*Starting on Monday, January 2nd, I will be posting a Bible study of the book of Acts. It will be posted in increments 5 days per week (Mon through Fri) for 13 weeks (65 posts). I wanted to announce this early, so that if you so desire, you can plan accordingly to read and study along with my lessons. On the 2nd, an index post will go up (as well as the first lesson) that will allow you to navigate more easily as the series grows in size.*
In the previous two weeks we have discussed what God's image in man is not and what it is. We saw in the post about what God's image in man is that the attributes or characteristics that God has communicated to us that make up our being made in His image have all been corrupted by the putrefying effects of sin. Today, we are going to expand on that theme by looking at the image in the Garden of Eden in creation, what happened to the image when Adam fell, and finally, how God is restoring that image in His elect Church.
Creation is where we will start. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen 1:1). As God created, things were good. Light was good (1:4); land and seas were good (1:10); vegetation was good (1:12); sun, moon, and stars were good (1:18); living creatures were good (1:25); everything He made was very good (1:31). When we look a bit closer at the creation of man we see that i) God made man in His image expressly to "have dominion" over all the animals (1:26), ii) both male and female were created in the image of God (1:27), and that iii) God blessed them in their dominion as His last act of creation on the sixth day (1:28-31).
In Genesis chapter 2 we see more specifics about the creation of man that give us some inferences about the image. Namely, that Adam was created with freedom, goodness, and rationality. His freedom is evident in 2:16-17. There God warns Adam not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but he can eat any other tree he would like. When coupled with the fact that Adam ate from that tree in chapter 3, it becomes apparent that Adam had the freedom to choose to eat from the tree or not. In other words, Adam could have not sinned. Adam being created with goodness is seen in God's entrusting him with creation. Adam is told to work and keep it (2:15). In 1:29 Adam is told that the plants are to eat. If we consider these pieces of information together, it shows that Adam had the care of all the animals on the earth. This was part of his dominion as evidenced in his naming the animals in 2:19-20. This shows Adams' goodness, albeit not the moral perfection that God possesses, for the simple reason that God, being love itself, would not put someone/something who was not good in charge of His creation that He had declared very good (1:31). Finally, we see Adam's rationality, which is the quality or state of being reasonable, based on facts or reason, in the fall. We actually see that the rationality was used to i) hide from God because they were naked and ashamed (3:8-10) and ii) to make excuses for eating from the forbidden tree; Adam blames Eve (3:12) and Eve blames the serpent (3:13). Now, of course, this is Adam and Eve using their rationality for the wrong purposes, but in these excuses we see that they were able to reason with the facts of their situation enough that they knew they must have done something wrong and their actions needed excuses to avoid culpability. This leads right into what happened to God's image in man as a result of the fall.
As I discussed in the second post of this series, there were consequences for the fall that directly affect the image of God in man. Humanity lost its freedom and became a slave to sin (Romans 6:16) displaying mainly the aspects of walking in the flesh that Paul says are opposed to the Spirit (Galatians 5:19-21). Humanity's goodness that Adam and Eve had in the garden was lost (Romans 3:9-18) and they were separated from God, unable to get back to His presence (Colossians 1:21). Humanity's rationality was corrupted by sin and bound to misunderstand creation, for example, and turn away from God (Romans 1:18-22). This rationality, due to its decay, also cannot be a reliable way in and of itself to discover God. The natural man cannot understand the things of God (1 Corinthians 2:14-16) and needs the Holy Spirit to even call Jesus Lord (1 Corinthians 12:3). Ultimately, due to our rationality being broken, it is the work of the Holy Spirit to show people the way to God (John 16:8-15). But, even in the Garden of Eden, God already had a plan for the salvation of humanity and creation.
Genesis 3:14-15 says: "The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." In the end, God will defeat Satan and evil and death will be vanquished. But that would be to get ahead of ourselves all the way to redemption or glorification. What happens in the mean time? We can plainly see that even with Jesus' sacrificial death things are not right. Do we have to wait for the end for the image of God to be fixed? In a way, yes, the image will not be fixed completely until Christ returns and everything is remade. Right now though, through salvation in Christ, the image is being restored to those who by faith believe in the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Typically, salvation is considered to contain three parts: justification, sanctification, and redemption or glorification. Justification is right legal standing before God. Justification is given by God to the sinner who has faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ (Galatians 2:16; Ephesians 2:8). This justification makes us righteous in the sight of God (Romans 4:5). Along with justification we are remade. 2 Corinthians 5:16-17 says: "From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." We see here that we are recreated when we are saved. This is the beginning of the restoration of the image of God in us. In our recreated state, we are no longer slaves to sin (Romans 6:17-18) and our minds are no longer darkened to the truth of God's word (Ephesians 4:18). This means, being slaves to righteousness, that we are now "called to freedom" (Galatians 5:13) in Christ. Notice also in the 2 Corinthians passage from above that we are not regarded according to the flesh anymore. We have already talked about the fruit of the flesh (Galatians 5:19-21), but Paul is contrasting those selfish behaviors with the unselfish behaviors found in the recreated saint as they walk in the Spirit. He says: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (Galatians 5:22-23a). Notice how much those things go to describing the perfect goodness of God. The more we walk in the Spirit, and by contrast, not by the flesh, the more we are like God. This moves us into the second aspect of salvation, sanctification.
Sanctification is a progressive work of God and man that makes us more and more free from sin and like Christ in our actual lives (Grudem, Systematic Theology, pg. 746). Sanctification is a lifelong process wherein we are being remade into God's image (2 Corinthians 3:18). Freedom is restored to us as we are constantly renewing our minds (Romans 12:1-2) and yielding ourselves to God (Romans 6:13). Freedom reigns in Christ for us and that allows us to live lives of faith wherein our intellect, emotions, will, and spirit are slowly being transformed to more resemble the original image of God that was imparted to Adam and Eve. Our intellect is renewed through the knowledge of God (Colossians 3:10; Philippians 1:9). Our emotions are unchained from their sinful desires and that allows us to display the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23a; 1 Peter 2:11) and put away negative emotions (Ephesians 4:31). Our will, or decision-making faculty, changes from wanting to rebel against God into wanting "to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13). Our spirit is also cleansed is the sanctifying process (2 Corinthians 7:1). The image of God impacts every aspect of who we are and sanctification is the means by which God restores that image.
Finally, redemption or glorification, is the giving of the resurrection body by Christ to the elect. It will happen at the "last trumpet" when Christ returns (1 Corinthians 15:51-52). At this time, with glorified, perfect resurrection bodies, the image of God will be perfectly restored in us as the sanctification process is brought to completion by God. I will leave you with a passage from Paul, where he contrasts the corrupted image "of the man of dust" (Adam) that we have borne with the perfect image "of the man of heaven" (Jesus):
So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 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. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. (1 Corinthians 15:42-49)
Showing posts with label God's image. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God's image. Show all posts
Monday, December 5, 2016
Monday, November 28, 2016
God's Image in Man: What is it?
In a previous post I discussed some things that God's image is not. Namely, His image in us does not mean that God has a physical body and His image in us does not mean that God is both male and female, He's neither. Now we want to address what God's image in man actually is. This list of items that are inherent to human character and attributes is not meant to be comprehensive (and neither was the NOT post), but simply a short list of some of the more important aspects of His image as imprinted in our natures. The items we will take a look at that make up some of what it means to have God's image in us are: freedom; moral perfection/goodness which entails patience, grace, love, holiness, justice, and mercy; rationality.
Freedom
The first item on this list is freedom. What I mean by freedom is the ability to make a decision without coercion. God has this attribute by virtue of the fact that He is the only necessary being. He neither relies on anything outside of Himself for existence or sustainment. As the sovereign Creator of all that exists, He can do whatever He wants. He has chosen to give humanity this same attribute, but, as I tried to explain in the first post, God's communicable attributes, those attributes that are communicated to humanity in some way, are not expressed the same way in human beings as they are in God. Adam and Eve, until they sinned, had the most freedom of any humans the world has ever seen, though they could never have overcome God's own will. Even someone as deterministic as John Calvin believed this. Of course, once they sinned, true freedom was lost. Thus Paul writes in Romans 6:16: "Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?" Adam and Eve became slaves to sin the moment they sinned in the Garden of Eden, and, just like them, we are trapped by our sin with a nature that is dominated by the flesh. Let's look at Paul again. Romans 5:12-14:
"Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come."
Sin came into the world through Adam, and then all men after him sinned and lost their freedom. Paul again in Titus 3:3: "For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another." Paul's explanation of "we ourselves", which of course applies to all of us without Christ, is further bolstered when we look at how our will is bent to evil, and, in turn, our freedom is corrupted because of the coercing effects of sin. Paul explains the works of the flesh that come about from sin in Galatians 5:19-21: "Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." In the end, humanity has lost the freedom it was granted in the garden to Adam and Eve due to sin. We do however, have the capacity to be free as Adam and Eve were before the fall and that is why this is part of God's image in man.
Goodness
Wayne Grudem defines God's goodness: "God is the final standard of good and all that God is and does is worthy of approval." God's goodness is moral perfection that expresses itself in everything that God does. This can be broken down into the attributes of God that fall under His goodness:
1. Patience: But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. (Psalm 86:15)
2. Grace, mercy, peace: Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father's Son, in truth and love. (2 John 1:3)
3. Love: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
4. Holiness: Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders? (Exodus 15:11)
5. Justice: O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more. (Psalm 10:17-18)
God is all these things in absolute perfection. When He gave His image to man these attributes that make up goodness were included. Adam and Eve did not express them in the absolute perfection that God does, but they had them nonetheless. Of course, the same thing happened to these attributes as their freedom when they, and hence the rest of us, sinned. They are marred with the stain of sin. However, I think they still come out, maybe not in our actions all the time, but certainly in our thought processes. Paul is instructive once again in Romans 2:14-16: "For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus." Paul shows here that the law is written on every persons' heart. In other words, we know right from wrong even if we don't believe in God. In addition, I think most people, Christian or otherwise, would readily admit that there is something wrong with this world. Something wrong with the way people treat each other; something wrong with all the natural danger and destruction, etc. This is a part of God's image that is imprinted on each human being that enables them to recognize goodness and the lack thereof in the world.
Rationality
Aristotle classified man as a rational animal. Human beings are the only creatures that he classified this way. This is really what separates us from the rest of creation. We have the ability to reason and to think existentially. Animals, such as birds, fish, dogs, etc. cannot think rationally or logically. Really what we are talking about when we talk about rationality is the quality or state of being reasonable, based on facts or reason. Who doesn't want to be reasonable? That conjures images of someone who thinks before they act. They are not impulsive. They weigh the available evidence. They think through the positive and negative outcomes based on the choices they might make. I think everyone wants to be reasonable, at least to some degree. This ability to reason or to be rational comes from God. It is part of the image of God that has been given to us. There is a major difference of course. God's rationality, His weighing of evidence and outcomes is perfect and is informed by His perfect knowledge of everything and His perfect power to do anything. Our rationality is, once again, disfigured by sin. The Bible, from front to back, expects us to make decisions rationally. It does this because we have been imbued with this trait as part of the image of God. Here are a few examples:
Proverb 14:15: The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps.
Proverb 19:2: Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.
1 Thessalonians 5:20-21: Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good.
Acts 17:2-3: And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.”
Isaiah 1:18: “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool."
James 4:17: But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.
More verses could be given, but the clear message is that reasoning through things and belief that follows evidence is the operating norm of the Bible.
These three things; freedom, goodness, and rationality, are part of what make up the image of God in man. You may have noticed though, that all of these things have been damaged by sin. Sin influences everything we are and everything God made us to be. While God does everything for His own glory, and so should we, but, one of the biggest subsidiary reasons for God to act in order to redeem the elect is to restore His image in man back to the state the image was in when Adam and Eve were innocent in the Garden of Eden. The next post will deal with those issues. What happened to the image of God in man when Adam sinned? How does this all tie in to the salvation of Christ's elect?
Freedom
The first item on this list is freedom. What I mean by freedom is the ability to make a decision without coercion. God has this attribute by virtue of the fact that He is the only necessary being. He neither relies on anything outside of Himself for existence or sustainment. As the sovereign Creator of all that exists, He can do whatever He wants. He has chosen to give humanity this same attribute, but, as I tried to explain in the first post, God's communicable attributes, those attributes that are communicated to humanity in some way, are not expressed the same way in human beings as they are in God. Adam and Eve, until they sinned, had the most freedom of any humans the world has ever seen, though they could never have overcome God's own will. Even someone as deterministic as John Calvin believed this. Of course, once they sinned, true freedom was lost. Thus Paul writes in Romans 6:16: "Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?" Adam and Eve became slaves to sin the moment they sinned in the Garden of Eden, and, just like them, we are trapped by our sin with a nature that is dominated by the flesh. Let's look at Paul again. Romans 5:12-14:
"Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come."
Sin came into the world through Adam, and then all men after him sinned and lost their freedom. Paul again in Titus 3:3: "For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another." Paul's explanation of "we ourselves", which of course applies to all of us without Christ, is further bolstered when we look at how our will is bent to evil, and, in turn, our freedom is corrupted because of the coercing effects of sin. Paul explains the works of the flesh that come about from sin in Galatians 5:19-21: "Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." In the end, humanity has lost the freedom it was granted in the garden to Adam and Eve due to sin. We do however, have the capacity to be free as Adam and Eve were before the fall and that is why this is part of God's image in man.
Goodness
Wayne Grudem defines God's goodness: "God is the final standard of good and all that God is and does is worthy of approval." God's goodness is moral perfection that expresses itself in everything that God does. This can be broken down into the attributes of God that fall under His goodness:
1. Patience: But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. (Psalm 86:15)
2. Grace, mercy, peace: Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father's Son, in truth and love. (2 John 1:3)
3. Love: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
4. Holiness: Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders? (Exodus 15:11)
5. Justice: O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more. (Psalm 10:17-18)
God is all these things in absolute perfection. When He gave His image to man these attributes that make up goodness were included. Adam and Eve did not express them in the absolute perfection that God does, but they had them nonetheless. Of course, the same thing happened to these attributes as their freedom when they, and hence the rest of us, sinned. They are marred with the stain of sin. However, I think they still come out, maybe not in our actions all the time, but certainly in our thought processes. Paul is instructive once again in Romans 2:14-16: "For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus." Paul shows here that the law is written on every persons' heart. In other words, we know right from wrong even if we don't believe in God. In addition, I think most people, Christian or otherwise, would readily admit that there is something wrong with this world. Something wrong with the way people treat each other; something wrong with all the natural danger and destruction, etc. This is a part of God's image that is imprinted on each human being that enables them to recognize goodness and the lack thereof in the world.
Rationality
Aristotle classified man as a rational animal. Human beings are the only creatures that he classified this way. This is really what separates us from the rest of creation. We have the ability to reason and to think existentially. Animals, such as birds, fish, dogs, etc. cannot think rationally or logically. Really what we are talking about when we talk about rationality is the quality or state of being reasonable, based on facts or reason. Who doesn't want to be reasonable? That conjures images of someone who thinks before they act. They are not impulsive. They weigh the available evidence. They think through the positive and negative outcomes based on the choices they might make. I think everyone wants to be reasonable, at least to some degree. This ability to reason or to be rational comes from God. It is part of the image of God that has been given to us. There is a major difference of course. God's rationality, His weighing of evidence and outcomes is perfect and is informed by His perfect knowledge of everything and His perfect power to do anything. Our rationality is, once again, disfigured by sin. The Bible, from front to back, expects us to make decisions rationally. It does this because we have been imbued with this trait as part of the image of God. Here are a few examples:
Proverb 14:15: The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps.
Proverb 19:2: Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.
1 Thessalonians 5:20-21: Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good.
Acts 17:2-3: And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.”
Isaiah 1:18: “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool."
James 4:17: But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.
More verses could be given, but the clear message is that reasoning through things and belief that follows evidence is the operating norm of the Bible.
These three things; freedom, goodness, and rationality, are part of what make up the image of God in man. You may have noticed though, that all of these things have been damaged by sin. Sin influences everything we are and everything God made us to be. While God does everything for His own glory, and so should we, but, one of the biggest subsidiary reasons for God to act in order to redeem the elect is to restore His image in man back to the state the image was in when Adam and Eve were innocent in the Garden of Eden. The next post will deal with those issues. What happened to the image of God in man when Adam sinned? How does this all tie in to the salvation of Christ's elect?
Monday, November 21, 2016
God's Image in Man: What it is NOT
God's image is both a complicated and simple idea that can be both easily understood in one sense and deeply thought-provoking in another. The simple idea is that we, as human beings, are bearers of God's image (Gen 1:26-27) and thus have value that no other creature has. The complex idea is that...we'll cover that in the next post. The first part of this series on God's image in man is what that image is not. Next week's post will cover what that image is and the next week we'll discuss how that ties in to the big picture of creation, the fall, and the parts of salvation (justification, sanctification, redemption/glorification).
The negative description of God's image in man is twofold: i) God's image is not physical and ii) God is not male and female due to His image being borne by both men and women.
1. God's image is not physical
a. This is really simple when you look at the Bible and connect some dots. John 4:24 says that "God is spirit...". Luke 24:39 says: "See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” Jesus says in Luke that a spirit does not have a physical body. Since God is spirit, He does not have a physical body either. It follows then, that human beings who bear God's image, are not made to look like God in the physical sense.
Some of you may be thinking about the descriptions of God that assign Him human features at this point. I believe these are anthropomorphism's that merely describe God in ways that make sense to us, because if He truly showed His fullness to us we would be utterly inept at comprehending His infinite vastness of being and character. If you are studious, I think you would find that most of these types of descriptions of God wherein He is described as having human or animal parts of in the poetic and prophetic books which are filled with rich metaphorical imagery. This would be another post in and of itself, so I will direct you to a great explanation of this idea from William Lane Craig.
b. Another problem with the idea that God has a physical body is that everything came into being when God created it. The traditional understanding of Gen 1:1 is that God created ex nihilo which means out of nothing. There was no matter, space, time, or energy before God spoke it into existence. If that is the case, that no material was present before God created it, then by default He cannot be physical. That would lead to the absurd conclusion that God created Himself out of nothing. If, on the other hand, God is a physical being, then the objection; "Who made God?" has some merit because something would have had to have made the material being we call God.
c. Yet another problem with the idea of God having a physical body is His attribute of omnipresence, which means God is at every point of space with His whole being. Psalm 139:7-12 describes His omnipresence well: "Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you." God's omnipresence precludes His being physical. If He was a physical being, He could not be everywhere at once. It would be impossible for a collection of matter forming a body to be everywhere at once. Inferentially, this tells us that God, in order to be omnipresent, must be a non-material being that is not constrained by physical limitations.
2. God is not male and female due to His image being borne by both men and women
a. Gen 1:27 says: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." Both males and females bear God's image. I have recently seen it taught that this means that God is both male and female. This is an absurd concept. God is neither male nor female. Descriptions of Him as a father are His revelation of Himself to us in a way that we can understand Him. Why did He choose to reveal Himself as a father (male)? I have no idea, but that is the way He chose to do it, so it must be correct because He cannot make any mistakes.
b. The image of God is not physical, so this cannot mean that God has both male and female anatomy. It has already been shown that God is not a physical being.
c. This also cannot be talking about the attributes of men and women in terms of temperament and personality. Did God give attributes that He has to man and woman? Yes, however, the communicated form of these attributes that we possess are not the same thing as what God possesses. For instance, do we love the same way that God loves? No. His love is perfect, holy, and unconditional. Ours is imperfect, unholy, and conditional. Is our knowledge the same as God's? No. His knowledge is unlimited, perfect, and immediate. Ours is limited, imperfect, and mediate. This means that our characteristics as both men and women come from God, but are not the same thing. This doesn't mean that God is male and female, it means that God has chosen to accentuate various attributes in the different sexes in order to create a complementary set that can partner for His glory and the advancement of His kingdom. God does not express these attributes the same way as either men or women. To say that God is both male and female for this reason is to say that God is modeled on us. This is clearly false, since it is not our image that God is made in the likeness of, but the other way around.
Now that we have a clear understanding of what God's image in man is not, next time we will take a look at a positive description of what God's image in man entails. Happy Thanksgiving!
The negative description of God's image in man is twofold: i) God's image is not physical and ii) God is not male and female due to His image being borne by both men and women.
1. God's image is not physical
a. This is really simple when you look at the Bible and connect some dots. John 4:24 says that "God is spirit...". Luke 24:39 says: "See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” Jesus says in Luke that a spirit does not have a physical body. Since God is spirit, He does not have a physical body either. It follows then, that human beings who bear God's image, are not made to look like God in the physical sense.
Some of you may be thinking about the descriptions of God that assign Him human features at this point. I believe these are anthropomorphism's that merely describe God in ways that make sense to us, because if He truly showed His fullness to us we would be utterly inept at comprehending His infinite vastness of being and character. If you are studious, I think you would find that most of these types of descriptions of God wherein He is described as having human or animal parts of in the poetic and prophetic books which are filled with rich metaphorical imagery. This would be another post in and of itself, so I will direct you to a great explanation of this idea from William Lane Craig.
b. Another problem with the idea that God has a physical body is that everything came into being when God created it. The traditional understanding of Gen 1:1 is that God created ex nihilo which means out of nothing. There was no matter, space, time, or energy before God spoke it into existence. If that is the case, that no material was present before God created it, then by default He cannot be physical. That would lead to the absurd conclusion that God created Himself out of nothing. If, on the other hand, God is a physical being, then the objection; "Who made God?" has some merit because something would have had to have made the material being we call God.
c. Yet another problem with the idea of God having a physical body is His attribute of omnipresence, which means God is at every point of space with His whole being. Psalm 139:7-12 describes His omnipresence well: "Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you." God's omnipresence precludes His being physical. If He was a physical being, He could not be everywhere at once. It would be impossible for a collection of matter forming a body to be everywhere at once. Inferentially, this tells us that God, in order to be omnipresent, must be a non-material being that is not constrained by physical limitations.
2. God is not male and female due to His image being borne by both men and women
a. Gen 1:27 says: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." Both males and females bear God's image. I have recently seen it taught that this means that God is both male and female. This is an absurd concept. God is neither male nor female. Descriptions of Him as a father are His revelation of Himself to us in a way that we can understand Him. Why did He choose to reveal Himself as a father (male)? I have no idea, but that is the way He chose to do it, so it must be correct because He cannot make any mistakes.
b. The image of God is not physical, so this cannot mean that God has both male and female anatomy. It has already been shown that God is not a physical being.
c. This also cannot be talking about the attributes of men and women in terms of temperament and personality. Did God give attributes that He has to man and woman? Yes, however, the communicated form of these attributes that we possess are not the same thing as what God possesses. For instance, do we love the same way that God loves? No. His love is perfect, holy, and unconditional. Ours is imperfect, unholy, and conditional. Is our knowledge the same as God's? No. His knowledge is unlimited, perfect, and immediate. Ours is limited, imperfect, and mediate. This means that our characteristics as both men and women come from God, but are not the same thing. This doesn't mean that God is male and female, it means that God has chosen to accentuate various attributes in the different sexes in order to create a complementary set that can partner for His glory and the advancement of His kingdom. God does not express these attributes the same way as either men or women. To say that God is both male and female for this reason is to say that God is modeled on us. This is clearly false, since it is not our image that God is made in the likeness of, but the other way around.
Now that we have a clear understanding of what God's image in man is not, next time we will take a look at a positive description of what God's image in man entails. Happy Thanksgiving!
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