Here begins Part Seven. We are in our second lecture.
Our second lecture addresses the image of God in man.
What does it mean when God said, Let us make man in our image?
The creation reaches a climax in the sixth day. God had made man, male and female, in His own image, to enjoy God and His creation, and to rule over the Earth. God created man in His own image with the necessary attributes to complete that assignment. God rested, satisfied, as it were, that all things were complete.
Man, as male and female, were reflectors of His glory and were to gloriously rule and have dominion over the earth—trees, rivers, animals, the birds and the bees.
We assume and believe that God was, is, and ever shall be intelligent, conscious and omniscient. God, considered anthropomorphically, has rationality, volition and affection. Further, God is a Personal Being who operates purposefully. We made that point earlier.
God leaves a divine imprint on the mind, heart and soul of humanity. It is of small comfort to have just a mere “Force”, e.g. an impersonal force of gravity, a tsunami, or an electric shock.
We find in man—thinking, reflecting, knowing, reasoning, feeling, desires and volitions. No matter how bad or how good, this image remains. Once we resolve this matter, the impact, depth and extent of sin will be considered in lecture three—The Fall.
Humanity is in diversities, racial, ideological, historical, cultural, etc., are traceable to this commonly shared aspect-- thinking, reflecting, knowing, reasoning, feeling, desires and volitions. The studies of the humanities entails evaluating this imaging and mirroring activities. This is not usually discussed by professors and students in the humanities, but this creational and reflectional image is foundational to all these varied disciplines.
Whether it is the God-loathing atheism of Nietzsche or the empyrean heights of the devout Augustine, the same gifts are evident. One is patently twisted and without shame. The redeemed believer is in the process of "putting Humpty-Dumpty" back together again.
While we cannot, in any way, think like God, we have a point of similarity. We think, feel and choose.
The story of the Fall into corruption is that there is a moral starting point, a benchmark, a before-and-after. A raindrop has no moral fall. The object hits the ground. This is not so for the human created in God's image.
Yet, in our emerging story of the Old Testament, we are dealing with the subject of creation to and for redemption. It is the story of an ejected people from the Garden to a people of God by grace. It involves moral, intellectual, aesthetic, affective, and volitional matters, before and after. As such, humans are moral creatures. They are persons.
Unlike a stone, this personhood has will, emotion, and reason. A stone does not have that. A stone lacks personhood.
Personality and personhood are involved in the image of God in man. It is not an unisexual or one-dimensional aspect, but applies to male and female. Admitted there is some truth to the volume, Men are from Mars and Women from Venus, yet, notwithstanding bio-neurological and physical dissimilarities as well as continuities, God created man male and female in the divine image.
The setting of creation is magnificent, one of beauty. It is one of harmony, balance, order, joy, love and beauty...replete with these characteristics of the male-female relationship. Reason, emotion, affection and volition are in harmony. Where there is duality yet union, yet male and female, they mirror and reflect God.
Marriage, love, relationships, reason, will and affection are disrupted by the fall and dissevered from this purpose of reflecting the divine beauty…unless redemption is in play. Apart from redemptive mercies, the image while still functional and present, is twisted and misdirected.
Humans have the unique capacity to reflect and mirror God. And they do that, being they justified or unjustified.
As we move through the six creational days, we often miss this point. Something is unique here. As great as humanity is, the real acme of the story is not the six days, but the seventh day, the ultimate day. The creation is not just about heavens, stars, rivers, oceans, sun, moon, vegetation, birds and fowls of the earth.
Ultimately, as grand as humanity is, humans are not the greatest focal point. It is about God.
We cite Psalm 8 as a backdrop, an enlargement on creation. O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth, who have set Your glory above the heavens! Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants, You have ordained strength, because of Your enemies, that You may silence the enemy and avenger. When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars which You have ordained, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him? For you have made him a little lower than the angels, and You have crowned him with glory and honor. You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen—even the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, that pass through the paths of the seas. O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth.
This is the Word of the LORD...and thanks be to God that we have His infallible Self-disclosure and His Autobiography, His Word from another world to us in this world.
Having said all of this, for the Jewish believer, for Moses, for all of Israel, and for Christ’s Continuing Church under the New Covenant—what is biblical is the seventh day, the Sabbath.
This is Saturday under the older administration which has another beginning on Sunday under the newer administration of the covenant of grace. This day is hallowed, sacred, holy, and set apart from the other days. God is the focus.
Exodus 20.8: Remember the Sabbath day, to keep I holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work but the seventh days is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, no your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
This tells of the purpose of this divinely ordained day, hallowing it. Man’s purpose is sacred. He is to sanctify the day by an holy resting and foregoing of unnecessary duties of that day. Man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was made for man. The focus of that day is God HIMSELF.
Unredeemed humanity rebels against this Law. How rude it is to think that one day in seven should be wholly devoted to God alone?
We must interject that this is the greatest slap in the face to anthropocentricity and godless thinking. It is a radical re-orientation to any and all forms of narcissism or Ich-theologie.
It is a day to mirror and reflect with more focus and attention that honour and glory of the Creator. It is a day of praise, prayer, reflection, instruction, and sanctity. It is a day to renew, individually and corporately, the redemptive relationship founded in the undisturbed day of Creation. It is a day to remember our original creation, our invincible losses in the first Adam, and our victorious assurances through the Second Adam.
That which God did was rational. There is a logic to the day. By design, by establishment and ordinance, the day is for God’s glory. It is a time to hear his infallible Word—humans made to reflect the glory, honour, image, rationality, affection and volitional elements of his created nature. What redeemed creature can opine about one day devoted to His Majesty? Love for his God and His manifold mercies compel him to this devotion.
Individuals are made for this purpose. The church is assembled for this purpose. Marriages are to reflect this purpose. Friendships and the stewardship of human resources are to reflect this purpose.
Achilles has his timn and klnos, honour and fame. We have modern symbols of strength and honour. I think of the host of military traditions that reflect this, or the strength and power of one aircraft carrier or one submarine.
Yet, the glory of God transcends all. The setting aside of one day in seven is to especially mirror that glory, in creation and also redemption.
In the beginning was the Sabbath, the seventh day. This prevailed during the times of Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Moses places the Law (and Gospel) in the very beginning of history. It comes to codification and assertion in the Mosaic expressions and throughout Israel’s history. It is a time for the mind, the will, the feelings and the choices to reflect and mirror man’s chief end in life and death, the glory of God. This animates his life under God. It affect body as well, kneeling, lifting up of the hands, the tongue, the eyes, and the ears. A new disposition is constituted, forensically and constitutionally.
We have asserted throughout some basic elements of the image of God in man. It will be reviewed and carried through in the next lecture and throughout human history—personal selfhood, mind, reason, feeling, affection, and choice in relation to the Divine Being, whose image he or she bears.
In the Fall, the image will not be lost, but will become corrupted, twisted, defaced, dishonoured and broken. In the Gospel in the Garden and thereafter, it becomes the story of reorienting the broken and twisted image, again, to God’s glory and the praise of His goodness and kindness.
Here ends Part Seven, relative to lecture two on the image of God.
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