“Then God said, ‘Let us make people in our image, to be like ourselves. They will be masters over all life—the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the livestock, wild animals, and small animals.’
So, God created people in His own image; God patterned them after Himself; male and female He created them.
God blessed them and told them, ‘Multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. Be masters over the fish and birds and all the animals.’”
- Genesis 1:26-28
For the next six weeks, we will be walking through God’s covenants with humanity at different points. Today we start in Creation, then we will look at Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and the Church. These covenants are crucial because they reveal God’s intentions for being in a relationship with us, and why He has come to save us though we have rejected Him. His covenants reveal His promises, hopes, and desires for us. Hopefully, through this little series, we can come to understand our place in it and have a more enriched view of the Good News of Christ.
God’s Intentions:
One of the big points of creation is that it reveals what God intended the world to be like, and thus what He intends the New Heaven and New Earth (Rev 21) to be like. Since it reveals what the New Heaven and New Earth are going to be like, it then helps us communicate a more visually beautiful picture of the hope we have. In this covenant, though there are two key parts of God’s intentions: image and responsibility.
We all know that we have been created in the image of God. Our very likeness comes from Him. We have used this to refute evolution, and other theories of origin because we know the truth from where we came, from God. But what exactly does it mean to be made in the image of God? God doesn’t have a physical body as we do, so what image is it?
There are a lot of ideas about what it means to be made in His image, but nearly all of them would agree that God breathed into humanity particular attributes the distinguished us from every other creature. These attributes include but are not limited to: intelligence, knowledge, spiritual understanding, creativity, wisdom, love, compassion, holiness, and justice. At that time, God gave us anything we would possibly need to morally comprehend the world.
Despite the Fall of man, none of the image was revoked, but much of it simply became perverted. People use their intelligence and knowledge to humiliate others. People skew their own spiritual understanding. Creativity gets used to produce weapons of war. Wisdom has become a rarity. Love is misunderstood and based more on receiving rather than giving. Compassion has been turned into self-righteousness. Holiness a way of dividing people. Do I even need to mention the injustices we commit?
What God intended for good, by our own choices we turned to bad. We rebelled because it was not enough to be created in the image of God, but we wanted to be God.
Aside from the image ascribed to us, we were given a responsibility to be masters over all the creation. We were to subdue it, taking care of it. We would make harvest without a sweat, and live in no fear of any of the animals. We were caretakers and stewards, responsible for the sustaining of the order and goodness. Adam even got to name every animal of the earth. Yet, it was not enough, and Adam would choose to eat of the one fruit he was not allowed to do.
We have continued to fail this responsibility throughout history. We have hunted numerous species to extinction. We pump pollutants into the air suffocating the very creation we claim is from God, and God declared to be good. Plastic outnumbers many fish in the oceans because we are reckless. Even some of our environmental efforts fail because they do not steward the forest, instead of forest fires erupt and burn through miles of creation.
We have come to spit in the very image of God and have neglected our responsibilities as God’s very good creation. What God had intended for good, we rebelled and destroyed.
Good News:
Praise God that He never gave up even though we did. Praise God that He plans to repair and restore everything someday. Praise God that Jesus not only perfected the image of God that we marred but also bore the responsibility of caring for all creation. Praise God that He bore the responsibility for our failures.
The creation accounts reveal to us the kind of world to come again. It will be like a garden, a place of peace, where even animals that are now enemies will drink from the same water in peace. That when we awake in the New Earth we will live rightly again in the image of God and doing so appropriately.
We can praise God that His image has never been revoked from us. While we have messed up, His image can help us bring back some good now. As we center our lives on Christ, who perfectly lived out the image of God in man, we can follow Him to do the same. Thankfully, we are also vessels for the Holy Spirit who guides us and restores us to God’s original intentions even in this life.
Final Blessing:
God’s intentions were laid out in the creation account of Genesis 1-2. Humanity, though baring God’s image and given responsibility over creation, messed it all up. Yet, we worship a Faithful and Good God, who has not given up on us nor His original plan. In this, we can praise Him.
Now may the Lord of Life and Redemption be with you in every step, every breathe, and every heartbeat of your journey.
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