Genesis 1:26-28 The Image of God in Man
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Intro
Intro
Good morning, today we are going to start the first of at least three weeks diving a little deeper into the creation of mankind as brought to us here in Genesis 1. In our last message which was an overview of the creation of man we touched on three specific themes here in this text that we are going to take a trace out a bit through scripture so that we can see how they are built on and developed by the future revelation of God’s word. Those 3 faucets of the creation of man were: his creation in the image and likeness of God, the dominion given to him over creation, and the command to be fruitful and multiply and the blessing associated with it.
Today we will pick up the theme of the image of God in man.
One of the things that has been interesting to me lately is seeing how closely our time in the 1689 Confession these past few weeks has paralleled our messages here in Genesis and when you think about it this makes total sense. The main reason for spending this time here in Genesis 1-11 is so that we can not only learn what the text says and how to understand it but to see how the truths that come into focus across the pages of scripture are rooted and grounded here in these first few chapters of God’s special revelation. Confessions themselves, at least the ones worth the paper they are written on, are rooted in scripture and start with the foundational truths before moving on to the other truths and doctrines that are founded on them. As such we have seen overt the past several Thursdays how the writers of the confession sought to faithfully and consciously convey the truths about God himself, His decree, and most recently His creation of the world and of Man. In this way the confession is, as we are here, rooted and grounded in these early chapters of Genesis showing how these foundational truths are first revealed here and then built upon in sacred scripture.
Again, we must hold fast to the supreme importance of these chapters and not allow ourselves, as so many otherwise faithful believers have been in our day, to be swayed from holding to the absolute historicity, authenticity, and authority of the revelation that is brought to us here in these chapters. There is much at stake.
As we will find today this truth of the image of God in man, the Imago Dei as it is often termed from the Latin, is one of two twin pillars that have been and continue to be attacked in our world, the other being the nature of God Himself or theology proper. The wicked hearts of man and the satanic forces at work in the world are continually challenging one or the other, or both, of these foundational truths, who God is and who we are.
As RC Sproul once exclaimed at an errant conference Q&A question, “Whats wrong with you people…I'm serious. I mean this is what's wrong with the Christian church today. We don't know who God is and we don't know who we are"
Nearly all error, sin, and heresy can be boiled down to confusion or outright deception and falsehood on these two fronts, who is God and who are we.
Well we have sought over the course of several messages now to show a clear and faithful picture of who God reveals himself to be in scripture, his eternality, his timelessness, his creative power and sovereign rule, his aseity or self existence, his triune nature. And so now we will take a message here to talk about who scripture reveals us to be and that is of course defined here in Genesis 1 as being made in the image and likeness of God.
Here this morning I am going to follow the outline or major points that Joel Beeke used to present a message on this subject at a founders conference a few years back and even there he notes that he is borrowing from Thomas Boston a Scottish minister from the late 1600’s and early 1700’s who wrote a piece called “Human Nature in its Fourfold State.” These 4 states of human nature will form the outline for our message this morning. These are as Beeke terms them, human nature: in creation, continuing, renewed, and completed. In other words the image of God as it was in man in creation, as it became in man at the fall, as it is renewed in man through Christ, and as it will be when Christ returns again and all is made new.
Lets take a moment to pray and then we will trace this Imago Dei through these three states.
Pray and Read
Pray and Read
So of course we see here that first heading is directly related to our text this morning, the image of God in man in creation. As we see, God created man in His image and likeness.
Now we covered some of this ground last week and we saw some of it again this past Thursday for those who were at our small group study. If you remember we said that image and likeness are not meant to convey two different ideas but rather are synonyms with each other. I thought it was a very useful point that was made on Thursday by Sam Waldron that the key place that these two words overlap in their semantic range, or their range of possible meanings, is in identity, both words convey the meaning of identity.
You might remember we said in our last time together that it is important that we don’t understand the image of God as merely a compilation of parts and attributes that we possess, these, while important to the full meaning of being made in the image of God are not the sum total of what it means to be made in the image of God because if this were the case the pre-born or even the elderly or infirm might be said to not have God’s image. We made the point that if you say for example that the image of God is our conscious ability to relate with God in a personal way and this can not be said of the pre-born and thus the one who makes the case that abortion is ok could latch onto this definition of image and try to say there is nothing wrong with it in this regard, you aren't killing an image bearer because the fetus does not yet bear the image of God.
So again, its important to realize that the image of God doesn't just consist of the attributes or abilities that we possess but that it is also associated with our identity with who we are as human beings, with the purpose for which we were made. This actually leads me to how I would like us to think about the image of God as mankind was created in this image before the fall. We can think of the image under two headings, we can think of what we are as man created in the image of God and we can think of who we are as man created in the image of God. What we are and who we are.
What we Are: Communicable Attributes
What we Are: Communicable Attributes
The what consists of what are known as communicable attributes, these are, as the term implies, attributes of God’s divine person or nature that are communicable or sharable with us. These are typically what folks think of when we talk about the image of God.
Now as we think of these communicable attributes there are three in particular that form the center of what it means to be created in the image of God. The old reformed confessions generally agree and confess as does the 1689 that these three central attributes are, knowledge, righteousness, and holiness.
1689 LBCF Chapter 3 Section 2 “They were made in the image of God, being endowed with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness.”
These aren’t pulled out of thin air either, Ephesians 4:24 reads:
and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
Also Colossians 3:10
and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
Now we will get to the image of God in its renewal in Christ here in a bit but these texts show us that there is a direct connection between righteousness, holiness, and knowledge and the image of God. And these make sense when we think about them for a minute.
First to knowledge; we understand how important knowledge is, that we are rational individuals capable of knowledge. Animals are capable of instinct and intuition but they are not generally speaking capable of complex thought and comprehending and understanding knowledge. Knowledge is key because we must know God to relate to God.
And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
“Be still, and know that I am God.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
To relate to God we must have knowledge of God and this requires the ability to know things and to know God. This is a communicable attribute because we understand that God is omniscient, can any of the younger folks tell me what omniscient means? Thats right it means that God has all knowledge, that God knows everything.
Now when we talk about a communicable attribute it is important that we understand that when the attribute is communicated or imparted to the creature that it is always only in part. We have knowledge but we are not omniscient. We have been created in the image of God with the ability to know God but our knowledge is always distinguished from God because God made images of Himself not other gods, God communicates His attributes to us IN PART.
It is ealso easy to see that righteousness and holiness are communicable attributes as well because find in scripture that God is called Holy and Righteous and that we are called to be holy and righteous as God is.
“Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.
Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous.
This is the thrust as well of the Ephesians 4 passage we have already seen, that we are to be renewed in Christ and to act in holiness and righteousness just as God is holy and righteous.
Now these three are the central communicable attributes but there are a host of other attributes and elements of the image of God that are mad manifest and even visible in us as His image bearers.
One author commenting on the Heidelberg Catechism another reformed confessional document i in 1888, states this about the communicable attributes that God has given to man:
The Commentary of Dr. Zacharias Ursinus on the Heidelberg Catechism I. What Is It, and What Are the Parts Thereof?
The image of God, therefore, comprehends: 1. The spiritual and immortal substance of the soul, together with the power of knowing and willing. 2. All our natural notions and conceptions of God, and of his will and works. 3. Just and holy actions, inclinations, and volitions, which is the same as perfect righteousness and holiness in the will, heart, and external actions. 4. Felicity, happiness, and glory, with the greatest delight in God, connected, at the same time, with an abundance of all good things, without any misery or corruption. 5. The dominion of man over all creatures, fish, fowls, and other living things. In all these respects, our rational nature resembles, in some degree, the Creator;
You can sort of see all of these attributes are, in a sense arranged around those central three and there are likely others that could be listed.
We even need to consider our physical human form. Some theologians I believe rightly consider that though God as the confession maintains “…is a perfectly pure spirit. He is invisible and has no body, parts, or changeable emotions” Yet even so they see a connection between the physical form of man and the image of God. Not to deny that God is a spirit but rather to state that in creating the human form that God was making it the most suitable form in which to place these communicable attributes. Additionally we understand that before God had even laid the foundation of the world, that the plan of salvation that would require the second person of the Trinity, the Son to take on human flesh existed in the mind of God and so as God created the human form He did so in such a way that the Son could come and take that form upon Himself. In other words even our fleshly bodies aren’t happenstance, they are the gift of God, fitting vessels, into which He was pleased to place the communicable attributed of His divine nature and into which He was pleased to send his Son in the mystery of the incarnation to where the Word became flesh, human flesh.
Who We Are: Purpose
Who We Are: Purpose
Now though we need to consider the who aspect of the image of God, we have considered some of WHAT we are as man created in the image of God but as we said the mage of God doesn't just consist in the what but in the WHO.
Though we come into the world as all men, indeed all creatures do through the process of reproduction and we grow and develop, the image of God can not be excluded from a human person at any stage of this development because the image is a totality, it does not just consist of a select set of communicable attributes that can be acquired through development, exercised to greater and lesser degrees, and even lost, it doesn't just, thats the key word, it doesn't just consist in our bodily design and composition as a creature formed to specifically to bear this image with our upright posture and functions that are so fitting of worship and care for creation and our fellow man, rather our being created in the image of God is not just a what but also a who or a purpose, the end for which we were created is also central to who we are as man made in the image and likeness of God.
I know that many of you can easily answer the question, what is the chief end of man? Ans: To glorify God and to enjoy him forever. We are made as humans with the image of God with a purpose that we might bring glory to God and that in our relating with God we might enjoy him. We see in the garden that Adam and Eve are said to have walked with God in the cool of the day, our first parents enjoyed a deep and intimate fellowship with God.
In our last message we talked about the reflecting of God’s image that we are called to do. That as we image God in the world that we are literally shining or showing forth His glory. This is the heart of why God makes man in His image, as God’s image we are perfectly suited to reflect His glory into the world. There is a certain glory of creation but man is the pinnacle of the glory reflectors, all of who we are is made for this end, to glorify God!
everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made.”
We are made for His glory, again we are made for His glory!
This is a really important truth that is bound up in this image and likeness and the purpose for which we were created. You are not your own end! Let me say that again, you are not your own end. We live in a world saturated with the pursuit of self. Even in so called Christian circles there are many who often think that God exists to make them happy and fulfilled. They go to church to meet their own needs without hardly a care as to wether the church they are attending is actually pleasing to God and meeting in accordance with Biblical commands. They live their lives in the purist of their own pleasures and are happy often to follow God as long as He seems to serve that end.
And, if we are honest it is easy for us to get caught up in that mentality. I am certainly capable of falling into that mentality. However, this truth brings us face to face with the reality that we are not our own. We are created in His image for His purposes. I can’t quote him exactly but Beeke says at this point something along the lines of, “Your eyes, hands, and soul, don’t belong to you, they are to be dedicated to God and to His worship!”
As 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 admonishes us:
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
Again, we will get to the redeemed image in a minute but we will see that the redeemed image is a restoration to what was possible before the fall and so therefore the purpose of our bodies and the communicable attributes with which our persons are invested is that we might give them fully to the service of glorifying God. This is not an endeavor for Sunday only, this is to be the chief end of man, it is the purpose for which we were created in His image in the first place and it ought to give us pause for some very sober reflections on the degree to which we have given our lives over the fulfilling the purpose for which we were made.
Lastly, before we move on here we need to understand that this is why all human life is valuable from the moment of conception to the day that we pass out of the land of the dying. Even the newly conceived child in the womb who is but a few cells is endowed with this purpose by their creator. Yes they will have to grow up into and develop many of the communicable attributes that we saw in the what of the image of God and yet this purpose stand over all life no matter the stage of development or the level of cognitive function or the location of their body. They have been created by God with the purpose of imaging Him and this is precisely why we are not permitted to take another human life unless they have committed a sin like murder that is so egregious that it itself is a capital violation of the image of God in another person.
“Whoever sheds the blood of man,
by man shall his blood be shed,
for God made man in his own image.
There is more we could say but there are still 4 other headings that we have to tackle today as we consider the image of God and so next we must move onto the continuing image of God.
The Image: Continuing
The Image: Continuing
Now by continuing we mean that the image of God continues after the fall of man. This is utterly important. You see there could be all kinds of justifications for murder and killing other human beings if the imago Dei was lost entirely at the fall. However we understand that though the image was marred and many of the communicable attributes were severely effected after the fall that the purpose of man remains the same even if He is not fulfilling it and indeed we even understand that if man does not fulfill the purpose of God to bring Him glory in this world that upon death that person will bring glory to God’s justice for all of eternity. Though marred by sin we must affirm that the image of God still in some sense remains with fallen man.
There are some clear verse where we can see that this image remains though it is not what it was intended to be. If we look at Romans chapter 1, there in the heart of this chapter we read:
For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
We see here in Romans 1 that fallen man still retains, not only the ability to have knowledge but to even have knowledge of God and that they suppress what they know about God so that they can go on living in their sin. Now this knowledge is a fallen knowledge and not one that is saving for sure but never the less we see here an example of how the image or components of the communicable atributes can remain even though they have been tarnished by sin.
We also see another clear statement that fallen man still retains the image of God in the book of James.
With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.
James is talking about the danger of the tongue here and he says that we can use our tongues to bless God but also to curse people who are made in the likeness of God. This text isn't saying that we curse only believers, those who as we will see in a moment have the image restored but rather it is speaking in general of cursing other members of mankind and it clearly says that they still have the image of God.
Again from the commentary on the Heidelberg catechism we read:
The Commentary of Dr. Zacharias Ursinus on the Heidelberg Catechism II. To What Extent Is It Lost, and What Remains in Man?
These vestiges and remains of the image of God in man, although they are greatly obscured and marred by sin, are nevertheless, still preserved in us to a certain extent; and that for these ends: 1. That they may be a testimony of the mercy and goodness of God towards us, unworthy as we are. 2. That God may make use of them in restoring his image in us. 3. That the wicked may be without excuse.
God had every right to end Adam and Eve the moment that they sinned but He didn’t, He continued to extend grace to them and he continues to extend grace to all fallen sinners allowing them to live on making use of those communicable attributes that He has bestowed upon them. He also uses these things in the process of brining us back to Him and restoring that very image that was tarnished. We read, “faith comes by hearing, hearing of the word of God.” It is through the ver communicable attributes that God works to redeem us and to restore us unto that purpose of reflecting His glory into the world. Lastly for those who are not granted this grace and mercy those communicable attributes will serve to leave them without excuse on the day of Judgement.
Image Renewed
Image Renewed
We need to keep moving though and consider the image renewed.
We have already seen the key verses here:
…put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
We could also think of the well known 2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
Christ has come that we might be redeemed and through the replacing of our ruined hearts of stone with new hearts of flesh as we read in those wonderful new convent passages we are made able now to direct those communicable attributes through our living hearts and renewed spirits to fulfill their God ordained purpose of imaging Him in this world again!
We have talked about that purpose of the image originally and so we don’t need to spend a ton of time here, we will make som application as we close in a moment but again, the important truth here is that we are not our own, becoming a follower of Christ is not about having our best life now or about God doing everything He can to make our lives happy, God doesn't owe us any of those things and we owe Him everything.
Daily we ought to ask and I imaging God as a spouse, as a parent, as a child, as a coworker, as a boss, as an employee, as a pastor, as a ________ you fill in the blank. Am I seeking to reflect the glory of God into these relationships and into the world or am I being tempted to pull back from that calling and to live those relationships for my own pleasure and for my own glory. Honestly, there really isn't an in between either, we are moving in one direction or another. If you are moving in the wrong direction this is the time to seek God’s forgiveness first in repentance and then to seek the forgiveness of others for not seeking to image God like you should have in their lives.
Image Completed
Image Completed
Lastly then we come to the great hope of the Christian faith. That there is a glorious end toward which all of this is going. That one day the toil and struggle of seeking to live out these lives of faith in bodies of dead flesh will one day be over and we will be completely renewed in the image of our creator!
But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
I am under no illusions that living out the life of an image bearer in this world will be easy and even pleasant. There are times when it will be downright hard. Children act out and make it hard to know how to bear the image of our heavenly father before them in loving discipline and correction. Husbands and wives do things that hurt each other and repentance and forgiveness can be hard to find. We are wronged in our work places or have difficult employees. Someone at school hurts us or worse yet a friend causes us pain, people within the church offend us, we could go on and on.
We groan along with creation longing for the day when God makes all things new.
I love Romans 8:18
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
This is a tremendous promise that even as we suffer in this life seeking to live this purpose of imaging God to the world that that is being stored up for us such a wonderful weight of glory that it has the capacity to make all of the suffering of this life seem like a light momentary affliction. That in no means is making light of the afflictions of this world, it is making much of the coming glory, the glory of the time when we will finally and fully be restored to that full and perfect purpose for which we were created no longer hindered or assaulted by sin but free to life for God’s glory for all of eternity! Hasten the day!
Closing
Closing
Well we are pretty much out of time for today and as I have said, there is plenty more that culd be said. However I would like to close with just a couple of applications of this image of God to ur lives and circumstances in addition to these we have already seen.
First, the imago Dei shows us why sin is so corrosive and wrong, sin is not just an affront against our neighbor, when we fail to image God rightly we, through our lives and actions are lying about who God is. We have been created to show forth God’s glory to the world and when we, for example, as parents act harshly with our children or when we as spouses do not act rightly toward our husband or wife we are, through our actions lying about who God is. The gospel must be shared with words but all of our lives are intended to show forth the glory of God and we must seek to fulfill this purpose by imaging God rightly and not lying about who He is through our failures to be images!
The second truth here is that we must learn to see the image of God in others. I just talked with my children recently about this. Its not always easy to see the image of God in our fallen relations and neighbors but we must learn to see others this way. There is a wonderful biblical truth for those who are Christians that when God looks at us He sees His Son, He sees the righteousness of His Son applied to to our lives, we have been remade into and are being continually transformed into the image of Christ. We ought then to seek when we look at one another to see there the imago Dei, the image of God, as believers who love God this becomes central in how we love people, we have been brought to love the Father through the work of the Son and as we love the Father so also because we see the image of God in others we ought to love them. Remember 1 John 4:7-8
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
Children, this is especially important for you all, I know how hard it can be to love an annoying brother or sister and in those moments when that is most difficult you must preach to yourself the image of God and remind yourself that the image of God exists in the one you are tempted to belittle and ridicule. The image of God doesn’t excuse wrongs done but it does mean that even as we address those wrongs we don’t do it in a way that seek to justify ourselves or to vindicate ourselves but rather to seek to direct the other person toward the call of imaging God rightly. A lot of conflict in the church, in marriages, in friendships, in any relationship you can think of could be improved if we remembers this truth and sought with all of our efforts to see the image of God in others.
Lastly, we have the reminder that it is the image of God in us that determines our final destiny. Those who have been redeemed and have the restored image of God are destined as we saw a moment ago to everlasting glory. However, those who do not have this redeemed image will be sumject to the fires of eternal unishment. Restored images go to Heaven, tarnished and broken images go to hell. The glory of the gospel is that at great cost to Himself God sent forth His Son to enter into Humanity and to take on flesh, the Son became the perfect image bearer because the Son is One with God, in Him the fullness of God dwelt in human form and yet that human form was marred by sinful men and He was put to death for all of the sins anf dailures of His people to bear the image of God so that their sin could be removed and atoned for and through His death and the work of the Holy Spirit those who come to Him through faith are restored and made new, new creations in Christ capable of gloriously reflecting His glory and image and destined for an eternal future in the beauty and wonder of the presence of God.
