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An application of that doctrine because if we just take doctrine and learn doctrine without application we stop at knowledge without moving toward wisdom. So I hope that we can have an opportunity to see the implications of the doctrine of the image of God.
So let me open us up in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for our time. We pray that it would be used to glorify you and that we would take what we know and apply it to our lives, that we would be transformed through your word and the working of the spirit in our lives.
We pray in Christ's name, amen. Bob, could you help me hand these out a little bit? Oh, thank you. So this is kind of a quiz as it were. I want to just give you guys the first ten minutes or so, five to ten minutes.
Work with the people around you. Fill this out to the degree that you can and then we're going to go over it together. So if you were here in October, this should be review material for you. If you weren't here in October, you definitely are going to want to join in with the people next to you to talk about it.
So I would say take a few minutes, talk with the folks next to you, look through the questions and just try to rough in some answers. You're not going to be graded or anything like this, so it's something that I want to reemphasize these points because these were the important doctrinal points from the lesson we did four weeks ago.
So again, definitely take the time to talk with the folks next to you about what these things mean. Yep, everyone have one? You can give very brief answers will do and I want to see if we can cooperatively come to an agreement on what the answers should be to these questions.
Bob, I think I gave you in my stack of stuff, I think I might have given you my own one with notes on it. Oh, okay. If anyone has one that's already kind of filled in, I had one with some notes on it that I think I might have handed out back, so that's okay.
Yeah. Does anybody have one without blanks, with all the things filled in? I'm not trying to intimidate with any of the questions, but well, in a sense, right, the best way to learn is through repetition, right?
So if we did this, I would hate to just go on and teach something new and different, right? I think it would be better if we reemphasize the things we talked about. Oh, there's no such thing as cheating.
If you have kept the notes from three, four weeks ago, then you'll be in good shape. If anyone is utterly stumped and bewildered at anything this is asking, you should move your seat over three spots of the person next to you and see if they feel the same.
Let's break there. And I'm sure no one had an opportunity to finish, but that's fine. At least I wanted to give you the opportunity to engage in your own mind and with the people next to you to start helping you rethink the things that we discussed three, four weeks ago.
So I'm not going to necessarily reteach the same lesson, although I want to reemphasize those points. Ideally, I'd like to spend about another 10, 15 minutes going over this and spend the last 15 to 20 minutes, then I have another sheet with some discussion questions.
So I'm going to put this back to you and see if we can collectively fill in the rest of our blanks here. So the doctrine of the image of God comes from Genesis 1, 26 to 28, which is the creation account where it says, and I wrote here, then God said, let us make man in our image according to our likeness and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Subdue it, rule over the fish of the sea, birds of the sky, and every living thing that moves on the earth.
Historically, in Christianity, there's been three major views of the image of God held by various theologians over time. One was first called the functional view. Can anyone tell me what the functional view was?
The functional view of the image of God. Or did everybody leave the first blank on their sheet? Okay, that's a little off, but it's really dealing with the issue of dominion and what we do. So this was the view of Pelagius and Arminius that how we function displays the image of God.
How we function displays the image of God. And there was historically also the substantial view of the image of God. Anybody remember or take an educated guess as to what the substantial view of the image of God was?
We cannot accept silence. Nope. We all must engage in the process. Otherwise, I'll call on people without hands being raised. Anyone want to take a stab at what the substantial view of the image of God was?
Yeah, there's qualities within us that demonstrate what God is and who God is, right? So when we demonstrate things like freedom or morality or rationality, right, when we show qualities that represent God, our substance images God.
That's the image of God. And that was the view by many of the reformers, Aquinas and Luther and Calvin. So then lastly, we had the relational view. What's the relational view of the image of God?
Yeah, a relationship.
Sure. And you might have heard it said from time and again, our ability to relate with others, right, to relate with others, to relate with God. That is a way that we image God. So and then those are the three historic views.
And then what we did a few weeks ago is we sort of said, are we going to take one of these views and adopt it as an orthodox view, sort of the evangelical Christian view, or is there another way we can sort of think through this issue?
And so first we looked at Genesis 1, 26 to 28, which is where the doctrine of the image of God is first inaugurated. And the two words for image, we have Hebrew word for image and then the Hebrew word for likeness, which shows up because we were created in his image, in his likeness.
We hear these words repeated. Now, does anyone remember if there was theological or significant differences in those terms when we see made in image, made in likeness? Pretty? All right. It's almost kind of like in the Psalms, we might say something and then we might say it again, right?
It's a way of almost a repetition of the same kind of word. The same concept is conveyed just using a different term. So there's not a substantial difference between those words. And we see that we're made in God's image or made in God's likeness.
We can think of those as roughly equivalent terms. And so we took that then and extended it and said that we are then like God or we image God and in all the ways that we image God, whether it overlaps any of those three views are ways that we demonstrate the image of God.
So to the degree that we represent God functionally in what we do, in our dominion, to the degree that we image God substantively in our beings, who we are, what we do, in terms of our choices and our feelings and all that stuff, that all images God.
And then in our relationships, that all images God. We said that we can look through the scriptures and in all the ways that we image or reflect the likeness of God is the image of God. So based on that, we talked about in Genesis chapter 5 in the story of when Adam and Eve gave birth to children and Adam became the father of Seth.
And we see that in Genesis 5 it says, when Adam had lived 130 years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness according to his image and named him Seth. So I ask the question, how is that story of Adam becoming the father of Seth relevant to the discussion of the image of God?
I'm asking you guys that question. Yes. Yes, but, right, so the child is the image of the father. We are the image of God. The same Hebrew language is used there. And we made the point that we can look at the children parental relationships and say, in ways that our children reflect us or image us or in our likeness, whether it's in their physical appearance or their behavior or their nuances or relationally, in those ways we can say that so Seth was in the likeness or image of Adam, so we are in the likeness and image of God.
So it puts us with a direct link to God and his person. And I propose the question, are we perfect images of God? No. So we have a pretty universal agreement that we're not perfect images of God, but then who is?
That's right, the Lord Jesus Christ. Yeah, Allie? Jesus Christ. That's right, Allie. So we look to Jesus Christ, we look to the New Testament, and we see who Christ was, the works that he did, all that he represented, and we say that is the image of God put before us for us to learn about and see, feel, and touch and sort of understand the image of God in practice and what it means in a human body.
And we gave some verses to go over that. Then the point that I was trying to bring through all that is to say that when we look at the doctrine of the image of God, we can say that it's not just limited to one of these areas.
It's multifaceted. It covers a wide spectrum of things. And rather than use the more theological terms, functional, substantial, relational, etc., that I gave some other categories here. And these are some ways in which human beings, people, are the image of God in several categories.
In the aspect of dominion, in our attributes, this is all in your handout, in physical aspect, in immaterial aspect, and relational aspect. And I want to see if you guys can come up with one or more examples in each of those categories that would reflect how we image God.
We touched upon some of them already. So in dominion, how do we image God in dominion? Fred? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And so as we act out that dominion, whether it's through our activities over the earth or even in our workplace and whatnot, that work is reflective of God's work.
And we image God when we work. When we work and we do dominion over the earth, we are imaging God. Then we talked about our attributes. What are things, or give me an example of attributes of us that image God?
And we can say these attributes reflect our image of God. Our ability to love other people. Yes. Emotions. Can you give some more specific examples? Yeah. Did someone say mercy? Yeah. Our ability to demonstrate mercy.
Right. What else did someone say? Anger. Jealousy. Good. Forgiveness. Exactly. Yes. So these are attributes. These are characteristics of us that image God. Because though we do them flawed, God does them perfectly.
But yet we do them nonetheless. What about our physical being? What about physically when you look at a person from head to toe? How does that reflect the image of God? Good. Yeah. Oh, very good. Yeah.
Anyone else? Yes. We can see things. I can see all of you. But yet God sees, and God sees everything. Yeah. Can you? Yeah, Louis?
The eyes of God. Well, God doesn't have physical eyes, but he does see. He doesn't have physical ears, but he does hear. The body parts are, and that's going to affect the proliferation of God's attributes.
Yes.
Good. Thank you, Louis. And then the next category is our immaterial aspect. What about our immaterial aspect that images God? And another way to ask this is to say, you know, what do humans have or what is about us differently than perhaps an animal?
That might be another way to ask the question. Yeah, we have a spirit or soul. Anything else? Think, reason, conscience. Yeah. Apply logic. Creativity. Good. And then, again, I list here the relational aspect.
Even though that was one of the categories earlier, I think that is a legitimate component of our big picture image of God. So we say that the image of God isn't just one limited category. It covers a broad range of things, and our ability to relate uniquely to others is that.
So we don't need to go over that one again. So we have this broad view now of the image of God that says, in every way, we have an image or likeness of God. In all of these aspects, we image God. And then we went on and discussed briefly how that there were stages of the image of God.
There's a pre-fall image of God, post-fall image of God, the image of God that takes place during sanctification, and an image of God that is within glorification. Can anyone remember what the pre-fall image of God might be described like?
So the image of God that Adam and Eve had in the garden, a perfect or sinless image of God. That's exactly right. They perfectly reflected God's attributes, holiness, grace, speech, relationship, and love.
And then sin entered the picture, and something happened to that image. That would be our post-fall image. How would we describe the image, the post-fall image? Which would be you and I prior to salvation.
A damaged, tainted, imperfect. Good. Do we lose the image of God completely at the fall? No, we maintain the image of God. James 3 .9 was an example that we gave where James says that by cursing men, you're damaging the image of God.
So James was written in certainly a post-fall world. And so when we curse other people, we are effectively cursing God because that person was made in God's image. Although in the post-fall world, there still is that one perfect image of the image of God, and that is Jesus Christ.
Then we are saved. And does our image, the way that we image or reflect in the likeness of God, change at the point of salvation? Or does it stay in the post-fall condition? How would we describe our image of God after the point of salvation?
Yeah, very much so. We have the ability for forgiveness of sins. Anything else? Okay. We can choose godliness. Right. So, Bruce, did you have something else? Oh, okay. So we have this marred image, and as we go through our life and we go through sanctification, our image has a goal, and that goal is Christ's likeness.
And we start to more reflect God perfectly. We grow closer to that perfect image that Jesus Christ has as we grow in grace and grow in the attributes of God in our process of sanctification through our life.
And that process remains incomplete, yet hopefully growing in an upward direction throughout our life. Then there is an ultimate point where we sort of come to the final endgame of our changing in an upward direction of the image of God.
There is a goal. And that goal takes place at glorification, not on this earth. So as long as we're on this earth, that image is going to be marred and tainted by sin. But one day we'll be glorified. And what will our image of God be like in glorification?
So you think it will be the same as Adam and Eve or different? Better than Adam and Eve? Bruce? That's right. Adam and Eve had the ability to mar their image, which they did, right? They perfectly imaged God, but there was that ability for sin to enter and that damaging that takes place.
We're not going to have that in heaven, are we? We're going to perfectly image God in glorification. In fact, our image of God will be perfectly that imaging of Jesus Christ. What would you put in the term reflect?
What kind of definition do you want to give that? I know in 1 John 3, 2, it says, The future reality of our transformation to be like Christ is a hope we can look forward to, to one day be like him. So we have this talk of being like him.
I think reflecting may be sort of synonymous with image or likeness. Oh, yeah. That we definitely talked about last time. We talked about how let me see if I can pull up a verse here. There was another point in the back.
Yeah, that's good.
There's a couple of verses, Daniel, you may want to just jot down. 2 Corinthians 4, 4, John 14, 8 through 9, and Colossians 1, 5. That's where we have Christ being said to be the image of God. John says, If you've seen me, you've seen the Father.
Colossians 1, 5 talks about the Son being the image of the invisible God. I don't know if I can put too much of a distinction or want to between reflection and image or likeness. Does anyone else have any thoughts on Daniel's question?
Thank you, Bruce. Here you go, Bob. The last question on there is if you could summarize what we've just talked and give me a definition. If we could kind of help pull this all together and say, what is a definition now of the image of God?
Anyone want to take a stab at giving me a definition of God's image? I know, Bruce, you're chomping at the bit. I can tell. Does everybody have a handout? What do we have for a possible definition of the image of God?
Wayne, you want to take a stab at one? If someone said to you, Wayne, what is the image of God? How would you define it to somebody? Good, you like Daniel's word, reflect. Anybody else have a definition they want to throw out there?
We can define it by example. No, that's good. In fact, that's close to the definition that I had, too. I had that word multifaceted. This is my own definition. A multifaceted eclectic likeness which includes at a minimum dominion, physical organism being a mirror of God, as well as our ability to relate to others.
In addition to the image of God having multiple functions, it's also dynamic, the pre-fall, post-fall, redemptive, and glorified images all different in degree of purity. That's my extended definition.
But I wouldn't say that on the street if you were just talking to someone in an evangelistic opportunity. In that case, I like Wayne's definition a lot better. So I concluded the session we did three or four weeks ago with a quote which talked about how this doctrine should transform our thinking when we think about who we are.
We talk about self-esteem. We don't need self-esteem. If this doctrine doesn't give us the right kind of self-esteem, I don't know what will. That when God wanted to make a creature most like him in all of the universe, he created human beings.
And that extends to everybody that we see around us and ourselves. And I think that should radically transform the way we view ourselves and others. And so I wanted to go through some of these discussion questions, and I'm going to put these to you.
And some of them are thought-based, feeling-based, social issue-based. But these are some of the implications, I believe, of this doctrine of the image of God. So I'll pose the question and see what feedback you guys have for me, see if we can facilitate some discussion on this.
So how does it make you feel when you think that you, as a human being, are more like God than any other creature in the universe? How does that make you feel as a reaction to that doctrinal truth? Blessed, yes.
Responsible for, amen. Good.
Privileged and grateful, amen. Anyone else have a feeling reaction to that doctrine when we think about it? Nathan? Amazing. That's pretty amazing, isn't it? He didn't make dogs for his glory, did he?
Well, he made them for his glory, but he didn't make dogs in his image, right? Good. I think that covers, too, also how does that knowledge want to make you act? I think Bruce's answer covered that. Responsible.
Any other thoughts on that? Would this doctrine drive you to action on particular issues? Obedience. Good. Just kind of an off-the-subject, a little bit one, get us thinking. Do you think that there are any more intelligent, more God-like creatures anywhere else in the universe?
This comes up in Christian discussions a lot. Did God make other beings on other planets, and could there be other creatures perhaps made in God's image? What do you guys think about that? Can we use this doctrine to help shape our thinking on that issue?
What do you think, Daniel? I agree. Any other thoughts? Yes. So scripture's silent on the matter is what you're saying. Mark? Pradeep? Yes. Good. So we leave it somewhat as an open issue. But then we say, well, what about the fact that Jesus Christ became a man rather than some other kind of creature?
What does that say about the importance of human beings in God's sight? Louis.
One chance to make an irrevocable decision yet.
And then what conclusion would that bring you with respect to other beings? Daniel, you wanted to pipe in on that? Bruce. Good point. And so moving on to number four, is it only Christians or is it all people who are made in the image of God?
It is all men. And how does that make you feel about your relationship then with non-Christians? How would that affect our relationship with non-Christians? What's that? Respect? Good. And then what if they're, number five, what if they're racially different?
What if they're elderly or weak? What if they're unattractive in the world's standards? What if they're homeless or poor? How would that affect how we view them? Allie. That we can look at someone that the world might say is lowly and we might say, to God, they reflect him.
That should affect how we act. That should change us. How does our understanding of the image of God change the way you think about your own pride or humility? How would that affect us in terms of our pride or our humility?
Shame to the pride. Did you want to say something else, Becky? Yeah. Yeah. This doctrine should drive us to humility, shouldn't it? Yeah. And to Becky's point, what about sometimes when we get arrogant, what about what room is there for carping criticism or sarcastic humor, subtle insinuations meant to harm other people?
What room is there for that in the life of a Christian when we can view not only other Christians but other non-Christians, even the lowliest of non-Christians in the image of God? How should that affect that kind of speech?
I mean, the answer is obvious, but I want to hear you say it. Can Christians sometimes find themselves guilty of that? Absolutely. So just quickly, we're just about out of time here. So God established, I think, our establishment of other social issues is driven from this doctrine.
Initially in the Old Testament, in Genesis 9, the authority for the death penalty in the Old Testament, the basis of that claim was a defilement of the image of God. In Genesis 9, 6, God gave Noah the authority to establish the death penalty for murder among human beings after the flood.
And the reason was, if you read the text, it was because he was made in the image of God. And so we don't have time to discuss this now, and we could probably extend this to a Part 3 discussion just on these last couple of issues.
But one question I would pose for your thinking, and maybe we will discuss this at another time, is how should the view of our image of God affect our view of the death penalty today? I'm not asking for answers right now because we don't have time to answer that, but I want you to start thinking about that.
Does that support the current use of the death penalty? Have times changed from the Old Testament? Is it still a violation of the image of God? When we think about the image of God, how should that affect our view of euthanasia?
When we hear about the termination of life of elderly people, for whatever these reasons are, is there something there that's taking place that's marring the image of God? I would extend that to the discussion of animal rights.
How should we properly view the activities that go on with animal rights groups? And is there any conflict there with our Christian view of the image of God? A big one is abortion. If we have the right view of the image of God, should that be the driving force behind our view of abortion?
How would that influence our view on abortion? And one question to help you answer that would be, are pre-born children made in the image of God? Are they reflecting God's image in the womb? Prostitution, I could almost lump that in with number five, some of the sort of unattractive to the world or homeless or poor, just different people of different classes.
And then think of other practical applications of the doctrine of God. So when you are confronted with social issues, issues in the home, issues in the world, and we are seeing everybody around us as made in the image of God, how does that knowledge of that doctrine affect our decision?
So things to think about, maybe a part three, we'll see. Let's close in prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for our time. I pray the Lord this is profitable and that you would use this, Lord, to change us.
May we not be hearers of the word only but doers. And I pray, Lord, that your spirit would be powerful in our lives this week as we live in this world, a fallen world, but a world that has six plus billion people who are walking among us who reflect the image of God.
We pray in Christ's name. Amen.