The Creation of Man

Today on Renewing Your Mind since the fall.

Do we still have the image of goal or was that image not only marred but wasn't obliterated by the fall so that we are no longer the image bearers of God versus Middle Ages. The question today from his classic series foundation.

This is a comprehensive series which RC address the fundamentals of the Christian faith looked at how we got the Bible nature of sin and the return of Christ and in today's lesson he examines what it means when Scripture states that you and I were created in the image of God.

When we looked at the document creation, I introduce that particular lecture by calling attention to the crisis in our day and how so much of the criticism leveled by atheism and secularism against Judeo Christianity fixes its gaze on the concept of creation.

Understanding that if they can cut the rug out from underneath creation.

The whole system of Christianity collapses with it. But not only are we faced with a crisis concerning the creation of the universe creation in general, but specifically in our culture we have seen a radical shift in understanding the origin of human being. We now have seen the advance of various types of theories of evolution. Everything from microevolution to macro evolution and a host of nuances in between which theories have significantly undermined human confidence in the dignity of our beginning we frequently hear ourselves described as being cosmic accidents who emerged fortuitously out of the primordial soup as it were, into our current evolutionary stage and said I remember one philosopher who described the human situation as this that we are best grown up germ will emerge from this line gratuitously and we are sitting on one clog of one wheel of a vast cosmic machine that is destined toward annihilation. And so with that view, and with the widespread influence of pessimistic forms of existential philosophy, such as that indicated by Jean-Paul Sartre, who defined man as a useless passion and whose final comment on the meaning and significance of humanity was the one word, nausea, and so we have been bombarded in the 20th century was extremely pessimistic views of the nature the origin and the significance of human beings, yet ironically at the same time we are saying a renaissance of naïve forms of humanism that still celebrates the dignity of human beings and who protest around the world in behalf of human rights as if we were more than grown-up germs. But I've been saying, as others have for years that humanism and its naïveté has both its feet planted firmly in midair are on a roller coaster without breaks because what they're doing is living on borrowed capital there Pollyanna-ish view of the dignity of human beings rests ultimately on capital borrowed from Judeo Christianity that sees the dignity of the human species established by God's act of creation. It is the sanctity of human life who sanctity is not something inherent or intrinsic, but rather are sanctity is derived from God's declaring value and worth to this particular creature we call man or mankind.

And this is part of the whole narrative of creation as we encounter the creation of the human race in the very first chapter of the book of Genesis as the narrative follows the six days of creation. Wherein God on various days creates various elements of the universe. Then we read in verse 26 of the first chapter of Genesis. These words then God said, let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.

Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. And so God created man in his own image in the image of God he created him male and female he created them. And then God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it have dominion over the fish of the sea of the birds of the year over every living thing that moves on the earth we live in a world now puts more value to fish eggs in the human embryos more dignity to whales than to humanity which is a reverse of the order of creation in which God creates mankind and mankind alone in his image and it is to human things that God gives dominion over the animals of the birds of the fish over the earth and in the sense God creates man and woman S is for surgeons that is his vice Kings is deputy rulers over all creation. And this goes with the status that is accorded to humanity by being made in the image of God. Now in theology. We have a technical term that should be easy to understand and simply called the Armando day which means the image of God and one of the great questions of theology is the question what is the image what is this distinctive dimension of human day makes them differ from all other members of the animal kingdom that distinguishes them by virtue of this image, and there's been much speculation in the history of theology in an attempt to locate the distinctive characteristics of the image of God, a part of the problem is found in the first chapter in the text in verse 28 where we read then God said, let us make man in our image, according to our likeness so two words are used here with respect to this initial account of the creation of humankind.

The word image and the word likeness to different words Salem and the moot in the Hebrew and in the Greek likewise to distinctive words and the Roman Catholic Church historically has said that what the Bible is describing here is not one specific characteristic of humans but to that there is a difference between the image and the likeness the image referring to certain aspects that we have in common with God, such as rationality and volition. So one and the likeness corresponding to original righteousness that was added to our human nature in creation, but historically Protestant interpretation of this statement in the book of Genesis differs significantly that what the Protestant interpreters say, is that what we find here in Genesis 1 is an example of what is called a hand. Diana's and a hen die. This is simply a technical term for a grammatical structure where two things or two words are mentioned both referring to the same thing.

The warden died.

This means one in Tunis that is we go to Romans one, for example, work God's wrath is revealed against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of men is his wrath directed at two distinct things one of which is ungodly in another's unrighteous or is his wrath focused on one thing that can be described either by the term unrighteous or the term ungodly and so the consensus among Protestants is that this is a grammatical construction called and died his and that what you have here in Genesis 1 is two words, both referring to the same thing that whatever is our image. Whatever the sense in which we are the image of God is the same sense in which we are in his likeness and vice versa. So we look not for two distinct things. One particular thing, but again were still left with the question, what is it that constitutes being made in the image of God again made evil.

Theologians introduced an idea that in the 20th century has come under sharp attack, principally by neo-orthodox theologians and in that case, chiefly by Karl Barth that is the idea of what is called the analog year and to this analog year and to switch being translated means the analogy of the that even though the Scriptures make it very clear that there is a wide gap between the nature of God and the nature of any creature in a huge abyss that separates the nature of God from the nature of human day. Nevertheless, there is some way in which we are like God.

We are God's creatures and their massive ways in which we are unlike God, but at the same time there is some way in which we are like God. Now that's what's been attacked by new Orthodox theology and the very popular term that it's worked its way into the church and you even find it being used frequently by Orthodox people and ashamed to say is that God is holy.

Other this is an effort to call attention to the majesty and the greatness of God in the sense in which she transcends us and is different from all creatures in the zeal to protect his transcendence and build a barrier against confusing God with anything in the created realm and escape all forms of imminent Chisholm or pantheism use this phrase that God is holy. Other if you take that literally would be fatal to Christianity because of God is completely totally and entirely different from us. There would be no possible common point of contact between the creator and the creature.

No possible avenue of communication if the two beings are utterly dissimilar but can never be communication between that's why it's so crucial to Christian thought that we understand that there is some likeness, some similarity between God and man that makes it possible for God to speak to us, even though he speaks to us in our language and on our terms. Nevertheless, what he says is meaningful because we share some similarity but we still haven't located the nature of that similarity in various things of been done historically to pinpoint that point of contact or that similarity most popular view historically has been that the model or the image is made up basically in the constituent aspects of our humanity in terms of our rationality and our volition and our affection, and chiefly the first two that we are said to be rational in a way similar to God.

God has a mind and we have a mind one of the problems with this of course is for centuries people have assumed that other animals can't think at all. And when you put the rat through his spaces in the maze were you give various instructions to a dog who's been carefully trained for police core duty or as a guide dog for the blind or whatever. The idea is that whatever they do they do by this mysterious power called instinct, but they certainly aren't thinking and even though you can see rats making decisions between going in 1 Passage Way or another in the maze that they pointer they only do this by instinct and not really making a conscious decision that becomes pretty difficult because for all outward senses.

It seems as though animals do like conscious decisions. And we know that there awake in their sleep and that they respond they can hear they can do all these other things and so for the most part this idea of an absolute divide between rationality limited to humans and instinct for animals has changed to where people were saying that the brutal distinctive among human beings is the far advanced degree of our reasoning capacities compared and contrasted with lesser animals, how were going to solve that question ultimately but for one thing we know for certain, in that is that God has a mind that God has knowledge, and that God does complex reasoning, and that we have minds we can acquire knowledge and we have a power of contemplation and ready go summation that is unique in the animal world. Not only that God has a will and we have the faculty of choosing.

We are also volitional creatures now to be moral creatures, one would have to have a mind and would have to have an apparatus called a will and many have said it's because God has a character as well as a being a moral character and so do we. We don't put mice on trial and we doubt speak of a highly ethical he developed sense of morality in our dogs and so on. And yet we hold human beings accountable for the choices they make for the decisions that they use because they are moral agents. They are volitional creatures, and God gives the directive to human beings to be holy. Even as he is holy and to reflect something of his righteousness, which reflection we couldn't possibly do, unless we were rational creatures. Unless we were moral creatures, unless we had some sense of feeling or affection, and so for the most part is I say the church has looked at these characteristics that we find in God and that we find.

Also, in a highly developed stage in human beings as being the very essence of the image again.

Karl Barth challenge that saying that in creation. Man is not just made as man, but man is made male and female both the male and the female are created in the image of God. Both image bearers of God and the term of course, in Genesis. The term here man is used generically but man incorporates both male and female, and that all human beings participate in this status of being made in the image of God will Barth says that because the male and female notices included in this that he says that what the analogy here is not an analogy of being, but analogy of relationship because of the envelope your velocity owners.

The analogy of a relationship that just as God has interpersonal relationships within himself in the Godhead, so the uniqueness of losses that we have the ability to have interpersonal relationships among ourselves. Well that's interesting is certainly true that we do have the ability to have interpersonal relationships Desoto animals and also were still left with the problem.

If that's the only point of the analogy.

One of the interpersonal relationships we wouldn't possibly be able to have would be to have one with God because Urbino means to communicate with him. In any case, we see that of all the creatures in the world. There is a unique responsibility given to the human person and with that responsibility is a corresponding ability. In fact, responsibility includes the idea of ability and part of the uniqueness of the human race is the unique mission that we have received from God to be his representatives to the rest of the creation and to mirror and reflect the very character of God know one of the ways we learn that is by reasoning back to Genesis from the New Testament picture of Christ himself who is the last Adam, or the second Adam, to whom we see the perfect fulfillment of what it means to be in the image of God is the author of Hebrews tells us that he is six. The brightness of God's glory and the express image of his person and Christ's perfect obedience. We see the fulfillment of the human mandate to mirror in the reflect the holiness and the righteousness of God. So I'm convinced that what we find in the image basically is a unique ability in creation to mirror the character of God, so that the rest of the world should build a look at humans and say that gives us a message of what God is like. Unfortunately, when the world looks at us now.

They don't see much of the message of what God is like, because now the whole creation is groaning in travail together, waiting for the redemption of people because now the image is so marred and disturbed by the fall, and when we look at the question of the fall of the human race into sin and look at the nature of sin. We will have to revisit this question of the image of God, because the question persists since the fall. Do we still have the image of God. Or was that image not only marred but wasn't obliterated by the fall so that we are no longer the image bearers of God in quick terms. I will answer that, by way of preview by saying that Orthodox Christianity insists that even though the image of God has been blurred and modeled and marred seriously by the fall, it has not been destroyed, and that even sinful human beings walking around in our world today are still creatures made in the image of God and that leaves the necessity of distinguishing at some point between the image of God in the narrow sense the image of God in the broader sense of the image of God in the formal sense the image of God in the material sense because even though we are fallen we still can think our minds have been infected by sin, but we still have minds and we still can reason we reason, fallacious lease frequently but we still have that ability also. Even though were in bondage to our sin.

We still have a will and we still have the capacity to make choices. We look at this more carefully and for study: a shattered image greater detail about the whole concept of what it means to be in the what has happened since we were created in the image of God. But as we learned today that image has been shattered by sin. We hope you'll join us tomorrow is Dr. RC Sproul cover that topic more fully.

These messages are taken from his comprehensive series, foundations and overview of systematic theology and this week were offering this 60 message DVD series for your gift of any amount of please call us at 800-435-4343 to request your copy. You can also make a request securely online. When you go to Renewing Your Mind.or this special edition of foundations includes an extra disc that contains the audio files of all the messages and a PDF of the study guide will send it to you for your gift that supports the continued outreach of ligand or ministries again.

Our number is 800-435-4343 in our web address is Renewing Your Mind.work will over the last few years had the great privilege of the hitting the streets of some of our major cities that to discover what people believe and I recently asked this group of people what they believe about sin, they believe there is such a thing is I think you know things that harm the people around you, for your own benefit.

Arson folio. These I think did have something like today's people, but I mean Jesus had shortcomings, but that's all the literal lines were imperfect. The image of him. I don't think my nature man is sinful and this is just me. I'm not too familiar exhibit exactly what the Bible says about sin to be fairly honest with you, but I don't think my nature man is simple yes I would say no. Basically that question. If you have the answer. I would like to know.

Well, there is an answer. Dr. RC Sproul address that tomorrow and Friday. As he continues his series foundation. We hope you'll join us for Renewing Your Mind