Who Am I?

Intro

The day I turned 16, I went down to the DMV office in Baytown because it was the only place within driving distance that had availability for a driving test on that specific date. I got into the driver’s seat of the car and with a racing heart and sweaty palms took the driving attendant for a cruise. After driving a few blocks and totally hitting the curb during the parallel parking portion of the test, I received a passing score and was given this: a driver’s license. This license not only gives me the authority to drive, it also is an explanation of who I am. It gives my height, my address, my eye color, whether I am an organ donor, and even the fact I wear glasses and contacts.

While this license is a great representation of some basic facts about me, it fails to represent the deeper parts of me. It fails to identify what makes me, me. It doesn’t mention that I am obsessed with baseball or that I am unequivocally passionate about every single thing I put my mind to. While a driver’s license succeeds in identifying me, it fails to inform of my identity.

Scripture informs our identity.

Creation of Man

Genesis 1:26 “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.””

Man is the pinnacle of God’s creation. Throughout the creation narrative, God created things through his word. “Let there be...” However, when the creation of man unfolds, God takes an active and intentional role of creating man. “Let us make...”

Ephesians 2:10 ESV

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Man’s creation story points to God’s purpose for the creation of man.

Created for God’s Glory

Isaiah 43:7 “everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.””

The hard pill to swallow is that God didn’t need us. The members of the Trinity lived in perfect unity and communion.

Man is not just a chance configuration of atoms in the slipstream of meaningless, chance history. No, man, in the image of God, has a purpose—to be in relationship to the God who is there.

Francis Schaeffer

John 17:5 “And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.”

God did not create man to bring Himself company or because He was bored. He created us to bring Him glory.

The fact He created us without initial need points to the significance of our lives.

The reason for our creation informs the purpose of our life: to bring God glory. In return, our purpose should inform our actions.

Created to Bear the Image of God

“let us make man in our image, after our likeness”

The single aspect of the nature of man that distinguishes him from the rest of creation is his creation in the image of God. Wayne Grudem suggests that being created in the image of God “...means that man is like God and represents God.”

This does not mean we are exact replicas or dieties ourselves. There still remains a gap between the divine and the physical. We are created as a representative in the pattern, shape, and form of God. A reflection.

We get a further understanding of being created in an image in chapter 5

Genesis 5:1–3 (ESV)

1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.

2 Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created.

3 When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.

In the same way Seth is created in the image of Adam, we can gain understanding about our identity as being in the image of God. When Olivia was first born, our favorite game to play was “who does she look like”. Some people thought she looked like me and others thought she looked like Kaitlyn. As she grows, she will exhibit features that aren’t exact replicas of ours but similar to ours and will take on the overall image of her parents. In this same way, we are created in the image and likeness of God.

Man possesses many traits and characteristics that help to define man as an image bearer

1. Man is like God ontologically: man is a living, personal, self-conscious, active being with personality

2. Man is like God volitionally: man has a will and the ability to select between different choices

3. Man is like God intellectually: man has a rational mind and is aware of himself. Man can think critically and logically.

4. Man is like God emotionally: man has emotions, feelings and can express them in ways other humans may understand

5. Man is like God relationally: man is equipped to participate in relationships with God and with other people (Matthew 22:36-40)

6. Man is like God functionally: God gave man a command to fill, rule, and subdue the earth. By creating man after His image, He gave man the capacity to do so.

These characteristics distinguish and elevate man above the rest of creation, creating a partnership and a relationship with God. The divine design is communion with God.

The Fall of Man: The Image Distorted but not Lost

Unfortunately, this design was not upheld for long.

Genesis 2:15–17 ESV

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 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.”

Genesis 3:1–7 ESV

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

Prompted by the temptation of Satan, Adam and Eve disobeyed God and and violated the relationship between the creator and creation.

Romans 1:25 ESV

25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

This is the introduction of sin into the world. Sin can be defined as “any failure to conform to the moral law of God in act, attitude, and nature.”

Sin negates our purpose. If our purpose is to glorify God and honor him as the almighty creator, sin is our attempt at putting ourselves in the place of God.

Sin distorts our identity.This sin distorted and perverted the image in which man was created. [Turn mirror to broken side] Now, when we look for the image of god in ourselves, we can still make it out but it is distorted by our sinful nature. There are many aspects in which k

Sin affects our relationships. An element of God’s design revolved around relationships.

God and Man: Sin brought a separation and tension between God and man. Man was searching for autonomy at the sacrifice of his relationship with God

Man and Man: Not long after Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden, the first murder occured. Adam’s own son killed his brother as a result of his jealousy. Death and tension between man would only grow as time went on.

Man and Creation:

Genesis 3:17–19 ESV

17 And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Sin is not just what we do, but it is a part of who we are.

Adam and Eve’s initial sin brought forth sin to all. (Rom. 3:23). Because of inherited guilt, we possess a sin nature. We have a propensity or a natural inclination to sin. Because of our sin nature we are unable to do spiritual good before God and although we may have morally good thoughts and intentions, sin still perverts and distorts our actions.

Every year since he retired, there has been debate as to whether or not Barry Bonds should be allowed into the baseball hall of fame. If you don’t know, Barry Bonds holds the record for the most career home runs , the single-season home run record, most career walks, highest career OPS, and the list goes on an on. Rattling off these stats, one would assume he is a shoe-n for the Hall of Fame and should even be honored with his own statue. However, during his record setting career he turned to steroids to gain an advantage. Many baseball fans negate his achievements based on this facts and his image is forever tainted. While he may have done great things for the sport and had great intentions, his career will forever be marred by the fact that he cheated.

In a similar fashion, our image is tainted and we lack any ability to be spiritually right by ourselves.

The bad news is there’s nothing that we can do about it and that the consequence of our sin nature is death. Romans 6:23

Romans 6:23 ESV

23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The Good news is that although we can’t do anything about it, God sent one who could.

Jesus Christ: The Perfect Image Sent to Restore

God sent Jesus in the perfect, undistorted image to take on sin on our behalf.

Colossians 1:15 ESV

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

Man is created in the image and in the likeness of God. By contrast, Jesus is the image of God, and would retain that image all the way to the cross.

Jesus died the death we deserved and God’s wrath was satisfied upon Jesus’s death and resurrection. Through Jesus we are given an opportunity for our image to be restored.

Colossians 3:9–10 ESV

9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

Through Jesus Christ our image is restored. If we, as ones whose image is distorted, attempt to restore our image It would be impossible because we have no knowledge of what the full perfect image is. That’s why Jesus was sent to restore the image himself.

In the story of man, the entirety of the trinity is represented and active.

God the Father intentionally hand crafted us in His image

Jesus, the perfect image came to save us

The Holy Spirit is actively transforming us

Today’s world will try to separate your from the creator. It will tell you that your identity is located in worldly things. It will never be enough because it is not who we are. But if we seek an understanding of our true image, we will see this is far from the truth.

In a world that places priority on money, God says “you are an heir to the throne”

In a world of the isolated, God calls us chosen

In a fatherless world, God calls us sons and daughters.