What is man?

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November 10/2024 | Genesis 1:26-27 | Expository Sermon by Sam Kelm Note: this is a reupload due to technical issues.

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This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.
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I want to open our time together today with a part of an account that I was able to find online that I came across.
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It says, just like that, Lennox became the official first child of the family.
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Like most first children, Lennox paved the way for his future siblings by teaching me and my wife all about unconditional love and responsibility.
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I believe he helped us prepare for our children. He taught us how to parent together, how to be responsible, how to communicate, and how to nurture.
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It goes on to say, when their children came three years later, Lennox integrated well and took good care of his new siblings, also teaching them how to love and be responsible for others.
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When Lennox passed away, it was one of the saddest days of my life because the bond we developed with him was real.
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If you haven't figured it out, Lennox was a dog. I share this little excerpt with you because I believe that it reveals that by speaking of animals and pets, if they are human beings, members of our families, referring to them as children and siblings, and teaching us unconditional love, that we have completely lost sight of what man actually is.
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We have successfully degraded man to the level of animal. And so I want to ask you,
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Christian, here, what is man? If he is not an animal, if he is not, as we're told, a cosmic accident that came into being by chance or evolution, what is man?
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I believe our text today, Genesis, answers that question for us.
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It shows us exactly what man is, the purpose of his very being.
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And beyond that, it shows us how God relates to this creature that is mankind from the very beginning of creation.
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And so I want us to see, I hope that we'll see God's love and affection for man, so much so that it sets man and woman completely apart from everything else that he has created.
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There's mainly two things that I want us to see today. Firstly, that man is the crown jewel, if you will, of God's not only good, but very good creation, and that he occupies a special place, a special place and seat of honor among the rest of all living creatures.
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And secondly, we'll, as Shane mentioned, look at the image of God. And we'll consider how it informs our understanding of life and how it relates to the fall in a world after the fall.
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And so, beginning with our first point, the crown jewel of God's creation.
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Having begun the account of creation a couple weeks ago, after we took a break last week, we have looked at day 1 through 5, and we have seen, if you remember, the magnificence and the beauty of it all, as well as the glorious, infinite, self -existing, eternal
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God who made all things, creatio ex nihilo, out of nothing by the power of his word.
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And we made it about halfway through day 6. And that's exactly where we'll pick it up again today, in verses 26 and 27, as we dig deep and try to consider
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God's last act of creation, the making of mankind.
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And so, if you haven't already, please turn to Genesis 1, beginning in verse 26.
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Then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
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Lastly, after having created everything else, after the day and the night cycle, the heaven, the earth, the seas, the plants, the sun, the moon, the stars, all kinds of animal life, then
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God said, let us make man. Not man, of course, only in the sense of male.
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Our context makes this clear in the second half of verse 26, when it talks about let them have dominion.
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And then, of course, in verse 27, when it says that he made them both, male and female.
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But though mankind is created last, it is most certainly not the least of all creation.
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In fact, quite the opposite is true, actually. Humanity is the pinnacle, the diamond of God's good creation.
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Notice the shift right away in the language being used here. All throughout the account so far,
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God had said, let there be light. Let there be an expanse. Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together.
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Let the earth sprout vegetation, and so on. But now, in this perhaps more personal or relational tone, he said, let us make man.
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The us, as we heard last week, is a reference to the
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Trinity once again. The text does not lay out a fully and clear developed theology of it here for us, but it is most certainly another early sign in the scriptures of it.
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It is not some reference to polytheism or God's address to creation, the heavens and the earth, or God speaking perhaps to the court of angels, as some throughout church history have suggested.
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You remember our brother showing us two weeks ago how the Trinity itself is involved in creation.
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So just to remind you, the word Elohim translated here in Genesis 1, as God all throughout this chapter is in the plural, but then the verb in then
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God said, it's hard to see in the English really, but in the Hebrew it's clear, it is a singular.
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Likewise, you'll notice the pronouns being used when saying our image and our likeness, before the text then goes into saying his own image in verse 27.
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And then of course the presence of the spirit earlier in chapter 2 most certainly allows for a limited understanding of some form of plurality within the
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Godhead, even in the context of Genesis 1. So God, the triune
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God now chooses to make man by his own volition.
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He was not forced by some sort of power outside of himself. The great
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I am did not need man, did not depend on man, and was perfectly content without him, but he wanted to make man.
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And right from the beginning, God has shown himself to be so good to man.
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Consider again, mankind being created at last, after everything else has already been made.
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The earth is ready for man to be inhabited. God has already provided everything humanity needs to live, day and night, again, the sun, the moon, the vegetation, animal life.
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Man did not have to wander around lost in the dark and cold. Earth was ready for man.
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God had prepared a place for his most precious creation. The Puritan John Bunyan wrote a commentary in the first 10 chapters of Genesis and he notes that God, in the creation of the world, that he goes gradually from the lesser things to the more abundantly glorious, and then eventually culminating in the creation of man.
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Commenting on mankind being the last of the creatures, he writes this. He says, from which we may gather
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God's respect to this excellent creature, and that he first provides for him before he gives him his being.
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He brings him not to an empty house, but to one well furnished with all kinds of necessities, having beautified the heaven and the earth with glory and all sorts of nourishment for his pleasure and sustenance.
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Calvin said man was rich before he was born. And then, of course, our text goes on.
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We read, let us make man in our image after our likeness. We'll look at that in more detail in a few minutes, but for now notice that this is the first and the only time in the text that anything is made after the image and likeness of the triune
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God. Everything else was created according to their kinds, but man alone is created in the image and likeness of God.
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Think about, I know this is repetitive, think about creation again. The infinite heavens.
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Think of the innumerable galaxies with the billions of stars, the vastness of the sea of which the majority of mankind has not explored yet, with its hundreds of thousands, if not millions of species and life forms, the sun and the moon and the stars, the pictures they paint for us on the horizon and the night sky to the wondrous and complex animal and plant life.
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I saw this week that there is a carnivorous plant.
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It is called the pitcher plant and it's native to Southeast Asia and as the name suggests, it looks much like a pitcher.
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And what this plant does is it attracts its prey, these small insects with its vivid colors and lures them in and then once the prey is in the right position, the plant strikes.
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Now this may not seem that much of the ordinary for us, we know of carnivorous plants of course, but there is a small spider.
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It's called the crab spider that puts itself in life's danger by hanging around the opening of this plant and by doing so feeds off of some of the insects that fall into this plant.
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And then because it has this strand of silk, the spider is able to go in and come back out of this plant without being killed.
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Researchers have found that this strange relationship between predator and prey is actually very beneficial for both of these.
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You understand that these complexities, these intricacies, the grandeur of all of God's creation, though it most certainly displays
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His glory to us, pales in comparison to man. None of it was made in the image of God but man alone.
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Man is the most glorious and precious creation of God. But not only did
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God prepare the earth for man to inhabit, chose to make mankind in His image and likeness,
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He also gave him dominion. Look at verse 26b. If we take a quick glance ahead at verse 29, we see that this dominion extends.
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We'll hear about this next week, to plants as well that have been given for man's use. Man alone tops the list as God's ultimate act of God's magnificent and glorious creation.
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Humanity, both made up of man and woman, are to rule and reign over the earth.
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They've been given dominion, as Psalm 8 says, over the works of God's hand and all things have been put under His feet.
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But there's one important thing I think we should note, however, that God did not put under man's authority, and that is
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Himself. God gives dominion, but ultimate, sovereign dominion over all things is not taken from Him.
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He remains supreme. He remains the creator. Psalm 24, verses 1 and 2 say,
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The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and all those who dwell therein.
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For He has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers. Now some may say,
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I understand humanity was created. I understand it's the most glorious, perhaps, of God's creations.
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I understand God provided for man everything he needed to live, has given him this status of honor among all creation, but why?
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If God did not need us, why did He create us? As we hear so often here, it is for His glory and your joy, as the
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Westminster Larger Catechism so famously says. We see this in 1
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Corinthians 10, 13, where we're told to do everything we do to the glory of God.
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In Romans 10, verse 36, From Him and through Him and to Him are all things, and to Him be glory forever.
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As God's creature, as His greatest creature, we should join the singing of the 24 elders in Revelation 4, 11.
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Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.
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But oftentimes, none of that is good enough for man, is it? Being the crown jewel, so to speak, of creation, is not sufficient for man.
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Even though God is good, not only having made us, having provided for us, are lacking absolutely nothing for life on this earth.
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He's displaying His glory to us. We still want to be more than a mere creature under His authority.
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God desired to make man, showed His love for him, placed him in this position of honor, revealed
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Himself to him in creation. You understand Psalm 19, verse 1, was already true at the beginning of Genesis.
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The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.
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But mankind has absolutely no regard for their God or His goodness to them.
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Instead, it seeks its own glory, tries with all their might to cast God aside, to get rid of Him if possible.
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Brothers, sisters, let this not describe you, please.
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Don't try to place yourself as the world does above your God.
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You are a creature. It is best to remain one and let God be the sovereign
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God that He is. You are not sovereign. You are not your own, nor do you have the freedom to fashion a
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God after your own liking. And so instead, come, come.
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Bow down before the Lord, your God, your Maker, in humble worship, in awe of Him.
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Praise Him. It is as Acts 17, 28 says, in Him that you live and move and have your being.
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He is mindful of you. He cares for you. The purpose of glorifying
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Him, enjoying Him forever, began at creation. It remains true today, and only,
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I believe, only when we understand His goodness, His wise design, His design creating man the way
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He has and the status He's given him while remaining under the Lord's dominion will we be able to do so.
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In all honesty, I almost don't know what to tell you.
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I struggled with this other than to urge you to pant for Him as the deer pants for the water, to gaze upon the beauty of the
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Lord, to think and meditate of how good He has been to mankind right from the opening here in Genesis 1 and how good
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He is and continues to be to those who are now in Christ Jesus.
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From the very beginning to the very end, we have a good
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God. He didn't become good when Christ entered the world.
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He loves His people. He loves mankind. Let us desire nothing but Him.
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Let us long for Him. Let us rejoice in Him. Live and move and have our being in Him.
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He is a good God, worthy of our praise. He's one of the greatest of God's creation.
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There's one thing that truly, really, fully, completely sets
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Him apart from everything else. And that, of course, is having been made in the image of God.
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Look at verse 27 in our second point. So God created man in His own image.
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In the image of God, He created him. Male and female, He created them in perfect accord with the rest of this chapter, what
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God says He does. He let us make man in our image after our likeness in verse 26, has now become.
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So God created man in His own image in verse 27. This is the difference between man and the rest of all creation.
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Man and woman being made in the image of the triune God. The question is, what is that?
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What does it actually mean to be made in the image of God?
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The term used here for image refers to some form of depiction or of an object.
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The same word, for example, is used in 2 Kings 11, in verse 18.
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And there it refers to idols that were made of false gods. Likewise in Ezekiel 23, verse 14, it refers to a picture on a wall portraying the
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Chaldeans. And if we consider the term likeness, which can actually be used interchangeably with image, as is done in Genesis later in chapter 5, it refers to an appearance or a similarity.
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We see it, for example, perfectly used in the sense in Ezekiel 1, verse 5, where the prophet describes his vision.
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And he says this. And from the midst of it, that referring to a stormy wind and a cloud, came the likeness of four living creatures.
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And this was their appearance. They had a human likeness, but each had four faces and each of them had four wings.
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Describes the similarity between two objects. And so the image of God in man means that every man and woman in some way represents and in certain respects is like God without being
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God or divine. Man is not a small
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G God or a little God, but merely in some ways resembles
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Him. Francis Turretin said that the image of God does not consist in participation of the divine essence, but that it is a created analogy.
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Theologians have noted that it is not something that was imparted to man.
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Our text says God created man in His image. It is man's identity.
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It is the very thing that makes a human a human. It describes our nature and activity.
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This perspective, this view has been called the substantive view or the holistic view of the image of God.
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It holds that the image of God in man consists in knowledge, in righteousness, and holiness.
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It is derived from the whole teaching of Scripture and based on some New Testament teachings such as Romans 1 verse 20 that man knew
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God because of His invisible attributes. His eternal power, His divine nature have been clearly perceived since the creation of the world.
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As well as Ephesians where Paul urges the believer to put on the new self which is created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
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Or Colossians speaking about putting on the new self again that is being renewed and the knowledge after the image of its creator.
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I can quote Calvin again. He said, The primary seat of the divine image was in the mind and the heart or in the soul and its powers.
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Man had the ability to reason and to know God. He was created not morally neutral compared to the rest of creation.
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But more than that, the image of God remains in man even after the fall and is the very thing that gives human life value.
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I want to show you this. If you would turn to Genesis chapter 9 with me for a moment.
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Just a few pages to the right. Keep in mind the context of chapter 9.
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This is after the fall in Genesis chapter 3. God had just sent the flood and destroyed all life of course except for those in the ark in chapter 6, 7 and 8.
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And now Noah and his sons and their wives after the waters are subsiding are told the following.
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It's almost an exact repeat of what we see in the beginning chapter of Genesis.
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Genesis 9 verse 1. And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them,
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Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea.
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Into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you.
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And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. But you shall not eat flesh with its life that is its blood.
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And for your life blood I will require a reckoning from every beast I will require it and from man.
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From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed.
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For God made man in his own image. Notice that in verse 3 and 4 here
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Noah and his sons are allowed to kill living creatures for food but then in verse 6 the taking of man's life is forbidden.
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Why? Because he's been made in the image of God that remains even after Genesis 3.
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It's what gives man his worth and value. It is the sanctity of human life.
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And this is by the way before the law was given to Moses. That's why it was wrong for Cain to kill his brother
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Abel. The New Testament affirms the image of God after the fall in James.
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In his third chapter speaking about our taming the tongue in verse 9
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James writes with it we bless our Lord and Father and with it we curse the people who are made in the likeness of God.
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You understand that a person's value is not determined by us or by others.
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It's not determined by how much a person can contribute to society. It is not determined by how much money someone makes.
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It is determined by God alone right here at the beginning in Genesis when it says so God created man in his own image.
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The image of God is why human life is worth protecting.
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We as Christians we must stand against the murder of children.
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You cannot we cannot say profess that everyone is made in the image of God while we advocate or allow for the it is a brutal butchering of the unborn in their mother's womb as God is wonderfully and fearfully knitting them together.
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If there is one group of people if there is one group of people in the world that must oppose this most violent evil institution and others like it that seem to eradicate human life at the beginning as well as at the end at every seemingly point possible it is us.
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It is Bible believing Christians. Sin runs so unbelievably deep in man.
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On the one hand we seek to elevate our status as creature desiring to be our own
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God our own authority doing whatever we please whenever we please while on the other hand destroying the image of God that remains in every human being and so we reduce ourselves to nothing to less than animals.
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In man's pursuit to become his own God he destroys the very thing that made him human and gives him value in the first place.
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I want to challenge you. I was challenged by this as I thought about this.
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Some of you have been fighting this fight I trust. Perhaps for a long time you've been in the trenches you've been getting shot at you've been getting dirty.
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Press on. Keep fighting the good fight in this arena. But some of us perhaps we need to repent we may never have.
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Have you simply just gone with the flow? Do you say one thing with your lips but another with your heart?
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Does it bother your conscience at all when you think about how we gladly and willingly daily daily murder image bearers of God for the sake of someone else's convenience?
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I want to make sure this is not this is not a call for us to be political.
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It's a call for us to be biblical. To regain and uphold the image of God in every human being and the sanctity of life from conception all the way to death.
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No matter if one's social status illness or age it is truly a matter of sin and righteousness.
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When we consider the image of God there's I believe one problem that we have regarding it and that is the fall of man.
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Even though as we've seen it's not been completely eradicated and some of the image remains in men and women.
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This image of God that he was created in and knowledge the righteousness and holiness that creation has most certainly been marred.
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It's been severely damaged and disfigured by sin and the fall. Man is no longer upright.
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We're now brought forth in iniquity but we still have the ability to theoretically or intellectually know
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God as it says in Romans 1 we do suppress the truth and unrighteousness.
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The fall of man has affected all these areas. It affected our mind
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Paul writes for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened.
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Man has lost what has traditionally by reformed theologians been called original righteousness and that's why now none is righteous no not one.
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No one understands no one seeks for God all have turned aside together they have become worthless no one does good not even one and so by nature by nature the ones created upright man has sought out many schemes haven't we?
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A significant part of this image man's original righteousness the holiness not being defiled by sin has been completely destroyed but then but then contrary to that of course stands who?
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Jesus Christ who is of course the true image of God where Adam as an image bearer was to represent
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God on earth shine a light on his glory point to God but utterly failed
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Christ fulfills this perfectly Colossians 1 15 says he is the image of God making the invisible visible where through Adam's sin the image of God was so greatly distorted it is now you understand is being fully restored in us in and through Christ God at the beginning made man upright man by sin destroys as much of this image as possible though some of it remains and then
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Christ in whom the fullness of God dwelt bodily descends on earth redeems his people bears their punishment for their sins dies and ascends to the
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Father and now God conforms all those who are in Christ to the image of his
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Son what has been mutilated by man is being restored being renewed by God that is why
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Paul can write and we all with unveiled faith beholding the glory of the
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Lord or being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another the goal of your sanctification is the renewal of the image of Christ so put on brothers the new self as Paul urges us so many times as we have just recently studied in Ephesians put on the new self which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator put off this old self that is corrupt through deceitful desires and put on the new self that is created after the likeness of God and true righteousness and holiness this distorted image that we now have it does not know
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Christ as a savior it does not know God it is marked by sexual immorality by evil desire by lying drunkenness and the list goes on but you
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Christian when Christ appears you shall be like him and the image of God will be perfected in all the sanctified when they are presented in splendor without spot or wrinkle holy and without blemish as Romans 8 29 says you are predestined to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ brothers and sisters the goodness of God his love his affection for man that began in the garden that began with creation despite man's willful rebellion his falling into sin continues in Jesus Christ and through him alone he can be restored into a right standing with him and be renewed in the image of God so what is man?
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man is God's most glorious creature he is the creature that God has said his love and affection upon from beginning to the end and it stands above all the rest of creation so let us come worship our