Part 1: Made in His Image

Hello, my name's Keith Goad, here at Jefferson Park Baptist Church, where we're beginning a series on the theology of man. Really, more precisely, we're doing a gender for the glory of God study. We want to ask, what does the Bible say that makes male and female distinct? But in order to do that well, we really need to ask the first question, what does it mean to be a human being? What do they have in common? As we wrestle with what they have as the same or similar and what is distinct, we're gonna go through different texts and wrestle with that. And as we go on, we'll hopefully answer that question more and more fully as we go through the rest of scripture. So if you're taking notes, you really want three columns, human being, male and female, and we'll try to come back to that, those columns as we do the study. I wanna thank Clark Johnson, who's doing the videoing. Thank you, elders and members of Jefferson Park, as there's been lots of conversations about these issues and questions related to male, female. And thank you, Lisa Goad, my wife, who has been a great conversation partner in the evenings as we've done this study together over and over again. As we begin, and we're asking, what is man? Let's turn to Psalm 8, where our psalmist leads us in a praise to God with that very question in the psalm. Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes to still the enemy and the avenger. When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you care for him? You have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with the glory and honor You have given him dominion over the works of your hands and have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the sea. Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. We see here the psalmist leading us to praise God because of his creation, how he's designed the heavens, how he specifically has designed man. And some specific things, there's an order of being. There's God, the greatest being of all beings, the being without beginning or end, the angels, the spiritual heavenly beings, and then man. You have made man a little lower than the angels. That's gonna be important when we look at Hebrews 1, and we see that Jesus is the true image of God, who descended even lower than the angels to take on flesh, to take on our nature. He's actually the true fulfillment of Psalm 8, because all things are under his feet. But we see Psalm 8 even reflecting with language from Genesis 1, where we're gonna turn now. Man has a special role. He has dominion. Man has a special place. God is mindful of him. There's a unique love and care and relationship that God has given to man. And David, our psalmist, is leading us to praise God for the way he's designed us and the way he relates to us. Let's turn to Genesis 1. Genesis 1 is a high calling of praise to the God who has created all things. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. I was taught in seminary, and I think it's really helpful to see Genesis as like a hymn. It has stanzas, and they're orderly. They escalate. There's six stanzas, and they all have the in common, and God said, and it was good. And God said, and it was good. And it ends climatically with God resting, which shows the end of creation, the purpose. But the last created day is where we're gonna just hunker down and focus, and we're gonna see, using some interpretive tools, how man is the end emphasis of the creating days. There's a couple different tools we can use as we interpret to show why that's the case. First, there's end emphasis. Day six is where mammals are put on the dry land, but specifically human beings are created last. And so we see the end emphasis. We also see heightened language in two different ways. All the other days, God said and it was, God said and it was. When it comes to man in verse 26, God said, let us make man our own image. Let us. We actually see there's an inner counsel of God. We know here from the New Testament now, in this day and age, or having further revelation, that this is maybe an inner Trinitarian dialogue, the Father, Son, Holy Spirit saying, let us make man in our image. We see the further heightened language in poetry. Hebrew poetry uses meter and parallelism. Parallelism oftentimes looks like it's saying the same thing in a different way, but really it's emphasizing In verse 27, there's a poem. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. And then we see this third line of that poem. Male and female, he created them. With this emphasis, we see that man has a special place. With the heightened language, man has a special relationship, and there's something unique there about man being made in his own image. The image of God is something that makes man special, and we'll get to that in a moment, but there's one other thing that makes man stand out, and God alone speaks to man. The other creatures on the earth, he does not speak to. He does not give them a blessing. He doesn't give them a job. But to man, he says, be fruitful and multiply and have dominion over all the other creatures. So humans being made in the image of God, male and female with that status, have the job of multiplying, filling, being fruitful, and having dominion. So as we just kind of step back, Genesis 1 is highlighting the importance of human beings, male and female, in creation in the created order. Now we have to ask the real hard question, what does it mean to be made in the image of God? Well, there's Three words that really capture this, position, power, and purpose. Position, power, and purpose. We look at the position, the image of God is clearly a position that is not lost in Genesis 3. We're in the good part of creation. It's good. It's good. It's good. Genesis 1 is written to show how God is a God of goodness and order over against the chaos of the other creation accounts of the pagan gods. No, this world originally did not have sin. It did not have sickness. It did not have death. God is good. It was orderly. But when we remain in the image, it's not something we lose. And we see this from Genesis 5, 1 to 3. This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them man when they were created. Even at Genesis 9, 5-7, from his fellow man, I require a reckoning for the life of man. whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image. And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth, and multiply it." You see here, these are commands and declarations after The fall after sin. The image of God is not something that's lost. It's a position that is one of dignity, worth, value. You're not to take the life of man because it's sacred. There's something special about life because God breathed life into us. God gave us life. We see there in Genesis 9, you shall not take the life of man because it is made in God's own image. That position is not lost. And then we even see the continued command, be fruitful and multiply. We need many images all over the earth according to God's word. So the first is, as we think about the image of God, it's a position that's not lost. The second thing is it's a power. And that's just caught up in the very command of what a human being is supposed to do. They're supposed to have dominion and subdue. Dominion there captures the idea that we have skills and we have abilities. And one of the fourth century writers talks about how the very fact that horses are faster than us and oxen are stronger than us, that demonstrates we're supposed to have dominion. We're supposed to be able to exercise our dominion so that we can ride the horse and use its speed. We're supposed to tame the oxen so that we can use their power in farming and tilling. It's an interesting argument, but the whole idea of having dominion, we're supposed to be using the abilities God has given us for His purpose, which really is the main point I'd like to make about the image of God. When you think about images throughout the Old Testament, you typically think of something you're not supposed to do. There will be no graven image. You think about Mount Sinai, when God has given His very instructions on not worshiping other images, Israel is actually making an image of a golden calf and giving Him credit for the Exodus. Well, we're not supposed to have images. Why? We're not supposed to make images or worship images. Well, it's because God already has made His image. God has already put His image bearers in creation, and that's human beings. You know, if you think about images, they oftentimes function like a representative. So here's a coffee cup, and let's just say it represents as an image the God of coffee, right? It's a silly illustration, but I think it'll work, I hope. If I treat this mug well, then I'm going to hope that the coffee gods are going to give me a good, abundant, full cup of coffee all the time. If I properly treat this cup the way it deserves, then the gods will bless this cup. It represents the gods. It is not the gods. Well, if we're image bearers of God, we're representatives of God. We're meant to be his ambassadors. And as you see the position, it's a special privileged position. It has power, unique abilities and skills so that we can properly demonstrate throughout this earth and fill the earth with God's goodness, with God's order. We have a whole theology of stewardship here. God didn't say this is your garden. God said this is the garden for you to live in and to enjoy and to steward. God has given man great ability, and we're supposed to be representing him. Well, as we know, we've failed in that way, and that way we see the image of God most marred, because we use God's good gifts now for our selfish purposes, not for his goodness and to spread his order. There's one more thing when you think about it, and it comes to the image of God, and that God has not left us alone in this marred inability to properly do our purpose, Well, no, we see that Jesus Christ, he actually came as the true image of God. Colossians 1.15 declares he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. The Son of God descended a little lower than the angels, took upon our nature so that he could be the human beings that we really refuse to be. So that he could die on the cross for our sins, so that he could rise again to give us new life. But it's not just about that reconciliation. It's about restoring us to being image bearers. Ephesians 4 tells us that we're supposed to grow up to be more like Christ. We're supposed to be growing up to the maturity of the true man, Jesus Christ. And this is how you know he's a true man. He's a true image bearer. He listens to God. What God the Father says, He says. What God the Father does, He does. He represents Him perfectly. As we think about Christ and we think about His power to save, we realize He's also calling us back to being able to be ambassadors of the glorious God who has given us a high position, great ability, and a very important purpose, which is worship, representing Him to the rest of creation. That concludes our study here in Genesis 1. We'll pick up in Genesis 2 in the next study. But if we think about our categories, what does it mean to be a human being? What does it mean to be male and female? When it comes to male and female, Genesis 1 doesn't give us a lot about the distinctions, but what it does is tell us there is clear distinction. Genesis 1, 27, that great hymn, makes it very clear, male and female, there's distinction. There's no question about it. And in many ways, that is important to see that distinction because it's protecting women from the kind of abuse that they've had to live under for hundreds and thousands of years. But the focus here isn't really what's distinct about them. The emphasis is that they're exactly the same as image bearers. They have the same position of value, dignity, and worth, male and female. They have the same powers and abilities being able to grow up in virtue, being able to be reconciled and restored to Christ, to be built up into His image. And they have the same purpose, to steward, to represent Him well. Well, join us next week. We'll look at Genesis 2 and how God calls them to be married and blesses them as husband and wife in a unique way.