August 9, 2019 Show with Angus Stewart on “Are All Humans Created in God’s Image?”

Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions, and now here's your host,

Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at IronSharpensIronRadio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this ninth day of August 2019, and I'm always thrilled to have back as a returning guest on this program somebody who

I find truly fascinating, informative, articulate, and a true brother in Christ filled with the

Holy Spirit on fire for the Lord and his word. His name is Angus Stewart, and he is pastor of the

Covenant Protestant Reformed Church of Ballymena, Northern Ireland. Today we are going to be addressing a very controversial theme,

Are All Humans Created in the Image of God? A Controversial and Unique Position Examined.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Angus Stewart. Well, thank you,

Chris. I was touched by your opening remarks. It got me right in the heart.

Chris, I should also say that I'm actually surprised to be on with you tonight because I was doing some pastoral visitation with a dear brother in our church, and the brother has rallied a fine

Christian man called John McCauley. And John is struggling health -wise.

He's been on dialysis for many, many years, and he's 84 years old, and John is still with us in the land of the living.

And while I was with John, I read a text of scripture to him that's highly pertinent for tonight's class, a wonderful word tucked away in Psalm 17 by the

Holy Spirit. This is Psalm 17, verse 15.

As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness, says the psalmist

David. I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness.

That's what David's hope was. One day he was going to awake with God's likeness, which he describes in the first half of the verse as consisting in righteousness.

I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness. And that's the hope of every believer and the hope of our brother,

John McCauley. Well, I hope that our listeners pray for John and that whatever time is left according to our sovereign

Lord's plan for John, that he continues to be used of God as a beacon of truth, that Christ shines through him, that the word pours from him, and that his final days on earth are filled with peace and confidence, knowing that he will be meeting his

Savior face to face, and that the family that survives him will not be overcome with an extreme amount of grief and sadness and mourning, that they may be comforted greatly, knowing that their dear loved one is in the arms of Jesus Christ.

So we ask of you to pray that for John McCauley and his family as you listen to this program and after the program is over.

And we thank God for enabling Pastor Angus to be on with us today.

I also want to thank Pastor Bruce Bennett of Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, New York, who was going to fill in today for Pastor Angus, but also graciously backed out when he heard that Pastor Angus was available for us.

Before we go into the theme at hand, are all humans created in the image of God, please tell our listeners something about Covenant Protestant Reformed Church of Balamina, Northern Ireland.

Covenant Protestant Reformed Church in Balamina, in the middle of County Antrim, about half an hour's drive away from Belfast, is by God's grace a wonderful church to be in.

We have the Word of God. It uplifts and encourages us. We have 17 families who are members.

We have peace and unity. Those are deep, rich blessings, and the

Lord has encouraged us in our work, the Word's getting out, and the Lord has been very, very good to us.

Praise God. Well, if anybody either lives in the Balamina, Northern Ireland area, or plans to vacation there, or has family, friends, and loved ones near there, you can go to their website at cprf .co

.uk. That's cprfcovenantprotestantreformedfellowship .co

.uk. That is the website they developed before they officially became

Covenant Protestant Reformed Church, so that's why there's an F in there, F as in fellowship, cprf .co

.uk. And we hope that... Yes. We have some good news. Oh, you've updated the website.

And this is some of the best news that my wife has had in this earthly sphere recently.

After many years, years, literally, work of developing a new website, it's now up.

We're now cprc, as in church, cprc .co .uk.

So you can go right to cprc .co .uk. And by the way, Mary and I have been working today and a wee bit of yesterday.

We have assembled a special webpage on the image of God in man. And that special webpage is accessible on the homepage.

If you go on the homepage, you scroll down just a little bit, and there are three blocks. And then the block on the right indicates the new webpage on the image of God.

And when you go to the new webpage on the image of God, it gives sermons on the image of God, Belgic confession classes on the image of God, the

Heidelberg Catechism on the image of God, a couple of lectures on the image of God, so does the audiovisual materials. And then we have two lengthy articles on the image of God written by me, and a third one written by our friend

Manuel Cus in the Limerick Reformed Fellowship, whose pastor is a certain

Reverend Martin McGowan. Yes, who I've had on this program a number of times. Yes, yes.

And then we have a couple of lengthy quotes, pages of quotes.

We have one on the Reformed Confessions on the image of God. We have, I don't know, maybe about 20, 25

Reformed Confessions on the image of God. And we have another one. It's seven pages worth of quotes on theologians on the image of God, from Martin Luther to David J.

Engelsman to A .W. Pink to R .L. Dabney to Herman Witzius to John Owen and Richard Sibbes and William Perkins.

All Chris advocating the position that I'm advocating tonight. Wow. So if you have support in the tradition,

I'll only give you some of the highlights there. There are other highlights. Hopefully we can get into some of those later.

So other than those losers and lightweights, anybody else support your position? Oh my goodness! Those are some pretty profound men of God, all of which

I uphold as heroes. But I am actually surprised, because I have not yet been convinced of your position.

This is the first time I'm hearing a defense that you are going to be giving.

And let me start off, and I'm going to have you do most of the talking today. Even though I am not sure

I agree with you on your position, I'm not going to be debating you. I am certainly not qualified to debate you.

I'm sure you're lightyears beyond me in your knowledge of scripture and your abilities to debate those with opposite positions or different positions to you.

But let me just start off with a passage, I think it's a critical passage, that those especially perhaps that believe that every human being that is conceived in the womb of a woman is made in the image of God.

We have the classic text from Genesis 9, verse 6. And this is,

I'll start with the King James Bible translation of this. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.

For in the image of God made he man. And then the New American Standard Bible version of this, which is my favorite translation.

Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed. For in the image of God he made man.

And it would seem, logically, that if murder of anyone could be a reprobate, if you are not through legal means executing a murderer, for instance, under the legal system, through lethal injection, or however they might do that, for any human to kill another human being, even if that person is vile and evil, it would be a violation of God's law to take it upon ourselves in an act of vengeance to murder that person, or of course anybody else, including the children in the womb of, even if you were to say a prostitute, or any woman who has a child within her womb, we should not murder that child, we should not permit her to have an abortion, or approve of her having an abortion, because she would be murdering someone made in the image of God.

That's the way those on the side of this issue that seems to be in opposition to yours would interpret that verse.

Now if you could just take it from there and let's see where we go. Sure. Chris, you'll be relieved to know that I'm not going to charge you at all with contradicting what we'd agreed upon earlier, that since I was out with our brother

John doing pastoral work, and so I didn't just have as much time to prepare for tonight's speech as I wanted, that you were going to go easy on me.

You've just jumped in with the hardest passage, and really I think it's the only passage, there are another two, and they may well cover, the hardest passage, although I don't think it's that hard, the hardest passage and the best arguments against the position which

I'm doing. I might have preferred, Chris, to have brought this one at the end when

I've gotten all my positive arguments out first, but I'll take the chips whatever way they fall. You'll be glad to know.

Well, I thought it was good to bring it up immediately because otherwise people might be distracted having that verse in their minds throughout the entire two -hour program before you reveal how you would exegete that, but anyway.

Very considerate of you there, Chris. Over here that might be accused of spin doctoring.

Well, Chris, with regard to Genesis 9 verse 6, the view which is,

I freely admit, it is the dominant view. It's the majority position. Mine is a minority position. The dominant position would fit with that text.

If whoso sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made he man.

But what isn't realized is that the view which we hold also fits with that text.

And let me explain to you how. We believe that the image of God is, first of all, the second person of the

Holy Trinity. He's the image of the Father. Then, secondly, Jesus Christ, the

Son of God incarnate, is called the image of God. Thirdly, and there's no controversy on this either, thirdly,

Adam and Eve before the fall, everyone would agree, are in the image of God. And then, fourthly, everybody agrees that believers are in the image of God, the regenerate.

Now, the contentious one is that unbelievers or the unregenerate are not in the image of God.

This passage is explaining why we must not murder. It says, whoso sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made he man.

We are not to kill other human beings. This is my argument.

We are not to kill other human beings because mankind is different from all animals, because we are allowed to kill animals for food or if they endanger us or let's say it is a family pet that needs to be put down.

Mankind is different from all the animals and that is revealed by many things, including the one that's mentioned here, in the image of God made he man.

See, the passage, when it says, in the image of God made he man, that's conjuring up a text.

That's conjuring up Genesis 1 verses 26 and 27. It doesn't say we're not to kill other human beings for in the image of God is man.

It refers to a fact in the past that Genesis 1. Now, I understand the argument is, well, the image of God, man was made in the image of God and therefore he still is in the image of God.

But the problem with that is that that's, well, that's the point that needs to be proved.

The text actually says not everybody's in the image of God, but God made man in the image of God, which is what

Genesis 1 verse 26 and 27 says.

Now, let me give you some other arguments. Genesis 9, as all of our listeners will agree, comes after eight other chapters.

We can certainly agree on that, right? Genesis 1, creation, says that man was created in the image of God.

I mean, man, generically, man and woman, Adam and Eve. Then in Genesis 3, we have the fall, when the whole creation was under the curse and infected with vanity, and Adam died spiritually and left himself exposed to eternal death.

And then we come to chapter five. I'll say more about other chapters in a minute, but from now I'm going many of the odd numbers, one, three, and then five.

And if you look at the start of chapter five, verse one says, in the day that God created man in the likeness of God made he him, male and female, created he them and blessed them and called their name

Adam in the day when they were created. Genesis 5, one through two, talks about Adam and Eve created in the image of God.

Then the next verse says, Adam lived 130 years, in which time certainly the fall took place, and begat a son in, and then it doesn't say in the likeness of God or in the image of God, Adam begat a son in his own likeness and after his own image, and he called him

Seth. So Genesis 1 and Genesis 5, verses one and two, says that Adam was made in the image of God.

Genesis 3 says that Adam and Eve fell. And Genesis 5, verse three, says that Adam had a son in his own likeness and after his image.

Now to fill in a little bit more of the framework in the early chapters of Genesis, when Genesis 4 talks about Fratricide, Cain killing

Abel, you know, is Abel as Cain in the image of God? Genesis 9, verse 6, of course, comes near the end of the great narrative about the worldwide flood, and chapters 6, 7, and 8 are talking about the awful sin and misery of the world.

Something massively has changed. And then our text says, who so sheds man's blood by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made he man.

You could read it, he's made man and therefore he is in the image of God, but that's the point but within the framework of Genesis, it makes perfectly good sense, and I actually believe better sense, irrespective of the other case in the

Bible, to read it as a reference to the past. And then of this argument too,

I want to quote John Owen by the way, but of this argument too, that when you bring in other passages of scripture, because Genesis 9 is early in the

Bible, when you bring in other passages of the Bible which explain what the image of God is, Colossians 3, verse 10, and Ephesians 4, verse 24, our listeners may want to write those down because they're the classic texts in Reformed theology, in the

Reformed creeds, in the history of the Christian church. It just mentions the image of God in Genesis 1, and the phrase occurs in chapter 5 and chapter 9.

Of itself, the passage doesn't pour the content into it. The Old Testament gives you basic building blocks, the

New Testament enriches the theology, like for instance, Genesis 3, you've got the fall, but it's really

Romans 5, there it's like it's Psalm 51, verse 5, and sin did my mother conceive me, but it's really

Romans 5 that explains original sin, and it's like it here with the image, the image is mentioned in chapter 1, 5, and 9, but it's the

New Testament, and Ephesians 4, and Colossians 3, which defines what the image of God is, what is its nature.

And I want to give you John Owen here, John Owen on this passage. John Owen says, and John Owen is probably the most erudite

British theologian, 1616 to 1683, it's always good to have him on your side,

I think he's even greater support of having my wife on my side. It was right up there.

Owen writes, quote, they cannot prove that man in the condition and state of sin doth retain anything of the image of God.

The place is mentioned, and then he refers to Genesis 9, verse 6, the place is mentioned,

I'll not mention the other one now, the place is mentioned as Genesis 9, verse 6, testify only that he was made in the image of God at first, but that he doth still retain the image, the intimate not, nor is the inference used in the places taken from what man is, but what he was created.

You have to love John Owen. I mean, there's people right now, Chris, who are going to go out and buy the 16 volumes of John Owen on the basis of that quote.

The 16 volumes themselves are worth that quote, especially to me, because I'm going to be hit in this argument, my head is on the chopping block, and it's nice to know that John Owen's head will fall with mine.

And I kicked myself because years ago, someone gave me those volumes, all of those volumes as a gift, and unfortunately,

I lost them many years ago in a storage locker when

I lapsed in my payments, and the owner of the storage locker sold all of my belongings, and that went along with him.

Chris, I imagine there's a story there about what happened to you financially, and that, but maybe it's too private to discuss on air.

Yeah, perhaps. But hey, if anybody is a generous listener out there, and they want to ship me a new copy of all of the volumes of John Owen's commentaries, and perhaps even more valuable to me if they were first edition copies.

But anyway, so that's remarkable that John Owen agreed with you on this.

Now, can I ask a quick question before you move on? I know I'm not going to be belaboring you with questions, but how then logically can we forbid the killing of a human when the very thing that God's Word bases that prohibition on is that he is made in the image of God?

I mean, I'm talking about a person who hates Christ, or is in a false religion, and, you know, makes no or gives no evidence that that person is of the elect.

How do we look at that passage in 9 -6 and see that there is still a restriction and a prohibition on killing another human?

A very good question. I would agree that if everybody were to be in the image of God, that that would be actually a stronger argument against murder than what

I'm giving. I don't think it would be the correct argument, I don't think it's required by the text. But the argument against murder is first of all, of course, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not murder the sixth commandment.

But Genesis 9 -6 is an argument that supports that, and it says that we're not to kill man because man, well

I'll quote it, in the image of God made he man. You can kill a horse that says it's broken its leg, or swat a fly, and we've had some warm weather here, and we have been doing precisely that, and you can do that in a good conscience too, but mankind is different because mankind was created in the image of God, made in the image of God, unlike other creatures.

And so we're to think now of the six days of creation recorded in Genesis 1, and in general there's a movement, an ascent, so that we go from the lower creatures up to man, who's the pinnacle of creation.

And man is highlighted as the pinnacle, not only that he's the last thing created on the last day, but also that he is fellowship with God, that man was made by the hand of God, God breathed into his nostril, and then

God gave a special gift to man, and the intimacy of marriage. But then this word, that man was made in the image of God, and that sets man apart from all other creatures, because man was made as a reflection of the glory of God, like like him, in knowledge, right, the true holiness,

I might add, but the other creatures weren't. So that creation of man in that case indicates that man is different.

So it's interesting too, it says, I believe it's a lawful interest, verse 6, we're not to kill people because God was made in the image of God, or sorry, man was made in the image of God, but it also talks about capital punishment.

Whoso sheds man blood, by man shall his blood be shed. In fact, it's a command.

It's a command, oh yes, man must be executed for murder. Assuming now that proper trial, the person's been convicted and so forth, everything's been done lawfully, it's a commandment to not just Christians, but actually it's a, it's a sort of a renewal of the creation mandates, because Noah is here, as it were, another

Adam, and I know Christ is the last Adam, but in a sense Noah is like Adam, that he's, the whole human race is now going to descend from him.

So this is, this applies to all societies and governments, there ought to be the death penalty.

And so the fact that man was made in the image of God, as opposed to all animals, shows the dignity of man.

Man once was it, the image of God, man used to be in it, and man has the capacity of bearing the image of God, because knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness are spiritual qualities that can't be predicated, you know, of a squirrel or your favorite pooch, no matter how much you like them.

So you seem to stop short there. Are you there with us, brother? Oh, I'm still there.

I just realized that I'd said all that I had to say, and believing that was all I had to say, I just stopped.

Ha ha ha! Okay, well, you cited from one of the great heroes of the faith that is universally beloved, especially by those who are theologically

Reformed, but many who are outside of the Reformed faith still claim Owen as a hero.

I've heard a number of our non -Calvinist fundamentalist friends quote from Owen, and he seems to be universally viewed as a giant of the faith.

Well, I know that you listed a cavalcade of names there that, every one of them,

I love and respect and acknowledge as a hero of the faith. That even includes one of our modern -day figures that you mentioned,

David Engelsma, who I've had the privilege of interviewing, and he wrote a glowing commendation for this show.

But if you could, we're going to go to a first break right now, and we come back, list, or should I say quote some of these other great figures that will add weight to your argument.

Obviously, we both believe in sola scriptura, that nothing is absolute proof of anything beside the inerrant

God -breathed words of Scripture, but it still does add weight to an argument when greatly beloved and universally beloved figures in the church hold to something.

We should at the very least take it seriously and not just brush it off because it's not an inerrant statement or coming from the lips or pen of a fallible human.

It's still when the person is highly recognized by minds greater than ours that this individual was or is a voice to be reckoned with.

We should take it seriously. So we're going to our first break, and when we come back, you can give us some more of that evidence.

And if anybody listening would like to add or ask a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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Chris Arnson. If you just tuned us in today, our guest for the full two hours with about 90 minutes to go is

Angus Stewart, and Angus is a very much beloved guest, returning guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, pastor of Covenant Protestant Reformed Church of Ballymena, Northern Ireland.

Today we are addressing the theme, Are All Humans Created in the Image of God? A Controversial and Unique Position Examined.

And as we are learning, this may not necessarily be a unique position historically.

Perhaps just in the 20th and 21st centuries it is considered to be unique, but we're going to be hearing more ammunition for the side that only the elect, those born of God, those born from above, are in fact created in the image of God.

But if you'd like to join us on the air with a question, even if you disagree with our guest, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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And our email address again is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

chrisarnson at gmail .com. And Angus, Pastor Angus, now that we have you back, we got accidentally disconnected there, if you could share with us some more of the historic evidence that it is not necessarily out of the mainstream, at least out of the mainstream of historic

Christianity, to believe that only the elect of God, those born from above, those who are regenerate, etc.,

are made in the image of God. Sure, Chris, that was a very good explanation you gave of sola scriptura before the advertisements.

Sola scriptura or scripture alone does not mean that the Bible is the only authority in spiritual things.

Sola scriptura means that the Bible alone is the supreme authority, that it is over and judges everything else, human creeds, our thoughts, theologians.

So the word of God is the final arbiter, the supreme judge, as the Westminster Confession puts it in chapter one.

And there's a really good book on this that I found superb, Keith Madison's The Shape of Sola Scriptura.

And it's actually sort of an Anabaptist idea, and he proves that historically too, to say, well, you only need the

Bible. The Bible is the supreme, but the authorities in the church, they're lesser authorities, subordinate authorities.

Then a second point regarding lesser authorities. Below scripture are the creeds.

And I would like to go back to this, this helps a little with the Genesis 9 verse 6 text.

Here are the canons of Dort, heads three and four, on the corruption of man, his conversion to God, and the manner thereof.

Article one, this explains well the issues of Genesis 9. Man was originally formed after the image of God.

His understanding was adorned with the true and saving knowledge of his creator and of spiritual things. His heart and will were upright, all his affections pure, and the whole man was holy.

That's man in the image of God before the fall. Then it continues, but revolting from God by the instigation of the devil and abusing the freedom of his own will, he forfeited these excellent gifts, which were the image of God, the aspects of the image of God.

And on the contrary, instead of the image of God, he entailed on himself blindness of mind, horrible darkness, vanity, and perverseness of judgment became wicked, rebellious, and obdurate in heart and will, and impure in his affections.

Article 2 continues this historical timeline. Creation in the image of God, what does that mean? Then the fall, we move from Genesis 1 to Genesis 3.

Then we move to Genesis 5 in effect with Article 2. Man after the fall begat children in his own likeness, not the image of God.

Remember the first three verses of Genesis 5. A corrupt stock produced a corrupt offspring.

Hence all the posterity of Adam, Christ only accepted, have derived corruption from their original parent, not by imitation as the

Pelagians of old asserted, but by the propagation of a vicious nature in consequence of a just judgment of God.

Now Chris, I could quote some other confessions, some that are actually even clearer than the canons there.

And some that make it very clear that so far are the unrejoined from being the image of God, that they're actually in the image of Satan.

But your question involves quotes from theologians. So to repeat, number one is scripture.

It towers above everything else. A subordinate authority is the creeds, that's number two. And then individual theologians, they don't have greater authority in the creeds, they have lesser, but they're the third rank.

Let's start with Martin Luther. And it's worth pointing out that this is the historic position of Lutheranism too.

And Chris, I don't know if we have many Lutheran friends who listen to your program, but I hope this warms their heart.

Martin Luther says, if these powers, and he's referring to memory, will, mind, etc.

If these powers are the image of God, as we're told in the popular and even dominant position today, which was held by good men, and I used to hold that view myself, so I can understand that.

If these powers are the image of God, it will also follow that Satan is in the image of God.

Since he surely has these natural endowments, such as memory, and indeed a very superior intellect, and a most determined will, to a far higher degree than we have.

So Luther's arguing that if there is this image of God, that's sometimes called wider or broader one, with regard to this broader, wider image of God, Satan has it more than you or I.

He has it in a high eminent sense. Here's William Perkins, who taught at Cambridge University.

The image of God is nothing else but a conformity of man unto

God, whereby man is holy as God is holy. For Paul says, put on the new man, which after God is created, in God's image, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness.

Ephesians 4 verse 24. Well here's another one. Here's Heinrich Bullinger, and I should add here, I haven't read everything by Heinrich Bullinger.

There probably aren't too many people listening to this radio program who have. It's possible with some of these quotes that maybe somewhere else, and I personally think this may be the case with Bullinger, that somewhere else he might think that there is a sense in which man is in the image of God.

So I want to throw it as a proviso. But here's a really nice thing that Bullinger said.

He was the reformer in Zurich after Ulrich Zwingli. Bullinger talks about man's depravity.

He says, what else can the blotting or wiping out of this image of God be but original sin?

That is, the hatred of God, the ignorance of God, foolishness, distrustfulness, vanity, hypocrisy, etc, etc.

And this is the bit I wanted to get to because it impinges on the Genesis 9 verse 6 controversy. This corrupt image and likeness is by propagation derived unto us all for Adam begat a son in his own similitude and likeness.

Genesis 5 verse 3. Let's go back to Perkins. Man by creation was made a goodly creature in the blessed image of God, but by Adam's fall men lost the same and are now become the deformed children of wrath.

And then I could quote Paul Bain, who is the successor of Perkins at the University of Cambridge, and Richard Sibbes, who was also part of this

Cambridge set. So here we are in Cambridge, one of the two great university cities in England.

In a much better day these men are teaching that the image of God, this is

Bain, is not to be conceived in bodily things as the anthropomorphites imagined, nor yet standeth in the essence and faculties of the soul as memory, reason, and will, the popular position today.

Paul Bain opposes it. For wicked men have these, nor even in dominion and rule, which made man as a little god among the creatures.

Because this isn't the image of God, it's a consequence of the image of God. Being in the image of God, then

Adam ruled over the creation righteously. We're in the image of God, we rule over it righteously to the extent that we're righteous, and to the extent that we rule over much of it at all because we don't have much in this world.

But then he continues, the image of God standeth in these divine qualities.

The Reformed tradition used the word virtues in other places as these divine qualities. And Richard Sibbes says the image of God must be understood of the image of God in Jesus Christ.

Sibbes continues, every man by nature carries the nature of the devil in him, till the image of God be stamped on, and the image of Satan raised out.

Here's Joseph Carroll, he wrote probably the longest commentary on the book of Job that ever will be written, not only referring to the past.

Regarding those outside of our beloved Lord Jesus, they are deprived of the image of God, they are stamped with the image of Satan.

Here's Ralph Venning, another English Puritan, when God made man, he made him in his own image.

So when the devil made man sin, he thereby made man in his own image and likeness.

And then he continues, he that runs may read the picture, image, and likeness of the devil and sin.

Sinners are as much like the devil as anything. He that sinneth is of the devil, 1 John 3 verse 8.

Never was child more like the father than a sinner is like the devil. This is from a

Dutchman, 18th century, Theodorus Van Grove, referring to unbelievers in his audience, this is a sermon

I believe, you lack a true and spiritual knowledge of God, and by reason of sin are void of God's image.

George Smeaton, the Scottish Presbyterian, a favorite theologian of mine, he has a wonderful book on the Holy Spirit and a book about Christ's atonement as taught by the

Lord himself and by the apostles. Smeaton says, the image of God in which man was created was replaced by the entire corruption of man's nature.

And here's a Southern Presbyterian, R .L. Dabney, another 19th century figure,

R .L. Dabney says, the image of God has been lost in the fall and regained in redemption.

Notice the argument, hence it could not have consisted in anything absolutely essential to man's essence, because the loss of such an attribute would have destroyed man's nature.

The likeness which was lost and restored must consist then in some accident. And then we have a nice quote from Thomas Peck, another

Southern Presbyterian, friend and co -laborer of Dabney. He says, Thomas Peck, every man comes into the world bearing the image of the devil, filled with malignancy against God and consumed with intense selfishness.

This is why we need to evangelize and see people one to Jesus. And here's A .W. Pink, the

English Baptist who labored in America and Australia and Scotland. A .W.

Pink says, even among those preachers who desire to be regarded as orthodox, who do not deny the fall as a historical fact, few among them perceive the dire effects and extent thereof.

He goes on to say, through the breach of the first covenant, all men have lost the image of God and now bear the image of the devil.

John 8 verse 44. And let's go back to the Lutheran theme,

I could give other quotes, but we want to quote with approbation, or at least I do, the

Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church, standing for the teachings of that worthy man of God, Martin Luther.

This is the Missouri Synod's catechism number 106. What was the image of God?

The image of God was this. A. Adam and Eve truly knew God as he wishes to be known and were perfectly happy in him.

Colossians 3 verse 10. B. They were righteous and holy, doing God's will. Ephesians 4 verse 24.

The two classic verses, they keep cropping up. Question 107. Do people still have the image of God?

No. This image was lost when our first parents disobeyed God and fell into sin. And then he refers to Genesis 3 and the fall.

Genesis 5 verse 3, where Adam begets children of his own likeness. And then he actually refers to Psalm 17 verse 5.

Only in heaven will it be fully restored. And I have a friend who sent me a nice email today,

Jonathan Moore, he earned his doctorate in Cambridge in historical theology. And he mentioned that the

English Puritans, John Geary, 1600 to 1649, and Thomas Gatteker, who was a member, incidentally, of the

Westminster Assembly, they taught this view of the image of God. Thanks to Jonathan Moore for that. I hopefully will be able to come up with some quotes for me in the future.

And I'll put those on our website too. And G. C. Burkhardt, a fairly famous theologian from the

Netherlands, who wrote quite a lot of books that are accessible in English, that this was his view too.

Chris, sometimes it's not so good with a monologue and a lot of quotes. I hope I haven't,

I hope you're still conscious there. Oh, I'm very conscious and utterly fascinated.

And one question I have for you before we go to the break, our midway break. We have

Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, who asks, I know you are quoting from many great men of God.

Was this ever, however, the majority position in the church?

And if it was, when approximately did the reverse come where it seems that even amongst reformed

Christians, that would be a minority view that you're teaching today? And we're going to have you answer that when we come back from our midway break.

And if anybody else would like to join us on the air, we already have a couple of people holding on to have their questions asked and answered.

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

Please, as always, give us your first name, at least your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. And remember, this is our longer than normal break because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

FM in Lake City, Florida, airs this program twice a day in a pre -recorded format, once in morning drive and once in the evening.

And they require this middle break to use for their own public service announcements and commercials since they are in Lake City, Florida.

And the FCC requires of them to localize their programming to Lake City, Florida.

And that would include Iron Sherpins Iron Radio. So while they air their own public service announcements and commercials, we are airing our own commercials that are heard globally.

So please write down the information provided by our advertisers so that you can more frequently and successfully patronize them because we rely upon our advertisers to exist.

We cannot exist without the funding they provide through advertising with us. So obviously, the longer and more often and more frequently and more heavily you patronize our advertisers, the more likely they will remain our advertisers, which will mean the more likely we will remain on the air.

So please patronize our advertisers, write down the information that they provide so you can do so. And also write down questions for our guest,

Angus Stewart, regarding the image of God. Our email address again is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. And don't go away.

We'll be back after these messages from our sponsors with more of Angus Stewart. We look forward to receiving your questions for our guest.

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We are going to be returning to my guest, Angus Stewart, momentarily, but we just have some special announcements of events that are coming up that we hope you attend.

By the way, if you are listening, Angus, I did forward you a message from a listener in England, a pastor in England, and it's quite lengthy, so I thought

I would email it to you so you had it in front of you and were able to examine it so you can more adequately answer the very lengthy email.

After we answer, or after you answer, Susan Margaret from Dauphin County, Pennsylvania's question.

But we will be returning to our discussion with Angus momentarily. The first event that we want to let you know about is a debate that my friend,

Pastor Bruce Bennett of Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, New York, will be having with Roman Catholic apologist

Matthew Luke Broderick. That will be held on Saturday, September 7th at 630 p .m. The theme of the debate is,

Is the Office of Pope Biblical? Is the Office of Pope Biblical? That is a

Protestant versus Roman Catholic debate, Saturday, September 7th, 2019, 630 p .m.

at Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, New York. If you want more details on attending that event, which is free of charge, uh, the phone number is 806 -0614.

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And make sure you tell the folks there that you heard about the debate from Chris Orens and the

Lion, Sherp, and Zion Radio. Then in December, during the Christmas season, and what better time of year to go to New York City than during the

Christmas season? I am going to be heading back to my old stomping ground in New York City to the

Foundations Conference, a conference orchestrated and hosted by sermonaudio .com,

Thursday and Friday, December 19th and 20th in Manhattan. I'm always thrilled to attend this conference.

It's always excellent and a lot more intimate than many conferences because it can only hold, the venue can only hold, less than 200 people, which is why they also require that if you attend you are a man in ministry leadership, especially due to the small venue.

They want to make sure that only pastors or church leaders or parachurch leaders are in attendance. That's men in ministry leadership.

The speakers include Dr. Stephen J. Lawson, founder of One Passion Ministries, one of the most powerful preachers alive.

Paul Washer, another one of the most powerful preachers alive. Reverend Jeff Thomas, what a remarkable preacher, teacher, and writer he is.

Reverend Armin Tomasian, who is a name that may not be familiar to everyone today, but I think within the next decade, as I keep repeating,

I think he's going to be a household name amongst Reformed Christians. He is a pastor in the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, specifically in South Carolina, although he is from Northern Ireland, just as our guest is, but he's a young man and he is just so incredibly gifted, so powerful, so filled with biblical knowledge and wisdom.

I believe he is going to be a household name very soon amongst Reformed Christians. Richard Caldwell Jr.

and Andrew Quigley are also on the lineup. I have not yet heard these brothers preach, but if Sermon Audio selected them,

I am convinced they must be magnificent. So if you want to join me Thursday and Friday, December 19th and 20th, during the

Christmas season in New York City, if you want to join me there, go to thefoundationsconference .com,

thefoundationsconference .com. Then coming up in January, I'm going to be packing up my bags again, and this time heading down south to Atlanta, Georgia, more specifically

College Park, Georgia, the home of the Georgia International Convention Center.

And that is for the G3 Conference, which stands for Gospel, Grace, and Glory. The dates are

Thursday, January 16th through Saturday, January 18th.

It's Thursday, January 16th through Saturday, January 18th. The theme this January is Worship Matters.

The speakers include Kosti Hinn, nephew of the notorious heretic and charlatan

Benny Hinn. And Kosti does not mind me saying that because Kosti has repented of the

Word of Faith ministry, or I should say Word of Faith heresy, and he spends much of his time outside of his own pulpit warning people, both

Christians and non -Christians alike, about the dangerous, deceptive, deadly, and damning doctrines of the

Word of Faith movement. And he is today not only a Reformed Baptist pastor, you've been hearing

James White say he's a Reformed Baptist pastor in California, well he was just sent by his

California church to begin a ministry, a pastoral ministry in Arizona, so that's an update for you.

He's a pastor in Arizona, a Reformed Baptist pastor in Arizona, and a cessationist when it comes to the sign gifts.

So he's on the lineup, Daryl Bernard Harrison, a brilliant writer. I've never heard him speak yet, but I'm sure he's excellent.

He is the new addition to the Grace To You team at the ministry of John MacArthur. Looking forward to hear him speak and meet him in person.

I have interviewed him on the show, look forward for him to return. David Miller, another extraordinary preacher.

Derek Thomas, a name that is very well known amongst Reformed Christians especially.

Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, my friend since 1995. What a wonderful and powerful gift of God he is.

Dr. Joel Beeky, the president of Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary is on the lineup. Once again,

Stephen J. Lawson and Paul Washer, they're on the lineup at this conference as well. Phil Johnson, the executive director of John MacArthur's ministry,

Grace To You. Stephen J. Nichols, who is the president of Reformation Bible College, the college founded by the late

R .C. Sproul and Ligonier Ministries. My friend Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Radio.

Dr. Tom Askell, the Calvinistic ministry leader for the

Foundations Conference, or Founders Ministries. I'm sorry,

Founders Ministries, which is the Calvinistic ministry in the Southern Baptist Convention. It's been a longtime friend of mine as well.

Vodie Baucom, one of the most extraordinary and powerful teachers and preachers today. And as you may have heard, the newest addition to the lineup that has me very, very excited.

I was already excited, but this has me going through the roof with joy and excitement and anticipation.

John MacArthur is now also on the lineup at this conference. I cannot wait to be there for that.

Even if he was there alone, I'd be thrilled to go. If you would like to join me Thursday, January 16th through Saturday, January 18th at the

G3 Conference in College Park, Georgia at the Georgia International Convention Center, go to g3conference .com,

g3conference .com to register. I strongly urge you, if you have a business, a parachurch ministry, or anything else that you want to promote to the

Body of Christ, since they are having, every year they have over 5 ,000 people attend this, so it's an ideal place to have an exhibitor's booth.

I will have an exhibitor's booth there, and it always proves to be extremely beneficial to me to have an exhibitor's booth at this conference.

I am very confident it will be very beneficial to you, too, if you register for an exhibitor's booth as well.

I would do so quickly before they run out of room, especially with the addition of John MacArthur to the roster.

I think that even though they normally expect over 5 ,000 people at this, and actually normally draw over 5 ,000 people to this,

I think they're going to have over 6 ,000 at least this year because of John MacArthur's inclusion in this event.

So go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com. Last but not least, if you love

Iron Trip and Zion Radio and you don't want it to disappear from the airwaves, please go to irontripandzionradio .com,

click support, then click to donate now, and you will be able to donate instantly with a debit or credit card in that fashion.

Please be as generous as you can. We are in urgent need of your finances. If you want the address to mail in a check via snail mail, it will appear on the screen when you go to irontripandzionradio .com

and click support. If you want to advertise with us, send me an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

As long as whatever it is you're promoting, if you want to advertise with us, you don't have to believe exactly as we do, but you need to be promoting something that is compatible with what we believe.

You send in an email to chrisarnsen at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line. I'm asking you as I do every day, please don't siphon money away from your regular giving to your local church where you are a member.

Never do that in order to give to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, and never put your family in financial jeopardy in order to give to Iron Trip and Zion Radio.

Those two things are commands of God providing for your church and home. Providing for my show is not a command of God, but if you are blessed financially above and beyond your ability to obey those two commands, then please send us as generous as a check as you can or or donate instantly at irontripandzionradio .com.

Click support, then click click to donate now. We are in urgent need of your finances, so please help us as frequently as you can and as heavily as you can, as long as you're not violating those two commands of God providing for your home and your church.

Only give to us if you are blessed financially above and beyond your ability to obey those two commands. If you're not a member of a local bible -believing church and you're not even prayerfully looking for one, you're living in rebellion against God, so please rectify that situation.

I have lists of biblically faithful churches all over the world and I can help you find a church,

God willing, so send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put I need a church home or something like that in the in the subject line.

That's also the email address where you can send in a question to our guest

Angus Stewart. That's chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA. And Angus, before we go to our listener in England's question, who happens to be a first -time questioner, let's have you answer

Susan Margaret in Dalton County, Pennsylvania's question. She basically was asking, was your view that only the elect or the regenerate are made in the image of God?

She wanted to know, was that ever a majority view in the church?

And also, when in your knowledge of church history did it become a minority view and how? That's an intriguing question by Susan.

It raises the question too, this isn't a criticism of the question, you know, it can be difficult sometimes to assess, you know, what exactly do you mean by church at any one period in time and then what did everybody hold?

Here's one good way to approach it. There is a superb work by James Dennison, it's called

Reformed Confessions of the 16th and 17th Centuries in English Translation. There are four hardback volumes, simply wonderful, containing 127 reformed creeds from 1525 to 1693.

So there are 127 creeds, reformed creeds, we're setting aside the Luther Reformation for now, 127 reformed creeds.

Not all of them mention the image of God, you wouldn't expect them. Many of them do. Of those 127 that are contained in that book, the text of them, and a friend of mine has researched this, only one of them probably teaches that everybody's in the image of God.

Several of them define the image of God as knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, and say nothing else about any image of God in any other sense.

Many of them say man has lost the image of God, it's utterly defaced, and then some of them say, on top of that, that fallen man is now in the image of Satan.

So the Luther tradition was promoting that, then the reformed creeds, this is the majority dominant view, in the creeds themselves.

Then of course people's beliefs are generally weaker than their creeds.

But that's an interesting argument. Here are some quotes, here's the large Emden Catechism of 1551,

Dutch -German provenance. Indisputably, the image of God in which man was created in the beginning, along with all inclinations for good, was lost in him.

Again, the image of God in Adam and in all of us was so destroyed by his sin, and then it adds, utterly destroyed both in himself and in all of us.

Moving now to Scotland, Scottish Confession of 1560 by the six Johns, including

John Knox, by which transgression, commonly called original sin, was the image of God utterly defaced in man.

And he, and his posterity of nature, became enemies of God, slaves to Satan, and servants to sin.

Now here's the Spanish congregation in London, in England, 1560 -1570.

At the fall, at the same time, man was marred from the image of God, and all the benefits that make him like God.

Impressive stuff there. And then, I have a friend, a member of our church called Tibor Bognar, who will especially appreciate that, he's a

Hungarian. Here are a couple of Hungarian decrees. The documents of the Debrecen Synod of 1567.

The image of God was lost by Adam, and it is restored through the image of the infinite

God, consubstantial and equal with the Father, i .e. Christ. He restored our lost virtues.

That's what the image of God is. He restored the image of God, quote, comma, the lost virtues, it continues.

Another Hungarian decree, the Synod at Sisko, although Tibor will probably say I butchered the Hungarian, quote, the image of God is the virtues that are communicated to men, righteousness, knowledge, wisdom,

Ephesians 4, Colossians 3. Back in Scotland with Craig's Catechism of 1581, it's one of the clearest.

What is the image of God? Ephesians 4, 24, perfect uprightness in body and soul.

What things did they lose through their fall? The favor and image of God. What succeeded the loss of the favor and image of God?

The wrath of sin, the wrath of God and original sin. In what does salvation stand? In the remission of their sin and repairing of God's image.

And then this, the battle proceeds, quote, from the two contrary images in mankind.

What are these images? The image of God and the image of the serpent. And all these creeds, as I said, are found in the four volumes of James Dennison's work on the creeds.

So you could say, well, the creeds point that, and then you could go back to Luther, and you can go back to the

Apostle Paul, because the Apostle Paul wrote about the image of God in his letters to Romans, chapter 8,

Corinth, 1 Corinthians 11, and 1 Corinthians 15. The second letter to Corinth, 2

Corinthians 3, and 2 Corinthians 4, Ephesus, Ephesians 4, verse 24, and Colossians, Colossians 1, 15, and Colossians 3, verse 10.

And if you turn to James, James talks about believers. Some people actually contend with that, but it's actually the case.

Believers are made after the image of God, James 3, verse 9. So Paul's teaching it, James teaching it.

Jesus teaches that you are of your father, the devil, in John 8. And if they're the devil's father, since children look like their father, they're in the image of the devil.

And then 2 Peter 1, verse 4, uses slightly different terminology. It talks about believers being fashioned again after the divine nature.

And it certainly was the majority position in Scripture. But in the history of the church,

I would say for most of the time, it was probably a minority position. But I would say in general, too, sadly, that sovereign grace, like the sort of thing that's taught at the

Westminster Confession, or in the Synod of Dorth, was in a minority, too.

But when things are really good, and when the confessions were written, you've got Luther teaching this, and Lutheranism, and you have the

Reformed creeds, they're clear on it. They don't get into the speculative, oh, maybe it lands in the image of God in some sense. Whatever sense that is, isn't defined in Scripture.

We have no definition, and it's based, I believe, in a wrong interpretation of Genesis 9, 9, verse 6.

So that would be my answer to Susan. That was an intriguing question, one that has never occurred to me before.

And so, you did basically confirm, historically, at least you gave great evidence to confirm that it was the majority position.

But do you have any ideas of why that's seemed to become more, considered more of an obscure, and against the grain position?

Um, sorry, yes, you're quite right. I forgot about that second aspect. The idea that everybody in the image of God is the teaching, apart from, you know,

Protestantism, it's actually the teaching of Eastern Orthodoxy. Eastern Orthodoxy uses this broad idea of the image of God.

Because they deny the original sin, or total depravity. They believe that man, basically, is born neutral, a very

Pelagian understanding. Even worse in the Church of Rome, and they work it in with their theory of the worship of icons.

The Roman Catholic Church also believes that everybody's in the image of God, because it talks about the image and the likeness, which are two ways of saying the same thing, with likeness being more specific.

Man loses one, but keeps the other. So he loses the spiritual gifts, the donum superadditum, but he still retains the image of God in the broader sense.

The Neo -Orthodox teach everybody's in the image of God. The Jews do too. It's a classic doctrine in charismaticism and false ecumenism.

The Sassanians teach that everybody's in the image of God. They make it to be dominion. And all the liberal Protestants. And civil religion in our day, and I know solid reformed people,

I agree, you know, don't want to go down this road. But civil religion, if it consists, and I mean by civil religion, sort of the religion that passes for a vague veneer, it really consists of two ideas, and they're both universalistic.

God loves everybody, and everybody's the image of God. And those two things mutually support each other, you know, ideologically.

And of course, even beyond that, and this is something we should ask your listeners to look out for, whenever people argue for women ministers or elders or deacons, whenever they argue for, well, homosexuality's okay, whenever they argue for same -sex marriage, and all those things.

That is, people with a little bit of religion about them. The number one argument, I do believe it's the number one argument, the only possibility is the number two argument is, well, they're all in the image of God.

They're all in the image of God. And if it isn't the number two, the one argument, the number one argument is, well,

God loves everybody. God loves everybody, the image of God. Therefore, all these things, all these things follow.

And even if Genesis 9, and I'm going to argue to the cow come home and push to it, even if Genesis 9 verse 6 meant the other way, there are 17 passages in the

Bible. I know there's a couple that others try, and I'd love to get time to address them. They're even more obviously not referring to everybody in the image of God.

But even then, you would have one out of 17, and yet it's really amazing, and you would think that all the

Bible's teaching, even if you were to grab that one, was about everybody being in the image of God. One verse out of 17.

The overwhelming, this is an argument just for the sake of it as it were, an abstract argument, the overwhelming teacher is that Jesus is the image of God.

We're made the image of God by the Holy Spirit in regeneration. We're sanctified.

We're being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. And yet, all that we hear about in liberalism, and even most of what we hear about in conservatism, is about this broader sense.

And they're missing some wonderful teaching, and I just wish I had more time to look at Romans 8 and Ephesians 4 and Colossians 3 to bring out some of the glory of this teaching, because it warms your soul, and it's really impressive.

Well, we can have you come back, and you can do part two of this subject. Chris, I thought that the

Lord gave me a spirit of bravery and courage, like Joshua in Joshua chapter 1, to come on your program and talk about this once.

I was fearing being ambushed. I stand, although I think from the history, kind of goofed it up there.

If I come back a second time, I think I will be ambushed, Chris. So I more or less think that I should move to a different subject.

I have no interest in ambushing anybody.

I only want the truth to come forth. I appreciate that, but maybe some of the people who phone in with questions,

Chris. Well, nobody phones in anymore. It's an email show, as you may know, from people emailing in questions.

So I'll have you think about that. But I can say that it is interesting that most

Reformed Christians, in fact, I don't know any Reformed Christian who does not believe that only the regenerate are children of God, and everyone else is a child of the devil, even the elect before they are regenerate are considered the children of devil.

We've been rescued out of that when we've been adopted by God and given the gift of new life.

It seems to be very compatible with the idea that only the elect or the regenerate,

I should say, are made in the image of God. Yes. Professor David J.

Engels knows he's still alive and kicking. Yes, I've had him on the program a number of times and enjoy his interviews immensely.

Yes, he's a wonderful man. Chris, I have an article on our website, and it's called The Image of God in Man, a

Reformed Reassessment. And I think that's really what we want to do, reassess the material.

There are verses that people, including me before I was born,

I was taught that the image of God in man is the image of God in people in church, blessing

God, and then cursing their made -after -the -image -of -God church members. Because James 4, verse 1 says,

Whence come all these wars and fighting among you? And it's talking in James 3, verse 1 about people being teachers and how

Christians need to use their tongues correctly. And the epistle was written to those of the 12 tribes scattered abroad.

And it talks about, Where is a wise man and a dude with knowledge among you? Let him show it forth with a godly life.

And then I began to think to myself, boy, yeah, this isn't what the past... We should read things into it.

And by the way, I have Richard Sibbes in connection with James 3, verse 9. Richard Sibbes says,

When you read of the image of God in the New Testament, including 1 Corinthians 11, verse 7, and James 3, verse 9, it must be understood of the image of God in Jesus Christ, the second

Adam. And then he says the image of God consists of knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, Colossians 3, verse 10, and Ephesians 4, verse 24.

And 1 Corinthians 11, verse 7, which talks about women as being the image and glory, being the glory of their husbands, is talking about women in the church.

It's talking about women in the church. Verse 1 of 1 Corinthians 11, Be ye therefore followers or imitators of me, as I am of Christ.

I praise you, president, that you remember me in all things, that you keep the ordinances. And then he talks about the roles of men and women.

And then he says that the woman is the glory of man. He's talking about women and men in the church, worshiping

God. And then at the end of that chapter, at the end of that section, verse 16, if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God.

And then he goes on to talk about the Lord's Supper in the instituted congregation. And we need,

I believe, a reformed reassessment to go back and look at the things a bit more closely.

And as I said, that article on the reformed reassessment, as well as the quotes from the creeds and quotes from theologians, if you go to cprc .co

.uk, the homepage gives a link to a section called

Topical Resources. If you look at the image of God, click on that, you've got audios, articles, and quotes.

Chris, I'm trying to fit it all in here. You can see I'm making an effort. I hope that your listeners can cope with A, the speed, and B, English, the way it ought to be spoken.

Well, I think the Brits would even have an argument with you about that. Well, we're going to go to our final break right now.

And I want to get as much as our comments slash questions from Rev.

Stephen Holland from Lancashire, England, who is the pastor of Westhoughton Evangelical Church there.

I want to get as much of his email into the show as you can respond to. So we're going to go to our final break now.

And if anybody wants to join us on the air, send us an email immediately to chrisarnson at gmail .com because we're running out of time.

Don't go away. We'll be right back. My Bible of Choice.

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That's chrisarnson at gmail .com. Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said,

Give yourself unto reading. The man who never reads will never be read. He who never quotes will never be quoted.

He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves that he has no brains of his own.

You need to read. I'm Pastor Bill Shishko, host of A Visit to the

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Spread the word about FirstLoveRadio .org. Welcome back, and Pastor Angus Stewart, we have, as you may recall, comments -slash -questions from Pastor Stephen Holland of West Houghton Evangelical Church in Lancashire, England, and he, first of all, says, "...not

fully persuaded of Rev. Stewart's position, yet, in summary, as already quoted,

Genesis 1, verse 26, here we have the very basis of man's being in God's image, that image has been marred and stained, but not totally lost.

If so, he is no better or greater than the beasts of the field." Why don't you start with that comment by our listener in England?

First of all, my greetings to Rev. Stephen Holland. We've corresponded over the years, and we send

Stephen the Covenant Reform News, a free monthly paper. If anyone gets in contact with us, we can send it to them wherever they are by email each month.

I'm going to read part of his question again, Chris. He says, with a slightly different emphasis, "...not

fully persuaded of Rev. Stewart's position, yet." I'm going to emphasize the last word there,

Chris. His comment on Genesis 1, verse 26, he says, "...the

image has been marred and stained, but not totally lost." The creeds that I've already quoted use the word lost, and emphatically lost.

And here's Romans 3, verses 10 and 11, "...there is none righteous, no, not one."

That's righteousness, part of the image of God. "...there is none that understandeth." Knowledge is part of the image of God.

"...there is none that seeketh after God, and holiness is seeking after God, consecrating ourselves to him."

Total depravity, the tea of tulip, totally lost. Jesus said, "...you're

of your father the devil, and the works of your father ye will do." I know Stephen is an

Orthodox man, so we're just nailing down some little, just sharpening a few points.

With regard to this, "...if so, man is no greater than the beast of the field." Man was made on day six, the pinnacle of creation.

Man is a conscious, rational, moral being with personality. He is dignity.

In God, we live and move and have our being. The Lord created us. The Lord judges us. We're embraced in his providence.

The incarnation, God became man. Man has a soul, slash, heart, slash, mind.

We believe, with Francis Schaeffer, in the manishness of man, a unique individual.

God breathed into the nostrils of Adam the breath of life, making him, by his own hand, from the dust.

So we believe all the things about man, all of the things. It's just the content of the image of God, that label, we believe, biblically, it's not contained in that label.

Okay, the second part of our friend from England's commentary is James chapter 3, verse 9.

Therewith, yeah. Could we, I've dealt with that one fairly much, this isn't me chickening out, by the way, but could we move to the next one because I've given the gist of the answer already.

Okay, man referred to as being in the image of the devil is surely in his sinful state and behavior.

He has lost the full image of God and knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness. Westminster Confession of Faith, question 4.

Let's see, does man have a knowledge of God? Yes, he does, but not perfectly or full due to the fall.

He is a God -conscious being. That is not so with the animals and that would be revealed in Romans 1, which is my comment, not our listeners.

Why, if he has lost all of his image, why, if he has lost all of his image -bearing of God?

I don't understand the grammar of that, but anyway, that will be the last one we have time for.

Okay, well, Stephen says man's referred to as being the image of the devil. That surely has sinful state and behavior.

Well, sinful state gets closer. What man, man being the image of the devil, that means what he is. He is in the image of God.

He is, or sorry, he is the image of the devil. Then he talks about does man have a knowledge of God?

The knowledge that's spoken of in Colossians 3, 10, Ephesians 4, verse 24, the knowledge of God is a saving knowledge of God.

It's the knowledge of which Jesus speaks in John 17, verse 3. This is eternal life, that they may know thee, the only true

God, through Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. Man has a knowledge of God and that he knows that God is.

Romans 1 says he knows that God made him. He knows about sin. He has a conscience. He knows that God's going to judge him.

But man suppresses that knowledge in unrighteousness. He holds it down, and in so doing, he shows that he is without excuse.

That's the answer to that one. All right, well, we don't have time for any more, and I still want you to come back to address part two of this.

I'll leave that up to you, obviously. I want to thank you so much for being on the program today. I want to thank our listener in England for sending in those very insightful comments and questions, and please keep listening to Iron Sherp and Zion Radio and contribute more questions to our guests.

I want to remind our listeners that you can find out more about the

Covenant Protestant Reformed Church of Ballymena, Northern Ireland, at their website cprc .co

.uk. I hope all of our listeners have a safe, blessed, and happy weekend, and especially a

God -honoring Lord's Day. I look forward to hearing from your questions next week for our guests on Iron Sherp and Zion Radio.

I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.