So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Genesis 1:27
God created mankind (both male and female). Human beings are the only created things made in the “image of God.” Male and female are created equal, yet they are designed to fulfill different roles. Only those who are spiritually, and to a degree mentally, delusional refuse to acknowledge the differences between male and female. (And by the way, the difference between male and female are true in the animal kingdom as well.)
In Genesis 1:28 we read that God blessed Adam and Eve (the first parents of all human beings), commanding them to “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
This God-given “dominion mandate” charged human beings to exercise stewardship over God’s creation. The creation belongs to God, not man, but man is to manage God’s creation.
Genesis 2 is not another creation story, it is the same story retold with the emphasis on the relationship between man and woman. In this chapter (v.18-25), God ordained marriage. This is supremely important because marriage is a parable of the love relationship between Jesus Christ and the people to whom God shows special favor—a people whose ultimate purpose is to be about the love relationship between the Father and the Son. See, I told you it is about God, not us!
Genesis 2:16-17 also contains these words: “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’”
The one prohibition God gave to these first two humans: “Enjoy My creation, but do not eat of the fruit of a particular tree.” There was nothing poisonous about the tree. This law was enacted for the to remind the human image bearers of the “Creator-creature distinction” based on God’s authority and man’s responsibility to obey God.
Note that God wrapped that one law in a threat (v. 17). “In the day that you eat of it [disobeying God] you shall surely die.”
What has this to do with Jesus? As we will see, this grand problem of mankind’s disobedience to God, and the consequence of death, is what Jesus came to solve for we who cannot solve it by ourselves.