Special significance of the creation of male and female in the image of God: 1. It is only after God has created man that He says of all He has made: it is “very good” (1:31). This is not simply because God’s creative task is finished but because mankind is the pinnacle of all He has made. 2. The creation of man is introduced differently than other products of creative work, with the personal and deliberative expression, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.” 3. The one God who creates man as male and female deliberately uses plural references of himself (e.g., “Let Us,” “Our image,” “Our likeness”) as the creator of singular “man” who is plural “male and female.” 4. The “image of God” is stated three times in 1:26-27 in relation to man as male and female but never in relation to any other part of creation (are angels created in the image of God?). 5. The special term for God’s unique creative action, bara, is used three times in 1:27 for the creation of man in His image as male and female. 6. Man is given a place of dominion over all other created beings on the earth, thus indicating the higher authority and priority of man in God’s created design. 7. Only the creation of man as male and female is expanded and portrayed in detail as recorded in Gen. 2.
Sam Storms