Can I Ask That? – Part Five – What Does It Mean to Be Created In the Image of God?
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201%3A26-27&version=NIV
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Corinthians%203%3A17-18&version=NIV
Let me give the invitation to you. What am I trying to do in this sermon? I am trying to convince you that Jesus is interested in using you to to reflect the light of his love and grace out into the world. But, if you are not a Christian, the first step is yielding your life to him for the first time. If you are a Christian, it means learning to yield your life to him on a daily basis, so that people can see the light of God in you.
Mirror and Moon, Hearts of Stone and Flesh, Work and Play
Head – Helpful Information
We Are Living In Strange Times
I want to start this sermon with a fascinating question that was posed to me? Someone asked what would I think if found out that our government really had encountered alien life from another planet? Even more pointedly, what would be my reaction, as a Christian theologian, if I were to encounter an alien?
Let me answer that couple of different ways. First, it would not change my understanding of the cosmos. The Bible does not teach that the earth is at the center of the universe. But many Christians living in the Early Middle Ages assumed it did because the Bible does teach that our world is at the center of God’s attention and love. But God being God, He is capable of holding all the things that he created at the center of his attention and love.
Also, the Bible does not teach us that we are the only intelligent beings in the universe. For that matter, it does not even teach us that we are the only intelligent beings on our planet. Octopuses are probably as intelligent as we are. But, because their neurosystem is organized differently, they posses a different kind of intelligence.
What the Bible does say about human nature is complex and nuanced. For example, in Genesis 2, the first human was called Adam. The Hebrew word is Adam, which comes from the word for soil, Ada-mah. In other words, the first human is called earthling. In fact, our word for human comes from the Latin translation of the Bible. In the Latin translation, humus is the word used for soil, and the word human means made of soil.
That means, you are I are not on earth. We are are earth. Earth is what we are. And we have a kinship to everything on this planet. That shouldn’t disturb or surprise us. Before the Human Genome Project showed the genetic connection we have to all other earthlings, the Bible told us this in Genesis two. That means, in some ways, we are just like the animals. We breathe. We eat and digest food. We sleep and copulate. We bleed and we die.
But that is not all that the Bible says about human nature. We are unique among all of the things that live on earth in just one way. We are created in the image of God. What does that mean?
Well, it means that our behavior is supposed to show creation what God is like. We are supposed to govern and care for the world and the things that live in it in such a way that other living things can see what a good and loving God looks like. This brings me back to aliens.
If I encountered one and had the chance to talk to it, eventually we would probably get around to topics like philosophy and theology. And this would leave me rather embarrassed; because I would have to tell this alien that the one responsibility the Creator gave to the human race, which was to care for the planet and each other in way that would reflect the goodness and creativity of God, is the one thing we have failed to do.
Being created in the image of God means that we are supposed to reflect the glory of God back out into the world. Throughout the Bible, light is the metaphor used for God’s glory. Being his image bearers means that we are supposed to be like a mirror that reflects that light in the proper direction. We are like the moon, which borrow its light from the sun. That is why, throughout the Bible, God’s people are called to be light in a dark world. It is another way of talking about what it means to be created in the image of God.
In Matthew 5, Jesus says, “You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.”
God desires to work with and through the human race to fill this world with the light of his love and grace. We are to be like mirrors, or like the moon, reflecting the light of God. Again, we have done a very poor job of fulfilling that vocation.
Heart – the Personal Connection
That is why one of the ways of thinking about salvation is God restoring his image in us. Salvation is about restoring the human person and our vocation of reflecting his light out into this dark world of ours. That is why Ezekiel 36 talks about replacing our hearts of stone with hearts of flesh, that beat with God’s love for the world. Sin calcifies our heart, so that it is stiff and cold, unresponsive to grace. Ezekiel prophesied that the Messiah would remove our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh, which would be sensitive to the Holy Spirit, and responsive to his love and grace. Romans 8 and the book of Ephesians ties our salvation and the world’s salvation together, saying that God’s creation suffers under the weight of sin and is eagerly awaiting the day when the sons and daughters of God are revealed to world, the day when all of God’s children will reflect God’s healing glory into all the world.
Roman 12 calls on us to offer ourselves as living sacrifices so that God can renew us from head to toe. 2 Corinthians 3 speaks of us becoming new men and women who are transformed by the grace of God. And Jesus, in the Gospel of Matthew calls on us to be salt and light in the world. All of this is Genesis one language.
John Wesley was fond of saying that salvation is not just about God trying to get us into heaven. It is about God trying to get heaven inside of us. It is not about being whisked to heaven where we can forget all about this world and its troubles. It is about being raised to new life so that the world can finally be free from all of its troubles. God is a on a great mission to restore the human race to the glory from which it fell.
Hands – The Practical Application
That means that Christian spirituality is not escapism. It is also not something which has no relation to our daily lives. It means that the totality of our daily lives, our work and our play, our hobbies and our relationships are part of how we serve and worship God. It means that Sunday worship is not the only time we worship God. The worship we offer at church is meant to teach us how to worship God with the rest of our Monday through Saturday lives.
It also means that our care for the environment, our homes, and our daily responsibilities are part of our responsibility to God. Our human vocation includes our relationships and all over which we hold responsibility. It also means that every creative act, gardening, writing poetry, painting, wood working, dancing, cooking, or rebuilding cars reflects the original Artist, which is God.
It also means that learning, studying, investigating, using the scientific method, conducting research reflects the curiosity of our creator who called our first parents to name the animals, and by doing so, to begin seeking to understand and give order to the world around them.
To be created in the image of God is to discover the great depths and mysteries of creation by discovering what it means to be human. In short, all of our work and play belong to God, and are capable of glorifying God.
Let me give the invitation to you again. What was I trying to do in this sermon? I was trying to convince you that Jesus is interested in using you to reflect the light of his love and grace out into the world. But, if you are not a Christian, the first step is yielding your life to him for the first time, allowing him to remove your heart of stone, and give you a heart of flesh. If you are a Christian, it means learning to yield your life to him on a daily basis, so that people can see the light of God in you. It means learning what it looks like to be like a mirror or moon, directing God’s love and grace to all around us. It means offering him our entire life, as our reasonable act of worship, offering him our work and play