Understanding the image of God is at the root of our purpose, self-awareness, and all of our interactions with God and others. It is the loss of this doctrine that is at the root of so much we are facing today as a society.
• So, last week we asked: What does it mean that God created human beings in His image?
• This week, we will ask: What is the impact of the Fall on the image of God?
The
• As God’s representatives, human beings were made to follow God’s design for how they would reflect His goodness on the earth.
• Genesis 3:1-6 | Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.
• However, in disobeyed the command, they were seeking to live life on their own terms, defining their purpose by what they could do rather than what they should do.
• Augustine >> Sin comes when we take a perfectly natural desire or longing or ambition and try desperately to fulfill it without God. Not only is it sin, it is a perverse distortion of the image of the Creator in us. All these good things, and all our security, are rightly found only and completely in him.
• The effects of this Fall were tragic and vast: they experienced shame, a fracture in their relationship with God, and psychological damage individually and shattered unity in their marriage.
, Not Destroyed
• In spite of these realities, the image of God is corrupted by not destroyed. The way we understand the effects of the Fall is by reminding ourselves what it means to be made in His image.
Human
• Genesis 1:27 >> Human beings are God’s representatives, meant to “image” His rule and dominion on earth.
• Since we are God’s regents on the earth, an attack on any human being is tantamount to an attack on God Himself (see Genesis 9:6)
• As a result of the Fall, we treat others with less respect and value than they deserve. Because of sin, we dehumanize and objectify other image-bearers for our own selfish interests.
• Genesis 1:28 >> As God’s image-bearers, we have a royal authority to exercise dominion over all other creatures.
• We are not sovereigns, but stewards. This means that we care for the rest of creation as God would.
• In our fallenness, we treat creation with disrespect.
The
Mandate
• Genesis 2:15 >> Adam was put in the Garden to tend it or cultivate it, meaning that he is meant to take the raw materials of creation and build or make the world better.
• Glenn Sunshine >> This can be seen in the overall trajectory of biblical history. Creation begins formless and void, and God puts it in order. When He places Adam in the Garden, He doesn’t intend for Adam to simply stay there. It is no accident that the Bible begins in a garden but ends in a city. God’s ultimate goal is not to return us to some sort of pristine state of nature. Rather, we are to develop culture (a word which comes from the Latin cultus, meaning labor or cultivation), and ultimately to build civilization, which comes from the Latin civitas, meaning city.