THE IMPORTANCE OF “IMAGE”

Genesis 1:26-27
Bob Bonner
November 9, 2003

Some have said, “The Bible is like a love letter from God to the believer, and should be read that way.” Typically, many of us do read the Bible that way. We pick it up and begin reading it, perhaps with the idea in mind that we were God’s primary intended audience when that particular book of the Bible was written. We were certainly one of His intended audiences. But I would suggest that if we read Genesis today, as though we were God’s only intended audience, we might tend to draw attention to and emphasize parts of Genesis that may not have been intended to draw as much attention as we give to it. As a result, we may miss that which God did want emphasized and in turn applied to our lives.

Recently, I was lead to read and study Genesis as though I was one of the first Hebrews to hear Moses read this book, post- Exodus and prior to the Hebrews entering the Promised Land. It made a significant difference as to what I sensed God was trying to point out to these Hebrews through whom God had chosen to birth a nation. For instance: Today, when you hear people teach on Genesis 1-2, what is emphasized?  Characteristically, it is the scientific reliability of the Genesis account of creation. But I would suggest to you that was not the emphasis or the most important issue on the minds of the first readers of Genesis.

So, what was on their minds? What should we emphasize when studying Genesis 1-2?  That’s what I want to begin considering this morning.

No one knows exactly when Genesis was completed by Moses, but I presume that it was written sometime after the Exodus and obviously before he died and the Hebrews entered the Promised Land.  For the sake of argument, let’s say it was completed six weeks after the Israelites passed through the Red Sea.

I invite you for the next few moments to imagine that you are a Hebrew slave. You have recently been freed from slavery. Let’s say that Moses comes before you and three million other Hebrews to read Genesis.  It’s hot, you are outdoors and dressed protectively from the sun.  You find a rock to sit upon and listen as Moses speaks.  Try to put yourself in the Hebrews sandals.  Your life is in a major transition.  Three months ago, you were a slave making bricks 18 hours a day for Pharaoh’s various building projects. What are you thinking now?  What issues are foremost on your mind?  What questions do you have to ponder for the first time in your life, now that you are not working from dawn til dusk? 

Here are a few relevant facts that we know must be concerning you.  You, your parents, your grandparents and previous other extended family members for the past 400 years have been living as slaves to the Egyptians.  Up until the past few days, you have had no country to call your home.  You have known serious oppression by a cruel task master.   Eighty years ago, racial tensions were high.  The Egyptians feared that you had become too numerous, and although you were still slaves, you represented a powerful block of a foreign people, that if organized could be a major threat to Egypt.  Out of fear, they decided do some population control.  Many of your sons, nephews and brothers were ordered killed shortly after birth. Their killing off your family members was not much different from the mass murders of the Nazis regime.

As a Hebrew slave, you have had no rights and no private property. You have been mercilessly beaten.  No one has been there to stand up for you.  While others are living in wealth and splendor, you are dirt poor struggling to survive. You feel alone and hopeless.

You have heard about your ancestor, Abraham, and His God.  But nothing has been heard from this God for hundreds of years, until lately.  Your fellow Hebrews have prayed and talked much about this God, but there has not been one shred of proof for more than 400 years that He exists.  That is, until lately.  Sure, something or someone parted the waters; someone caused all of those plagues.  But Egypt’s magicians had some pretty powerful tricks they could play, as they did with Moses and his staff.  So, is this really the God of Abraham’s doing?  Is the God of Abraham just a little bigger than these other Egyptian gods?  Is there some other god who will come along and strip the title of being number one away from Abraham’s or Moses’ God?   Is Abraham’s god really any different from the gods of Egypt?

Who is this god? Is He true?  Is He worthy to be trusted and followed?  Or will He abandon us as quickly as the Egyptian gods have abandoned them?

For centuries, you have been surrounded by a culture that worshiped many pagan gods who ruled by fear and death.  If these fickle gods were real and true, which everyone around you believed they were, then your life meant nothing.  They didn’t care about you.  You have no hope of advancement as a slave, no hope of happiness or good blessings in your life.  If all that was said about their gods was true, you had nothing to look forward to but more despair and eventual death.  Is this Yahweh any different?

To the Egyptians - those in power - their animals had more worth than you.  Who’s to say that under Yahweh, you have any more worth than a water buffalo or a spotted owl?  Every day you awoke to the same message about yourself: “I have no worth; no reason to hope; nothing about which I can look forward to and say, ‘This is good.’  Nothing!”

For just a moment, step back into Grants Pass and today:  Although many in this valley and some of you in this room have much more to be thankful for in comparison to what those Jews experienced, deep down you sometimes feel worthless too.  Life gets tough and full of surprises: sudden deaths; sudden illnesses; sudden financial reversals; broken relationships.  There are world philosophies and animal rights groups that would want you to think that you are just an animal like the animals that they say deserve to be protected - in some cases, even at your own expense.  Like the Jews, your life doesn’t matter much or make much sense.  There is nothing to hope for, nor is there a purpose for living.

Okay, back to your turbans, sandals and the rock you are sitting on, somewhere near the Sinai Peninsula.  Suddenly, in this past month, this God of Abraham who has been silent for centuries speaks up.  He has raised up Moses who leads you out of Egypt to begin a new life.  This God wants to be the King over your new land and nation that He has promised to give you, but you have never seen it. 

You naturally start questioning: “Can this be true?”  It’s like waking up from a nightmare, and you suddenly have hope.  You don’t really know why, but something good has happened to you.  You are free, no longer a slave.  You are going to have you own home, your own farm or family business.  But you don’t really know how or why.

It is to you that God first writes Genesis.  As He begins Genesis, He wants you to understand Who He is, how it is that He has chosen you to be His people and He wants you to know what your purpose is for being rescued from the Egyptians.  He wants you to understand why and what has happened previously in history that has lead up to your previous 400 years of slavery, and now, to this freedom.  He wants you to know how to get the most out of life, now that you are free and headed to your new home. 

So, He chooses to begin with Genesis 1.   In Genesis 1 He gives you your first glimpse of Himself.  He is “Elohim”, the creator of everything.  Although Genesis was not written with the purpose of being a science book to explain every aspect of creation, it is scientifically infallible.  So, why write about creation first?

There are many reasons, but one, for sure is, that He wants to dispel all the lies and theories that there are many gods and not just one.  He wants you, who have been bombarded with the teachings of pagan gods and a false religion, to know that you and this world is not an accident, but it was created by Him, for Him and for His purposes.  He is the ultimate One to whom all will one day answer.  He is not like one of those fairy tale pagan capricious fickle gods.  He is personal, real and trustworthy. 

His very name, “Elohim” describes one who is intensely majestic, sovereign and powerful.  He is the creator, the first, the last and the only God.  He owns or is the possessor of heaven and earth.  He is the one who defeated all of the so called gods of Egypt, the one who parted the Red Sea, the one who provided you with manna, quail and water to drink out of nowhere in the desert...this is Elohim

This morning, however, you, my Hebrew friend still sitting on that rock, I want you to look at just two verses that touch on the sixth day, and God’s creation of our first ancestors, Adam and Eve.  For in taking a close look at their creation and purpose, you will find that indeed your life is good and filled with hope for something even better, regardless of how hard that rock is that you are sitting on.

As we look at Genesis 1:26-27, keep in mind that on this sixth day of creation, God has left His best and most important creation to last. Everything He has created thus far has been in preparation for this one last creation.  We read in verse 26, “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’  And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

I don’t want to spend much time on this now.  We will return to this subject when we get to Genesis 2.  But take note of first how God describes Himself and then how He describes His creation, “man.”

God is one, yet, He speaks of Himself as “Us.”  God is one, but made up of three persons.  I do not nor will any of us ever fully understand this or be able to accurately explain it, yet it is true.  God is one being, but made up of three persons: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Each has a different function, and each is equally important.  Each works in unity, one with the another.  Each is inseparable from the other.

Similarly, “man” is one, but made up of two persons, both created in God’s image!  Notice God’s use of the terms, “them” and “male and female” in describing “man.”  Man is not just male, but male and female. Furthermore, neither male or female alone, perfectly explain God’s image.  Only male and female, who come from “man” combined give us a picture of Who God is, and what He is like.  Although God calls Himself “Father” and Jesus was a man, God is asexual.  He is neither male or female.  But, God has both male and female attributes.

That’s one reason why when males and females stand alone, they feel incomplete. That’s why young men and young women long for one another to complete themselves, to be one flesh.  It’s not just sexual.  They are not just looking for companionship; otherwise, we would all be satisfied with the buddies we have who are of our same sex.   But due to the Fall, complications set in, which we will not get into at this point...only to say that what we see of marriage today is God’s intended picture and pleasure of the completeness of human life, one man and one woman together.  Same sex marriages were never God’s design and distort the accurate picture of Who He is.

In addition, these two persons, like the three persons of the godhead, are different in their functions and roles, but they are both equally important to God.  Right here, God’s Word exalts both male and female, and places them together, side by side, as the pinnacle of God’s creation.  As a team, they share fully as fellow heirs to rule in harmony together. 

That which highlights their uniqueness and value to God is seen in God’s pronouncement in verse 31.  Five times previous to this day in creation, when God finished a work, He declared that “it is good.”  But when it came to creating man and woman, He declared, “it is very good!”  Hence, man and woman, each is equally a precious object of God’s love, made in His “image-likeness.”

Now to you, a Jew on a rock in the desert who has felt uncared-for and that God was distant, this is shockingly good news.  Why?  Because possibly for the first time, you realize that God is personally concerned and cares about you.  The proof that He cares and values you is that He honored you by creating you in His image.  No other creature or creation of God is said to be created in His image.  Thus, you have incredible worth to God.

What does it mean to be created in His “image” and “likeness”?  It may interest you that nowhere else in the Old Testament do these two nouns, “image” and “likeness” appear together.  They are basically interchangeable words.  However, to avoid the wrongful implication that man is a precise copy of God, in the fleshly or physical state, the second term “likeness” is used.  We are not an exact physical representation of God, anymore than a statue is an exact physical representation of a human being. A human being is alive, a statue is not. Likewise, we are physical in nature, but God is spiritual in nature.  Hence, these two terms together are describing human life as a reflection of God’s immaterial being, His spiritual nature. 

In Genesis 2:7, when it says that God “breathed the breath of life,” His very spirit into mankind, it is also a reference to His placing in us His image-likeness.  Consequently, we humans, different from the animals, have a spirit and thus can have fellowship with God.  Animals do not have a spirit and thus lack the capacity for having fellowship with God. 

To be created in God’s image means that we share in the attributes of God that allow us to have the capacity to understand ethical and moral sensitivities.  We know the difference between good and evil, thus we have a conscience; thus, we have the capacity to represent God in all of creation. 

We know from the Bible that God is a Person who has emotions and values.   He makes choices, appreciates beauty, demonstrates creativity, makes distinctions between right and wrong, loves and even sacrifices Himself for the sake of others.  And so are we also created in that image-likeness.  We see this illustrated in Genesis 2, in the description of Adam’s life early on.

For example, in 2:9, we notice that, along with God, Adam also shared a capacity to appreciate things like the trees that are “pleasing to the sight.” 

God delights in His work and knew that man created in His image would be dissatisfied without work, so He (2:15) gave Adam the responsibility of taking care of the Garden.

God uses His intellect and likewise gave Adam an opportunity at the very beginning to use his intellect.  In 2:19, Adam used his intellectual capacities to examine all of the animals and give them names.

Our special creation gives each human being, including you, sitting on that rock, individual worth and value.  Because God made us, and made us like Himself, you and I are precious beings.  Further evidence of our worth and value is mentioned in this meditation of David, found in Psalm 8:3, 6: “When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars which You have set in place; what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You care for him?  You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.  You made him ruler over the works of Your hands; You put everything under his feet.”

After the Fall, man still holds value before God.  This truth is the basis upon which God instituted capital punishment for murder as the ultimate crime.  For murder is the taking of the life of a person who is an image bearer of God. 

James pointed out in his epistle the wrongful inconsistency in which we treat one another because we have forgotten the truth about our value of being created in the image of God.  He tells us in James 3:9 that shamefully we often out of one side of our mouths, bless God and then, with the same tongue, out of the other side of our mouths we curse men “who have been made in the likeness of God.”

Hence, whether before the Fall or after the Fall, we are still created in the image of God and thus, we are precious to God.  You are of great value to Him regardless of any past wrongs, bad choices, sins or mistakes you have made.  Therefore, the foundation upon which we should view ourselves and others is founded upon this truth that we are created in God’s image.

Our value is not based on our intellect, age, beauty, accomplishments, status, collection of this world’s goods, marital status or our portfolios.  The only correct foundation for one’s sense of value, the beginning place to understanding your identity is that you are created in the image of God.

Understanding that we are created in God’s image, we must also recognize from this verse that we were not created in God’s image without a purpose.  Up until now, sitting on that rock, you, the Hebrew, had every reason to question whether or not your life has purpose, but not now.  For God reveals in verse 26, that we were not created by Him, placed on this earth, saved by Jesus Christ to do whatever we please.  He has a specific purpose for our lives.  What’s that purpose?  We were created in God’s image so that we might “rule” or have dominion over creation. That word “rule” is used only of human beings, not God or angels.  It suggests authority as well as responsibility.  It means to subdue or make determinations on how it is managed or cared for.

Regardless of whether we are talking before the Fall or after the Fall, regardless of which century we live in, each of us has a purpose: to so live our lives to manage this world for God’s purposes.  Only then, we will find a deep sense of satisfaction in that our lives have counted.

As Christians, bought with a price, our assignment is to be ambassadors of Christ to our dying, confused and hopeless world.  In the future, God tells us that we will rule with Christ in the new world.

Like those Jews who knew that something miraculous had happened around them, but who didn’t understand why, or Who is at the controls, we have people living around us who have no hope and don’t know why they are here or what they are to do next with their lives.  You have a message of hope.  What’s that message? Take a look at the following chart:

HEBREW THOUGHT

Before Genesis After Genesis God is impersonal God personally creates us You are nothing special You are God’s image-bearer God is distant/uncaring God rescues and has a plan for us Life was without hope We are going to the “promised land” Life was without purpose Created to rule/rescue

This chart is designed to contrast what must have been going through the Hebrews’ minds before they read Genesis for the first time and after they had read Genesis. The column on the left is what they were probably thinking about God, life and themselves before God raised up Moses and delivered them. The column on the right was their new perspective on life after they had been rescued and after they had read Genesis for the first time. The right hand column reveals some of that which would be their message to the next generation and to the world.

First, after having lived as slaves for 400 years, they felt that if God did exist, He wasn’t one to be personal and caring about them. But after reading Genesis, they discover that God is not only a person, but the One who deliberately chose to create them.  Whereas, before, they didn’t think of themselves as anything special and maybe even of less worth than some animals who were being treated better than they, now they realize that they are God’s chosen image bearers.  Before, God appeared to be distant and uncaring.  But now, they realize that even through 400 years of slavery, He cared and He had a plan.  He sent them a savior, Moses, who was a picture of the Messiah to come and His plan was to take them through the rugged wilderness of this world and drop them off into His promised land.

Whereas, before, they lived without hope because of the difficulties they faced, now they have hope!  There is a better life and place than what they had been living in.  To get to that new place, the Promised Land, it may be difficult, but it will be worth it.  Likewise for us today, this world is harsh, but if we keep our eyes on the goal, God’s new promised land, the new heaven and the new earth, with Christ we can overcome all the harshness of this fallen world.

Whereas life was without purpose before, now that we have read Genesis 1, we discover that we have a purpose.  Our purpose is to rule, that is manage our lives such that we reach out and rescue others in the name of Christ who, like us, were without a savior, without hope and without purpose.

Now, let’s take off your imaginary turban, sandals and get comfortable in your chair.  Let’s talk about you.  Do you ever feel that God must not care about you?  Do you ever think that you have sinned too much and are beyond forgiveness or ever being of use to God?  Then consider Eve.  We haven’t looked at her yet, but in Genesis 3 we find her living in a perfect world where she chooses to ignore God’s warning to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Yet, when we get to Genesis 3, we see that God’s immediate response to both Adam and Eve is not to destroy them but to rescue their sinful lives.  His love for them and us never changes.  They were still precious in His sight. 

You are no different.  God went to great lengths to rescue you from your sin, and to redeem your life that you might live for Him and with purpose.

Furthermore, knowing that all human beings are created in the image of God, you and I can never again look at others or ourselves as valueless or base.  Not the aged, not the unborn, not the prisoner, not the addict, not the retarded and not your enemy.  Not the home-wrecker, not the thief who broke into your house, not even the one who raped you or abused you. 

We are all sinners, yet we all bear God’s image.  God wants all of us to know Him, find His forgiveness, experience His transforming work in our lives as we submit to Him and find purpose as we rule in this world.  Once you have found His forgiveness, then your purpose is to help others around you-- other image-bearers-- discover His forgiveness and life transforming power.

When you wake up every day, whether it is heading off to school or work, remember that your first purpose as an image-bearer and ruler/ambassador of Christ is not your school work or your job, but that you are to be on the look out and ready to share the word of hope you have in Christ with those who are confused, downtrodden and hopeless.  You are the messenger to explain what you have learned about the Creator’s love and purpose for their lives.

That was the message that first hit home with those Hebrews who read Genesis 1 for the first time, and it is to be the focus of all who read it today.

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