What is the Image of God? (Image Series, Part 1) - Episode 011

- Do we forget where Scripture stops and our own ideas begin? This is something I wonder as we get into the question…what is the image of God? This is the podcast Genesis Marks the Spot where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith! My name is Carey Griffel and today we are going to get into one of my favorite topics—the image of God. It is one of my favorite topics, but this is also bittersweet to me today. It is crazy to me that this is this week’s episode because this week we lost the man who helped me most on my path to understanding this, Dr. Michael Heiser. And yes, I’ve mentioned him before and will unapologetically do so again and again because he was just such a gifted teacher and I am so grateful that he left us with so much. He provided so much truth and insight to so many people. So this episode is dedicated to him and also to his family, whom I know are going to be feeling his loss for a long, long time to come. This is hard, so very hard, but we are grateful for the eternal truth of the gospel, that God incarnated himself into creation as Jesus, who lived and died and was resurrected, and who has ascended on high to be our King and Savior, that he has taken care of our sins, has defeated death and the powers of darkness, and all of this so that creation will be perfected in and by him. And this is the hope and glory that we can be confident in, because of God’s loving kindness and faithfulness. So, Dr. Mike, thank you for your work, and we love you and we will miss you—you are firmly in the already, but we remain here in the already-but-not-yet, and so the work continues. ### Systematic Theology - So…the image of God. What is it, exactly? In the context of biblical theology, there are some specific ways we could be thinking about this (and, we should be thinking about this!), but, here’s the thing…biblical theology doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Most of us in our church settings are given some sort of systematic theology to work with because we have questions and we ask our pastors these questions and our pastors usually give us answers to those questions, surprisingly enough. Systematic theology is, well, a system which wants pat answers to questions that we ask the text. “What is the image of God?” is a systematic theology-type question. And systematic theology isn’t really my particular game and it’s not the focus of this podcast. - I am not a systematic theology girl, to be perfectly honest. But it’s our typical Christian context, and there are good reasons for that. Systematic theology tends to hook into philosophy and, you know, I really do like philosophy, but it gets to be a quagmire quickly and when I ask myself, where does the Bible end and philosophy begin? How do we separate these things out once they’re all mixed up like that? It gets…a bit difficult. - Now, I’m not trying to speak against systematic theology here. There’s a place for that. We have questions and it’s good to formulate biblical answers for those. But you need to condense very complex information into these answers. And that means a few things. It means that if you want to do deep study, you need to go past those answers. It means that if and when we get new information, as we do all the time through archaeology and textual studies and all kinds of other things, then we maybe need to go back to our systematic answers and reevaluate those. Do they still fit? Do they need adjustment? - Remember when I was talking about rethinking, way back in my first episode? That’s what systematic theology needs a lot of the time—rethinking. Reframing. And it’s not a threat to our belief systems, or at least it shouldn’t be. ### Biblical Theology - Anyway, biblical theology is something a bit different than systematic theology. I think sometimes it’s not well-understood that biblical theology is a particular discipline. It’s not just “theology that’s grounded in the Bible,” as it might sound like. Systematic and biblical theology both look at the Bible in a holistic way, but systematic theology has an underlying assumption that there is just one kind of way we might look about something—one view, the Bible has one answer that we are going to pull out of the text. Biblical theology, on the other hand, is theology that is grounded in the context of the Bible and its time, and—surprise, surprise, the context of the Bible is not our systematic theology nor is it church tradition, even early church tradition and also…. the Bible wasn’t written all at once. That means that the Bible has *multiple* contexts, and thus, multiple types of cultures that the writers were grounded in, multiple modes of thought, really. - Let me expand on that for a moment. We can think of distinct blocks of time, and I’m not going to try to be exhaustive here, just illustrative. There was the time of Moses. The people were coming out of Egypt and so, understandably, they had an Egyptian context in their heads. Then they arrived in the promised land and they got a new kind of context in their heads, surrounded by certain Canaanite neighbors and doing the kinds of things you do and kinds of things you think about when you settle down in a place. As a person who has moved around a lot in my life, believe me, there is a different way you think when you are always moving around or when you live in a place that does not feel like home, than when you live in a place where you have really settled in and put down roots and feel entirely comfortable and secure. Those are very different ways of thinking and living. Then, of course, there’s the context of the exile, where they were surrounded by culture and ideas of Babylon. In a place like that, you do your best to hang on to all the ideas that are important to you—the compilation of the Bible probably happened somewhere in here, and probably a good bit of editing, too, because there were new frameworks for things. There were different place names. There were different ways of explaining something. And then, of course, there was the return or perhaps partial return from the exile, but that was a different context, too, because returning home isn’t the same as always having been there and of course you have the diaspora and the spreading of the people throughout a much larger area. They didn’t have just one culture and location, they had many. And of course the culture of the Greeks became very prominent and thus by the time of the New Testament, there was a very, very different context than the people of God had previously. - So you see, this is what biblical theology does…it traces ideas through the text holistically, acknowledging that yes this is one text in a sense under one Ultimate Author, but biblical theology is about how all these different contexts of the human authors are grounded in or coming from different kinds of thinking, different frameworks of thought. In the words of John Walton, they are swimming in a different cultural river as time goes. So we cannot speak of one way of defining or looking at a concept, but rather it progresses in concept through time. This is what biblical theology does. It looks at how ideas were formed at the time, and why they were formed that way. In addition, we have the idea of, well, increased levels of revelation. I call it progressive revelation, but of course that word progressive has some undertones that we might not always like. By “progressive,” I don’t mean “better” theology in some sense, and I certainly don’t mean liberal or progressive in any kind of a political way. I just mean that, as we—and by “we” here, I really mean the biblical authors—move through time, well we know more. Of course we do. And some things we figure out that we haven’t fully figured out previously. It’s not that it wasn’t there before, it’s that the original authors didn’t always see it, but later human authors can see it better through having access to additional revelation. So this is related to prophecy, but it’s not just about prophecy. In my last episode, I talked about creation and how the writers of Genesis didn’t have in mind creation out of nothing, but the writers of the NT did have that in mind. This adjustment in thinking matters to how we ought to read different books of the Bible. - Am I saying that creation out of nothing didn’t exist prior to the NT? That they invented the idea? No, of course not. But the way we think of things changes through time. - And really it’s crazy how quickly context changes. Think about what the world looked like, say, twenty years ago. It’s crazy! Even ten years ago, there are things that are practically unrecognizable. So yeah. Even right after the writing of the NT…even our earliest church fathers, they lived in a time that was at least somewhat disconnected from the context of the original writing. I’m not saying this means there’s some disconnect in knowledge or understanding per se, but it’s different. It’s not the same. Nuances change, and quite often it’s forgotten where ideas originated or how because they are suddenly just embedded and assumed in our current context. - Do you know why podcasts are called podcasts? It’s because they were originally listened to largely on ipods. Those have practically gone the way of the dodo, but the name remains. In fact, when I told my mom I was doing a podcast, she had no anchoring point for the word “podcast” and she still can’t remember what what I’m doing is called. And that’s just fine. I love you, Mom. - But you see, this is how fast context can change. ### Biblical and Systematic Theology, compared - Anyway, so that’s biblical theology, and if we were approaching the topic of the image of God in that sense, we’d have a very different conversation than what I intend to have today. It’s possible you’re already familiar with all of that. And we’ll get there and maybe if we are lucky we can add a bit to the conversation that you haven’t heard, but I thought I’d actually start out with the systematic question of “what is the image of God?” simply because…we have probably all thought about it like this. We’ve probably heard some of these answers. And we might want to know if these are the ways that the biblical author would have thought about it, too. Systematic and biblical theology can actually go hand-in-hand really well. The way I think about it is that biblical theology ought to form the way we do systematic theology. But if we start out with “this is my systematic theology, and how does that compare to biblical theology,” that can be helpful, too, simply because we already have those frameworks in mind. When we see a discrepancy between the two, we ask why is that? What needs to be adjusted to fit them together? Or sometimes do we need to adjust anything? Personally, I think…usually we do. But those of us who are in some Christian traditions will not agree because their tradition informs the way they think. And I’m not speaking against that here—but surely I would think we would want to make sure that tradition is based on the intent of the biblical authors. You can’t make that determination without biblical theology. - I have alluded to the image of God in previous episodes…most notably episodes 4 and 6, when I talked about the host of heaven and the divine council because I am of the opinion that God has both heavenly and earthly imagers, that God has a divine, or supernatural family, and a mortal or human family. And some day these two families will be formally joined together with the bringing together of heaven and earth. - But with all of that, I have really jumped too far forward in our discussion on imaging God because we first need to understand what *is* God’s image and what does it mean to *be* God’s image. And as my goal is to encourage critical thinking, as always you don’t need to agree with my conclusions; I’m going to try to present fairly some various ways that people understand the image of God and you can decide for yourself which you find most likely—or perhaps, even better, how to combine the ideas together into a more holistic understanding. Because, like most things, it’s often not one choice or another but a combination of ideas which might be the best way to see things. - I also hope to bring on others with me in this conversation to talk about this topic, so you can look forward to that! I know I am. ### Why Does the Image of God Matter? - In thinking about this topic, I’m always very curious to hear what people think the image of God is, because there really are a wide variety of ways in which this is seen. And I’m always a little sad when it seems like this is actually not a very popular topic. At least, not as popular as I think it ought to be! Like, most people only have a vague idea of what the image of God is and many haven’t formulated an idea for themselves to describe it in a condensed manner. Which, I get that, you can’t always describe things in a condensed manner. But, this makes me sad because, to me, the topic is incredibly interesting and exceptionally embedded into my purpose and vocation. But then…I think that because I was introduced myself to certain ways of seeing it. I see the image as a major functioning part of the world and the gospel and revelation…and, well, I could go on. And I will in later episodes, no doubt. - I’d be curious to hear from any of you listening if this is surprising to you, that I find the image of God to be not just central to the dignity of humanity, but also central to salvation history, to the message of the Bible from the beginning to the end. Has this been, for you, just one of those side topics that we hear about at the first of the year when we crack open the book of Genesis, or when we are talking about hot-button topics like abortion? Does your church talk about this concept often? Have you developed a solid understanding of what the image of God is and why it matters? And if you have, what subjects *matter* within the umbrella of the idea? - And another question…have you ever traced, to some extent at least, the theme of the image of God through the Bible before? If you haven’t, you might find it surprising. And you might find that it’s harder to do than you thought. - I’m tempted to dive directly into all of the passages which touch on the image of God, but to be honest…that’s easier said than done and doing it that way takes us back into the realm of biblical theology, which is not where we are starting out today. I’d very much like to discuss passages first and foremost, but the question then is which passages and how far do we get into this in that way without a good framework around us to help guide our search? Even sticking with only passages that directly use the word “image” we would need to ask, does that even have anything to do with our main topic? So, I’m going to try to go back and forth a bit, making sure we’re look directly at Scripture but also discussing this in the more philosophical ways that people tend towards. Because most of the time, let’s be honest…we do tend to use Scripture as a jumping off point into our own thoughts, as I think will be pretty obvious when we get into these various views. - So, let us begin…with Scripture. - We’ve read this before—a few times in fact—but it never hurts to read Gen 1:26-27 again: - Genesis 1:26–27 (ESV) 26Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. ## What is the Image of God? ### Physicality - So we are made in God’s image. Okay, cool. What the heck does that mean? Images are things we look at, of course, we are inundated with them these days; so…it’s pretty common to see this as saying that we look like God, in a physical sense. Our physical bodies, etc. image God. That seems the most obvious interpretation of this. The main problem is that we don’t think God had a human body before creation. He appeared in visible human form on earth in the Old Testament, and for more on that you can listen to episode 5 about the Trinity and the Two Powers in Heaven. But this was an accommodation that God made. Something he did after creation was in place; he didn’t first make his own body and then pattern humanity off of that…at least, we definitely do NOT have any Scriptural basis for such an idea. Of course, Jesus had a physical body, but again, the incarnation happened well after creation. Jesus took on humanity in a historical fashion; the person Jesus has always existed, but the incarnation had a beginning. - Though it might sound strange to us, the idea that the image is something to do with our physical appearance is not an uncommon one in the halls of Christianity, actually. Some of the early church fathers spoke on that. But most of Christianity today doesn’t really go down this path. - Now, though this is a biblical theology podcast, I’ve occasionally dipped into the theology of the LDS church because that’s what I was raised in and I find it instructive to compare and contrast LDS theology with Christian theology. Plus it seems that people find these little tidbits interesting because many of my listeners don’t have much experience with the LDS church. So I’m going to bring their perspective in here for a moment. - If you do know anything about the LDS church, you might know something about their idea that we humans, if we live correctly, after death will be able to become gods ourselves, that we in a sense inherit the ability to form our own creations somewhere in another dimension, and that in this same way, the god who created us was also a created being who lived on another world prior to his becoming God here. So for the LDS person, the image of God is pretty straightforward—we look like God actually looks and, like DNA, we have inherited the ability to become exactly like God someday. That’s the image of God according to LDS theology. - I bring that up because, although this is not in line with normal Christianity, this perspective makes some obvious sense of how we could possibly look like God or be created in his image. And so it’s fair to bring it out for view, particularly in comparison to the fact that historical Christians have, on occasion, taken the view that we are the image of God based on some physical aspect of God because, well, this is the most obvious idea of what “image” might mean. A physical copy. How do you have a physical copy without a physical thing to copy from? - Of course, traditional Christianity believes that God is spirit. Such is stated in John 4:24. So that leaves us scratching our head with how a Christian could think we could possibly *look* like God if he is spirit—which we presume to be immaterial—and we, our bodies, are material? How does that work? - I’ve seen a lot of Christians try to stretch this in various ways…perhaps spirit is not so immaterial, after all, or perhaps God designed us first in his head, then pictured what Jesus would look like on earth, and so we are the image because God already knew what Jesus would look like……yeahhh, um, yeah, that reasoning kind of makes my head hurt, to be honest. - But whatever it means, we first tend to think it’s got to be about physical looks because that’s what an image is….right?? Right???! - Well. Maybe. Kinda. Sorta. The physical nature of humanity can still have something to do with the image even if our physicality isn’t being patterned off of God’s supposed physicality. We’ll get into that, I promise. But for now, we need to acknowledge that we have this feeling that that the image is tied, in some way, to the fact that we are physical. But even if this is our conclusion, there seems to be some other point on top of that. Because, here’s the thing… nothing important seems to hinge on our humanoid appearance. In other words, we aren’t “special” simply because we are humanoids. - I feel like this is also a thing that makes sense to most people once it’s pointed out. - LDS doctrine has it not only connected to physical looks, but also a future state. And, interestingly, there is a theme of inheritance—physical inheritance in this case. So…that’s interesting and we’ll put that in our pocket for later. - So, but, no, to be clear for those listening, I no longer ascribe to the LDS ways of looking at things and I don’t think they are right in believing that God has a physical body “just like ours.” There’s nothing in the Bible which suggests this. Yes, the visible YHWH appeared in the OT and Jesus, of course, now has a physical body, but he did not have one at creation. So we’re going find other ways in which to understand this physical aspect of the image. - I also need to make a distinction that no where in the Bible does it say that we will become exactly like God. By “exactly like God,” I mean…exactly like God in nature and in ability and in who he is. Like, ontologically the same. That isn’t who we are, and no, the early church fathers did not think such a thing, either. What we *do* have is the process of sanctification, which some call theosis, and we become like Christ, certainly. But being like God is not the same as becoming ontologically a god. - For those wondering, the LDS church gets some of its backing for this idea from some texts of the early church fathers, but they miss the point being made. Athanasius, who is one of the strongest defenders we have in the early church of Jesus’ divinity, famously wrote that, “He became man so that we might become God.” - If you read that, you think, oh, we become God. Sounds like we get to rule our own creations, right? - Well, hang on there. First of all, you don’t get to just pick this little piece out of what he wrote and then reject everything else he wrote. Athanasius wrote very strongly against Arianism, the idea that Jesus was created. LDS theology strongly backs the idea of Arius, whom Athanasius believed to be a heretic. So saying that Athanasius was right about this but wrong about that—that’s called cherry-picking the data you want to accept. - In addition to that, what does it mean that Jesus became man so that we might become God? Well, if you really read it at face-value it still doesn’t say what LDS theology wants it to say! It talks about “becoming” God. This means that…we aren’t already God; it’s not already in our nature to be God. Christ had to come in order to effect this. You can’t both “be” something and “become” that thing at the same time. Yes, you can increase your ability or fulfillment of your nature in some way, you can grow—but this isn’t the same as changing your nature or conforming your nature into something that it isn’t already. - So right out of the gate, we can see that they have misinterpreted Athanasius. - While this may be once again jumping the gun of what I’m talking about here, I think it useful to stop for a moment and try to understand how we can be seen to be like God or made like God in the manner of theosis, which is really what Athanasius is talking about here. - I’m going to read a lengthy quote from Michael Bird’s *Evangelical Theology: A Biblical Systematic Introduction*. I never thought I could like a systematic theology book until I came across his. - “Theosis, also called “deification,” identifies salvation as becoming like God and sharing in the divine life. In recent years there has been a surge of scholarly interest in theosis in what might be called an evangelical discovery of the Eastern Orthodox tradition. It is the Eastern church that has had the most interest in theosis as a theological category for salvation. As for, as for a definition of theosis, the Orthodox Study Bible describes it as follows: ”This does not mean we become divine by nature. If we participated in God’s essence, the distinction between God and man would be abolished. What this does mean is that we participate in God’s energy, described by a number of terms in scripture such as glory, love, virtue, and power. We are to become like God by His grace, and truly be His adopted children, but never become like God by nature.… When we are joined to Christ, our humanity is interpenetrated with the energies of God through Christ’s glorified flesh. Nourished by the Blood and Body of Christ, we partake of the grace of God—His strength, His righteousness, His love—and are enabled to serve Him and glorify Him. Thus we, being human, are being deified.” There is some scriptural basis for theosis. We read in 2 Peter, “he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature [theias koinōnoi physeōs], having escaped the corruption of the world caused by evil desires” (2 Pet 1:4). In Romans, Paul states that the purpose of divine predestination is so that believers will be “conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom 8:29). A further destiny of believers is that they will be “glorified” (8:30), presumably with divine glory. Paul also wrote: “And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Cor 3:18). This is certainly the biblical ingredients for a doctrine of theosis or something like it. Undoubtedly the biblical texts cited above refer to a transformation of believers that brings them into ontological conformity, in some mysterious sense, with God. The concept of becoming united with God and even like God was not far from the minds of some church fathers. “Because of his measureless love,” writes Irenaeus, “he became what we are in order to enable us to become what he is.” According to Clement of Alexandria, “the Word of God became man that you may also learn from a man how to become God.” For Origen it was possible to participate in “holiness, wisdom, and divinity itself.” Athanasius memorably wrote that the Word “was made man so that we might be made God.” Augustine declared, “Therefore by joining to us the likeness of His humanity, He took away the unlikeness of our unrighteousness; and by becoming sharer of our mortality, He made us sharers of His divinity.”” *Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2013), 575–576.* - Okay, stopping here with Bird’s book for a moment… - You see, it wasn’t uncommon for the early church fathers to give these kinds of quotes and again, this is how the LDS church suggests that they, the early church fathers, believed that humans were literally to become exactly like God in nature and thus become gods of our own cosmoses…cosmosii? I’ve never tried to pluralize cosmos before. - But you see, again, these quotes (which incidentally originate before they really had worked through the doctrine of the Trinity to its full extent) were about the incarnation and how the incarnation transforms the believer’s life, so they are about how we relate to Christ. They aren’t putting humanity on the same level of God, as Bird further suggests a paragraph or two later: - “Union with Christ is, through the Holy Spirit, union with God. All the same, rather than speak in terms of theosis or deification, I think that participation and transformation are the more appropriate categories to describe how believers enter into the messianic glory of a consummated salvation. Because believers are united with Christ, co-crucified and co-resurrected with him, they participate in the benefits of his life as the faithful one, his death as the crucified one, his resurrection as the vindicated one, and his ascension as the exalted one. That involves a participation in Jesus’ humanity, which transforms them into the body of Christ; a participation in the benefits of Jesus’ death, which transfers them from alienation to reconciliation; and a participation in Jesus’ divine life, which transmutes their state from death to immortality. In sum, it is participation in the person and work of the Messiah that transforms believers’ status from condemnation to righteousness and transforms their state from human death to divine life.” *Michael F. Bird, Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2013), 577.* - End quote; that’s where I’ll stop with the section from *Evangelical Theology.* - So here’s what I’d suggest. When in doubt, ask yourself if your point is centered around humanity glorifying themselves—or if the point is centered squarely on the Messiahship of Jesus and/or the sovereignty of God. These are two *very* different things, and as essential as humanity truly is to the story of the Bible, the point of salvation history isn’t to raise up humanity to godhood, but rather to bring God to man. - All right. So that was a bit of a rabbit trail. All this about “becoming like God” is not yet directly related to our conversation about the image of God because Genesis says that we already are the image of God. So how do those two things connect? You’ll see eventually, I think, that this will hook back into the conversation very directly…but we haven’t yet gotten very far in our thinking regarding what the image of God is to begin with. And that’s pretty important. In Gen 1, we do not yet have any hint of participation in the life of Christ, of course, so we can’t jump to that quite, though it’s a point we can definitely keep in mind. - But it’s interesting, isn’t it? This initial draw we have towards God…here we could get into what went on with Adam and Eve and what it might mean about “becoming like God,” because however we parse what’s going on there, the draw of “becoming like God” was part of what drew Eve to reach out and take. - The draw of the eating of the forbidden fruit is definitely connected to the image of God in some sense, so we can keep that in mind as we explore our main topic further. - So we’ve already mentioned the definition of the image of God being in some way that we look, physically, like God and/or that his nature is—in some way—ours. Really, wouldn’t you agree that the more important aspect of that is not that we are the spitting physical copies of our Creator, but that there is something in us that makes us like him? Going full-bore to the concept of us being our own gods with worlds of our own is, I am convinced, too far and entirely unbiblical—and too human-centric. Whatever we are doing here, the essential element is focused on God, not us. ### Separation from Animals - Next up to consider is the idea that the image is what separates us from animals. Not all of our descriptions of the image have to be full descriptions, full definitions, of course. Here we just have the idea that the image is what distinguishes man from beast. Because that is…important. Somehow. Since it’s not…obvious? The stance of this point has me scratching my head, until I realize what is likely behind the thought. What kind of philosophy equates man and beast, human and animal? Ahh, yes. This point makes the image of God…. - A proof against evolution, of course! - Can you hear me sigh? You probably heard me sigh. Yeah, there is a distinction between man and beast, but that distinction is already clear by the fact that animals are described as being created in verses 24 and 25. And it is clear that man is the pinnacle of creation. And it is clear that no where are animals a threat to the status of mankind. They just aren’t. The idea that the image is there to distinguish us from beasts seeks to avoid any kind of association between man and animal that suggests humans descended from lower creatures. And listen, it’s not a defense of evolution to argue against this point. To suggest that the Bible is really not trying to be a proof text for this for the simple fact that that Bible is interested in the miraculous and supernatural creation of the cosmos and everything in it; it’s not trying to provide a blow-by-blow scientific account. Some of you probably still disagree with me on that. That’s fine, but this *still* isn’t trying to distinguish man from animal. It’s just. not. - Rather, this is called proof texting…negative proof texting. Using the text to support a point that you, yourself, want to make, a point that isn’t already there in any sense. The Bible assumes, from the get-go, that animals are a lower form of life. …Another word for what this is, is eisegesis. Exegesis is bringing meaning out of the text, eisegesis is using the text to support your own presuppositions. And again, saying that the Bible isn’t speaking against evolution doesn’t mean that we all must now believe in evolution. Personally, I’m agnostic on the topic—it’s just not really on my radar either way. - It’s a very common line of thinking to say that if you disagree with me, that means you agree with my enemy. But this is simply poor thinking. There are—shockingly—usually more than two positions that can be held concerning any topic out there. I know, surprising. ### Image of God as Possession of Soul/Spirit - Our next suggestion for the image of God is the possession of a spirit or soul, especially connected with the idea of body, soul, and spirit. - Ah, we finally think, we’ve found it, the image of God is the soul! - Except…we cannot make this argument biblically. Yes, I hear you say…God breathed into Adam and thus he became a living soul. So it was the breath of God, the spirit which came into Adam’s physical body, which made him exist, and thus this is the first moment of creation and the moment of making the image. - Well…kind of. That’s actually an insightful thing to notice. There is this moment, and we do have the bringing together of two disparate elements to enliven Adam. So what’s the problem? Well, animals are said to possess souls, too. And—as we have taken pains to describe previously—humans are definitely different than animals. Animals definitely are not God’s image. - I’d better take a moment here and share some verses about animals. - Gen 1:30…animals have the breath of life, and that word “breath” is the word *nephesh*, or soul. - Genesis 1:30 (ESV) 30And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. - In Gen 2:19…we have the term ”living creature” in the ESV…creature there is “soul.” - Genesis 2:19 (ESV) 19Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. - Then we have the term used for all of the life that survived after the flood in Gen 9: - Genesis 9:8–10 (LES) 8And God spoke to Noah and his sons with him, saying, 9“Behold, I am establishing my covenant with you and your seed after you, 10and for every soul living with you, from birds and from cattle, and for all the wild animals of the earth, as many as are with you from all those who came out from the ark. - So…if we want to distinguish the image of God from animals….and we *do* want to distinguish the image of God from animals, the image can’t be merely the possession of a soul or spirit. ### Image as Relationality (Karl Barth) - Okay, moving on…supposition number four on what the image of God is…is relationality. This was an idea promoted by the theologian Karl Barth, around a century ago. I doubt he was the first one to hold it, however, as I believe there are some interesting rabbinic writings that might also play into this (but I didn’t find those in time for this episode). - This idea of relationality is a pretty beautiful one, and it stems from the “male and female” language that follows the declaration of humanity being created. Meshed with this is the fact that we were created in the image of a triune Creator. The Trinity always existed as a Trinity, therefore God has always experienced relationship. If the image of God is both male and female, and male and female are in the context of relationship in some way, then Barth figured that it was this relationality that made us like God. - Some have fought back on that as it sounded like he was saying that only through marriage, through a united couple, could someone participate in the image of God. Of course, Barth didn’t really mean that we had to be married; he made it clear that no matter who we are, we have relationships with the opposite sex and those “count” to make us relational imagers. - Either way, however, this can’t be what the image of God is when you look at the way the image is talked about elsewhere in Scripture. We are not only the image when we are married or in direct relationship with someone else. It is quite a bit more likely that “male and female” language is making it clear that women, too, are in the image of God. - I will give this view a lot of credit…it tries to look at Scripture first and foremost. It notices the language immediately after the declaration of image bearing and wonders, why is that there? - This idea also encompasses the theme of community that is rife throughout Scripture. The people of God as a whole is a much more ubiquitous concept than man-in-isolation. It’s not that we don’t exist and matter individually—but the Bible, because this was an inherent part of its culture—treats individuals within the framework of their collectives. - So suggesting that our human relationality was built-in from the beginning in the image of God is, to me, a beautiful concept. It does seem to me that suggesting this as the majority of the definition may be pushing the point too far, however, as it really seems assumed that everyone is already in the construct of the importance of the tribe or group and again, the “group identity” doesn’t really seem in view directly in most passages concerning the image. ### Image of God as an Attribute or Quality - Many other definitions of the image of God…don’t really do that. For instance, let’s move on to the image of God being some set of attributes or qualities. - The variations on this are seemingly endless and some of these are found in the writings of fairly early Christians. I suppose your classification of this is going to depend on if you think Augustine is early or not. - Amongst the qualities or attributes put forward as being the source of our image, beyond our physical bodes are: Our capacity to think. Our rationality. Our ability to love. Consciousness or self-awareness. The ability for speech. Or, morality. - Some of these ideas are much better than others. While they may touch on some aspect of being God’s image, they all fail in one major way…they aren’t possessed equally or even actually in all people—and remember, all people have to be the image according to Gen 9. If we can say that all humans, everywhere, in all of time no matter what state they are in, are God’s imagers—and I think we are on quite solid ground to suggest this—then qualitative or attributive definitions cannot encompass the reality. - Can qualitative attributes be part of the image? Absolutely. But they don’t seem to sum up what the image “is.” If the image was a quality, then we could be more or less the image, we could have it and lose it with the loss of this faculty, whatever it is. There is nothing in the Bible which suggests the image is lost. - Is this an argument that is solidly biblical? Well, I believe so, but will admit that we are pulling in a fair share of philosophy to make this argument. I’ve actually seen people—wrongly, in my estimation—suggest that we are putting our modern ideas of personhood into the text in this way. When we want to suggest that the image of God must be something that even the unborn possess, these people say we are going too far. They suggest that the ancient person would not have recognized an unborn child as the same as someone older, so neither should we. And frankly, this suggestion disgusts me. Do you also know what the ancient world was cool with? Infant exposure. Leaving the infirm to die in the street. Killing enemies simply because they were enemies, whether or not they posed any kind of threat. So yeah, this argument is nothing short of evil. Denying the dignity of being the image of God to any human, from the moment of conception, is, well, it’s wicked. Full stop. There is no such thing as a “potential” human. One is either human, or not. And thus one is either the image of God or, well…there is no other option. We are. We are God’s creation, intended from the beginning of the cosmos, and for a purpose that is greater than ourselves, for the ultimate purpose of God…and, well, we’ll get to that point. We haven’t exhausted our options of exploring what the image of God might be. - Though I’m no doubt going to miss some options of how people have viewed the image of God throughout history and currently today, I have three more options that I’d like to present. These are separate—and yet, in my mind, they are very interconnected. And remember, when we are forming a definition of something that might be complex, we might not hit on the complete definition without combining ideas that, in our minds, are separate. That’s why I don’t fully discount …most of what we’ve talked about to this point as having *something* to do with the image of God—many things might play their necessary parts in all of this. ### Image of God as Status - The first of my last three options is “status.” And what is status, exactly? It’s one of those words that we know what it is, maybe without knowing how to define it. And even once we’ve defined it, we know that there’s got to be more to it than that. - Some examples first. The status of a written report might be begun, in process, or finished. In this case, the status is in relation to action and time. - Another status of that written report might be its grade, once it is turned in and graded. The work receives a rank which involves its completeness, its quality, its suitability. So this status is in relation to an ideal written report or a set of particular standards. - The status of my dog might be asleep, awake, hungry, playful, etc. These are states of action and attention. - The status of an officer might be in good standing or not. The status of a prisoner might be in prison, arrested, or pardoned. - What do all of these types of status have to do with one another? They all involve a subject and speak of that subject in relation to or in comparison with something—actions, time, completeness, mood, aspect regarding authority or freedom. - So what do I mean that the image of God might be a status? We were declared the image of God, by God himself. God granted us the status of “imager.” Status here is a kind of position or rank or standing or prestige, and this was granted by God himself. - Let’s compare that to our children for a moment. My children have been and always will be my children. This is biology, not assigned status—or is it? Of course some parents disown their children; in this case, the child loses his or her status within the family and within the relationship with the parent. The child can lose inheritance. But the child cannot change his biology. The state of “being my child” is dependent upon my granting that position (even if I grant that position merely by the physical action of my body). This status is who they are. It is not something that can be lost in its entirety so long as my child is biologically mine. Of course I could grant this status through other means; I could adopt a child, formally or in the form of accepting one of my children’s friends as an honorary member of my family. But it is my actions and decisions which grant this status. - So in this framework for the image of God, we are imagers by right of the fact that, well, God said so. Even if we are rotten imagers, and we rebel, and we fight against God and do all kinds of nasty things he doesn’t want us to do—we retain our position of imagers simply through the fact that God has declared this. - One of the later definitions I found in my dictionary for the word “status” was “legal character or condition of a person or thing,” which is a really interesting one when we look at how Adam and Christ are compared to humans in the NT. - I’d like to read a big chunk of Romans 5 here, but it’s such a complex passage that I think it would be hard to read and for you to get my point. What I want you to do instead is, if you’re interested in doing this, look at how Romans 5 compares Adam and Christ and how it talks about justification, justification being a legal standing, a type of status. If we become righteous through Christ, as a status, then we can also have been created in the image of God, as a status. This isn’t to say that there is no reality behind our status, that there is nothing more behind it, but… - I’d argue that in some sense, even if the image is something in addition to this, it must, at minimum, be a status. - Not that I want to go into this here, but incidentally—this is a way to address some of those scientific quandaries some of us like so much. If, hypothetically, there were humans before Adam and Eve, or humans in addition to Adam and Eve, humans “outside the garden,” so to speak, we might ask, well, are they also the image of God? What about Neanderthals? Surely they can’t be the image of God! - This claim only makes sense if the image of God is attached to a set of attributes or qualities or physical appearance or DNA or the like. - Unless, what about Neanderthals or humans outside the garden? The answer, in this framework is, they are imagers if God granted them that status, and they aren’t if God didn’t. Status doesn’t have to have anything to do with DNA or biology or physical inheritance at all. Status here is all about God’s choice. His designation. - And honestly, that’s good enough for me. That’s one reason I like this selection of what the image of God is. Because it makes all the sense in the world that this is a designation that God offers the pinnacle of his creation. And if there’s a question of whether an ancestor of Adam was “human enough” to be the image, well, surely God would know when he’d achieved that moment. It’s silly to think there would be any question there. ### Image of God as Function - All right. So I personally am a fan of the idea of status. But I don’t think that we need to leave it all there. Let’s move on to the idea of function as being part of the image. As I said, these three sections are, in my mind, related. I think function is tied up in the aspect of status, because God had a purpose for creation. There was a reason he created imagers. Multiple reasons, really, but we’ll keep it simple for now even though I think this is a very, very deep topic. - The function of something is, quoting from the dictionary, the “purpose for which a person or thing is suited or employed.” Or, it is the “role or occupation” of something. There’s even an associated idea of “serving” connected to this. - We don’t even really need to know what, exactly, God’s purpose in creation was to know that he had one, and that he made humanity for …reasons. - But here’s my next question…does the idea of function rest on the ability of the person or thing to carry out that function? This is essential to the question of how we live out the image or whether or not we could lose the image, which is something we’ll touch on in a moment, maybe. - I’ve seen some people who, based on some other things that they thought, I thought would agree that the image of God might be functional, but it turned out they actually disagreed. And I thought, huh…why? I’ve thought about that for a while. And I’m not sure if I grasp the position entirely, but I think it might hang on equating function with the living out of that function. The ability to function. - And I’d argue that function and ability-to-function, though related, are two separate things. This is where we mesh with the concept of status, I think. If I had a mirror that is coated in dust and dirt to the point that it cannot reflect anything back—is it no longer a mirror? It may not be functioning adequately as a mirror, and in that sense you can say that it’s not a mirror according to function, but it did not suddenly *change purpose* into a wall or a door simply by being covered in dust. Its intended function did not shift. Something may or may not function—in an active sense, function here being used as a verb—but that doesn’t mean its function—in the noun-sense of the word—has shifted to something else. The intent of having a function is, in theory, to lead to the action of function. They ought to coincide—but the fact that they don’t doesn’t negate the intended purpose. - “Function” is like a job description. You’re supposed to carry out that job, of course. It’s…your job. In an organization, no one is going to be happy if you try to do another job other than the one you’re assigned— that’s assigned to you. You don’t get to choose your function—your boss does that. - So if function is a job description—well, don’t we have a job, assigned to us at creation? - Hey look at this, we’re finally going to get to move ahead from reading Gen 1:26 and 27. We’re now going to read Gen 1:28! Isn’t that exciting, moving on one verse a month or something, I don’t know. - Genesis 1:28 (ESV) 28And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” - This is, of course, right after God created mankind in his image, and it says that they were given a task. - So, if we just thought that Gen 1 was giving a blow-by-blow account of creation, we might think, God created man and the next step was that he talked to them. We might not make the connection between creation in the image with this task. We just read the next verse which, you know, may or may not have anything to do with the prior verse. It just happens to come next. But it makes sense that it would connect, doesn’t it? We know that the Bible is a beautifully designed text. There isn’t much here that is just coincidental. We might try to put in our ideas rather than draw out from the text—but that’s our issue, not the texts’. - Aaaaand, we’re going to go ahead and back up to reading Gen 1:26…again. I just can’t get away from that, from reading this verse. If this verse was a paying sponsor, I’d be doing really well. - Okay, so Gen 1:26: - Genesis 1:26 (ESV) 26Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” - Ohhh. Now hang on here. What did we read in verse 28? This same thing. Verse 26, man is to have “dominion” over fish, birds, livestock, the earth, and creepy things. I mean, creeping things—bugs, not zombies. - And verse 28 said man was to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it—some things which aren’t mentioned in verse 26—but also to have dominion over fish, birds, and every living thing. Slightly different wording than verse 26, but similar. - This is probably a chiasm, and I haven’t yet explained what chiasms are. They are a feature of the Bible (and of course some other ancient literature of the time) where you have ideas climax up to a point, like going up a mountain, then the ideas get repeated in reverse order, like going back down the same mountain. Part of the point of a chiasm is to frame the idea that hangs out at the top of the mountain, in the center of the passage. When we look at Gen 1:26-28, verse 27 is the “top” of the mountain or the climax of the chiasm, verse 27 which is actually the verse where God does the creating of humanity. We could look at the differences of the two “sides” to this chiasm, and these differences will make some points—verse 26 doesn’t mention multiplication but spells out the animals a little more particularly. Verse 28 adds in the idea of multiplication, filling, subduing. It’s like, in verse 26 there’s the initial idea—the only things that really exist before mankind in a meaningful way are all of the beasts, so that’s a central point of the need for humanity—but then once we actually exist, suddenly the gates are opened for us to be fruitful and in doing so we not only have the animals but also the entire earth….there’s no point for us to multiply until we actually exist…and the point of subduing the earth is connected to the multiplication and filling of it. We’re not subduing the earth for its own sake, but for our sake. That’s why that part wasn’t in verse 26, because there was not yet any need for subduing the earth. - Okay, so not to go too far down this rabbit trail, but it’s necessary to see that the creation of man in the image is framed by tasks. It’s framed by purpose. This is our function. And you can’t really separate function out from status in a meaningful way because we require the status in order to have the function. If God had given us a task, then we gain the status that is connected to filling that task. - And of course—here’s the problem. Do we actually fulfill this task? Do we complete our function? Maybe in some limited way. But we all know that we don’t, really. Did Eve exhibit dominion over the serpent? - Oh and here’s a thought, a very mini-rabbit trail: I was talking with someone recently on why the serpent is referred to as a serpent from the perspective of the idea that he is actually a spiritual being—an idea we haven’t explored yet but surely will. - These verses in Gen 1 might have something of that answer here. If we were told Eve was talking to a shining cherub or seraph, then where do we see the idea that she could pull rank on such a creature? When we are told that she is speaking to a serpent, however—well, that clearly is part of her dominion mandate. - Okay, end of mini-rabbit trail. - So, we don’t really do a great job of fulfilling our function, we clearly never have. We will, someday, but today is not yet that day. I mean, maybe when your listening to this, it will be, what do I know? - But God didn’t revoke this “creation mandate.” We are still called to fulfill these functions. - Now, to our main point in this episode—the fact that we have the creation of man framed by function—does that necessarily mean that the image **is** the same as the function? Well, not necessarily. At minimum we can stake a claim on a connection at least. And if being the image of God is more than just a surface-level, pretty-face, what-we-look-like-kind of a thing, if it is in any way associated with action, if it is a verb in any sense, then function or purpose is what we are going to look at there, and, as I suggest, this is further connected to status. - Remember when we were discussing certain qualities as the image of God? Well, what would be the point of those qualities?—you got it: that, too, is connected to function. - So you see, here we can enfold those qualities under the umbrella of this. The qualities are a necessary part of being able to act out a function—but remember we’re not talking about function as a verb but as a noun. When humans are meant to develop, it doesn’t matter if we do not possess any of the qualities *yet* that we need in order to carry out our function. Our function is our purpose, not our potential purpose, but our actual purpose. - As I draw this out, I expect you can see the weakness of leaving this idea of the image of God as merely being our function. It’s simply too difficult to leave the idea of function as a noun without its associated verb. - And this how we see **status** as the higher umbrella that encompasses it all. Status, function, qualities—they’re all involved, but they kind of nest inside each other. Qualities and function we could waffle on and argue over. Does someone have it or not? Does someone do it or not? You can’t really argue about status, though. If something has a particular designation, *its designation is what it is.* And thus here we have connection to ontology, especially when we are talking about God creating us as his imagers. Once God has declared you something, well, you’re not going to not be that, you’re not going to get out of it, that’s just what you are. - So in case you were wondering where identity fits in to all of this, here we are. This is the only identity that we have that is lasting, that actually matters, that has meaning and purpose and the entirety of who we are, all wrapped up into one. ### Image of God as Representation - All right. I said I had a third thing to bring up, and that third thing is ….representation. - Now, in a sense, this is kind of a synonym for “image.” An image can be said to be a representation of something. If I look the word up in a thesaurus, I see words like “depiction” and “copy.” “Duplicate” and “imitation.” “Likeness” and “reproduction.” - So from the get-go, hey, here we go, a definition of image! Except we need now to understand what *representation* is because when I look at the thesaurus, I also see words like “delegation” and “enactment.” - Which of these words most apply—or do they all, in some sense? - Let’s look at the dictionary definition of representation: “artistic likeness, image, dramatic production or presentation, and …the act of being represented; the action of one person standing for another; the substitution of a person.” - Ooo, “substitution.” We like that word in Christianity a lot, don’t we? - What if this is what we are, as imagers of God? What if we are representatives of God? Standing in for him, substituting his presence here on earth? - Does this fit with what we have seen in Gen 1 of the image? It seems to. God created the earth, the heavens, and all that are in them. Now it’s our turn to create via multiplication. God surely intends to care for creation—and he has designated us as the means by which he intends to accomplish this. - Does this idea fit with the idea of status, function, and qualities that we’ve discussed? I’d say so, because our task is to function as God here on earth. Surely when Gen 1:28 says that we subdue the earth, that doesn’t mean we do so on our own whims, right? Surely we are to do this in accordance with God’s will, acting as God would have us act. This is the very idea of participation in creation, representing God to creation around us. - It’s like we are his royal and executive branch, running things from the ground, so to speak. The purpose of being in God’s image is—unsurprisingly, here on earth, because, surprise! this is where God put us! The goal isn’t learning to be like God so we can go be our own god…the goal is to be God’s representatives. - In other words, we have a divine mandate and divine purpose and this matters—deeply—to the world. We aren’t waiting and wading through this life to get to the next one, we are here, with the capacity to work and do for God today, now, here. It is a partnership—a very lopsided one, it must be admitted—but a partnership nonetheless. - As to our status and function, we are all granted this equally. As to our qualities and what we might say is our individual “reach” of completing this task—these things vary and that matters not one bit to the fact that God has put us here individually with purpose. It is like the body of Christ—one part is not above another, one part is not greater—we are all needed, we are all called. The question is, are we going to step into that call? - Thankfully it is not our ability or our actual workload which matters. It’s not the boxes we check or the to do lists we cross off. This isn’t a works-based righteousness where we are earning our pay, so please do not misunderstand me. This isn’t a situation of “God will love us if we do what we wants.” Far from it! This is God extending himself in us, through the Spirit within us, to act in the world. God allowing us a piece of the action, so to speak. ## Summary - All righty. So we’ve covered a lot of the basics regarding the views of what the image of God is or at least what it encompasses and connects to. I actually think it’s something that we can spend a long, long time looking at. I’ve laid out my best arguments for what I think the image of God is, and maybe you can see why I get too excited about this topic—because this is embedded into question with a capital Q: what is the purpose of life? - And I ask you, can there be a larger, more encompassing purpose than having the status and ability to be God’s representative here on earth? - Is that daunting? Well, it would be daunting if we forget that this isn’t just a task that God tosses out to us and says, “Here, do that, go get back to me when it’s done.” That’s not the kind of task this is. Rather, this task is about God reaching down and making it happen himself, even though we are the willing participants. There are other ways we can describe this interaction that I think will make the point more clear, that it’s not us but God with us…but I don’t want to get too awfully ahead of ourselves here. There are probably a few steps we need to take first to really get this fuller picture I’d like to share with you. ## Outro - So, I’ve gone a little over time here, but we will be getting back into the topic next week, I believe. I hope you enjoyed this episode…thank you, everyone, for listening. I genuinely appreciate it and I love it when you reach out and tell me you’ve been listening; that really brightens my day. If you’d like, please do subscribe and I’d be thrilled if you shared this episode. Leave a review if you’re able to do so as that does help me out tremendously, as well. Feel free to join me on FB in my group, or email me at [email protected]. I’ve enjoyed hearing some suggestions for future episodes. If you’ve got any thoughts or questions or topics that you’d like to me to explore from the framework of my podcast, let me know! - I appreciate the support, and thanks as always to Wintergatan for the music. Hoping you all have an excellent week! Blessings and we’ll see you later!