As God created, I think it is extremely significant that of all the creatures, all the things that He created, only one is in His image. That is mankind. This has very much to do with the purpose God is working out.
I also think it is significant that of all the creatures God created only mankind is given dominion over anything else, over things both animate and inanimate as well. If we would quickly review this chapter, we would find in verse 12 we are given dominion over the plant life. In verse 20, it is birds. In verse 21, it is the sea creatures. In verse 24, it is the land creatures.
It is in verses 26 and 28 that we have the very first inkling of man's awesome potential. We are in His likeness. We are in His image. And we have been given dominion in order to carry that out. In His image - that is an awesome statement. Let him have dominion.
If you would care to look this word image up in the Hebrew, I do not think that you would find it to be very satisfying in terms of its definition, the kind of definition you would find in a dictionary. It merely means, a shadowing forth, a phantom, a sketch, an outline. It gives the impression of a mere shape, almost like a stickman - if I can use that kind of analogy. It also has a definition, though, that means whatever makes a man remarkable or procures respect. That is kind of interesting.
The word likeness, for those who deal in the meanings and applications of words, seem to feel that this word means nothing more than to be an intensification of the word image. Even though it is a different word, its meaning is very similar.
I think, just putting those two together, we would have to agree that the Hebrew shows very clearly that we are remarkable! Especially in comparison to plant life, to birds, to animal life, to insects, and to land animals. And it is because we are in the image of God that we are remarkable.
I am sure there is no argument from anyone who is within the sound of my voice that even though we are remarkable, we are merely an outline, a shadow, a mere copy or representation, a shadowing forth. We are illusory compared to God because He is the reality.
I still want to take an even closer look at this word image, because I wonder what kind of thought that comes to your mind in regard to the word image. Do you think of a mirror? It might depend upon your perspective of the word image. The word image in the United States in the last twenty or thirty years or so has taken on a deceptive application that obscures its true meaning. If that deceptive application gets in your mind between this and what God intends, it is going to skew you off so that you do not really catch even a glimmer of what God intends by this.
An image to an American has, over the past fifteen or twenty years, subtly come to mean, the illusion of what something is presented to be rather than the essence of what it really is.
In Hebrew, this word that is translated image is not a deceptive illusion. Image here means the likeness of one subject expressed in another. That is important. It means, the likeness of one subject [God] expressed in the other [man]. He is saying here, without saying it directly, that man is very much like God.
We use this meaning - the Hebrew meaning - frequently in the English in reference to family resemblance or characteristics. We say that a child is the spitting image of his father or his mother. What we are referring to might be facial features. It might be mannerisms of speech. It might be inflections. It might be posture, the way a person holds himself. It might be the way a person walks, a smile. It might be a gesture that is unconsciously expressed the way the family does it.
It is no illusion. It is the reality. It is the family trait. It is the essence of reality.
In what way is man in God's image? Our first tendency is to think of man in terms of form and shape as being in God's image. I do not feel that this is wrong. But I also … . . .
Is that any less clear than Genesis 1:26-27 which says that God has made man in His image and likeness? And yet people with church of God backgrounds take exception to that. But they will not take exception with an equally clear statement in Genesis 2 and 3 - something a little bit askew here.
Is it not much easier, safer, to believe what God says about Himself? After all, He is the author of the Book. And who should know more about Him than He Himself? He inspired it.
Now it is either believe what He says about Himself or imply that God isn't being open with us, that He is not giving us a clear disclosure. What they are saying is that He cannot really be what He says He is, and they say that the descriptive verses are merely figures of speech so that men might have something familiar - something from our own experience - to relate to Him.
This is especially true in light of the very first reference in the Bible in Genesis 1:26. Let us turn back there.
In Genesis 1:26 and 27, the first thing to do here is to look at this in its context. Here it is, the very first chapter in the Bible, and God is laying the foundation for what is going to follow. If the foundation is not laid correctly, then the whole rest of the building is crooked. What God is beginning to do here right in Genesis 1 is to establish our vision of what His purpose is and where we are headed with our lives, and being what we are, we need to have some insight into what He is. So He tells us right off the bat that we are made in His image and His likeness.
He contrasts us with the animals. Each one of them reproduces after their kind. And when they reproduce, they look like their parents. They look like each other. Do you see the very clear implication that God is reproducing Himself, and that His purpose is that we be exactly like Him when He does this reproducing? Even right now we are made in His image so that we will have the potential to be exactly like Him.
Virtually every explanation of these two verses begins with an assumption. When I say virtually every explanation, I am talking about many of the research materials that one would look into - commentaries, dictionaries of the Bible. The assumption is that God did not really mean what He clearly stated. Notice verse 27:
Verse 26 says the creation of man is about to occur. It is yet future. Verse 27 says that the creation is in the past tense. By the time the statement in verse 27 is done, man is already in His image. It is not something future. He is already in God's image. It is past tense. It is not an image and likeness in progress as in the creation of a character image, but within the context the image was already accomplished. A physical image and likeness of what God is has been made.
Who knows better? The God who authored the Book or the people that He used to write these things down, or people who are looking at it after the fact and have never seen God or heard His voice - people who are using a combination of Bible verses, metaphysics, philosophy, science, and assumption.
What is the assumption based on? It is usually on men's definition of the word spirit. They combine that with John 4:24 which says that God is Spirit. I will give you a typical sentence that is used in explanations of Genesis 1:26-27. I am going to quote this from Adam Clark and I chose him because it is so succinctly stated. So in Adam Clark's Commentary, Volume 1, Page 38, he states:
That is a direct contradiction based upon an assumption. It is based upon disbelief. Now this is typical. Certainly God does not have a material body, but that does not address the issue. The issue is whether He has a spiritual body which served as a model for mankind, and if He has a body - it has parts.
This is important because men within the church of God, church of God associations, are now telling members that God did not have form in mind at all in relation to this verse, but rather only character image. This is … . . .
Is that any less clear than Genesis 1:26-27 which says that God has made man in His image and likeness? And yet people with church of God backgrounds take exception to that. But they will not take exception with an equally clear statement in Genesis 2 and 3 - something a little bit askew here. So Satan used that ploy when he questioned God's clear statement about what they could eat and what they could not eat.
This is especially true in light of the very first reference in the Bible in Genesis 1:26. Let us turn back there.
In Genesis 1:26 and 27, the first thing to do here is to look at this in its context. Here it is, the very first chapter in the Bible, and God is laying the foundation for what is going to follow. If the foundation is not laid correctly, then the whole rest of the building is crooked. What God is beginning to do here right in Genesis 1 is to establish our vision of what His purpose is and where we are headed with our lives, and being what we are, we need to have some insight into what He is. So He tells us right off the bat that we are made in His image and His likeness.
He contrasts us with the animals. Each one of them reproduces after their kind. And when they reproduce, they look like their parents. They look like each other. Do you see the very clear implication that God is reproducing Himself, and that His purpose is that we be exactly like Him when He does this reproducing? Even right now we are made in His image so that we will have the potential to be exactly like Him.
Virtually every explanation of these two verses begins with an assumption. When I say virtually every explanation, I am talking about many of the research materials that one would look into - commentaries, dictionaries of the Bible. The assumption is that God did not really mean what He clearly stated. Notice verse 27:
Verse 26 says the creation of man is about to occur. It is yet future. Verse 27 says that the creation is in the past tense. By the time the statement in verse 27 is done, man is already in His image. It is not something future. He is already in God's image. It is past tense. It is not an image and likeness in progress as in the creation of a character image, but within the context the image was already accomplished. A physical image and likeness of what God is has been made.
Who knows better? The God who authored the Book or the people that He used to write these things down, or people who are looking at it after the fact and have never seen God or heard His voice - people who are using a combination of Bible verses, metaphysics, philosophy, science, and assumption.
What is the assumption based on? It is usually on men's definition of the word spirit. They combine that with John 4:24 which says that God is Spirit. I will give you a typical sentence that is used in explanations of Genesis 1:26-27. I am going to quote this from Adam Clark and I chose him because it is so succinctly stated. So in Adam Clark's Commentary, Volume 1, Page 38, he states:
That is a direct contradiction based upon an assumption. It is based upon disbelief. Now this is typical. Certainly God does not have a material body, but that does not address the issue. The issue is whether He has a spiritual body which served as a model for mankind, and if He has a body - it has parts.
This is important because men within the church of God, church of God associations, are now telling members that God did not have form in mind at all in relation to this verse, but rather only character image. This is important to us in relation to understanding the nature of God and getting a correct perspective of our vision of the goal and purpose of life itself. They are [associating Him with] being not much more than the Catholic beatific vision or with man becoming part of a vague, material blob without his independence within a constructive and developing family of creators.
We have got to relate this to Genesis 1:26-27. Does God have a body? … . . .
Here is the earliest indication we have from God's revelation of the purpose of creation. Can we say that it is really hidden? The only thing that really makes it hidden is the person's attitude toward what is written. If it is believed, it begins to become very simple. But, mankind is deceived, and will not believe it - these simple statements.
Now, what is the simple statement here? It is that mankind is created in the very image of the One doing the creating! It implies very strongly in context that we are created not after the animal kinds, but we are created after the God-kind. That is a conclusion that is very easily reached.
Now we do have things in common with animals - a chemical/electrical existence; we must breathe air, and eat food. There is a commonality of design. But, the Bible makes very clear that we are not in the image of some animal; we are in the image of God. Therefore, it is implying that there is some other resemblance that we have with the God-kind that separates us from the animal kind. Though the information is not given here, the connection that we have with God is that we have a spirit within us that the animals do not have. That makes us more closely resemble God than animals, even though we share some likeness with the animals.
Another thing that is here, and is very important to God's purpose, is that He said, Let them have dominion . . .. We find that not only is mankind created in the image of God, but that a major part of the purpose of the creation of mankind is to rule - to have dominion, to have authority.
As you can see, God is laying down the foundation so that we understand the path that we are to follow. It is going to have something to do with being God, and something to do with ruling. Once we begin to have the other pieces the conclusion becomes very obvious.
Think of this please in relation to Genesis 1:26 where mankind was given dominion. In the Old Testament it kind of describes that dominion as being nothing more than over animals - sheep and so forth as we saw in Psalm 8. Now we find that his dominion has been extended to over the entire universe.
With this sermon I want to establish that we are all thinking of the Big Goal. What is this goal as it is fixed in your mind? It is very important. You should be able to see how Genesis 1:26 at the beginning of the Book connects with Revelation 20 at the end of the Book. Man is given dominion, and then ultimately given dominion again, only of a much vaster scope. There is really no comparison between the two! But, if we are not faithful in taking care of what we are given dominion over now, then it is going to be very difficult for God to give us the vaster gift of dominion that He wants to give us in the future.
So, given the illustrations that we have seen so far, do we not see a purposeful creation with mankind given dominion and told to prepare through dressing and keeping, through growing and overcoming, by using one's gifts, and being faithful to the Word of God, for the purpose of a far expanded dominion in the Kingdom of God? Even as God the Father reigns, so will His sons in His dynasty that He is creating. But there is much to be accomplished in getting prepared for that. II Peter 3:18 tells us to grow. Matthew 5:48 tells us to become perfect (which does not mean without flaws, but fit for use; there is a bit difference between the two). I Peter 1:15 tells us to become holy because He is holy. Ephesians 4:11-13, 15 tells us to grow to the stature of the measure of the fullness of Christ.
From what is given in Scripture, we are born of God; we are to be God. And with that comes the inheritance of the promises, and a greatly expanded dominion that connects us with Genesis 1:26. In a nutshell, the whole thing is wrapped up there in a way, is it not? We are of the God-kind, and our potential is to be given dominion in His family over what He has created. Seek first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness. … . . .
I believe that this is God's specific purpose statement for the entire creation. That is, that everything that God did is focused in on this statement that He has made man in His image and I believe that it is from this point where we have the words image (which actually appears three different times there in those two verses), likeness, and dominion.
It is from this point, with this goal in mind, that the events that are recorded in the Bible - who was involved in them, why they happened, or why what did not happen - is reported. Though the term, God is reproducing himself never appears in the Bible, it becomes clear later on that indeed is what He is doing - God is reproducing after His kind, producing a family just like Him.
Now we have these terms image and likeness. In common everyday speech, we use terms like, Why, he is just in the spitting image of his father his mother. He looks just like his father or mother. These are common everyday terms. We may not use them everyday, but they are a part of our language and by them we mean that somebody is so much like another member of the family, that it is easily seen where the traits have come from.
Later on in the Bible, we see terms like brother, sister, father, mother, wife, sons, daughters, adoption, and family, but what is the image of God? Because we are physical, our first reaction is to always think or to look for something physical, meaning a form or a shape that will give us some idea, some concept, of what it is we are being made into, but there is none because that is not God's specific purpose.
If God gave us a form or a shape (for Himself) that is what we would concentrate on and we would be led away from the goal that He set. This is why such things as fashions or cosmetics are so important to us. We see what we consider to be beautiful, an ideal, and so we endeavor then to conform to it. But these are things are vain, even deceitful, to those things that have to do with God's purpose; they are purposeless as far as God's ordering of things.
There is God's purpose in much clearer language. We are being transformed from the image of man to the image of Jesus Christ. What sort of an image do we have of Him? We do not know what He looked like; we have no form or shape. Instead what God gave us was the image of a life lived. So we are being transformed into the image of that life that was lived and the means for accomplishing this is the Spirit of the Lord, the Holy Spirit, or we might say as Peter said, by the imparting of the divine nature.
In God's wisdom, in order for His purpose to be accomplished, it was necessary for man to be given free moral agency. This is another term that nowhere appears in the Bible, yet that mankind is a free moral agent is obvious right from the very beginning of the Bible because man is given choices as to which way he will choose to go. Nothing else in creation, except angels, is free to make choices involving morals. Everything else operates according to the way it was designed. It is impossible for an animal to sin, because an animal cannot go out beyond, making a choice to do something that would be in disagreement with the laws according to which he was designed.
It has ever been this way because it is a necessary step in God's purpose if we are going to be in His image, because the image He is conforming us to is a nature, it is a character image, it is an attitude image, it is not one of mere form and shape. It is only through having the opportunity to freely give ourselves to a way of life, to the way that He lives, that we will be in His image. Nobody is as free as God, and if we are ever going to be free, it is because we consciously choose to submit to and to obey His truth.
For me, the S.P.S. of the entire Bible - S.P.S. being a Spokesman Club term meaning Specific Purpose Statement - appears before you even leave the first chapter of Genesis:
That is what He is doing! Is that hard to understand? Right at the very beginning of the Book, He tells us what He is doing. The project, the work began with the formation of man as physical but in the bodily form of God, and it will not end until we are in the nature of and the character image of God.
In order to do this, God gave us free moral agency for the purpose of enabling us to choose to follow His way and assist in the development of His image in us, because we cannot be in His image unless we voluntarily choose to do so. Then the character is truly ours, as well as being truly His, because it is inscribed in us as a result of what we have believed and what we have done with our lives in our experiences.
God is not merely eternal; God is supreme in every quality of goodness, and in Him absolutely no evil dwells. In the Bible, this goodness is called holiness, and holiness is transcendent purity. It permeates every aspect, every attribute of God-life. God's character is holy, and it flows out from Him in acts of love. It is therefore impossible for Him to do anything evil. This is the state towards which He is drawing us.
Law has to be seen in this context. If you tear law from the context of God's purpose, then you can come up with anything you want to say about law. You can say, Oh, it is all done away, or We do not need to do this. However, you cannot tear it away from the purpose of God, and there is a reason why you cannot.
Tell me, is this God - who has a project going in which He is making man in His image (Mr. Armstrong expressed that as, God is reproducing Himself) - is He creating in us His holy character with our cooperation by making free choices? Is He about to destroy the very directions that He has given for us to know how to live, if we are to cooperate with Him?
The idea that God has thrown out His law or parts of His law only applies if God is only trying to save people, which is the general theme of most of Protestantism. Yes, He is trying to save people; but that is NOT all that He is trying to do. He is the Master Potter. God is, above all, Creator! He is creating. He never stops creating. Jesus said,
God is working salvation in all the earth, and His work is what He announced at the very beginning. He is reproducing Himself; He is making man in His image. However, we have a part in this: We have to cooperate. We have to come to the place where we want to be as He is and to give our part in seeing that this is accomplished by and through means of faith and obedience to His way of life.
God wanted companionship of those who are of like kind. We might make a human analogy in that humanly we might have company by having a dog. Can a dog take the place of somebody who is like you? No. God wanted companionship on a family level; that is, companionship with those who are like Him. Because of this, we are in the position that we are. We are now a part of that awesome purpose, and it has become our responsibility - our life - to choose to live according to the pattern established in His law.
The very fact that God mentioned dominion - dominion is governing, authority given for the purpose of managing. It is rulership. God gave man dominion over the earth, and He added to that a bit of detail in the dressing and keeping aspect. What that begins to show is that His creation is not going to operate uniformly to produce a never-ending source of life and beauty. He is telling mankind (you and me) that it is going to require managing and governing, and man is given the authority to do that. Now, let us go back to the book of Hebrews and add another piece to this.
Now here simply stated is part of the second law of thermodynamics. It is saying that the earth is running down. It is waxing old. Another way of saying it is that there is a certain amount of entropy built into the system (i.e., the earth and its laws), which, if the earth is not taken care of through managing and dressing and keeping, this entropy will bring the creation to a state of disorganization; unlike evolution that says we are constantly getting higher, the Bible is saying that these uniform laws tend toward disorganization. The Reader's Digest dictionary has a very interesting definition for entropy. Now listen to this.
Very simply stated, it is saying that the neglect of natural things is destructive.
That is the one factor that shows that management - dominion and dressing and keeping - is required. We have only thought of it at this point in relation to man. The other factor is sin. Sin is introduced in the first 5 verses of Genesis the third chapter. What sin does is that it greatly exacerbates the problem of the second law of thermodynamics - of entropy. It speeds it up - post haste. It also increases very greatly the problem of governing, of managing, of controlling.
Now, if God requires a man to govern His creation within the extent of the powers that God gave to him, then it follows that God is overruling what man does so that it does not get completely out of control. . . furthering His own over-riding purpose - the spiritual purpose that He is working out.
Though each law that God created works consistently within the framework of its influence, the conditions impacting on each law are not the same. Now why? Because man is managing the creation, and man is sinning while he is managing the creation. Man's management of the creation is not always very good. In fact, sometimes it is downright lousy - absolutely sinful - in what we do. So there are times brethren, that God has to step in and save us from ourselves, or we would wipe ourselves out through the manipulations of the nature that God has put to work here for us.
We mismanage things. So God then has to tweak things every once in a while to make up for our sins. Is God governing His creation? Will this thing work only because of uniform laws? Absolutely not! Now one of the simple proofs of this is that uniform laws will not act uniformly every year because every season is not the same. I am not talking about spring, summer, winter, fall being all the same and having the same weather all the time. I mean that every spring is not the same as the spring that was before it, or the spring that was after it.
The next figure is the man. In Genesis 1:26, God says, Let Us make in Our image according to Our likeness. Here is the figure of the way a man is used, as it applied to Christ, already beginning to show forth. Man is in the image of God.
Something is beginning to take shape here. Man, of all the creatures of the earth, is the only one that has characteristics like God. He not only has a human spirit that enables him to be somewhat in the image of God, but man alone of all the creatures of the earth is capable of receiving another spirit that will magnify and intensify the image of God in the man. That of course is the Holy Spirit of God.
I used that verse because I want you to see a relationship here between God and man. Man is an intelligent being with a spirit that shares with God many of His characteristics and feelings. Have you ever felt this way toward somebody? Compassion, mercy, concern, desire. Can you think of an animal that is capable of these kinds of characteristics, that is part of their personality? At least some of them might have it in a very shallow way, but nobody is able to have characteristics like God except the man. We are concerned here with some empathetic feelings.
In order to begin to see this you have to understand a little bit about what the book of Hebrews is about. It is the book of the High Priesthood of Jesus Christ. There is much in here about how Christ qualified to become High Priest. How did He qualify? He became a man. He did not become an ox. He did not become a lion. He did not become a dog. I use the term dog because dog is associated as being man's best friend, is it not? It is associated with having feelings toward man. It is associated with terms of compassion, being able to accept its owner without qualification.
When God became something other than what He was, He did not choose to be any of those. He chose to be a man, because man shares characteristics with God. He is in His image.
When we see this figure applied to Christ, expect to see Him portrayed in terms of having human feelings, mostly in terms of characteristics that animals simply are not capable of. They may have types of them - how about empathy? Can a dog really feel with you? Or a cat, or a cow? Can they really share your feelings? But another human being can. In order to be High Priest, Jesus Christ had to become one with us.
So the man figure here represents feelings - empathy, sympathy, mercy, compassion - but it is seen in a certain narrow relationship (as we are going to see in a little bit), in a universal sense. We will explain this as we go on, a little bit further into the series. This will begin to make sense a little bit down the line here.
God is looking for His children to grow. I know that there is not a parent within the sound of my voice who does not want his child, or children, to grow. Every parent wants his child to become a mature adult, able to take their place in society, able to live independently of the family and still be connected in a loving way to it, able to stand on their own feet. God sets the pattern, and He wants His children to grow as free and independent, moral agents. But we are not that way when He finds us. We are not that way when He reveals Himself to us, and reveals His way to us, and leads us to repentance. But He wants us to grow into what He is.
God gives everybody who reads His Book very early indications that work is going to play a major role in what He has created. Dominion! That is rulership, or maybe a better word would be management. Management of our own personal environment requires work. (We will show why a few scriptures down the way here.) Let us go to chapter 2 and verse 15, where He reinforces this concept of dominion.
We know that God's real purpose here has something to do with the material things of life, but God is looking upon something that is much greater than that, and that is the spiritual. And He is indicating to you and me that the things that are spiritual in our lives are also going to have to be embellished, added to, dressed; and they too are going to have to be kept from deteriorating. And so they are going to have to be guarded, and there is work involved in those things. There is work in the proper management, or dominion, over the things that God has put within the scope of our authority. So both of these are indicating work.
Or, it could say, You shall master it. Or, it could say, You shall overcome it. This is a vivid metaphor in which sin is pictured as a wild beast, eager to be at us and to consume us, and it needs to be tamed. Now, I think that you would agree that, if you were faced with a wild animal, there would be a great deal of effort expended, first of all, in anxiety. The very emotion of the thing would drain you of a great deal of your energy. And you know it would be pretty hard work just to keep control of yourself in such a situation. If you were going to bring that animal under your dominion, you would have to be working with that thing, would you not?
God uses very vivid metaphors. But what I want to get across to us is this concept that, right at the beginning of the Book, God is laying down principles by which His purpose is going to be guided. And anybody who becomes a part of that purpose is going to know and understand that this purpose that He is bringing him or her into is going to require hard work to fulfill it.
If we are studying with any depth at all, even before we leave the first verse we are confronted with a problem of some difficulty unless one is willing to believe what the Bible consistently shows from the beginning to the end. The fourth word in the Bible, in English translation, is God. Do you believe that? No, it is not. That forth word is Elohim. Elohim is Gods - plural. In the beginning Gods created the heavens and the earth. That is confirmed, for an English-speaking person, in verse 26, where the translators finally used plural pronouns to conform to the plural noun antecedent, Elohim.
Perhaps they were forced to do that, because they recognized that Elohim - God - was speaking to somebody, and He was speaking to someone who was just like Him - Us! They were forced into using a plural pronoun. Let Us make man in our image. In fact Elohim is used 66 times in a row at the beginning of the Bible before any other Hebrew word is translated into the English God. That occurs in Genesis 6:5 when finally another word is used for God.
If you were reading that in the Hebrew, I think that you would have to be impressed that the author of this book was trying to get something across to the reader that Gods (plural) did everything; not a singular individual, but at least two. Are you getting my drift? In fact, brethren, Elohim is used in the Old Testament 2,570 times, every one plural - Gods.
Whoever, or whatever, this God is consists of more than one being, or more than one person, or we might say, more than one personality.
Mr. Armstrong used to say that we are the Kingdom of God in embryo. Does that begin to make some sense? Now we have two who are spirit, but if you are with me, you can begin to see what is occurring from the beginning of the Book right till now. He said, Let us create man in Our image, and what we see from the beginning of the Bible all the way to the end is that Elohim is expanding! God is increasing what Elohim is. God is increasing the number who are in the God family. That is not hard to understand. We are already children of Elohim. We are in His Family.
God is creating us in His image. As Mr. Armstrong put it so succinctly, God is reproducing Himself. Think about that, what that means. God is reproducing Himself. All of God's creation - except for man - gives evidence that God is a law-abiding God. The creation reflects His mind, and the creation is orderly in its design. It functions according to unchanging laws. We find, in the book of Malachi, a general principle that fits right in here. Incidentally, Malachi is an end time book. This is said to the end time church.
God is working to create His reliability in relationships in us. In order to do this to the standard He desires, He had to give us free moral agency so that once He revealed His truth to us we could voluntarily choose to go the right way, thus insuring that His character - the character He is creating - would be ours as well, because that is the way that we choose to live. It is good to remember the Potter-clay analogy that is given both in Isaiah and in the book of Romans.
The law gives the basic description of His character, the basic description of His way - the way that He would conduct Himself in relationships if He were a man. When He became a man, He set a sinless example in living that way. He also taught men that they should live that way. We can take just one verse to nail this down, and it is another one of those verses that is just so clear.
It is either out of sheer ignorance or a perverse carnality to think that God would call His people into this great purpose, tell them that He is reproducing Himself in them, and then throw away the roadmap that reveals a major portion of the instructions as to what their part is in what He is creating. I think that such thoughts reveal their enmity, and thus their carnality against God's law, and thus their unconversion.
Now, if we were going to expand that, or amplify it in the English, it would read somewhat like this: The God, as to His nature, is love. What it means, then, is God is a loving God. Most of the gods in the ancient world, in Greek mythology, were wrathful, vengeful, angry, picky things who had the same foibles, the same weaknesses, as human beings. They were not 'loving' gods. But the God is a loving God. So it is not to be understood that loving is one of God's activities; but rather that every activity of God is 'loving'. Therefore, if He creates, He creates in love. If He rules, He rules in love. If He judges, He judges in love. All that He does is an expression of His nature.
Now, let us think about this in reference to man. We are still talking about how God is the source of this love, and man, by nature, does not have it. Man was made in the image and the likeness of God (Genesis 1:26-28). But, God is described as being spirit. God is Spirit (John 4:24). And we find here that God is love. Now contrast that to man. Man is flesh. You see, the image begins to change. We are not quite in the image of God, are we?
Not only that, but the Bible describes us as being carnal. In this case, I am using it in the sense of being fleshly or physical. We are self-centered, and we are deceitful. What this means in practical fact is that man cannot be what he is meant to be - in the image of God - until he loves as God loves. Until his nature is the same as God's, we will never really be in the image of God. This is the essential thing that must be changed in man. Of course, you understand that, because of receiving of the Spirit of God, we are now partakers of the divine nature, which Peter states there in one of his epistles.
So, if man is to achieve what he is meant to be, then we must love, but we must love with the love of God.
It is good to remember that in light of Jesus' death, access to God was an aim that was accomplished. This was not done, as is clearly stated in God's Word, for no reason at all. We are instructed by Jesus to call Him Father. But in one sense, God is the Father of all of mankind, by creation - Genesis 1:26.
In fact, Paul confirms this in Acts 17:28. Remember when he was on Mars Hill, he said that we are His offspring. He was talking to unconverted people. He did not mean just Israel was offspring of God. He did not mean just himself - the converted people. He meant everybody - the unconverted Gentiles to whom he was speaking, were also the offspring of God.
Are you aware that in Isaiah 49 God called Himself Mother to Israel? He is not just Father; He is mother as well. So there is very definitely a family relationship. But what He is talking about here, in this sense, of having access to Him as a child of God, is to intimate a very intimate personal relationship that enables us to know God.
Those who are far from God are able to know about God, but they do not know God. They are not intimate with Him. They have not yet been drawn into the Family. It is the same principle at work that we may know about some famous personality - let us say, the Kennedys. We know about them because there are things written about them in the newspapers and magazines and so forth. But we do not know them as a family member. That same principle is at work here. God draws us into His bosom, as it were, so that we are near to Him.
Please pay attention to the way that this is stated. God did not do anything without purpose, and He says that the earth brought forth the living creature. Now we will find in verse 26, the creation of man, where it says:
I think that part of the purpose of showing the creation in the way that God did is to show that there is something that we and the animals have in common. We could have gone on and read further, but all of us have come out of the earth. Man was created out of the earth. It very distinctly said that about the animals, Let the earth bring forth . . . its kind.
We share with them a mortality. We are earthy in that respect. They too, are earthy. However, the way that this is worded also shows that there is a difference between us and the other living creatures, and that difference was made very clear in that man was created after the God-kind. We are created in the image of God. And, in addition to that, there is no sexual orientation made in respect to animals. We, of course, know that there is a sexual orientation, but God made sure that was emphasized, male and female created He them. This will have a more importance later.
So we see three things that God establishes as being different between us and the animals: mankind is in His image, mankind is in male and female, and mankind has dominion.
He also says that you have been made partakers of the divine nature. That is so interesting! It is awesome in the context of what we are talking about here. Because, we began all the way back in Genesis 1, and we found that God created all the animals after their kind. We get to Genesis 1:26, and although He does not say the words, it is obvious from the flow of the context that He is saying that we are made after the God-kind. That is an awesome statement in itself.
But now we find that we have been made partakers of the divine nature. At first we find that we are just in the image of God, and the likeness of God; we know that we are after the God-kind, but now we know that we also are possessors of the divine nature. It is not very well developed, but it is in us. It is here. Are we going to use it?
When you connect these things with the first revelations that God gave to mankind in Genesis 1, and especially verses 26, God established the pattern by showing that each creature was created according to its kind - fish, birds, insects, etc., each according to its kind, so that it would reproduce after its kind. Then, as with all creatures, God planned to reproduce His kind.
Please turn to Genesis 1, verse 11. If you have worked with animals, you have some understanding of the realm of midbrain responses. Within the midbrain, there is a powerful God-given resistance to killing your own kind. It comes inherently to humans as the spirit in man.
Every species, with a few exceptions, has a hardwired resistance to killing its own kind. In territorial and mating battles, when animals with antlers and horns fight one another, they head butt in a harmless fashion. I am sure it hurts but it is not lethal. But when they fight with other species, they go to the side to gut and gore. Piranhas will turn their fangs on anything but they fight one another with flicks of a tail. Rattlesnakes will bite anything but they wrestle with one another.
Almost every species has this hardwired resistance to killing its own kind. And when we humans are overwhelmed with anger and fear, we slam head-on into that midbrain resistance that generally prevents us from killing. Only sociopaths, who do not have that resistance, lack this innate violence immune system.
God says, I change not. He has never altered His purpose from the get-go.
There is an overall statement at the very beginning of the life of men, when God says something that, as we begin to see later, implies a great deal more. He said that He was going to make man in Our image. In a nutshell, once you begin to understand it, there is God's purpose for mankind.
Right from the very beginning God implies the expansion of His own community. He says, Let Us... Does that not indicate a community already exists? Let Us make man in Our image. Man was made, physically, in God's image, and he begins with characteristics already in common with his Maker in terms of form and shape. The rest of the Bible fills in the details of how mankind is being brought from having not only form and shape in common with his Maker, but also character, so that he fits perfectly into the community which the Maker is expanding.
Of course, this is God's general purpose statement.
Brethren, this is God's very clear intention for all mankind, not just for us, but for all men.
But as He calls each in his own order, we must keep in mind our very special part in this as a group, and each of us individually, if we stay the course in humility because He is preparing us to be something that is almost beyond our ability to fully comprehend and appreciate as we come together this week for this very purposeful training and rejoicing.
Brethren, we are in training to be ready for Christ's return, to be His wife, His helpmate in a way that no other group of those that have been created or are being created in God's image and likeness. This is something that should evoke incredible rejoicing and the great desire this week to use this holy time as God intended it together.
Back in Genesis 1 we have what I consider to be the specific purpose statement of the Bible, and, that is what God Himself is doing.
That is a simple statement. (Sparse.) There is not a great deal there. There is not a lot revealed there. Only that He is creating mankind in His image. The first step was making us physically in His image, giving us life and setting us on the path. God is the Master Potter. He is creating. He is forming. He is shaping us in His image. And far more time consuming (and far more important) is creating us in His spiritual image.
But Jesus Christ Himself called it the gospel of the Kingdom of God; and I think that is a pretty good Source to be quoting. The Kingdom is a community. And when we look at what God is creating more specifically, we see (beginning in Genesis 1:26) that God is creating an entire kingdom - a family of children - in His image.
