and not till then, did man become a "living soul." The body was made of earth, but the soul came immediately from God.
The more we learn about our own body, that wonderful and beautiful house in which we live, the more we shall see, in what God thus formed from the dust of the ground, to call forth our admiration; but the body of the first man, although fashioned with such perfection in all its parts, did not live until God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.
Let us never forget how great a difference God has put between man, about whose creation He took thought, and who was made in His image, to whom He has given speech, reason, and a deathless soul, and all the creatures concerning which we read none of these things.
And now let us learn just a very little about the way in which God has formed what His word speaks of as our "house" or "tent"—the dwelling-place of the soul and spirit.
It would be strange indeed if we did not care to know something about our own home; but our body is not only the house in which we live, it is also the means, through those five senses—the eye, the ear, and the organs of touch, taste, and smell—which have been so well called "the five gateways of knowledge," by which we learn all that can be known by us of the world outside us.
More than this, it is the wonderfully perfect instrument, and implicitly obedient servant, by which all that we do is performed.