God's Good People
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Handout
God created man very good: טֹ֖וב מְאֹ֑ד
If God is perfectly good, all knowing, and all powerful, why is there so much evil in the world?
טֹ֖וב מְאֹ֑ד
Christianity is not a set of unrelated assertions about truth. It is a narrative, beginning with a creation that is good, the story of its fall and an account of the redemptive activity of God that will lead to the perfect order of God for life finally being established. [Norman C. Nevin, Should Christians Embrace Evolution?]
Gregg Allister lists major error to be avoided in our thinking about creation:
1. The image of God is reduced to some human characteristic or the experience of relationships or the activity of exercising dominion. (Reductionism)
2. The image of God is only spiritual in nature. (Gnosticism)
3. Evolution can fully account for the existence of human beings, who do not hold a special position over other creatures from which they have evolved.
4. While generally employing the mechanism or evolution to develop the world, God intervened to form the first human being in his image. (theistic evolution) [Gregg Allison, 50 Core Truths of the Christian Faith]
We Bear God’s Image in how we Rule over the World
We Bear God’s Image in how we Rule over the World
People were created by God to bear his image in every facet of their lives.
I was created by God for God.
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.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Let Us - Trinity or Heavenly Hosts
Let Us - Trinity or Heavenly Hosts
To deny that this text is a reference to the Trinity because Moses was likely not thinking about the Trinity is to ignore the remainder of the Christian canon.
The New Testament is the light we use to shine on OT texts to better understand them. The clearer NT revelation sheds light on the less clear OT text.
Thomas Schreiner argues that it is perfectly justified to understand this expression as a reference to the Trinity even though Moses may not have had that in mind when he pinned the text. After all, God was the one speaking to Moses to write this down. The ideas were not Moses’ ideas.
In Our Image, after our Likeness
In Our Image, after our Likeness
betsalmenu kidmuthenu: בְּצַלְמֵ֖נוּ כִּדְמוּתֵ֑נוּ
בְּצַלְמֵ֖נוּ כִּדְמוּתֵ֑נוּ
Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia: SESB Version., electronic ed. (Stuttgart: German Bible Society, 2003), .
Gordon Wenham comments on this expression:
Word Biblical Commentary, Volume 1: Genesis 1–15 The Prepositions ב and כ (“In,” “Like”)
ב here means “according to, after the pattern of.” A closely parallel usage is to be found in Exod 25:40 (cf. 25:9), where Moses is told to build the tabernacle “after the pattern” (בתבנית). For these reasons the traditional interpretation of ב as “in” = “like” appears to be justified here.
The preposition “Be
Christians must return to the emphasis on the Creator/creature distinction. God is the sovereign Creator and man is the creature who is completely dependent on God, created by God for God.
What are some ways the Creator/creature distinction has been neglected today?
When modern Christians, and especially American Christians think about God, what kind of God comes to our mind? God is love. Human beings are basically good. Sin is just a mistake or flaw, an imperfection.
Human beings are not victims of sin who need a little help understanding who Christ is. Then they will see their mistakes and become a Christian.
Word Biblical Commentary, Volume 1: Genesis 1–15 “Image” and “Likeness”
The strongest case has been made for the view that the divine image makes man God’s vice-regent on earth. Because man is God’s representative, his life is sacred: every assault on man is an affront to the creator and merits the ultimate penalty (Gen 9:5–6). But this merely describes the function or the consequences of the divine image; it does not pinpoint what the image is in itself.
What happens to Christianity if Adam and Eve are classified as literary myth?
The dignity of man?
The concept of sin?
Salvation in Christ?
Reliability of Christ’s own words?
In what ways do we see the world attempting to redefine what it means to be human?
Rejection of male/female distinctions on nearly every level.
Leadership - God designed men to lead.
Sexuality - God designed two sexes.
Unborn babies - are not human.
Euthanasia - pragmatic definition of human life.
Racism -
The image of God in humanity is understood as mirroring God’s attributes in our nature, actions, and relational capacities.
God has placed us as stewards over all creation. Our stewardship should focus on imaging God to creation and back to God to the very best of our abilities.
How should all people bearing the image of God impact how we relate with one another?
since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
It begins with my personal walk before God. I am to purify myself from the contaminates of worldly thinking and worldly practice because these things are the essence of idolatry.
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
so also the second, and the third, down to the seventh. “Last of all, the woman died. “In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife of the seven will she be? For they all had married her.” But Jesus answered and said to them, “You are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures nor the power of God. “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. “But regarding the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.” When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at His teaching. But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered themselves together. One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ “This is the great and foremost commandment. “The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
“Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man.
They brought one. And He said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” And they said to Him, “Caesar’s.” And Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they were amazed at Him.
The parable of the good Samaritan was issued to rebut the Jewish teaching that you should love your neighbors and hate your enemies. Samaritans were enemies. No, says Jesus, they are your neighbors.
How do we love our neighbors?
We help with genuine needs. We show concern.
We share the gospel with them.
We urge them to acknowledge God and to trust Christ.
Be Transformed into the Image of Christ
Be Transformed into the Image of Christ
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
We bear God’s Image in How we Work and Rest
We bear God’s Image in How we Work and Rest
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
What does American culture value more than anything else?
Materialism.
Are you guilty of being a job snob?
Do you increase your level of respect for others based on their income level, quality of their home, type of car they drive and the clothes they wear?
What does it look like to have a Christian attitude toward my job?
Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free.
Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust.
Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.
C.H. Spurgeon commented:
Even if we love what we do for a living, work can be difficult. But we see here that work is part of God’s plan. Adam was placed in the garden of Eden to work before the fall. Work, then, is not a result of sin, although the difficulty we experience in our work certainly is (see ). Humanity’s ability to work provides us with great power over creation, but our problem is that on our own, we lack direction for that work. And work not done in the image of God for the glory of God is done in defiance of God.
We Bear God’s Image in How We Relate to Him and Others
We Bear God’s Image in How We Relate to Him and Others
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.” Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”
So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
We bear God’s image and honor our relationship with him in our loving obedience to his commands.
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.
For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.
God did not create human beings because he was lacking anything. He did not need the existence of anything outside himself.
Does God’s act to send Christ to die for the sins of men prove that men must have some value where God is concerned?
This lesson is entitled “God’s good people” but make no mistake about it, today, no one is good.
as it is written, “There is none righteous, not even one; There is none who understands, There is none who seeks for God; All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, There is not even one.” “Their throat is an open grave, With their tongues they keep deceiving,” “The poison of asps is under their lips”; “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness”; “Their feet are swift to shed blood, Destruction and misery are in their paths, And the path of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
God’s plan is perfectly good and that plan called for the redemption of men and women who were anything but good, anything but worthy.
