The first group of historical figures in the Old Testament also forms the first group of figures in the Bible, God’s entire holy Word. The significance of this first group of historical figures is the essential significance of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. The book of Genesis is the garden where every kind of seed of the divine revelation is sown. In this book the principal figures and historical events, whether positive or negative, all represent certain principles and pathways or have certain significances. Therefore, they all have become allegories that have figurative meanings. The first two figures are Adam and Eve. They were created by God as the first couple among the human race and as the first ancestors of all mankind; hence, in them the implications and significances are very profound and far-reaching.
Adam was created according to God’s inward image and outward likeness (Gen. 1:26). Therefore, he was God’s image for the purpose of declaring God. God’s image refers to the characteristics in His intrinsic nature. The most prominent of the characteristics that are manifested in man are love, light, holiness, and righteousness. God created Adam according to His image, according to these virtues in His nature, that Adam might declare and express God through these virtues. God’s likeness is the outward form in which He expressed Himself and was seen by men. Even before God became flesh, He appeared to Abraham and to many others with such an outward form (Gen. 18:1-5; 32:24, 28-30; Josh. 5:13-15; Judg. 6:12, 14, 16-24; 13:9-10, 17-20). God created Adam’s inward nature and outward body according to His own image and likeness, that Adam might have God’s image and likeness. God did this in order that Adam might declare and express Him. However, what Adam had was only God’s image and likeness; it was not God’s intrinsic being. Adam did not have God’s life and nature within him. He was just like a man’s photograph, which bears the image and likeness of a man but is without the life and nature of that man. Therefore, Adam needed to receive God as his life and content so that his virtues could be filled with the very substance of God’s love, light, holiness, and righteousness. In this way he would be able to reach the goal for which God created man; that is, he would be able to declare and express God.