Make Many Babies!
You only make a first impression once.1
In order to survive in the world, we are forced to interpret immense amounts of information and draw conclusions almost instantly.
Our first impressions are not infallible, but we can’t deny they are powerful in shaping our perspective.
God’s Word takes the power of first impressions seriously.
Genesis 1 jolts reality into existence with the power of God’s creative Word. As God speaks, “Let there be…” we see all things come to being.
God creates vast arenas and fills them with life. As Creator He is King and Caretaker.
Genesis 1:26–27 zooms in for another first impression when God determines to make mankind,
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
Genesis 1:26 reveals God’s intention to create mankind His own image for the purpose of ruling as His representative.
Our first impression of mankind in Genesis 1:27 presents two important realities.
First, mankind is created in the image of God.
Second, mankind is created male and female.
We should read one more verse before highlighting an important application.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Genesis 1:28 presents God’s blessing in a two-fold command.
First, Be fruitful filling the earth.
Second, Rule over and subdue creation.
God created mankind to be like Him and represent Him. He is King and Cultivator. Together, as male and female, mankind can create life and rule creation.
Please don’t miss this: God’s first command to mankind was to make many babies!
Mankind’s call to represent God involves being fruitful and increasing in number.
This is a place where the biblical worldview corrects the modern creation care movements– more people is not a problem; it is central to God’s project.
Allen Ross says this in his commentary on Genesis, “If humans are to imitate God, then creating life is a basic part of that task. A man and a woman can produce a living soul. This privilege is part of their blessing from God, a blessing that includes divine enablement. For believers, childbirth is an act of worship, a sharing in the work of God, the one who created life.”2
The world has been deeply impacted by sin and the Fall. Not every couple can have children and childbirth (and rearing) presents real pain and challenges. Abi and I faced two miscarriages that pressed that reality home in ways I’ll never forget.
But God’s command to have children, though impacted by the Fall, was not left behind in the Garden of Eden any more than His design for work or marriage.
Marriage was given by God to provide context for His command to make many babies. Our own statement of faith at Resurrection Church says (along with many historic Christian confessions) that marriage is for “the propagation of the human race.”
Birthrates are declining and couples face more fears and less interest in having children than past generations.
Many of these questions should be addressed with care. Certainly, the struggles of infertility deserve great compassion.
But the instinct to be married and not have children is as foreign to Scripture as being a Christian who does not intend to obey the Great Commission.
In the face of our fears, remember that the same God who commanded us to be fruitful and increase in number then provided for us richly in Genesis 1:29,
29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.
God’s first impression wasn’t wasted in Scripture, but it is being neglected in this generation.
The choice to be married is the choice to be potential parents. To go a step further, Scripture points us in the direction that the choice to be married is the intention to be parents as God allows.
God wants people to reproduce as surely as He wants them to be creative and flourish.
We make the mouths and God will help us feed them!
That’s why you might consider getting a haircut at First Impressions Barbershop!
Allen P. Ross, Creation and Blessing: A Guide to the Study and Exposition of Genesis (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1998), 113.