THE IMAGE OF GOD

Why am I who I am? As I look in the mirror I see someone who physically resembles my father when he was my age. Growing up in the shadow of my father was a challenge. He was a local jock. A rugby football player of some note, he had a successful career in the 1930’s. Photographs of him in his prime with his team-mates adorned the walls of our hotel. After rugby football he went on to become a scratch champion golfer. I could never achieve his sporting fame. Although I developed into a passable rugby player, and ran track, achieving some creditable times and wins, I never felt that I measured up to his expectations. I was physically skinny, wore glasses from an early age, and was a bookworm. What was regarded as a liability in my youth became an asset at college and graduate school. My father read only the newspapers and never went to college. His son had opportunities that were beyond his wildest dreams. We became different in our adulthood.

Self-image is how you see yourself. It affects your self- esteem and confidence. It includes what you think you look like, how you see your personality, what kind of person you think you are, what you believe others think of you, how much you like yourself or think others like you. Poor self-image may be the result of accumulated criticisms that you collected as a child which have led to damaging your own view of yourself. A destructive self-image can lead to depression, addiction, violent behavior and suicide. This is not how God made us.

God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 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’ (Genesis 1:27-28).

God created us with a divine image, likeness and vocation. We are matter and spirit. We possess a conscience and can reason. If we can appropriate that understanding of ourselves by faith we can become what a truly healthy and flourishing human being is born to be. As we age we are prone to dwell on our limitations, our shortcomings, our regrets. We need to be reminded of our divine identity.

The question of the origin of humans – are we made in the image of God, or thrown up on the sea of the possible permutations of matter without any ultimate significance? – is of major importance for our concept of our human identity; and it is therefore not surprising that ferocious efforts are being made to minimize the difference between humans and animals on the one hand, and the difference between humans and machines on the other. Such efforts are driven, at least in part, by the secular conviction that naturalism must in the end triumph over theism by its reductionist arguments in removing the last vestige of God from his creation. Human beings must in the end be proved to be nothing but physics and chemistry. (John C. Lennox, Seven Days that Divide the World, p.86)

While we are part of the animal kingdom, homo sapiens, humans as a species, are unique. At a point in time God created us in his image. Michelangelo in his famous painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508-12), artistically captures the moment when the hominid, called Adam, received the creative power of the divine image and likeness (see above), which transformed our ancestors into the likeness of God. This is the high point of creation. God creates in his image human beings whose special identity is the ability to have a personal relationship with him. We are sufficiently like God that we can have an interactive relationship with him. God walks in the garden with Adam and Eve, and he speaks to them in a different way than to the rest of creation. He speaks personally, while they understand and respond.

Christianity maintains that the real meaning of the Universe is not to be found in an impersonal cosmic force, nor in a mathematical theory of everything, but in a personal God who wants to be in relationship with human beings. To be human is to be made for relationship, to love and to be loved by the God who created us. This means that relationship is at the heart of the Universe.  (David Wilkinson, The Message of Creation, p.36)

We are not autonomous or self-sufficient. We need God and one another. To live into the understanding of being made in the image of God requires us to consciously relate to God. The person who does not consciously relate to God is creatively dysfunctional. He or she reverts to the pre-human condition. It is no wonder that lack of a divine image and vocation leads to destructive behavior.

The benchmark for being made in the image of God is Jesus. Jesus is the decisive norm for divinity and humanity. “He is the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15). His life is characterized by his conscious, intimate, interactive relationship with the Father. If we want to appropriate this self-image we will welcome Jesus into our lives and follow him. Every day we will put on “the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator” (Col 3:10).

When God creates us in his image he blesses us, and tells us to be fruitful and multiply. He wants us to reproduce ourselves, not only physically, but spiritually. Jesus told us that our relationship with him should result in us bearing fruit (John 15:1-8). We are called to a divine vocation – to pass on God’s image and likeness to others. We are meant to have spiritual children.

The world is filled with people who have no understanding of God’s image and likeness, and no appreciation of having a divine vocation. Their self-image is poor, unhealthy, and destructive. They need to put on a new self and be renewed through Christ in the image of their Creator. We need to be reminded of our responsibility to propagate this good news to our neighbors: to the ugly, the disadvantaged, the rejected and the obnoxious.

In the ancient Assyrian and Egyptian texts the king is described as the image of God, meaning God’s representative on earth. We are God’s representatives, his ambassadors, God communicating to the world through us (2 Cor 5:16-20).

Understanding ourselves being made in God’s image and likeness results in knowing that we have a compelling calling. There is a close connection between being made in the image of God and God’s command to rule over the natural world. To rule and to subdue the earth are royal tasks. We are called to be God’s royal stewards of our environment. We are responsible for the wellbeing of the earth and its inhabitants. Implicit in our creation is our responsibility to govern and be governed, to order our civic and social life for the common good. Knowledge of and involvement in politics is a necessary part of ruling. Every person is endued with this responsibility, not just politicians. The last words of the Declaration of Independence are the mutual pledge of “our sacred Honor.” Each of us has the sacred honor of being called and chosen by God to be responsible for our governance. All of us matter. None of us is superfluous or without value or consequence. Our self-image should include this importance. We are all part of the national conversation if we see ourselves as striving to do God’s will to make this world what God created it to become.

Both male and female are equally created in the image of God and equally given the vocation of ruling over the earth. There is no gender hierarchy in creation or salvation: “There is neither… male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28) Whatever other texts of Scripture may say, the creation narrative makes no distinction between the value and calling of the male and female. Women should never feel inferior to men. Each should be treated with equal respect and sacred honor. Jesus related to women with sensitivity and consideration. Any man who acts otherwise does not understand what it means to be made in the image and likeness of God. The subjugation of women and their subsequent poor self-image is sub-human and a reversal of God’s creation. It can only be cured by the good news of a new creation in Jesus.

I experienced gender equality in being raised by a dominant mother, who was a successful businesswoman. I also grew up in a church where the female Christian Education Director on staff was theologically trained and licensed to preach. My older sister was no shy violet either! My wife is my equal partner. St. Paul instructed us to “Submit to [i.e. honor and respect] one another out of reverence for Christ” (Eph 5:21).

If we believe that all people are created in the image and likeness of God we will relate to everyone we meet as God’s representative, a member of the divine royal blood. Mother Teresa said that she saw in each dying or destitute soul on the streets of Calcutta the image of Jesus. When we encounter those who are depressed, who feel valueless, whose self-image is poor to non-existent, we need to share with them the good news that they are created in the image and likeness of God, and they can put on a new self in Christ, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of their Creator. No one should be controlled by a mental picture of themselves that they have received from others. The only picture that counts is that which God supplies us in Christ. That is life and peace. That is good news.

Hans Christian Andersen wrote The Ugly Duckling as a commentary on his own life. In the story the duckling grew up suffering much abuse for being different and then matured into a beautiful swan. After discovering his reflection in the lake, the swan takes off in flight with his new family. Likewise, when we discover that we are created in the image and likeness of God and that we are given a new identity in Jesus who renews us, we can take off in flight heavenward with our new family, the people of God.

This has been my experience also as I have grown in Christ. My self-image today is far different from what I had as a child and youth. Then, the physical was so important. I did think of myself somewhat as an ugly duckling. Later, the intellectual and the social became more important. My vocation and work experience with all its associations, all the people who influenced me, and contributed to my life, formed a more mature self-image. Mentors, such as John Stott, Jim Packer, and Harold Ockenga, encouraged me and became models for my ministry. My marriage and all the relationships of friends and family created the person I am today. All this I owe to Christ coming into my life so early on.

For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. (Romans 12:3)

You, too, can put on a new self in Christ.

(Excerpted from DAY BY DAY WITH TED SCHRODER, pp.41-46)