Made in God's Image: Part 1

What does it mean to be made in God's image? I am glad you asked!

It seems to me that we know that we are made in God's image, but whenever it comes down to it a lot of Christians have a hard time figuring out what that really means. My question to you is how do you answer that question? Do you use Scripture? Do you come up with an answer on your own?

Most importantly, do you go to Genesis 1 and 2 for the answer? It's there. It's easy to see it but we tend to never connect the dots unfortunately.

Let me start off, though, with a definition from a real smart guy named J. Richard Middleton. You wanna know how I know that he is smart? Whenever he graduated from high school, he decided to go to a college in Jamaica. I mean, who thinks of that? As I look back on my college experience I really wish I would have thought of that! Not that I have anything against St. louis, but I could have done my homework everyday on the beach! In my opinion, this guy is a genius.

Anyways, this is how he defines what it means to be made in the "image of God."

"the royal office or function of human beings as God's representatives and agents in the world, given authorized power to share in God's rule over the earth's resources and creatures."

At creation, God tells mankind to 1) be fruitful and multiply (fill the earth) and to 2) subdue creation. In other words, he tells humanity to reign with Him over His creation that He has made to take care of it and it's inhabitants. To love it as He loves it. It's like the kings in the middle ages who appointed lords to help them rule over the different districts in their kingdom. Now, that by no means made humanity equal with God, just as lords weren't equal to the kings in the middle ages. But, it is important to note that God didn't just create us to enslave us. No, He wants to share His reign over creation with humanity and was doing so until Adam and Eve chose to rebel against God (more on that in part 2).

This may be new for some people...to hear things worded this way. Some people have difficulty understanding the "reigning with God" aspect. Even though I will come back to this in Part 3, please note that God uses the word "rule" in Genesis 1:28.

We must also remind ourselves that God's definition of "ruling" isn't the same as ours. Again, humanity fell into sin...our view of what it means to be a ruler is messed up.

Jesus told His disciples in the Gospel that Mark wrote that:

"You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you." (10:42-43)

What's Jesus saying?

Even though they are regarded as rulers, they are oppressive.
They exercise authority over humanity in a way that God hasn't even done (more on that later)
You, the follower of Jesus of Nazareth, aren't to reign the way that they do.

For those who have ears to hear, let them hear.