Genesis 1:26, “Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness.”
There is a huge conversation happening around the subject of the image of God…some use the latin term Imageo Dei. I am not that smart so I’ll stick to English. I wouldn’t say the conversation around God’s image/man’s image is heated, but there are some strong opinions in theological circles. Every question under the sun is posed: Are we still in the image of God, even after the fall? Humanity is broken; does this mean that God’s image is flawed? How is it that man and woman are in God’s image since God is characterized as a man? Good questions. But the larger question that has captured me is this: What’s an image for? The short answer according to John Piper is, “…is to reflect the original.”
While we’d like to think life is about us, we’re just the image. That is, our only role is to reflect who God is. We are His statue. His image. In other words, God created man…to show God. He created us, His image, so that when we talk and work and give and share and love and forgive and eat and live so that people might say, “God is amazing!”
That being said, while my cynical self might say, “Humanity—God’s image is failing miserably at truly being God’s image.” On better days I know that God is at work in many to reflect his nature through the most mundane activities. That is, missionaries and martyrs are reflecting the nature of God by how they are dying, but it is the stay-at-home mom, the plumber and the college student faithfully living out Grace that is reflecting the nature of God.
What are you reflecting today? Are you communicating the true nature of God? Do people see by your image that He is forgiving, generous, light-hearted, fun, full of truth and full of grace?
