MAN: THE IMAGE BEARER OF GOD

As we continue our study of the Baptist Faith & Message we see a natural progression. We began the study where this confession of Faith does: the Scriptures. It is from the Scriptures that we receive truth about everything: God, ourselves, life, creation, and the list could go on. And many other confessions or statements of faith begin upon this Scriptural foundation as well.

Once that foundation is presented, the BF&M goes to the next foundational truth of the Christian Faith: God. Once we learn where Truth resides, we begin to learn about the Author of Scripture and our Creator. We spent three sermons examining the Triune God, and what a glorious study it was.

Now we come to us, human beings. There is no doubt there in creation, that is the physical universe, man holds a special place. Humanity is different from the rest of creation. While all life holds value, human life is intrinsically valuable because human life reflects the God who gave humans life. What we believe about humanity has drastic effects on how we interact with one another, what our goals are and should be, and how the Gospel’s implications for daily life help inform our governmental policies and such.

As we will such in subsequent studies, what we believe about human beings affects what we believe as a church, how we practice the ordinances, our beliefs about evangelism and missions, our beliefs about the social order, peace and war, even religious liberty, and the family. As I have mentioned often, what we believe affects what we do. That is, doctrine precedes practice. And what we believe about human beings has profound implications on how we treat one another. If you want a relatively recent example of this, consider Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler. This work presents much of the madness behind the horrific dictator. One point of interest to us, however, is Hitler’s view of the Jewish people. He did not see them as human beings, and so his horrendous treatment of the Jewish people did not violate his views of human beings.

The Scriptures teach us much about ourselves, and I believe we will have significant applications at the close of this sermon.

I. THE CREATION OF MAN-

To begin with, we take the first three statements of the BF&M. These are the foundational thoughts for the remainder of our beliefs about humanity.

Man is the special creation of God, made in His own image. He created them male and female as the crowning work of His creation. The gift of gender is thus part of the goodness of God’s creation.

In the beginning, when God created every facet and particle of creation, He finished by creating man and woman. is the most significant verse concerning humanity in the sacred Scriptures. However, as this passage encapsulates the main tenets of man’s creation, we also see from several passages of Scripture several statements connected with the BF&M.

God creates man and woman last. That is, God created everything in the universe. Up to this point, God spoke everything into existence. In , , , , , , and 24 those verses begin with “And God said...” Now, you may notice that in verse 26 the phrase is “Then God said.” Chapter one of Genesis provides an overview of the week of creation, and chapter two focuses on the details. The first three verses cover the establishment of the Sabbath, an important verse for the rest of Scripture. However, for our purposes, we see the special creation of humanity in 2:4-25.

God handcrafts Adam and Eve as opposed to speaking them into existence (notice the difference). There are several important parts of this creation.

Humanity is created in the image of God

There is much discussion surrounding this phrase image of God, but for our purposes we will simply note that it means we bear God’s image. We are like God in the way that we have mind, emotions, and will. We mirror God in our thinking, our emoting, and our volitioning (I know, that is not technically a word, but I think it conveys the idea). We represent God. We will notice later that as image bearers we have intrinsic worth.

Humanity is created male and female as the crowning work

We notice secondly that humanity is created with two genders: male and female. Similar to the rest of creation, there are males and females (see ). Men and women are different, and this is due to God’s creation.

Humanity’s gender is a gift of God’s goodness

We also note that our BF&M describes these genders as gifts from God’s goodness. It is a wonderful blessing in creation when we consider the value, worth, and contributions of men and women. Remember , “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.”

Humanity was created innocent of sin and endowed with freedom of choice

The last truth we note about the creation of man concerns his moral standing. Notice, up to this point we have used the being verb is to describe the various aspects of our creation. This is due to their timeless nature. We are still made in the image of God, we are still men and women, and we still enjoy these as gifts from God’s goodness. However, now we come to something that further separates us from the rest of creation: morality.

Human beings have moral judgment. That is, they have the ability to determine, discern, or debate on what is right and what is wrong. Our beliefs will affect our moral decisions, and other factors contribute to our understanding of right and wrong. But, as image bearers of God, we possess moral reasoning. This, although fundamentally flawed after the fall (the next point in our observation), is still ours. But something different was true of Adam and Eve that is no longer true of humanity. Adam and Eve were innocent of sin, that is they were free from an acquaintance or familiarity with sin and with the concept of sin. This is the original creation, unblemished by sin, and pronounced by God to be “very good.”

The creation of man tells us much of ourselves, but as we will notice for the rest of our time, it is only part of the story.

II. THE FALL OF MAN-

By his free choice man sinned against God and brought sin into the human race. Through the temptation of Satan man transgressed the command of God, and fell from his original innocence whereby his posterity inherit a nature and an environment inclined toward sin. Therefore, as soon as they are capable of moral action, they become transgressors and are under condemnation.

I have preached on in detail, so I will not reteach that material here. However, we must reference this passage, for in this passage we learn of Adam’s disobedience to God’s command. There are several aspects of this fall that we must understand in order to grasp fully the Scriptures’ teaching on humanity.

A. The fall of man came from his free choice-Genesis 2:15-17; ,

God created Adam and Eve innocent of sin. They had no concept of evil or of the ways of evil. They transgressed, as one older confession of faith says, “the Law of their Creation.” Man freely rejected the goodness of God.

B. The fall of man brought sin into the human race- ;

The second aspect of man’s fall affects all human beings: men and women, adults and children. All human beings now experience life as sinful beings. The BF&M states that Adam “…brought sin into the human race.” Every human being after Adam has a new nature, a sin nature. Notice the wording of , “When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.” This is precisely what Paul discusses in . Another phrase in the BF&M says, “Therefore, as soon as they are capable of moral action, they become transgressors and are under condemnation.”

C. The fall of man brought sin into creation- ; Ephesians 2:1-3

And, on top of that, all creation has been affected by Adam’s sin (see , cf. ).

The BF&M puts it like this, “whereby His posterity [all future generations] inherit a nature and an environment inclined toward sin.” Because of Adam’s transgression through the temptation of Satan, we inherit a nature and environment inclined toward sin. We mentioned briefly the inheritance of the nature, but I want to expand upon that a little more.

Our natures, the essence of who we are, are now corrupted. Another older Baptist confession of faith frames it like this, “Our first Parents by this Sin, fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and we in them, whereby death came upon all; all becoming dead in Sin, and wholly defiled, in all the faculties, and parts, of soul, and body.” The BF&M cites a few other passages of Scripture that bear importance on the nature of sin we inherit.

Psalm 51:5 ESV

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Ephesians 2:1–3 ESV

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Our very natures were changed. But notice also that our environment is changed as well. Whereas in Eden man enjoyed intimate fellowship with God and freedom from sin, now mankind lives with each other, all bound to sin. Our environment is with other human beings, and as we are all prone to sin, we feed off each other in increasing and fulfilling our own wicked desires. The picture here is quite ugly.

What a shift has occured in just two points! Paradise to hell on earth, all as the result of man’s cosmic treason against the goodness of God. Greg Gilbert, in his wonderful little book What is the Gospel? frames this shift in these words,

“In all the universe, there was only one thing God had not placed under Adam’s feet—God himself. Yet Adam decided this arrangement was not good enough for him, and so he rebelled.”—Greg Gilbert, What Is the Gospel? (49)

This bad news, eternally terrible and life-shattering bad news, leads us to the good news, the gospel, or, as the BF&M puts it, the salvation of man.

III. THE SALVATION OF MAN- ,

The BF&M, after describing man’s creation and fall, then moves on to man’s salvation. There is one sentence for this which we will examine,

Only the grace of God can bring man into His holy fellowship and enable man to fulfill the creative purpose of God.

Scripture describes our helpless estate when it denotes humanity as “dead in trespasses and sins.” ()

But, Scripture also describes the wonderful message of the gospel: fallen sinners can be made right with God.

It is by God’s grace, His unmerited favor, His glorious and sweet love, that we are saved. Now, there is much on the doctrine of salvation that we will address in the next sermon, but for now, we leave salvation as God’s grace of forgiving us our sins and granting to us His righteousness through the incarnation, perfect life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ as we repent from our sins and by faith accept the gift of salvation.

Our salvation, contrary to the beliefs of many, is not simply a “get out of hell free card.” It is much more, and the BF&M acknowledges this when it describes our God-produced enablement to fulfil the creative purposes of God. God has a purpose for us. Consider Paul’s words to the Colossian church ().

Colossians 1:21–22 ESV

And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him,

God wants us to live holy lives. This will glorify Him and enable us to love our neighbors as ourselves. We will address this more when we deal with sanctification.

IV. THE SACREDNESS OF MAN- ;

The last phrase in the BF&M on man states,

The sacredness of human personality is evident in that God created man in His own image, and in that Christ died for man; therefore, every person of every race possesses full dignity and is worthy of respect and Christian love.

The biblical and logical extension of man’s creation in the image of God is that every person (there are no limits) of every race (ethnicities) possesses full dignity and in worth of respect and Christian love. No one is excluded from the dignity, respect, and love of the Christian.

There is much that could be said here, but I will attempt to summarize these thoughts:

Every human being is worthy of dignity, respect, and Christian love because they bear the image of God and because Christ died for all kinds of men and women ()

Every human being is worthy of dignity, respect, and Christian love, regardless of age, mental capacity, or physical ability

Every human being is worthy of dignity, respect, and Christian love, regardless of their ethnicity, country of origin, or genealogical descent

CONCLUSION

What does this lead us to? How does this affect our lives? I see several points to consider.

Because God created us, we owe Him our obedience.

Because God created us, our failure to obey Him is worthy of the punishment He determines.

Because we have rebelled, we stand under the just judgment of God.

Because we cannot save ourselves, God in His grace sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die and save His people.

Now, these are wonderful, but apart from practical application, these would be but fair thoughts. Thus, I want to offer three principles by which all Christians should live.

Make every effort to live and preach the Gospel and see men and women (boys and girls) come to know the wonderful grace of Jesus Christ

Protect the life of all people (unborn, living, individuals suffering from different physical, mental, and other hardships with life in a fallen world

(lady’s size 7.5 shoe and small shirt 2 or 3 pants; 5 year-old girl she wears 7/8 clothes and 13 shoe; lady 16 or 18 pants and a 2x shirt size 9 shoe)

Stand up for any oppressed people

I’ll end with the words of our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ in .

John 13:35 ESV

By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”