In the Image of God

Introduction

But this morning I want to brag on my two older brothers. My oldest brother, who was ten years older than me, was the Salutorian of his class. And he went to University of Alabama in Huntsville on a scholarship and got his degree in engineering. The middle brother, who was three years older than me, was the valedictorian of his class. And in his graduation, not only received the Valedictorian Award, but he also received an award for perfect attendance for twelve years.

He was a national honor recipient and received his PhD from Harvard University. And then there was me.

To which you’d probably say, well, then there weren’t many looks to hand out. I say all that to say that my brothers and I don’t really have a whole lot in common. I don’t think we even look alike. In fact, I don’t look anything, or at least much like my father. My dad, David Chapman, he was short, probably 5’8, 5’9, and his entire life, he was skinny. Short and skinny. So I look nothing like David Chapman. But I’m a lot like David Chapman. Every time I tell a corny joke, Deedra says, that was David Chapman. And every time I organize my sock drawer so that my socks are lined up perfectly and by color, I’m like David Chapman. That’s where I got it. And so there’s different ways that we can resemble people in our family, isn’t there?

1. We Are Made in the Image of God

There’s other types of family traits that we might share that make us look like someone. Well, this morning in a spiritual application, I want to talk about the meaning and the significance of the fact that we are made in the image of God. We’ve got to hurry this morning. I’ve got a lot of material, a lot of ground to cover in a short amount of time, and I talk slow, so hang on. But I want to talk about three lessons from the fact that we are made in his image. First, it’s a very basic principle, but a basic principle from which many profound conclusions come, and that is that we are made in the image of God. We don’t have to turn there because we remember Genesis 1, verses 26 and 27, that when God decided that it wasn’t enough to have a planet and to have plant life and animal life and cycles and seasons, he said, let us make man in our image.

We are made in the image of God. Now we know what that means. That does not mean that God has a physical visage like ours, because as Jesus Himself would say, one of those in that plurality in Genesis 1 26 that Jesus Himself would say while he was upon this earth that God is spirit. And so we’re to worship him, not in some physical way, but in a spiritual way. God is spirit. And so we are made in the image of God. There are some implications from that. Do you have your old testaments? We didn’t go back to Genesis 1, but let’s get close and go to Genesis chapter 9. After the flood, things changed drastically. That’s an understatement. But one of the things that changed is what man could do.

But notice what it says in Genesis chapter 5. And in verse 6, God says to Noah, whoever sheds man blood, by man his blood shall be shed. Now let’s pause there. He had just said back up in verse 3, you can eat animals. And I need to pause there and say, I’m glad God said that. Because they’re tasty. He says, you can kill and eat the flesh of animals. But he said in verse 6, but whoever sheds man’s blood, by man’s blood it shall be shed. You can’t kill a fellow human being. Why? The only stated reason by God that I can kill a roach or an ant or a deer or a cow, but I can’t kill you is this reason. For in the image of God he made man.

That’s the only difference between us and animal. Now it’s a huge difference. And that is the only stated reason against the for the prohibition of murder. And so, since we are made in the image of God, we cannot take one another’s life. James chapter 1, look in the New Testament. Another prohibition is given based upon this principle. James chapter 3. And in verse 9, James talking about the use of the tongue, particularly the improper use of the tongue. He says, with it, James 3, verse 9, that is the tongue, our ability to speak, with it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men who have been made in the similitude of God. Your translation may say, who have been made in the image or the likeness of God.

He shows the incompatibility of blessing God and cursing my fellow man because why can’t I curse my fellow man? Why can’t I wish that he would die? Why can’t I say hurtful and hateful things about him? Because he’s made in the likeness of God. 1 John, the third prohibition is given. 1 John chapter 4. 1 John, the fourth chapter, and in verse 20, it says famously, if someone says, I love God. I love God, but hates his brother, he’s a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? That argument only makes sense logically. It’s not the idea that you can’t love somebody that you’ve seen or you can’t hate somebody that you’ve seen.

The point is that if you’ve seen that person, you’ve seen the image of God. They’re made in the image of God. Murder, cursing our fellow man, and even hating our fellow man is prohibited based upon this principle that we’re made in the image of God. That changes my view of my fellow man. No matter what, that is a person made in. And wouldn’t it change everything? If every time to everybody we could see them as a person made in the image of God.

It also changes my view of myself. Christopher read for us in Acts chapter 17. I want to turn back over there and notice one verse. That it shows me who I, it shows me who my fellow man is, somebody that I can’t murder, curse, or hate, but it also shows who I am. And it’s so it changes my view of myself. And it doesn’t give me an inflated view of self, that I become egotistic, but it saves me some worth in who I am and how I am to behave. Acts 17, verse 29. Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, pause there. The idea of being offspring is that we’re made in this similitude, the likeness, that we bear the characteristics of God. Since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising.

What Paul is doing here is well, I think it’s the term we use reverse engineering. We can’t see God. But when we look in the mirror, not the literal mirror, because we said we’re not made in the image of God in this sense, but when we consider our being, that tells us something about God. If I was a statue, and I was made in the image of God, then maybe God is a statue, like an idol who’s lifeless and formless. But since I’m not a statue, I can look in that proverbial mirror and say that God’s not some lifeless being. God’s not something made by art or man’s devising, but God is a being that can create art and can devise. And so I see myself made in the image of God, and that tells me about God, his character, his being, and it tells me more importantly, what I am to be.

2. To Make Myself Into His Image

And so that means something. It means it affects how I view others. It means that it affects how I view myself. And so we’re made in the image of God. We, as Christians, we take that a step further. I’m made and I’m created in the image of God. But then the Bible tells me that it is to be my life’s goal to make myself into his image. To be like him. Look at some passages that point that out. In Ephesians chapter 5. Ephesians chapter 5 says, therefore be imitators of God as dear children. Think about how many passages teach that principle if they don’t use that language of the idea that we are to be like God. It is to be our goal. Now we can make the argument of, wait a minute, I thought I was made in the image of God.

How am I supposed to make myself look like God if I’ve already been made in his image? And we could talk about how sin has scarred that image and changed that. And it has, we we talk about that, don’t we? That sin has separated us from God. And we think of that in the sense that, well, now we’re his enemy. Paul says that in the book of Romans, that we’re his enemies, and so God had to distance himself, and so we’re separated, a person separated from a person, but it also is true that we have separated ourselves from the image of God. What did Paul say in Romans that when we sin, we fall short of what? The glory of God. We’ve scarred that image. And we’ve distance ourselves not only from the person and the fellowship of God, but we’ve also distanced ourselves from who God is and how we are made in his image.

And so I am to become imitators of him. I am to remake myself in his image. Turn back one chapter in Ephesians chapter 4 and in verse 24. After he’s saying in verse 23, we’re to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you may put on the new man, which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness. We put on a new man, a new image, a new being, a new spiritual visage that was created in the image of God. And so I my goal is to be more like him. We are imitators of him. How would Paul put it in Galatians chapter 2? This is not some mysterious possession kind of concept. But we begin to understand what it means when Paul says in Galatians 2, verse 20, I’ve been crucified with Christ.

It’s no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Paul said, Christ lives in me. So that my actions, my words, and my thoughts are not the words, actions, and thoughts of Paul, but of Christ. Or that was Paul’s goal at least. Paul was not saying he reached attained perfection. So Paul was saying, I’m I’m trying to be like Christ. Do you remember a few years? I haven’t seen one of these in a long time. Maybe you could find one at a vintage store. But remember the bracelets a few years ago, W W J D, what would Jesus do?

I think that was the concept. We maybe could criticize that a little bit, but I don’t want to criticize it too much because it was a good good idea that when you’re faced with a situation, it’s not what would Ken do, because Ken’s gonna do what’s good for Ken, which might get Ken in trouble. It’s I should say, what would Jesus do in this situation? I had a preacher friend who came up with a better saying, but his bracelets didn’t catch on. His his one was what W W. Wait a minute. No, W D J D. What did Jesus do? Because the danger in what would Jesus do is I can kind of just make that up. But what I need to do is study the gospels.

What did Jesus do? When people hated him, not I don’t have to imagine what Jesus did. What did he do? We talked about in our Lord’s Supper talk when faced with people who were suffering. What did Jesus do? And that’s the way I ought to live it. And that’s when I’m living my life, trying and modeling myself after him. And so look in 2 Peter chapter 1. We take this idea, and pardon the phrase, but we take this idea of being made in his image to the next level. Look in 2 Peter 1. Let’s begin in verse 2. Grace and peace, 2 Peter 1 2. Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. As his divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue, by which you have by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that it is in the world through lust.

We saw that just through creation we were made in his image, and we partake of his nature, that divine nature, in the sense that when we look in that spiritual mirror, we can figure out some things about God, that he’s not some lifeless idol. He must be able to think and to create and to love. But now Peter says we become partakers of the divine nature, not by virtue of our physical birth, but by natures of spiritual birth. Through the things that have been revealed to us, that we can truly become partakers of his divine nature. Or another way of thinking of it is to be remade in that nature that has been scarred by sin. And so we are to become partakers of his divine nature, in that we are to be like him.

3. We’ll Be Like Him in Eternity

And so that’s the goal. I want to be more like. I want to be in his image. Third, we are created in the image of God. As Christians, we are to model ourselves in his image and to be God like. But then lastly, we’ll be like him in eternity. When I look in that mirror today, I don’t see God. I see a physical image. Although I’ve been made in his image. When I look in the mirror today, I don’t see God because I see someone who’s falling short of that goal of being like God. And I strive to be more and more like him. But look what Paul says in Romans chapter 8. One of the blessings, and that’s what he’s listing in chapter 8, is the blessings of being a child of God, a blessing of being a Christian.

And notice what is one of the promises that we have. Romans 8, verse 29. He says, for whom he foreknew. He also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Those whom he foreknew, he predestined. We’ll talk about that foreknowledge and that predestination at another time. But he’s talking about Christians. That Christians will be conformed to the image of his son. Now the question is, when? When we were born, we were made in his image? Well, that’s true, but that’s not what he’s talking about here. When we become a Christian, and when we mature as a Christian, we become more Christ-like. Well, that’s true. But I don’t think that’s what’s talking about here. What he’s talking about here, I believe, is that we will be conformed to the image of his son in eternity, because he goes on to say that we he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

The firstborn here is not talking about when Jesus was born in a manger, it’s talking about his resurrection. That he is the firstborn from the dead, the Bible refers to him. And so in our resurrection, we will be conformed to the image of his son. Are we already in his image in a sense? Yes. We’re created in his image. Are we already in his image in a sense? Yes, as a Christian, we’re striving to be like Christ, imitators of him. But the promise here is that those whom he foreknew, he has chosen to be made like him in eternity. Look with me in 1 John chapter 3.

I can relate to John a little better than I can to Paul. Because Paul would word things like in the book of Romans, and I’m like, is that what he was saying? And that’s deep. But John’s like me. John just states it, he’s simple. Let’s just state the facts. 1 John 3, look at verses 1 and 2, how John puts it in a little plainer language. Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God. Therefore the world does not know us because it did not know him. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when he is revealed, we shall be like him.

Conclusion

For we shall see him as he is. In unmistakable language, John says, When we see him, we’ll be made like him. And so for the child of God, for the third time in your life, you’ll be made like him. You were created in his image. That gives you, and by the way, your fellow man value. That dictates how you treat them and how you treat yourself and what you’re to do, the goals that you are to set for yourself. If you’re a child of God, you’ve made the commitment to be holy as he is holy, to be his children. And that’s part of what John is saying in 1 John chapter 3. When you see this phrase, this language, when it talks about what manner of love that we should be called his children, and the world doesn’t know us.

What do you mean he doesn’t know us? The world doesn’t recognize us because we look like God. We are his children. And the idea of children is we resemble our Father. And just like my earthly Father, that doesn’t always mean I look like him physically. But it means that I’m modeling my behavior and my attitude and my love to be like him. And in a third and most glorious sense, that when we see him, I don’t know what I’ll look like. And I don’t know what I’ll be like, but it’s enough to know that I’ll be like him for eternity. What a powerful concept that we have been made in his image. The challenge is for us to go and live like it. To live like those who have been created in his image, to live your life this week like those who are striving to be like him and to live your life the rest of your life so that you can look like him and be like him in eternity.

Can we help you to remake your image this morning? To be more Christ-like, to be forgiven of your sins so that you might be like him and to make the dedication and the commitment to ever strive to be like him and to be with him in eternity. Can we help you in that way, in any way, as you come and answer the gospel call as we stand and sing?

For grace in my precious life.