All this week on Things Unseen we've been thinking about the Christian view of man and

especially the way God created man as his image, male and female.

Today I want to notice a pattern that is embedded in this biblical account of our original

creation and I'm not the only person to notice this.

Notice that Adam was created to be the prophet and the priest and the king of creation,

marvelous dignity.

A prophet is someone who speaks God's word.

I think people often think of prophets as men who foretell the future, but if you reflect

on it you'll realize that much biblical prophecy is not as much foretelling but foretelling,

applying God's truth to every situation.

It is about the present as much as about the future.

So in the genesis narrative we find Adam being called to the prophetic task of naming

the animals and of course to pass on first of all to Eve and then to his family what

God had revealed to him.

And then Adam was a priest, again we tend to think of a priest as someone who makes a sacrifice

for sin and that's true.

But a priest was also a person who representatively led the people in worship.

Adam in that sense was the priest of the original creation.

The one who supremely and representatively led and expressed the worship of God that

the whole animal creation expressed in their own beautiful but limited way.

And as you may know the later tabernacle and the temple were built in a way that reflected

the beauty of the garden of Eden.

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