IN HIS IMAGE FOR HIS GLORY

Over 3,000 years ago, King David asked some questions about the nature of humanity. His inspired ponderings are very much on point in contemporary war of worldviews.
“When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained; what is man, that Thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that Thou visitest him? For Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor” (Psalm 8:3-5).
Through David (and through the rest of Holy Scripture), God revealed Himself to us as our creator, the source of our being and reason we exist.
As we saw last Friday, God made us with two primary purposes. First, as with the rest of creation, we exist for the glory of God. However, existing for the glory of God does not set humanity apart from the rest of creation, since glorifying God is the purpose for which all things exist.
Second – and this is what makes humanity utterly unique in the created universe!– we are created in God’s image. In the creation account, God declared, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). The following chapter in Genesis goes on to indicate that unlike the rest of creation, which was made by God’s speaking it into existence, humanity was created by God’s shaping and molding. His personal touch is upon us.
It is astonishing to consider what this means for us.
Made in God’s image, we possess a moral similarity to God. This means that we are created to make decisions based not on personal preferences and trained responses, as animals do, but based rather on considerations of moral right and wrong. We have the capacity to understand good and evil as objective categories that are beyond ourselves, not simply the projection of personal wants and wishes.
One implication of our moral similarity to God is that attempts to redefine morality as if it were something determined by culture really amount to redefining humanity. Think with me about this. To say, “Right and wrong is what I want it to be for me” is a rejection of one’s personal accountability to the God Who created us and gave us the capacity to know Him as the source of all moral truth. Moreover, this kind of moral relativism dehumanizes us, by asserting that we are just like other animals, who do what they want without reference to an objective moral standard.
This means that submitting our wills to God’s revealed moral truth is a primary way we achieve our reason for being. We were created to glorify God by learning to enjoy obedience to Him, as we reflect to Him our complete reliance upon His love and grace.
We are not self-existing: we exist from Him, by Him and for Him. Indeed, we are made in the image of God for the glory of God.
Next week: The Broken Image of God