Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image,
after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and
over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over
every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the
image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
God, the us of Genesis 1:26, is composed of three parts;
God the Father, the seat of will and self-identity, the Spirit of God or the Holy
Ghost, the very mind of God, and the visible image of God, His appearance in
physical form, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Word, capital W, by which all things
were created.
These are things I’ve discussed repeatedly in my
comments to you on Genesis. God the Father, as the soul of God, is the seat of
will and self-identity.
Psalm
11:5 The LORD trieth the righteous: but
the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth.
The Holy Ghost is the very mind of God. Here are
passages where spirit and mind are linked. The Spirit is the mind
and heart of God just as the spirit of man includes the heart, reason,
emotions, intellect, and talents. For contexts where
the Spirit of God or the spirit of man can be synonymous with mind please see
the following;
Romans
8:27 And he that searcheth the hearts
knoweth what is the mind
of the Spirit, because he
maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
Ephesians
4:23 And be renewed in the spirit
of your mind;
Philippians
1:27 Only let your conversation be as it
becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be
absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith
of the gospel;
2Timothy
1:7 For God hath not given us the spirit
of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
Then Christ, the body of God, the image of God.
The
Lord Jesus Christ, as any reading of John will attest to, is the Word. He is
the physical image of God, the body of God, if you will, so we have three parts
of one God; soul, body, and spirit.
Colossians
1:15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:…2:9 For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the
Godhead bodily.
Hebrews
1:3 Who being the brightness of his
glory, and the express image of his
person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself
purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;
John
14:9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been
so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father;
and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?
Three
parts to one God with one will, not three individual persons with separate
wills.
Deuteronomy
6:4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is
one LORD:
John
10:30 I and my Father are one.
Christ is the appearance of God; the angel of the
Lord, His presence.
Isaiah 63:9 In all their affliction he was afflicted, and
the angel of his presence saved
them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and
carried them all the days of old.
Galatians 4:14 And my temptation which was in my flesh ye
despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus.
Who led the Hebrews out of Egypt.
Judges 2:1 ¶ And an
angel of the LORD came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, I made you to go
up out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the land which I sware unto your
fathers; and I said, I will never break my covenant with you.
We
are created in such a manner, having a body, a soul, and a spirit.
1Thessalonians
5:23 And the very God of peace sanctify
you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved
blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Although our three parts cannot operate
independently. If they are separated our physical bodies would die.
God
came to earth in a physical body like our own. We look like God.
Hebrews 10:5 Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he
saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared
me:
It was the incarnation of God as a man, fully God
and fully man, the Son (capital S) of God and the Son of man, that elevated
human dignity in the mind, the spirit, of Western Civilization.
Luke 22:69 Hereafter shall
the Son of man sit on the right hand of the power of God. 70 Then said they all, Art thou then the Son of
God? And he said unto them, Ye say that I am.
The dignity of man, the preeminence of man, the
sanctity of human life, is something so profound, so unusual in human history,
so important, and yet we are giving it up without a fight.
Let
me explain.
Islamic, Muslim scholars, of the Middle Ages were
equal to the European. They had the Greek philosophical texts and the Old
Testament of our Bible readily available to study and they did. But, they
didn’t develop a notion of human dignity as a part of Islamic culture.
By rejecting the incarnation of Christ they could
not accept that God would violate His glory, His honor, His dignity by becoming
a lowly human being. It was impossible. I read one source where they said the
question was asked rhetorically and mockingly by Muslim scholars, “Could God
then also become a dog?”
The Greeks and the Muslims put a limit on God, what
He could and what He couldn’t do. The idea that God loved mankind enough to die
for them was not something that either philosophy could entertain in their
head. The implication that human beings were unique in God’s plan of creation
was unacceptable.
We have similar thinking today in the atheistic,
and highly theoretical scientist like Nobel prize winner Fred Hoyle, who, in
his 1975 textbook on Cosmology admits that the data shows us as being likely in
the center of the universe but since he can’t accept that he makes a totally
unproveable assertion that everywhere then must look like the center and he
admits that that conclusion is based on intellectual grounds not on
observation.
However, [refers
to a diagram of the universe] would demand a special relation of our own galaxy
to the universe, since in this figure we have taken our galaxy to be located in
the center of a nonuniform distribution of galaxies. It hardly seems plausible
that our galaxy would be in any such privileged position. So we answer the
above question [would anywhere appear to be the center making the universe
acentric?] affirmatively on intellectual grounds rather than because such an
answer is determined by observation.[1]
The spirit of this age is to remove man from his
place and his responsibility to God by making him no more than a beast living
in a meaningless backwater of the universe that only appears to be the center. Man
to them is a random accident, not a special creation of a God who they do not
believe even exists but a pointless event in space-time without any purpose.
Now, let me qualify what I’m saying here. I
understand that God did not make the universe for us.
Revelation
4:11 Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive
glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy
pleasure they are and were created.
I
understand that He is doing things on the earth and in space we know nothing
about, and can only imagine.
Job 38:25 ¶ Who hath
divided a watercourse for the overflowing of waters, or a way for the lightning
of thunder; 26 To cause it to rain on
the earth, where no man is; on the wilderness, wherein there is no man; 27 To satisfy the desolate and waste ground; and
to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth?... 31 Canst thou bind the sweet influences of
Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? 32
Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thou guide
Arcturus with his sons?33 Knowest thou
the ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth?
I also know
that the earth, all of the beasts that dwell there, and everything that exists
is His own personal property over which we are stewards who will be held
accountable.
Psalm 24:1 «A Psalm of
David.» The earth is the LORD’S, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they
that dwell therein.
Psalm 89:11 The heavens are
thine, the earth also is thine: as for the world and the fulness thereof, thou
hast founded them.
Psalm 50:10 For every beast
of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.
Revelation 11:18 And the
nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they
should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets,
and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest
destroy them which destroy the earth.
I know that
God has used animals, innocent and incapable of showing Him contempt, to
picture Jesus in the Old Testament sacrifices and that their prototypes around
the throne bear witness to His glory.
Revelation 4:6 And before
the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the
throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and
behind.
7 And the first beast was
like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face
as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle.8 ¶ And the four beasts had each of them six
wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and
night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is
to come. 9 And when those beasts give
glory and honour and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever
and ever,
But man, who could have had his face slapped on any
creature on earth, stands upright and walks like God, the Lord Jesus Christ in
bodily form.
We are God’s representatives to the beasts, to our
children, to each other. We are called to act in such a way, to carry ourselves
in such a manner, and to testify by our very existence in a loving, benevolent
but Holy God of the universe.
Let me tell you how I came to Christ. I grew up in
a family on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. My great-grandfather was a Baptist
of the 19th century. Postmillennial, believing that we Christians
were making the world a better place that we would hand over to, I guess, a
grateful Jesus Christ at His return. He introduced the Baptist Church to
Princess Anne, Maryland, in Somerset County. The newspaper said he was
responsible for the baptizing of a thousand people in the Manokin River and was
instrumental in starting the Baptist Church there. That’s how I remember what I
was told and what I saw in the old newspaper a cousin showed me.
But postmillennialism is a dead end. Man, even
Christians, are not making a more Godly world and we are not creating God’s
kingdom on earth and postmillennialism died out among most Baptists before
World War Two, which sort of put the last nail in the coffin of “we’re making
the world a better place.”
The truth is that we await Christ’s return to
straighten out this mess that man has mostly made all by himself with God’s
permissive will in place.
I was a rebellious hellion, in trouble with the law
and man, and prone to virtually every evil I could think of that didn’t make me
sick and some that did.
My parents’ religion was sort of bland. We had
books by atheists, Catholic crucifixes, and other generic religious mementos in
the homes of my youth.
I partied and did stupidly bad things in my youth
until one day I was in deep trouble. I had mocked Christians repeatedly and
although I had Christian friends their faith did not merit my respect. But, in
the end they were the only ones who stood by me and spoke on my behalf as my
good-time friends ran for the hills at the first sign of trouble.
I then began to pay attention. The first thing I
noticed was the simple faith of those people. No matter what happened to them
they trusted God for the outcome. They accepted His will. They wanted to please
God.
They were regular people, policemen, former
criminals, businessmen and women, military persons, factory workers,
salespeople, from all walks of life and they had something I did not. They
trusted in One I did not know. Oh, I had gone to church as a child. I knew
ABOUT God and Christ but did not know them.
Each of these people in turn gave me something,
showed me something, faith in God and the dignity of a man or woman in Christ.
I prayed five times a day, read the Good News Bible twice, and contemplated
what the disaster my life had become meant.
It was then that I met my wife to be, Beth. One
day, Wednesday, March 19, 1986, in the evening she asked me, was there any
reason I could think of why I should not pray to receive Christ. I thought
about all of the people I had met in horrible circumstances and their faith, of
this woman who had been abused and mistreated by her former preacher husband
and had tremendous burdens in her life and yet had unstoppable faith in God’s
love and mercy. All of my reasons for refusing Christ were gone, mowed down by
the Holy Spirit working through people of simple faith.
I was not saved by a gospel tract pushed into my
hand on a busy street or by someone standing on a street corner screaming at me
as I passed by. I was saved by the dignity of, the simple and unvarnished faith
of, common ordinary Christians.
It was not long after I was saved that I looked
around and saw the world as it really was. Modern man had reduced themselves to
the low level the beasts occupied in men’s minds. What I saw was not so much
people reaching out to God but crawling on their hands and knees in filth and
in the darkness. It all seemed to be about a lack of understanding of who we
are.
It seemed to begin a long time ago, maybe even
right after our founding as a Constitutional Republic. Critics who lived during
that time complained about the way the father’s place of reverence and respect
in the family was deteriorating not only in the family but in art. Some
lamented that Christianity was on such a decline and so many people had so much
contempt for the faith that they thought that the religion would not last
another generation things were so bad.
As our society became more and more diverse with
different cultures and religions pouring into the country standards of behavior
became more relaxed and traditional ideals weren’t upheld. As the historical
theme of Emancipation continued to grow as it had since the time of Queen
Elizabeth I more and more people were vocal who believed things about
themselves and their place in the world that went against all that people of an
earlier time thought right or wrong.
With technology, movies, popular music, and an
increase in the entertainment value of culture people who held to a different
standard of right and wrong began to influence society in a very negative way.
The advent of the automobile made it possible for
couples to spend a great deal of time unchaperoned and alone. This lead to an
increase in unwanted pregnancies and backalley abortions but definitely an
easier going morality for all.
With each war we participated in the standards of
behavior and morality suffered. Doughboys returning home from France after
World War One wanted their wives and girlfriends to look like the pretty
made-up French girls they had enjoyed. Women began slathering on make-up to
appear younger and more vivacious and the insult, “she looks like a painted
city woman,” went away.
World War Two say a great many women working in
defense industries only to be ousted when the men came home but not completely
willing to give up the financial independence they had during the war.
Society was changing faster and faster, become
looser with each passing decade and each war.
Music went from elevating the spirt and glorifying
God as in Bach and Handel to uplifting the soul as in Beethoven all the way
downhill to glorifying the flesh as in Elvis Presley.
We had the counterculture movement of the 1960s,
the drug culture, generations of broken families, and then no families at all.
The same percentage of children placed in orphanages in 1900 were stuck in
single parent homes in 1990 with less of the basics of life and supervision
than they would have had in the orphanages.
I know that what I’m saying is highly subjective
and is my opinion but I do have a point I promise.
Take
such a thing as abortion for instance. Women have become so degraded that is
not unusual for a young woman to have had multiple sexual partners before she
is married if she even bothers getting married. And scientists tell us that
when you have sex with someone that medically speaking you are having sex with
everyone they’ve had sex with.
Abortion has gone from a painful choice shared by a
mother, father, and doctor as they agonize over her health and survival if she
carries a child to birth to where its only up to the woman and a form of birth
control. 60 million plus unborn babies, an inordinately large part of them
African-Americans, have been butchered as a result.
Human beings have become nothing but livestock, an
intelligent ape, a non-verbal event in space-time to be here briefly to enjoy a
fleeting existence and then gone never to be heard from again. Speaking of
enjoyment society in general, even Christians, will argue like a pagan
Epicurean philosopher and insist that the greatest good in life should be about
being happy, not serving God, not doing right, but BEING HAPPY.
This is not who we were created to be. I’m not
saying that all social change was wrong or that we shouldn’t have loosened up
on some of our uptight and non-scriptural rules and regulations that oppressed
our physically and politically weaker members of society. I’m not lamenting
that all change I mentioned was bad. What I’m saying is that in the process of
things in the culture of the West we have, in pursuing ideas over the centuries
like Equality and Emancipation and fair and decent treatment for all we’ve
thrown the baby out with the bathwater.
We, and Christians are guilty of this, have reduced
ourselves to a level lower than a beast. We’ve had several generations,
including your own, of children taught that they were nothing more than
intelligent animals driven by instinct with urges they cannot control and
probably shouldn’t try to control.
I’ve read a report that said there are 300 serial
killers operating in this country. The amazing thing is not that there are 300
of them but that there aren’t many more as after all we are just a beast. Only
the survival of the strongest animal matters, right?
I’ve read that 1 out of every 25 people is a
sociopath capable of committing great wrongs to others without empathy. I’m
surprised there aren’t many more as after all we are nothing more than a brute
beast. Survival of the fittest and the most clever and most ruthless beast is
the rule of evolutionary biology, right?
Think of the school shootings from Columbine on and
think of the huge numbers of teens that commit suicide every year. Be amazed
that there aren’t many, many more than there are because we are nothing more
than biological machines who have no control over our baser nature.
So, what is to be our position when we talk to the
world? What do we know that they don’t? What does the Bible teach us? What is
man’s place in the universe, before God, and before his or her fellow men and
women?
First,
we have been given responsibility over all created things within our reach.
Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image,
after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and
over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over
every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
That is authority and stewardship not license to
destroy and be cruel and without compassion.
Secondly, as Genesis 1:26 says, we are made in
God’s image, in His likeness. We look like God as Christ Himself came to us as
a man, as one of us.
2Corinthians 4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded
the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of
Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
Third, we, not a chimpanzee or a jellyfish, rock or tree, have a
responsibility given to us to serve God with our body, spirit and mind.
Romans 12:1 ¶ I beseech you
therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a
living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye
transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good,
and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. 3
For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among
you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think
soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
The point is that you are a
special creation of God. You were created for a purpose. Your life is
important and not just to your loved ones but to God Himself. Everything in
your life, every joy and sorrow, every circumstance even your death has a
meaning, most of which
you
will never know in this life.
Government run schools are teaching
your children and grandchildren, indeed they tried to teach you, that we are
nothing more than highly evolved animals and that our existence only has
purpose that we give it and that there is no greater will than human will. You
cannot accept this, be acquiescent to it, and be a Christian.
The culture is teaching your
children and grandchildren and, indeed it tried to teach you, that your
happiness is the greatest good, that whatever you want to do is okay because
you want to do it and for no other reason as long as it doesn’t get you in
trouble with the law of the land. The culture you live in rejects shame,
dishonor, guilt, and fearing to do things that bring contempt on the cause of
Christ as being completely irrelevant.
We must stand up as men and women in
Christ and get out of the muck and mire of this world, standing on our two feet
and looking to Heaven for our value and purposes in a universe where not one
molecule exists without a reason. Mankind is precious in God’s eyes and we
cannot acknowledge His sacrifice for our sin while at the same time viewing
ourselves as a random accident of a causeless universe.
I want to close with these verses for you to
contemplate today.
Psalm 139:14 I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and
wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right
well.
Acts 17:24 God that made
the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth,
dwelleth not in temples made with hands; 25
Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing,
seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; 26 And hath made of one blood all nations of men
for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before
appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; 27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they
might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: 28 For in him we live, and move, and have our
being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his
offspring. 29 Forasmuch then as we
are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto
gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device. 30 And the times of this ignorance God winked
at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: 31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which
he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained;
whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from
the dead.
[1] Fred Hoyle, Astronomy and Cosmology: A Modern Course (San
Francisco: W.H. Freeman & Co., 1975), 87.
No comments:
Post a Comment