In His Image

There is an incredible movie, based on a true story, called Schindler’s list. In fact, many consider it one of the greatest movies of all time. It is a movie about WWII and a German man who seeks to protect Jews who are being put into concentration camps. So what he does is he creates a factory and he says that the Jews in concentration camps are essential workers that he needs to keep his business running. In this movie there is a scene where Schindler talks to a German officer at the concentration camp as he is trying to bring more Jewish prisoners back with him. He is fighting to bring them back with him. And the officer says “you want these people? “ Talking about them as if they are worth very little. And Schindler says “These people. My people. I want my people.” the officer says “who are you? Moses?” As they continue to argue Schindler says “Look, all you have to do is tell me what it’s worth to you. What’s a person worth to you?” and the officer says “no, no, no, no. What’s one worth to you!”

We can often ask ourselves the question. What am I worth? Or what is a person worth? In a world where someone can set off one bomb and kill thousands. Where human trafficking is more prevalent now than at any time throughout human history. Where our life can be held hostage by debt, or by a pandemic, or by sickness. It can feel like we are worth very little.

We can also ask what we are worth to God. We can feel unnoticed by Him in our struggles. But the two commandments we are going to look at today tell us that we are worth giving His one and only son for. That He does not take our lives lightly. That the penalty for harming someone made in His image is costly. We are worth a great deal.

Because we are made in His image, we are made to reflect God. We discussed when we talked about being representatives of God. We go on behalf of our God, as sons and daughters of the living God. Think of a messenger for a king, who goes before the king of another nation to give a message. Then let’s say that this king of the foreign nation kills the messenger. Do you know how this king would interpret this? As an act of war. As an act against the king himself because the messenger went as his representative. And to murder the representative is to say that you do not value the one he came to represent.

To be made in God’s image means that our God is willing to go to war for us. That He will not stand by passively when those made in His image are abused, attacked, or killed. That He will show that what we are worth to Him is far more than what we are worth to any person and to all the forces of evil.

The 6th and 7th commands, “do not murder” and “do not commit adultery” prove this to be true. We have seen that the main purpose of the commands is that

God is calling us to faithfulness to Him because He has shown His faithfulness to us.

Today we are going to see that because God has called us to faithfulness to Him we are to be faithful to one another in love. To view one another as God views us. These commands show us to important ways that we are to be faithful to one another.

1. Value the image of God that we are made in.

2. Faithfulness starts in the heart.

Value the image of God

When we see these commands we don’t always hear the voice that it comes from. But think of a child who is about to cross the street and you want to get there attention. Your voice becomes very strong. “DON’T cross the street”. “DON’T touch the outlet”. It is emphatic. The language used here is an emphatic negation. DO NOT murder, and DO NOT commit adultery.

But what do these commands mean? What is meant by murder?

-It is generally meant as to kill with intent, to pre-meditate, or an unjust killing of another. It is the killing of another human that can be deemed worthy of judgment from a higher authority.

-It is generally not talking about in times of war or as a penalty.

How about adultery?

-Adultery is to break the covenant or bond of marriage, to have sex outside of marriage as God has intended it.

-To be unfaithful to your spouse and unfaithful to your covenant to the Lord.

-Sex is the bond of the marriage covenant. To betray this bond is to betray the emotional, physical, and spiritual intimacy to your spouse. Again, no stipulations are made here. It does not say that if you are unhappy in your marriage, or your spouse has committed adultery against you, or that your spouse is okay with it.

-If you are single, the same is true, because your first covenant is to God. To be faithful to Him in His covenant of salvation.

-Because this command is not just cheating on a spouse. It is premarital sex, cohabitation, incest, and bestiality. God will cover all of these in Exodus, and in Leviticus, and in Deuteronomy. And all of them would be interpreted through this command.

-God is also implicitly arguing against divorce. Because God calls them to protect the union of marriage between a husband and wife and divorce separates protections against adultery.

-As Jesus also says, there are legitimate reasons to divorce a spouse, but God never desires divorce. So this is not a condemnation, it is just discussing the way that God has designed marriage.

Matthew 5:21–30 LEB

“You have heard that it was said to the people of old, ‘Do not commit murder,’ and ‘whoever commits murder will be subject to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry at his brother will be subject to judgment, and whoever says to his brother, ‘Stupid fool!’ will be subject to the council, and whoever says, ‘Obstinate fool!’ will be subject to fiery hell. Therefore if you present your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and first go be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your gift. Settle the case quickly with your accuser while you are with him on the way, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. Truly I say to you, you will never come out of there until you have paid back the last penny! “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. And if your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it from you! For it is better for you that one of your members be destroyed than your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it from you! For it is better for you that one of your limbs be destroyed than your whole body go into hell.

But if we look at Matthew 5 we see that it is not just about the act of killing someone or the act of committing adultery. It is about how we view others in God’s image. Remember, we are not bound to the letter of the law but to the nature of the law. And the nature of the law is far more difficult to follow than the letter.

As Jesus talks about murder he states that not only is murder subject to judgment. But so is hatred, so are insults, and so are the ways that we view others who are made in God’s image. The words Jesus uses to describe calling someone a fool and to insult another person are terms describing someone as dull-witted or stupid. As if they have a mentally handicap.

-Because what is behind each of these is us lacking to view others in God’s image. To view them as less than God’s image.

-As someone who has a college degree and a masters degree I have often fought the temptation of look down on others. Not something that I verbalize, but that I can believe that I deserve more, that I have less to prove, and that I should be respected more because of my education. In doing this I see others as less than in God’s image.

-This was foundational in the slave trade. The idea that those who had a darker color of skin were not made in God’s image and thus they were abused and killed with no remorse.

-Even today, racism leads to the lives of those different then us to be treated as less than made in the image of God and thus are not given the same grace as someone who looks the same as us.

-We can do this with our spouse. When we start to hone in on their weaknesses, we start to focus on what they do wrong, and we start to believe that they are lucky to have us as a spouse, and we treat them as less than in God’s image because of our own hatred and insults.

Then as we see Jesus discuss adultery we see a similar line of thinking. Because He says that we can look at a woman lustfully. This is to set your heart upon them, to have thoughts about infidelity. To create a mental image in your mind of this other person. And in doing so you are hurting the image of God in both you and in the person that you lust after.

-How so?

-Because God has created us to a faithful relationship to one spouse. He has designed us for unity with a spouse and to enjoy intimacy with our spouse. But in lusting after another you are saying that you desire more than what God has created you for. You are desiring to live in the image of the world, to seek more than what was intended. It is thinking less of yourself than what God sees you as.

-For the other person you do not consider their marriage, or their fidelity. You are seeing them as an object for you to enjoy rather than seeking deep intimacy and relationship.

-This is also true of porn. You view woman as objects to gratify you, for your desires, and not as those made in the image of God. In fact studies show that a majority of woman that are in porn videos have been abused and often are continuing to be abused by those who they work for.

-Not only that but evidence states that as much as 2/3rd of internet pornography includes underage women.

-This is not viewing others as those made in the image of God.

Thus, God’s commands us that is not just about our actions but it is about our hearts.

Faithfulness Begins in the heart

As Jesus points out, our obedience and faithfulness to view people in God’s image does not start at murder and it doesn’t start at adultery. It is very easy for us to think. “Well, I could not murder someone” or say “I just couldn’t imagine doing that”. Or for adultery we can say “I would never cheat on my spouse”. But murder and adultery first starts from the heart, it begins with small things.

There is a Casting Crowns song from probably 10 years ago called “Slow Fade”. The chorus goes “it’s a slow fade, when you give yourself away. It’s a slow fade when black and white are turned to gray.” Because we don’t often see it coming. That is why Jesus uses such striking language. That even hatred will be judged and if you look at a woman with lust that you should gauge your eye out. He seems to be going in reverse order. From most severe to least. But he does this to show this fade that can occur.

Now you may think, "what is the point of this language? Why does Jesus go to such incredible lengths to make his point? Does Jesus mean this literally?" There have been those throughout church history who have taken this literally. For example, the great early church father Origen took this seriously. In fact, he took it so seriously as to make himself a eunuch. But the point that Jesus makes here is not that we should cut off our hand, or gouge out our eyes, or any other form of mutilation. Rather it is for us to recognize there should be no compromise when it comes to sin. That we should run from sin as far away as we can. Why? Because it is better to lose that sin now than for you to go into hell. That we should control these passions inside of us. That we take drastic action and necessary sacrifices in order to remove sin from our lives. Because often we take sin very lightly. We think we can handle sin on our own and we aren't willing to get the help that we need or we are afraid of what others may think if they knew about our sin, but we are far less worried about our eternal state.

Especially in the case of adultery. Because we don’t often think about the consequences of adultery. When we lust we don’t think about breaking the bond of marriage, about harboring a desire for an illicit relationship, to seek after adultery. But we should, because it destroys marriage. In fact the statistics say that 64% of Christian men and 15% of Christian women watch porn at least once a month. And that number for women is growing. For students it is just as bad. The average age that a male is exposed to pornography is 12 years old. And 57% of teens watch porn at least monthly, male or female.

What affect does this have on marriage, you say? 56% of marriage that end in divorce end because one spouse obsessively watches pornography. 68% of divorces involve one spouse meeting a new lover over the internet. To be simply put, lust destroys marriages.

Yet help is rarely found, yet of those sitting in the pews whom this affects, they would most likely never reach out for help, and rather than run away, rather than pay to have a filter on your phone, or pay to see a therapist in order to get help, or push back. What we do is hide it. Because we would rather hold on to this sin then enter the kingdom of heaven.

It is the same with murder. You can think of someone who cuts you off and so you yell at them, but as they continue to see their driving your insults become even greater, then it leads towards hatred of this person. You can think of someone who who yelled at you and the thoughts that come into your head. You can think of someone who disagrees with you about a political opinion and how we can call them fools or idiots because of their opinion. We can hear a word like conservative or liberal, Trump or Biden, Black lives matter or abortion and we can instantly start to feel strong emotions towards those things by a simple word. There are times where I have thought of someone who has wronged me even as far back as high school and I can harbor feelings of bitterness towards them. It can be a parent, a sibling, a co-worker, it can be someone from 30 years ago and we can harbor in our hearts hatred.

So Jesus goes to extreme lengths to say that we must flee these desires, run far away from them. Don’t hold them close. Because it was not about gouging your eyes out or cutting off your hand. Because even if you gouged both your eyes out and cut off both your hands. Do you know what you still have? A heart problem. You still haven’t taking away the hearts sinful desires.

But Christ gives us new desires.

None of us are righteous, but in Christ we view others as God has viewed us.

Forgive others as you have been forgiven.

Be faithful as God has been faithful to you.

In Christ we know that He has forgiven our sins, that He has saved us from the righteous punishment that we deserve. So how much more should we save others?

And we are faithful to our spouse, and if you are single you are faithful to God, in the way that you use your body and by the thoughts that you have. Because in lusting and in committing adultery we are not just committing adultery against our spouse, we are committing adultery against God. Because He has told us how we are to live and He has told us that our true desires should be for Him.