Daily Meditation

Reflecting His Image

Ligonier Ministries

What can be said of Christ’s being the “express image of His person”? Are not we all created in the image of God and does not this reference merely speak of Jesus as the perfect man, the one in whom the image of God has not been besmirched or corrupted? I think the text means more than that.

Philip Hughes says this: “The Greek word translated ‘the very stamp bearer’ means an engraved character or the impress made by a die or a seal, as for example, on a coin; and the Greek word translated ‘nature’ denotes the very essence of God. The principal idea intended is that of exact correspondence. This correspondence involves not only an identity of the essence of the Son with that of the Father but more particularly a true and trustworthy revelation or representation of the Father by the Son.”

We remember the request made to Jesus by Philip when he said, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us” (John 14:8). We need to meditate upon the response of Jesus in John 14:9–11. He who would taste the fullness of the sweetness of Christ and perceive the total measure of His excellence must be willing to make the pursuit of the knowledge of Him the main and chief business of life. Such pursuits must not be hindered by sentimentality or reason. 

Coram Deo

Pray this prayer: “Dear God, reveal to me the depth and riches of the nature of Your Son, Jesus.”

Passages for Further Study

John 14:9–11

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow (On the Image of God)

The Image of God and Life Between the Sexes

Douglas Wilson

Blog&Mablog

INTRODUCTION:

People of course disagree about things, and one of the biggest things they differ on is the meaning and magnitude of their disagreements. One man’s adiaphora is another man’s summum bonum, one man’s mox nix is another man’s—oh I don’t know— buttterfly’s boots. I hope I am making myself clear.

Let me start over.

Unbelievers have grown so accustomed to their patterns of sexual license that they have come to regard the pattern of faithful monogamy among believers as just one more weird choice in a world full of weird choices. And—recognizing the differences between us—they (charitably, or so they think) want to relegate the importance of this particular difference to the museum of quaint religious opinions. Certainly we differ, they say soothingly, but surely, shouldn’t we be able to agree that it is no big deal? They allow that we can live this way if we want, but any hint from us that they ought to be doing so as well brings out all heir ire, not to mention the lawsuits.

A CENTRAL THING:

Now because we Christians understand that the two sexes coming together in a particular way bears the image of God, the response from us always has to be—no, this is necessarily a big deal. It is central, a true fundamental article of the faith. You can have true Christian churches that don’t baptize the right way. You can have real Christian churches that sing the wrong kind of songs. You can have genuine Christian churches that have adopted unedifying forms of church government. But you can’t have Christian churches that have the wrong God. And biblical marriage is one of the creationally-established and central confessions of faith concerning the nature of God.

Letter From the UK (About Transgender Zealots)

Destroying Truth Itself

Peter Hitchens
The Mail On Sunday


Most of these politically correct fads are just designed to wind us up and provoke us. For example, I now regret having wasted so much time trying to argue rationally about same-sex marriage. All the sexual revolutionaries wanted was an excuse to call me a bigot. They could then ignore everything I said, or tell lies about me, or both.

It was a tiny issue. In 2014, for example, in England and Wales, there were 247,372 heterosexual weddings, and 4,850 same-sex marriages. Already there are several hundred same-sex divorces each year.  Once the novelty has worn off, I suspect the numbers of same-sex unions will decrease, just as heterosexual ones are doing. The point – that the old ways are dead and gone – will have been made, and the campaigners will move on to something else.

I once thought the same about the transgender issue. But the idea that people are whatever sex they think they are is a terrifying weapon in the hands of modern Thought Police. Whatever you say, you cannot possibly be right about this.  Express any opinion (apart from total submission), and within minutes you will be besieged by condemnation.

Doxologies Alone Are Appropriate

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

The Bible declares that man is made in God's image.  We are the only creature upon the earth so designated.  But what does that designation mean?

One thing it does not mean is that part of man has the spark of the divine.  Thinking along these lines always degrades human beings, on the one hand, and curses humankind by heading straight into neo-platonic heresies, on the other.  Rather, the Word of God declares unequivocally that man, in body, soul, spirit, heart--that is, man in all his aspects--reflects and bears the image of God Himself.

To strike out the neo-platonism that lurks always at the edges of Christian doctrine we repeat that our body reflects the image of God, despite the fact that God Himself is "without body, parts, and passions".

As Douglas Kelly puts it:

. . . while the image of God is not corporeal as such, yet man's body does correspond to that divine image in a way not true of even the highest animals.  Koenig summarizes these corresponding features of man's body to the divine likeness:
a.) man's countenance which directs his gaze upwards.
b.) a capacity for varying facial expressions.
c.) a sense of shame expressing itself in the blush of man;
d.) speech.
[Douglas F. Kelly, Creation and Change: Genesis 1:1--2:4 in the Light of Changing Scientific Paradigms (Fearn, Ross Shire: Mentor/Christian Focus Publications, 1997), p.197.]

 It is the last aspect (speech and language) which seizes our attention as being particularly after God's image.

Bearing God's Image

Transcending to Abuse

Christians believe in the dignity of Man.  They believe in the glory of Man.  Christians believe--as true truth--that man is the only creature on this planet made in the image of God Himself.  Christians believe this astounding truth not because they think it is a good idea, but because God has revealed it to be so.

Then 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 birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.  [Genesis 1: 26-27]

There are many capabilities and abilities possessed by human beings that other creatures do not have.  All of them testify to our being in the image of God Himself.  Vern Poythress gives us one example:

In Celebration of Human Life

Every Person is Precious and Special



http://www.godvine.com/Meet-America-s-Only-Restaurant-Owner-With-Down-Syndrome-2917.html

Earthy Religion

The Human Body Reflects God's Image

The Scriptures declare in Genesis that man is made in the image of God. This is the definitive biblical distinction between man and all other creatures.  No other creature is so denoted by God.

There has been a good deal of reflection on what, in turn, being in God's image denotes precisely.  A common view is that man alone of all creatures has a soul, a personal identity or subsistence which enables him to commune and fellowship with God--whether in the body or out of the body.  This is something which dogs, for instance, do not have--although metaphorically the poets in the Psalms speak of animals crying out to God for their food.   Others have zeroed in on man's rational faculty: the fact that man can reason is why he is said to be in God's image.  Others still have pointed to language and the ability to communicate.  

The idea underlying all these possibilities is that man can lay aside his physical body at will, and retain his identity as being in God's image.  A second implication is that man is not unique in bearing the image of God--for all of these characteristics are shared with angels--who, along with man--commune with God, reason, think, argue, debate, and communicate.

This view of the "image of God", however, is a view which traditional and classical Jewish exposition has rejected.