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Genesis 1.27 (NIV)
So God created man in his own
image.
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Creation of mankind is . . . the ultimate
purpose of God’s creative week.*
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What
does it mean to be created in God’s image? An image is a likeness. Does that
mean we look like God? Does it mean “God’s imagination”? Questions remain but
there is no doubt that man was created according to the image in God’s mind.
Because
of sin, the image has become warped. The masterpiece that God was so proud of
has deteriorated and has been abused - all through the fault of his final
creation – the one that seemed to be his finest and favorite.
In
the movie Multiplicity, a busy man secretly has himself cloned so that he can have some fun while the clone takes care of business. The clone, devoting himself to work, loses the sense of
fun that the original man has. When the man’s wife starts to feel overwhelmed
by her career and housework and the kids, the man has a second clone made to
help around the house. This one taps into the man’s “feminine
side” and becomes – well, less manly than the other two. None of the three is a
well-balanced version of the original because none of them works on developing the whole
person. The copies (clones) started out
exactly like the original but as they “fed” certain aspects of their character,
those aspects began to grow. As God’s copy (image), we start out like the
original but as we feed our sinful desires we grow into someone far removed
from the original version of ourselves. When we make the choice to feed our spiritual selves, we begin to look more like the image in which we were created. The image of God.
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Christ only is the express image of God’s
person.*
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So very true about becoming what we "feed". Reminds me of an Native American story - " who" wins (the good or the evil) it is the one that is fed. Sadly, the world and so many Christians too feed on what the world says is acceptable, whether in entertainment, books, music etc. We will become exactly what we feel upon.
ReplyDeleteQuestions certainly do remain about what exactly it is about humans that makes them in the "image" of God (reason, capacity to love, etc.). Your last sentence is really helpful though in thinking concretely about this verse in terms of choosing to radiate or repress the image of God in us through our moment-to-moment decisions.
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