This is part 2 of a three-part series. Taken from the sermon “Lament for our Land: The Sorrow of Devaluing the Image of God” by Mark Vroegop. Read Part 1.
Previously, we looked at three principles of what it means to be image bearers of God. In this article, we’ll look at three more.
4. The image of God is ultimately restored through Christ.
What was lost in the fall will one day be restored through the return and reign of Christ. Jesus came to redeem us from the effects of sin, and one of the tragic results is that, while the image of God still exists in all human beings, it is obviously broken.
That is what makes being a human so frustrating at times. One moment you could be basking in the beauty of human beings who are acting in a manner that is beautiful and glorious, and the next minute it is all ruined because of what those same human beings said or did.
The purpose of the cross was to set in motion a redemptive process by which sinful human beings could be restored into the full image and likeness of God in his glory.
“Set in motion” is in reference to the very clear sense in the Bible that when a person receives Christ, some aspect of this restoration begins. This restoration means that Christians are able to taste something beyond just broken humanity. They know that underneath the brokenness is the image of God, but above it is the restoration of the image of God. And they long for it.
Here are a few places this shows up in the Bible:
- “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).
- “Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (Col. 3:9-10).
- “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Rom. 8:29).
- “. . . and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph. 4:23–24).
These New Testament verses help us understand that the gospel seeks to solve the problem that we have with the image of God. Through Christ, the trajectory of image-of-God restoration is set. Christianity interprets humanity by giving all human life value by identifying the God-ordained path toward restoration and by experiencing little tastes of partial image restoration even now.
5. There is a God-given and inherent value in every person because of the image of God.
To be made in the image of God means more than that human beings are creative, have a will, or are more intelligent than the rest of the created order. To be made in the image of God means more than that human beings are superior to anything else on earth and that we have been given dominion.
To be made in God’s image means that there is something uniquely special about the essence and the being of a human. Image-bearing certainly involves thinking, ruling, leading, creating, loving, etc., but those are merely the expressions of a metaphysical reality connected to our humanity. God made humans valuable. He made them his image-bearers. From a philosophical standpoint, image is an ontological issue. It is part of the essence of humanity.
Humans are valuable because the image of God is valuable. This belief is fundamental to a Christian understanding of life and ethics. In an ethics class, I learned it this way: X is good because X is willed by God. Or you could think of it this way: Lying is wrong because God has called lying sin. This formula applies to the issue of image as well: Human life is valuable because God made us in his image. Therefore, a Christian worldview believes that every life has a fundamental value because value is tied to the imprint of God, and that is what is means to be an image bearer.
A contrasting and culturally dominant view is rooting our value in function. The gravitational pull of our culture and our “works tendency” is toward viewing value through a value-add lens. Therefore, people who don’t seem to add value or have much function are diminished, discounted, or destroyed because they are not perceived as functionally valuable.
It is no wonder that if a person does not believe in a creator, doesn’t understand the problem of sin in the world, doesn’t understand the power of redemption, and has no appreciation for where history is headed, he or she will likely view life through a pragmatic, functional lens.
The image of God has no significance for a person who doesn’t believe in God. He or she will have a different view of life and its value because of their view of God.
6. Christians, of all people on earth, ought to value life in all its forms.
My conclusion, therefore, is that those of us who believe that God is our creator, who understand the concept of image-bearing, who know about the ravages of sin, and who believe in Christ as our savior, redeemer and restorer ought to be passionate advocates for life. What’s more, we ought to lament when that value is diminished or destroyed.
Those who understand what is underneath and what is beyond our humanity ought to celebrate the intrinsic God-ordained value of human life, and we ought to lament its loss. Being an image-bearer is far more foundational than we may even know or feel.
Lament can help us to wake up to the reality of what is wrong with the world. It can shake us out of our cultural slumber and remind us how important being an image-bearer really is. And it can send a strong message to the world that there is something more here than just an issue related to life. Lament tunes the heart to how God sees the world.
Read part 3 of the series.
To learn more about lament, check out the sermon series Lamentations: Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy.
