Latest / Harvest After Sunday / The Image of God - Being Human Pt. 1: Theology Q&A
Transcript
- Harvest Media: Sunday podcast. I'm Natalie and I'm your host and I'm here with Stefan Wilson, pastor of preaching and teaching. And today we are going to be talking about a question that is relevant to everyone. What does it mean to be human? ⁓ This has implications for how we understand our purpose, our identity, how we relate to one another. In a sense, it unites us all because we all have to grapple with with it and come up with an answer. And yet the answers to this question have seemingly never been more diverse or contradictory. How in the world is that possible? Yeah, I think that when as a society, we embrace beliefs, we don't necessarily recognize the consequences of those beliefs in the moment. But then as you see them play out, The onlooker can can recognize there are consequences to ideas. mean in in reality all ideas have consequences and Very seldom are the consequences of ideas What the person who was pushing the idea thought they would be we can survey history to see that that is the case We have a great idea We push that idea on a group of people that group of people embraces the idea and then down the road we go whoa, this wasn't supposed to happen. And we look back at the idea and start realizing, ⁓ no, there were actually some fundamental problems in that. And I think that we are safe to say that the various views on what it means to be human, the various views of gender and sexuality, the kinds of ideas that are circling around human life and issues like abortion and euthanasia, what is referred to in many countries as ⁓ physician assisted suicide, like those kinds of things are the consequence of ideas. And when you have a worldview that sits behind the ideas that you're going to push, that worldview is going to ultimately drive what you say a human person is. So if I embrace a physicalist scientific naturalist worldview that says all things are material, there is no such thing as any spiritual realm. I'm going to now define the person according to merely physical and scientific concepts. And then that means I'm going to look at people much the same way that I look at any other species. And so that has consequences. start to say that a person is only biology and we start to evaluate someone's fitness for society based on their competence or their genetics, right? There start to be consequences of that. If we take the Marxist worldview that the collective is far more important than the individual. Now the person becomes defined by society rather than as an individual person. So so individual identity doesn't actually hold very much weight Your identity is instead defined by the society that you're in and your contribution to that society's flourishing if we take a kind of an Eastern spiritualist view of the world So if my worldview is spiritualism that says that the physical world is an illusion. Now I'm actually going to say that you as a person are not your physical makeup at all. You're ⁓ the divine essence that's within you, right? Like as we start to kind of unpack all these different worldviews and then what it says a person is, we start to see the consequences that come down the road. And the time in which we live now, that is a very existential, emotion oriented, internal reality kind of worldview. We're going to say that the human person at that point is whatever you feel that you are. And so then the conversations about gender, well, what do you feel that your gender is? Sexual orientation, well, what do you feel? Right, all of that is just the consequence of the worldview that's behind it that has consequences that now leads to the way that we talk about people. And so what we really need is we need as Christians to say, what is a biblical view of personhood so that we can be people according to the way that scripture says we should be people? I will not be a biblically oriented person when I have embraced ideas that are contrary to what scripture says about us as people. Well, we are certainly going to jump into that because we want to have a biblical worldview. ⁓ As you said, it's consequential for the way we think and live and understand. Before we jump in, though, ⁓ I just want to mention that this is not only a relevant topic to us all, but it's especially relevant because it is the research topic that you've chosen for your doctorate. So you are swimming in all of these ⁓ questions and answers and this information right now as you finish up your doctoral program and your dissertation. Why of all the topics you could have chosen did you choose this topic? Yeah and really I could have chosen any topic but I remember years ago ⁓ it feels like a lifetime ago at this point but I was I was sitting in a church service listening to the sermon. And as I was listening to the to the way the preacher was speaking, the outline that was up on the screen, the variation in tone and using of illustrations and nonverbal communication that he was using. I had this moment where I thought so much of the communication that's happening right now is what we've learned is effective for us to know things and remember things, especially. And that research has come out of learning theory, cognitive science, ⁓ interpersonal communication studies. And a lot of it is a lot of the ways that we understand that people learn and they remember is rooted in our understanding of our physical makeup. Yet what he was communicating was spiritual truth that shapes us as people who are to reflect Christ. And I remember sitting there in that sermon thinking, so how do these two things work together? Because I had, I had grown up in, in what philosophers call body soul dualism. So the view that you, we have a body and a soul. It's very common view, ⁓ throughout the ages and, but a lot of times in the body soul dualism discussion that human beings have a body and a soul. ⁓ the two are, are almost talked about as if they oppose one another as if there isn't overlap between them. And in that moment, I was thinking this really suggests that there is overlap between how my body works, how my brain works and how my soul works. These, this material reality and this immaterial reality, they seem to be working together that as I am engaging information with my brain at the same time, it is impacting my spiritual state. And so that kind of set me on this long road of of study and research and writing to really answer the questions, okay, what is a person biblically and how? shaped holistically. A lot of times we hear holistic and we think about like holistic health. ⁓ But to be shaped holistically is just to say you are more than just a body. You're a whole person. So what does it mean to shape the whole person unto maturity in Christ? And so that's actually the topic of my dissertation that I'm finishing up is what is a whole person? And how is that whole person shaped under maturity so that we don't neglect an essential aspect of our spiritual formation, but we actually look at the person as God made them and say, I want all of you to be shaped under maturity in Christ. I don't want to neglect part of who you are as a person by prioritizing and focusing only on one aspect of your human being. you We are glad to be benefiting from the wealth of work you've done in this area and there's a lot to unpack as you touched on a couple of big sections of information there and I think we'll plan to do that probably over multiple conversations in the coming weeks, which I'm really excited about because there's a lot to dig into. ⁓ As we talk about first framing this whole conversation in a biblical worldview we wouldn't as we always do here go to the source of truth in scripture and I'm assuming if we're talking about humans we are gonna go back to creation and are we jumping into Genesis one to start okay and anybody who's around anybody who's been around harvest for very long knows it's not gonna take very long for us anyway yeah but yeah so I think it's it's helpful I'll just read it ⁓ Genesis chapter one, God creates in six days, completes creation by resting on the seventh. And on the sixth day, he creates the beast of the land and mankind. And when we get to the creation of mankind, we read Genesis chapter one, verse 26 through 28. Then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man. in his own image in the image of God he created him male and female he created them and 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 There is about 50 pages in my dissertation that is focused on those three verses. We're not going to cover all of it in our time together, but I think that there are some things that are really important to highlight from there. ⁓ If we're going to understand what it means to be human. First, when God says in verse 26, let us make man in our image after our likeness. There is two words that are used there that have similar meanings, but there is a distinction between the two where they're not synonyms for one another, but they mutually inform one another. So image and likeness in the Hebrew language, image is a Hebrew word that Essentially is is used to refer to maybe a statue or a picture. It is a physical thing that Reminds the people who see it of the one that it is of So you think about a king and they're in in his kingdom In the ancient world there would be statues of that king to remind the people in that place that that was their king though He was not physically present there the the the image the statue functioned as a visible reminder to the people of who the king was So that though they were far away from his throne They still knew he reigns over that land. That's that's the the word there ⁓ Like this is is a little bit different We see the word likeness show up again in Genesis 5 when Adam... is the father of Seth and we're told that Adam fathered Seth in his likeness. So when we see likeness used in the Old Testament, it is almost always referring to this one comes from another in a relationship of sonship. a ⁓ easy example whenever whenever Caleb, my son, stands next to me. People often say the same thing. They'll say, he looks just like you. Yes, he does. And what they're not saying is he is my twin. What they're saying is when I look at him, there's no mistake that he is your son. Okay, so we take those two words together. God says, let us create man in our image after our likeness. What's being communicated is that mankind is going to be a physical reminder of who reigns and that is God. And the way that mankind relates to God is in a relationship of father to child. So. ⁓ The first human beings are the first children of God. that ⁓ there is a family unit in which God is the father and those who come from him are his children. But they are not simply part of the family of God. They serve a purpose. And that purpose is to reflect God to the rest of creation so that all of creation knows who reigns and that's God. And this is what's called the Imago Dei, the image of God ⁓ in Christian theology. It's just the idea that there is a significant, there is a significant reality for humankind that is not true of anything else in all of creation. Nothing else is given this designation in creation, only mankind. And so you if you were going to start with with what it means to be human, we have to start from the place of saying, well, to be human is to be image and likeness. To be human is to be ⁓ the physical reminder of the reign of God over all the world. and to relate to God in a relation of father and son or father and children. And my initial thoughts right away are, of course, that is what Satan would want to attack and confuse. That's right. Of course. Yeah. How can I create confusion? How can I minimize reminders that God is the king of the universe? These people are reflecting that. ⁓ Of course, that would be the area that he would choose to attack and confuse. And you see that only two chapters later. Absolutely. Where is the place that Satan comes to try to undermine God's good creation but the man and the woman. And in his temptation of the man and the woman it goes directly at their role as being image and likeness. Calls into question God's word. Did God really say this? No. That's not what's gonna happen. God's, God's lying to you. God's holding something back from you, right? That's an attack on likeness. He's not a good father to you. He's keeping things from you. And then if you're gonna be a visible reminder to all of creation that God reigns, how are you gonna do that? You're gonna do that by living according to God's word. And so what does he attack? He attacks God's word. No, God said this. That's not true. Here's what's really going to happen if you eat of that tree. So he tempts them to disobey God's word so that they no longer are reflecting the reign of God. And he, ⁓ and he attacks the character of God as a loving father, causing them to doubt God's good provision. And the outworking of that is what all kinds of ways that we live against the truth of God's Word in how we try to define being human and we relate to one another and to God in broken ways because we do not see him as a good heavenly father. Like it's absolutely right that the thing that you would expect Satan to attack is the role of mankind in creation and scripture shows us that's exactly what he does. Let's talk. Can we talk a little bit more about what it means to reflect God? Because that is so important and yet seems so huge. In what ways do we reflect him? And is this like a mirror image? You talked about a statue and a picture. So it made me think of even more. I know you said it's a reminder to people, but it's not just like a token like, oh, here's my grandfather's watch for me to remember him. ⁓ There's something about it that captures the essence of him in it, like in a statue or in a photo. So it seems like there's a lot there to start unpacking about how we actually reflect God. Yeah. So let's think about reflection in things that we understand, a reflection ⁓ in our own lives. You think about a mirror, you stand in front of a mirror and you're seeing your reflection. You're not seeing you, you're seeing your reflection. A lot of times I'll ask when you look in a mirror, are you seeing yourself? And people will say, yes. I would have said yes. But you're not, you're not, you're seeing your reflection. And here's the reason why you know you're not seeing you. One, if you walk away, does the reflection stay? It doesn't. So the reflection is dependent upon you. You're not dependent upon the reflection. The reflection is dependent upon you. Second, can you see everything there is to know about you in that reflection? No, you can't. If I see my own reflection, it says nothing about my preferences. It says nothing about my hobbies. It says nothing about the things that have my affections. ⁓ So what is it reflecting? It's reflecting only what it's intended to reflect. So the reflection is dependent on you. reflection can only show what it's intended to reflect about you and third I can destroy that reflection in two ways I can break the mirror or I can kill the person now in those two ways of destroying that reflection we can see a complete difference in the value of the two things. If I break a mirror, I've made a mess. But if I kill a person, I've committed a capital offense. There's no law against breaking a mirror. So we can see that then not only is the reflection dependent on the one that it's reflecting, not only can it only reflect what it's designed to reflect. Reflection is inherently less valuable than the thing that it's reflecting Well, if we take the word image which really is to reflect it's it's to Visibly embody to visibly display the word reflect I think is the best word to capture what the Hebrew word there is communicating If mankind is the image of God to reflect God we are dependent on him to properly reflect him. I cannot reflect God if I am not dependent upon him in order to reflect him, which means that reflecting him will necessarily involve me living in such a way that's consistent with who he is. If I'm living in such a way that is contrary to who he is, I am not reflecting him because I'm not living in dependence on him. We were made to be dependent on God. second piece if I'm the image of God and so I'm made to reflect him I won't reflect everything about him I will only reflect what I'm made to reflect there are attributes that God has that you and I don't have there are attributes that God has that you and I do have and we are made to reflect those things then third as the image I am valuable but I am less valuable than God we get it wrong when we think that we are more valuable than God. So before we can ever talk about the things that we reflect about God and what it looks like to reflect, and we need to understand the limitations and the nature of a reflection. It's dependent. It can only reflect what it's made to reflect and it is inherently less valuable. And when we put ourselves in our proper place as people, then we can say, all right, then that means that my existence as a person must be dependent on God. I must look at my life and ask, how has God made me to reflect Him? And I must see him as being infinitely more valuable than me, therefore worthy of reflecting. And if I am reflecting him who is infinitely more valuable than me, my life will actually be more in line with what I was made to be in the first place, which will be a greater life. It will be a greater existence. doesn't mean it'll be an easy life, but it will be, it will be the definition of fulfilling because I will be living for truly what is greater than myself and that is God who I was made to reflect. So if we then say, okay then what does that mean? What does that mean to reflect Him? I that in the text itself, in Genesis 1, 26 through 28, there are three things that we can understand are involved in reflecting God. And theologians have written about these for centuries, mean, going all the way back to, in Christian theology, I mean, all the way back to the first and second centuries. The first, is because I love alliteration, they all start with R, though theologians don't use these terms. ⁓ first is resemblance. We are made to resemble God because we are we are made in his likeness to relate to him as father and child and because we're made to reflect him that means we should resemble him to resemble him. Remember God is spirit John chapter 4 verse 24 so it does not mean we physically look like God. ⁓ To resemble a God who is spirit is to possess the ⁓ characteristics and attributes that make his nature visible. That might sound complicated and so I'll try to explain it a little bit. The way that most theologians throughout the centuries have argued for this view, often the term used for it is the structuralist view. We are made up of things that God is made up of. is that our ability to use rational thought, our intellect. sentience, our self-awareness, our ability to reflect, to look ahead, to look back. Those are things that the animal world doesn't have, yet we do. So to really put it in the simplest terms, to resemble God is to think like God. The more that my thinking is in line with the way that God thinks, the more that I am reflecting God. The second way is the second R. is representation. So we resemble God and we represent Him. So to represent God is to be in a physical world, present physically in such a way that everything around you sees that you belong to God. You think about ⁓ an ambassador is sent to represent a ruler from somewhere. Well, that's what we see. in Genesis 1, when God says, us make man in our own image after our likeness and let them have dominion, let them rule. Well, if ruling, having dominion over creation is a part of being the image and likeness of God, well then there's going to be a physical presence in a physical world through which you and I exercise that dominion as representatives of God. So we think like God and we physically live in a way that represents God. And then third, R is relational. So we represent God, we resemble God, and we relate like God. So we're shown a little hint of that in verse 27. So God created man in his own image in the image of God. He created him male and female he created them there is a a ⁓ gendered aspect to the image of God male and female and in that gendered aspect of the image of God there is a relationship between them inherent in being human is relationship and so mankind then is to relate to God. as his image and as the father-son relationship, but we're also to relate to one another. And if I'm resembling God, if I'm thinking like him, and if I'm representing God, I'm living like him, then I'm going to relate to God rightly and I'm going to relate to other people rightly. All of that is wrapped up in that word, image, in Genesis 1, 26. That is a lot, yes. so helpful and I think that... You know, I'm I'm hopeful. was certainly thinking as you were describing this, and I'm hopeful that our church body, the people that are listening are also hearing that there is no purposeful life apart from the truth that we are unpacking here in God's word about what it means to be human, that starting anywhere else besides God and his glory and his intention for our existence. ⁓ We are going to have an incorrect, unfulfilling life. And it goes back to what we talked about at the beginning. How is it possible that there's so much confusion and contradictions around our understanding of what it means to be human? And as we have walked through each of these points, you can hear that it's because we have looked away from the truth in God's Word. We have looked away from God Himself. and looked inward and that when we are looking to ourself and our own feelings our own thoughts our own ideas about what should be we go woefully off course yeah and you think about those three things now let's bring Genesis 3 into the equation mankind rebels that brings brokenness and sin into the world it's not that the image went away So now rather than resembling God by thinking like him, my thinking is darkened and claiming to be wise, I become foolish and exchange the image of God for lies and things resembling animals and man. Right. Paul uses that language in Romans one. And what he's saying is because we have turned from the truth of who God is, we now think differently and that thinking drives us. to all kinds of flawed ideas. If I am thinking differently, now I'm no longer representing God in my physical place in this world. I am instead representing the world. I will become just like everything else around me rather than having dominion over the earth in a way that represents God. The broken world will have dominion over me. that will impact my relationships. My relating to God will be rebellion against God. My relating to people will be rather than relating according to the truth, it will be relating according to the lies that I've embraced. The fall impacts my humanity just as much as creation does. Creation gives us the normative design of God for how we're supposed to function. The fall fractures all of it. and then we look to Jesus. is the one who reconciles us to God, who restores us to God. He takes what is broken in us and recreates it. Well, we're told in Colossians that Jesus is the image of the invisible God. Hebrews chapter one that he is the exact imprint of the Father's nature. That sounds really familiar. He is the image of the invisible God. He perfectly reflects God. He's also the perfect son of God so perfectly imaging God perfectly in his likeness Well, if we're gonna use image language like scripture does to refer to Jesus We can take those three Rs from Genesis 1 and we can look at Jesus and ask does he do those things perfectly Does he resemble God? Thinking the way that God thinks. Yes, he does perfectly so much so Does he represent God perfectly? Yes, he does. He represents God to us, but he also represents us to God as he takes our place, living perfect righteousness that we couldn't live and takes our place on the cross, dying in perfect substitution, the death that we deserve. Does he relate to God and to others perfectly? Yes, he does. So he is the perfect image of God. That's why Paul used uses in Romans 5 the language of Jesus being the second Adam and in first Corinthians 15 where the first Adam failed the second Adam gained victory where the first Adam brought sin the second Adam covers sin where the first Adam did not live up to his responsibility to image God the second Adam did and then Paul tells us in Colossians chapter 3 that we are being conformed unto that image. So that means that as we are remade in Christ as a new creation, our imaging of God is also being renewed so that we can live the way that we were meant to to properly reflect God. I think it would be very easy for a Christian to look at Genesis chapter 1 and say, but like, you know, but Jesus came and so my sins are forgiven and that doesn't really have any impact on on me now and I would say no no no no that's being the image of God is actually a part of you being a human being which means that God's design for us in Genesis 1 has everything to do with what it means to follow Jesus today because we look to Jesus as the author and perfecter of our faith who is making us by his spirit look more and more like him to make us into a proper image of God through the new creation that comes through the gospel. And praise God that that is true because I think it can be discouraging to live in this broken world to see and experience the implications of getting it wrong, of turning our eyes from the truth of God's Word ⁓ and allowing a misshapen worldview and identity to rule our lives and to certainly see it ruling the lives of those around us ⁓ but I found so much hope in what you said several times that an essential part of us truly living in the image of God is being dependent on him and I just hope that people hear that and ⁓ are hopeful that they can turn and surrender and submit again to the truth of God's Word and the true purpose for their lives for being a human being created by him to reflect him accurately to this world and that in doing so they can know that it will require them being dependent on him and that is a very good thing. For those ⁓ that have specific questions or curiosities about the topics that we discussed today, noting that we will go further into some other areas of this conversation in coming weeks. Do you have other resources that you would point them to? I'm sure you have a wealth of them from your studying. And so you could just point us to a few digestible ones for us normal people. Yeah. So I there are a lot that I won't recommend for no other reason than there. very complicated But kind of the gold standard ⁓ Image of God book is by Anthony Hukma The book is just created in his own image, I think, or created in God's image, something like that. If the title sounds like that and the author's name sounds like that, you're probably right. ⁓ But it's kind of just the, it's such a good digestible book on the image of God because he covers the biblical text in one chapter, then he covers the theological arguments in another chapter. Then he talks about the implications for how we view ourselves and how we view God and how we view issues of... gender and all kinds of things. And he does a really good job of using scholarship. without making you feel like you have to be a scholar to understand it. So I would recommend that. And then I used to work for the Colson Center for Christian worldview. And while I was there, we were working on something called the identity project that is focused on having ⁓ a ⁓ Christian identity in terms of how you view the human person and how you view yourself. And what I actually really love about it is so it's all videos. ⁓ And it's kind of like masterclass, like that kind of platform. ⁓ But there's all kinds of different subject matter. It's a really great resource for parents. If you have kids that are asking questions related to being human and maybe you're sitting there like, don't even know how to have this conversation. There are videos you can watch and it can give you knowledge and truth. You can also give you just practical advice on how to talk to your kids If you're struggling with your own humanity if you're struggling with your own identity There's content there for that as well. So it's called the identity project I think that's a really helpful resource, especially for for the the non-readers among us But really I think the best resource for growing in being human is scripture because we're made to reflect God according to his word. And if we're going to resemble God in that we in our thinking, we are aligned with him. That thinking has to be renewed because our default is to to think the way the world thinks. That's what Paul says in Romans 12 that you be renewed in your mind. How? So that you can discern what the will of God is, what is good and pleasing and perfect. So if I am going to reflect God as his image bearer who's being recreated unto the image of Christ, it will necessarily involve having my mind renewed by his word so that I can think like him more, because that will then lead to to me living like Him and me relating like Him because my mind is renewed according to the truth. Thanks, Stefan. And thank you for listening to the Harvest After Sunday podcast where we help you grow into the image of Christ by applying the truths of His Word for His mission. We'll see you Sunday.