Made in the Image of God

REMINDER OF BIBLE READING PLAN… NOW IN WEEK 2

OVER THE LAST WEEK, WILL HAVE READ OF THE CREATION, THE FALL, CAIN & ABEL, NOAH & THE FLOOD, AND BEGINNING THE STORY OF JOB

Highlight, Explain, Apply, Respond

From the reading last week.... IMPORTANT PASSAGE… IMAGO DEI… MADE IN THE IMAGE OF GOD

DISCLAIMER - I’m going to make you think. I’m gonna make your brain hurt a little bit this morning.

Genesis 1:26 ESV

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.”

Genesis 1:27 ESV

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Genesis 1:28 ESV

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.”

The doctrine of Humanity’s Creation in the IMAGE OF GOD… EXTREMELY IMPORTANT

In Western culture, we have seen a radical shift in the understanding of the origin of human beings. There has been an advance of various theories of evolution.”

We frequently hear ourselves described as “COSMIC ACCIDENTS” who emerged out of the primordial soup, as it were, into our current evolutionary stage.

FISH —> PHILOSOPHER

From GOO to YOU via the ZOO

It has been said that human beings are "GROWN-UP GERMS”, sitting on one cog on one wheel of a vast cosmic machine that is simply “GEARED UP FOR ANNIHILATION”.

E - What does it mean to be made in the Image of God?

The fact that man is created in the image of God means that man is LIKE God and REPRESENTS God.

Genesis 1:26 ESV

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.”

When God says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness...” it means that God plans to make a creature similar to himself.... SIMILAR.... NOT IDENTICAL....

In other words… REPRESENTATIVE of God… “Let us make man to be like us to represent us.”

Even though the Scriptures make clear....WIDE GAP between the nature of God and the nature of any creature, there is some way in which we are like God.

We certainly are not God;

We ARE NOT LITTLE GODS - HEAVILY PUSHED BY PROSPERITY GOSPEL PREACHERS ON TBN

we are creatures dependent upon God,

He has the power of being in Himself.

If God were completely, totally, and entirely different from us…no point of contact between the Creator and the creature;

no avenue of communication.

It is crucial to Christian understanding of God that there is some similarity between God and man...makes it possible for God to speak to us.

He speaks to us in human terms, what He says is meaningful because we share some similarities.

What are the qualities of Humanity that Reflect the Image of God?

There’s no EXACT list. Of all the lists ...none could fully do man’s likeness to God justice.

In fact, as we read the rest of Scripture, we realize that a full understanding of man’s likeness to God would require a full understanding of who God is in his being and in his actions and a full understanding of who man is and what he does.

The more we know about God and man the more similarities we will recognize, and the more fully we will understand what Scripture means when it says that man is in the image of God.

So, what similarities DOES scripture show us?

Moral

We are creatures Morally accountable to God for our actions

We have an inner sense of Right and Wrong… Conscience

When we act according to God’s Standard…reflected in behavior that is holy and righteous

In Contrast, our unlikeness to God is reflected whenever we sin.

Spiritual

Not only physical bodies, but also immaterial Spirit…

Matt. 22:37 “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 means… Spiritual life that enables us to relate to God as persons… PRAY and WORSHIP

Cognitive

We have the ability to think logically… abstract reasoning… Something NO OTHER creature of God can do.

YOU’LL NEVER FIND A GROUP CHIMPANZEES SITTING AROUND DISCUSSING THE TRINITY.

BEAVERS STILL BUILD THE SAME DAMS AFTER THOUSANDS OF YEARS

BIRDS STILL BUILD THE SAME NESTS

BEES STILL BUILD THE SAME HIVES

But HUMANITY continues to develop greater skill and complexity in nearly everything we do… CURSE

Our use of complex, abstract language, sets us apart from every other creature...

Illus. BIG RED SCREWDRIVER

Acute Awareness of future… THIS LIFE IS NOT THE END

Eccl. 3:11 “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.”

Emotional

Complexity of Emotions…reflects likeness to God

Teaching Abby how to ride a bike…

I can simultaneously feel SAD that she fell down,

HAPPY that she made it a few feet,

PROUD that she wants to keep on trying,

THANKFUL that God has given me children to teach,

JOYFUL because I’ve been thinking about a worship song all afternoon,

and ANXIOUS because I gotta get inside to make dinner.

All because I’ve been created in the image and likeness of God

Physical

Is there any sense in which our human bodies are also a part of what it means to be made in the image of God?

Certainly we should not think that our physical bodies imply that God himself has a body, for “God is spirit” (John 4:24), and it is sin to think of him or to portray him in any way that would imply that he has a material or a physical body (see Ex. 20:4; Ps. 115:3–8; Rom. 1:23).

But even though our physical bodies should in no way be taken to imply that God has a physical body, are there still some ways in which our bodies reflect something of God’s own character and thereby constitute part of what it means to be created in the image of God?

Certainly this is true in some respects.

For example, our physical bodies give us the ability to see with our eyes.

This is a Godlike quality because God himself sees,

sees far more than we will ever see,

although he does not do it with physical eyes like we have.

Our ears give us the ability to hear,

and this is a Godlike ability, even though God does not have physical ears.

Our mouths give us the ability to speak,

reflecting the fact that God is a God who speaks.

Our senses of taste and touch and smell give us the ability to understand and enjoy God’s creation,

reflecting the fact that God himself understands and enjoys his creation,

though in a far greater sense than we do.

Our bodies therefore have been created by God as suitable instruments to represent in a physical way our human nature, which has been made to be like God’s own nature.

the God-given physical ability to bear and raise children who are like ourselves (see Gen. 5:3) is a reflection of God’s own ability to create human beings who are like himself.

Genesis 5:3 ESV

When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.

A - What Difference Does It Make?

Dignity

The world we live in today...more value on sea turtle eggs than on the human embryo.

We give more dignity to whales than to humanity...reversal of the order of creation.

Ironically, at the same time we have seen a renewal of NAIVE, strange forms of humanism that celebrate its own warped version of the dignity of human beings.

Humanists protest worldwide on behalf of human rights.

This naive view of humanity of rests ultimately on a worldview borrowed from Christianity

It is Christianity that sees that the dignity of humanity is established by God’s act of creation.

Genesis 1:27 ESV

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

“So God Created MAN” - HUMANITY, MANKIND - All Encompassing. EVERY HUMAN BEING CREATED IN THE IMAGE OF GOD

“MALE AND FEMALE” - EQUAL IN DIGNITY AND COMPLIMENTARY IN ROLE

We must remember that even fallen, sinful man has the status of being in God’s image.

Every single human being, no matter how much the image of God is marred by sin, or illness, or weakness, or age, or any other disability, still has the status of being in God’s image and therefore must be treated with the dignity and respect that is due to God’s image-bearer.

This has profound implications for our conduct toward others.

It means that people of every culture deserve equal dignity and rights.

It means that elderly people, those seriously ill, those with mental disabilities, and children yet unborn, FROM THE WOMB TO THE TOMB, deserve full protection and honor as human beings.

The sanctity of human life is derived from God’s ascribing worth to it, which we see in the creation story of Genesis.

SCRIPTURE TEACHES God created mankind alone in His image.

In a sense, God created man and woman as His vice-regents, as His deputy rulers over all creation.

Genesis 1:28 ESV

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.”

“LET THEM HAVE DOMINION”

That is the status God accorded to humanity. That is what the Scriptures mean when they tell us man and woman were made in the imago Dei, or the image of God.”

“Of all the creatures in the world, human beings are given a unique responsibility, and with that responsibility is a corresponding ability.

Part of the uniqueness of the human race is the mission we have received from God to be His representatives to the rest of creation, to reflect the very character of God.

This becomes clear when we reason back to Genesis from the New Testament picture of Christ Himself, the second Adam, in whom we see the perfect fulfillment of what it means to be made in the image of God.

Hebrews 1:3 ESV

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,

In Christ’s perfect obedience, we see the fulfillment of the human mandate to reflect the holiness and the righteousness of God.

I am convinced that what we find in the image is a unique ability to mirror the character of God such that the rest of the world should be able to look at God’s People and say, “That gives us an idea of what God is like.”

Unfortunately, when the world looks at us, they do not see much of what God is like,

Romans 8:22 ESV

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.

waiting for God’s redemption.

The image of God in man has been so marred by the fall that the question persists: was the image of God in man obliterated by SIN so that we are no longer the image bearers of God? NO,

Even though the image of God has been blurred, it has not been destroyed.

Even sinful human beings are creatures made in the image of God, a fact that leads to the necessity of distinguishing between the image of God in the narrow or formal sense and the image of God in the broader or material sense. Even though we are fallen, we can think. Our minds have been infected by sin, but we still have minds, and we still can reason. We have a will, and we have the capacity to make choices. Likewise, we have affections. WE HAVE TURNED OUT MINDS AND AFFECTIONS AWAY FROM GOD...

THATS WHY GOD HOLDS US ACCOUNTABLE FOR SIN…AS CREATURES DESIGNED TO REPRESENT GOD and HIS KINGDOM OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, WE INSTEAD REPRESENT A REBELLIOUS KINGDOM OF UNGODLINESS WHEN WE SIN… THE KINGDOM OF SATAN… THE KINGDOM OF SELF…

AF YOU ARE NOT IN CHRIST, WHEN YOU STAND BEFORE GOD, YOU WILL BE TREATED AND JUDGED AS A REPRESENTATIVE OF AN UNGODLY KINGDOM… JUDGED FOR ETERNITY IN HELL…

HERE’S THE GOOD NEWS...

it is encouraging to turn to the New Testament and see that our redemption in Christ means that we can, even in this life, progressively grow into more and more likeness to God. For example, Paul says that as Christians we have a new nature that is “being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (Col. 3:10). As we gain in true understanding of God, his Word, and his world, we begin to think more and more of the thoughts that God himself thinks. In this way we are “renewed in knowledge” and we become more like God in our thinking. This is a description of the ordinary course of the Christian life. So Paul also can say that we “are being changed into his likeness [lit. “image,” Gk. εἰκών (G1635)] from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18). Throughout this life, as we grow in Christian maturity we grow in greater likeness to God. More particularly, we grow in likeness to Christ in our lives and in our character. In fact, the goal for which God has redeemed us is that we might be “conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom. 8:29) and thus be exactly like Christ in our moral character.

4. At Christ’s Return: Complete Restoration of God’s Image. The amazing promise of the New Testament is that just as we have been like Adam (subject to death and sin), we shall also be like Christ (morally pure, never subject to death again): “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven” (1 Cor. 15:49). The full measure of our creation in the image of God is not seen in the life of Adam who sinned, nor is it seen in our lives now, for we are imperfect. But the New Testament emphasizes that God’s purpose in creating man in his image was completely realized in the person of Jesus Christ. He himself “is the image of God” (2 Cor. 4:4 NASB); “He is the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15). In Jesus we see human likeness to God as it was intended to be, and it should cause us to rejoice that God has predestined us “to be conformed to the image of his son” (Rom. 8:29; cf. 1 Cor. 15:49): “When he appears we shall be like him” (1 John 3:2).