Untitled Sermon (5)

Image of God

Synopsis

Humanity is created in the image or likeness of God. This image of God, given in creation, was damaged in the fall, but may be restored through Jesus Christ.

Humanity created in God’s image

Image and likeness are probably synonymous terms in Hebrew parallelism. No physical likeness between God and humanity is intended.

(ESV) — 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.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

See also

(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.

Paul implies that the divine image is associated in the first place with men

Although Paul at points seems to imply that the image of God is especially associated with males, he does not imply that this involves male supremacy:

;

(ESV) — 7 For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man.

(ESV) — 11 Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; 12 for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God.

Respect for human life in God’s image

;

(ESV) — 6 “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.

(ESV) — 9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.

The divine image implies partnership with God in the stewardship of creation

(ESV) — 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.”

See also

(ESV) — 3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? 5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, 7 all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, 8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

The divine image when we display God’s love and justice

(ESV) — 48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

See also

(ESV) — 17 For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who is not partial and takes no bribe. 18 He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. 19 Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

The image of God was wrecked but God restored.

(ESV) — 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Wrecked by the curse on creation

See also

(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.”

Wrecked on Dominion

;

(ESV) — 6 “If you come across a bird’s nest in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs and the mother sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young. 7 You shall let the mother go, but the young you may take for yourself, that it may go well with you, and that you may live long.

(ESV) — 23 In that day every place where there used to be a thousand vines, worth a thousand shekels of silver, will become briers and thorns. 24 With bow and arrows a man will come there, for all the land will be briers and thorns. 25 And as for all the hills that used to be hoed with a hoe, you will not come there for fear of briers and thorns, but they will become a place where cattle are let loose and where sheep tread.

Jesus Christ is the perfect example of God’s image

;

(ESV) — 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,

(ESV) — 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

See also

(ESV) — 4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

He is the exact representation of God

(ESV) — 3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

He reveals God

(ESV) — 18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

Jesus Christ is the perfect human being

(ESV) — 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

See also ; ; ;

(ESV) — 9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.

(ESV) — 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

(ESV) — 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

(ESV) — 17 Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

Restoration of the divine image through Jesus Christ

The divine image is renewed in all who are united with him by faith

(ESV) — 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

See also ; ; ;

(ESV) — 18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

(ESV) — 13 In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

(ESV) — 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

(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.

The promise of complete restoration in the future

;

(ESV) — 49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

(ESV) — 2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.

See also ; ;

(ESV) — 42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable.

(ESV) — 45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. 47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven.

(ESV) — 21 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.

The Christian life as a process of transformation

(ESV) — 18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.