The Imago Dei

Genesis 1:26-31

On Friday, a U.S. weapons lab announced the development of a super laser that can generate temperatures and pressures that exist at cores of stars. This may be the beginning of the holy grail of energy production—nuclear fusion. California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said,

 “We can create the stars right here on earth.”[i]

If that is not boastful enough, there is an organization called the Indiana Atheist Bus organization who began placing ads like this one on buses last year to promote their atheism. They have moved north into the Chicago bus lines and there is even one bus that carries this message from Chicago into Milwaukee. I call such people atheiangelists—one who spreads the message of atheism. My first reaction to this bus campaign is: how dare they try to convert me! Isn’t that the normal response from the atheists when Christians promote their message? They get so offended when we try to convert them. Therefore, how could they presume to do the same? I hope you realize that these are religious signs. If atheism is a religion, who are they worshipping? Look at the sign. They are worshipping man. Man is the final authority. Man is the sovereign ruler. The atheistic religion owes their worship and allegiance to themselves, but it is still a religion. These religious signs are being carried around on buses own by the city. Doesn’t this make it a government endorsed religious message? Where is the ACLU when we really need them?

Like I said last week, the secular anthropic principle understands that man is the ultimate authority and the Biblical anthropic principle states that man is the pinnacle of God’s creation but we are still completely under his authority. I want to expand on this idea this morning by looking at how man is created in the image of God.

There is no doubt who is the star of the show in chapter one. God is the star of the show. He created everything out of nothing. He painted the perfect beauty of the universe merely through the creative power of his spoken word. One of my favorite creation days is day four.

And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark season sand days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth. And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.

I love that last phrase—“He also made the stars.” The phrase sits there almost like it is an afterthought. The sun and the moon get the most attention and then after they are created and set in place, God also made the stars. It’s kind of like saying, “Oh, by the way, I also made 70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000  stars while I was making the sun and the moon.” There is much to rejoice in regarding the first five days of creation and I am sure we could spend more time getting lost in the beauty and wonder of the details, but all of these days of creation are driving at a conclusion—the creation of man on day six. And what makes man so special? Why can I so confidently say that man is the pinnacle of God’s creation? Because you and I have been created in the image of God.

^26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

^27 So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them.

^28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

^29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. ^30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

^31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

What does it mean to bear the indelible mark of the image of God? It is the mark which separates man from beasts and animals. Without this mark, we are no different than apes. Without this mark, I may as well be “da monkey,” because I would be no better or no different than a monkey. The image of God is the mark which makes us special in the most profound ways. But what exactly is the image of God? Put simply, the image of God is the mark which makes men and women most like God. We were created in his image and likeness. There is something about us that is very much like God. We carry his mark, his image, his likeness with us. But we must be careful right here. The image of God does not make us more than human. The image of God, though it makes us like God in many ways, it does not make us into God.

As Benny Hinn was fond of saying, we are “little gods.” No, we are not. The Mormons claim that we will one day become gods and rule our own universes. The New Agers believe that we will become godlike and transcendent. These false religious beliefs all have the same thing in common—they seek to elevate man beyond his appointed role. But the evolutionists, secularists and naturalists want the very opposite. They want to lower man to be like the beasts. They are content with accepting our biochemical history. I love the way Ken Ham describes evolution: “From goo to you by way of the zoo.” The secularists believe that we are nothing more than am mass of biochemicals who got lucky enough to have crawled out of the primordial soup. But the Biblical truth is somewhere in between the secularists who want to lower us to the beasts or the false religions who want to elevate us to the gods. It is true—we are a mass of biochemicals—a created mass of biochemicals, but a mass of biochemicals nonetheless. But the image and likeness of God is the very ting which gives our biochemistry meaning. We are unique and special, but the image of God is also the thing which keeps us in our place. We are more than biochemicals, but we are not and never will be god.

So what does it mean to be created in the image of God? Let me give you classic definition first. If you look in almost and systematic theology you would find this classic definition of the image of God says that we are like God in that we have intelligence, emotions and a will. This definition is supposed to show how we are special and different from the animals, but when I first encountered this definition, it was not very helpful to me. If being made in the image of God means that I have intelligence, emotions and a will, how does that make me any different from a dog? My dog Brownie has intelligence. She can be taught to do tricks and to come when we call her. But she also has a will. We cannot seem to teach her to stay in the yard. Her mind is fully capable of being taught to stay in the yard, but her strong will overrides her mind and she decides to run out of the yard. In fact, in this regard, her will trumps her mind 100% of the time because she has never stayed in the yard when she has gotten loose. Like all dogs, Brownie also has emotions and most of them are happy emotions. “Oh, you’re gonna feed me now? Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. You’re gonna let me outside now? Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. Now you’re gonna let me inside? Now you’re gonna pet me? Now you’re gonna look in my direction?

Dogs even have a rudimentary form of communication. If they see a man walking outside, their little barks send a message: a man—a man—a man! If they see another dog, they have the same basic message, just a little louder: A dog! A dog! A dog! Then if they see two dogs, it sounds like this: TWO DOGS! TWO DOGS! TWO DOGS! Furthermore, dogs also have relationships. They have relationships with people. They have relationships with other dogs and sometimes they have relationships with other animals like cats. If you look at our cat Frisbee lying next to Brownie, you can read her expression, which says, “I’m so content to be lying next to my friend Brownie.” But if you look at Brownie, she is clearly saying, “I’d rather be anywhere else in the world than lying next to this annoying cat. But those people inside, whom I love with all my heart, have chained me up out here. So I’m just gonna lie here with an expression on my face somewhere between ‘painfully bored’ and ‘mildly annoyed.’”

Therefore, if dogs have intelligence, emotions, a will, communication and relationships, and you and I have all of these things, what makes us different from a dog? I got myself in trouble over this when I was sitting in my interview to receive my pastoral license. In the Free Church, after one year of ministry you can apply for a ministerial license. You have to write a 10-12 page paper and sit for an hour interview while a board of pastors and denominational officials ask you about your theology and practice. After you get your license and have been in ministry for three more years, you need to write and 35-40 page paper and sit for a 4 hour interview to become ordained. In 1996 I was sitting in my one hour interview, but I had not fully worked out this topic of the image of God. I knew I didn’t think the classic definition was sufficient, but I had not worked out what it fully meant. During the interview, I was stumbling along trying to define the image of God in man without making use of the classic definition. Finally, one of the pastors stopped my rambling and gave me the classic definition—like God, we possess intelligence, emotions and a will. Can you guess what my response was? I said, “But dogs also have a intelligence, emotions and a will. How does this make us any different from a dog?” They didn’t say much right away, but you could tell they were about to hit the big red “heresy” button and set off an alarm: “Heresy alert—heresy alert!” Do you believe me when I tell you that this was not exactly the highlight of my ministerial career?! They were kind to me and basically said, “Everything seems just fine, but we recommend you work out what it means to be created in the image of God.” So I did.

And don’t think for a moment that this is some minor theological point with no practical relevance. The fact that we were made in the image of God is one of those foundational truths that permeates the gospel and all of Scripture.

The first and maybe most important point about the image of God is that the Bible simply states that it is true. This passage does not say, “So God created man in his own image and now I will spend the next four chapters defining what this means.” The Bible just states the fact—God created us in his own image and likeness. We are not given a neat little definition here. The doctrine of image of God is similar to the doctrine of the Trinity. The word “Trinity” is not used in Scripture and is not defined per se, but it is described all throughout the Bible. In the same way, the image of God in man is described throughout the Bible. You can pick up pieces of it in the first chapter of Genesis and you can pick up pieces throughout the rest of the book. But the starting place is the fact that God said it is true. Even if it is not defined immediately in a nice, neat package, it is true. You and I were created in the image of God. That fact makes us his very special creation—higher than the animals but lower than himself. We are not gods, but we were created to, as much as possible, be like God. It’s true because the Bible says it’s true.

The way to define the image of God in man is to list the ways that we are like God and the ways we are not like God. And here’s where we can start with the classic definition but also move way beyond it. If God has intelligence, emotions and a will and we have intelligence, emotions and a will and a dog has intellligence, emotions and a will, how are we more like God than we are a dog? First of all, a dog is not sitting around asking these questions. A dog is not reading about the image of God in man. A dog does not wonder how it is like more like God or less like God, because it can’t do these things. So even though there is a similarity in these characteristics, there is a enormous difference in the quantity and quality. For example, as we said before, a dog has intelligence and can be taught to do certain behaviors. But his intellect is relatively small. We have an intellect, but by comparison, ours is multiple times greater than a dog’s, but it still has a finite limit. Finally, God’s intellect is infinite (represented by the arrow).

This pattern holds true for every area. Look at verse 28. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” We have been granted the authority of dominion. We are to rule over all of God’s creation. Do dogs have an area of dominion? You could argue that they have a God-given sense of hierarchy. Dogs always align themselves in a pecking order with the alpha male literally as the top dog. But guess who is the alpha male in our house? I am! Compared to Brownie, even Ethan is an alpha male. Dogs have a very small area of dominion over other dogs. Humans have full dominion over all creation and God has sovereign, infinite dominion over us. (We have problems wherever we reverse any of these hierarchies or try to overstep our bounds.)

The next way we are like God is in our creativity. This is one of God’s most obvious characteristics and the first one that is not shared by dogs or any animals. There are no chimpanzees writing classical music. Apes and baboons do not paint landscapes on canvas. Once again, God possesses creativity in infinite measure for he created ex nihilo—out of nothing. When he created the sky and the sea, one could more or less say that he “painted” birds and fish on them, but when he started creating, there was no canvas on which to paint. He created the canvas, the paints and the finished product. Moreover, he put an almost limitless amount of creativity within us and a nearly limitless amount of creative potential within his creation. Unbelievers would call this “evolution,” but I call it harnessing our God-given creative potential.

Some of you have heard my “cell phone in the garden of Eden” illustration. Did you know that there was a cell phone in the Garden of Eden? Obviously, there were no actual cell phones, but inherent in the original creation was the creative potential to make a cell phone. Cell phones did not come from aliens. The technology to understand and make plastic, electronics digital signals, LCD, cameras, mini-computers, etc. was all contained in the Garden of Eden. It took a while for hat potential to become a reality, but the creative potential was still there.

We haven’t come close to exhausting the full image of God in man, but let me leave you with a few applications.

1.Don’t act like animals. So much of our behavior is modeled after animals more than it is after God. Dwight Howard star player for the Orlando Magic is well known for his basketball skills and for his Christian activities. Unfortunately, he is also well known for having a child out of wedlock with a member of the Orlando Magic dance team. Many men and women like him excuse their behavior by saying, “I couldn’t help myself.” Do you see, that’s like saying, “I couldn’t help myself because I’m an animal.” Animals have sex out of pure instinct—they can’t help it. We are not animals. Lightning bugs are cannibalistic—they eat their own kind. Some species will lure their victims by the flashes of light from the abdomen. The male lightning bug thinks he is being called over to mate but as soon as he arrives he becomes a tasty meal. Bugs and animals devour one another out of instinct, but we devour one another out of sheer meanness—not because we have to, but because we want to. We are not animals.

2. Know your place. Many of our problems in life happen because we try to subvert the created hierarchy. In other words, you are not God, so stop trying to play God.

3. Never say you are worthless. If you are made in the image of God, you have a God-given worth. In other words, you are not a dog. But here’s the problem. We spend the majority of our lives swinging between the prideful self-exultation and prideful self-loathing. Either we think too highly of ourselves or we believe we are scum. You are not a dog but neither are you God.

So how do we not act like animals? How do we avoid these swings between dog-like self-loathing and God-like self-exultation? The answer is the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel tells us that we are created in the image of God, yet we turned our back on our Creator. We are uniquely created in the image of God, but without the saving grace of Jesus Christ, we not only bear the image of God, we also carry God’s wrath. When we repent and believe the gospel, this grace restores our fallen image. Our worth and self-identity therefore, does not come from our performance—are we a good parent, are we successful, do people like us, etc. Our self-worth is a God-worth, it is bound up in the cross of Christ. The gospel puts us in our proper place and reminds us again and again that we are not dogs and we are not God.

Rich Maurer

May 31, 2009