In parts 1 and 2 of “The Image of God” I have partially explored the message in Genesis about God’s creation of humanity. He made the first humans, Adam and Eve, in his image. The original and primary identity and destiny of humans are being the children of God partnering with him to finish his creation. This is who we are and what we are about. It’s very important, actually it’s essential for us to grasp the truth of the beginning. We will miss much of the Bible’s meaning and will distort some of it if we don’t understand that
God made humans his offspring, living images to join him in finishing his creation. They – we – have the mission to carry out God’s will, plans, and purposes for the earth. Their – our – job is to expand the garden – the place where heaven and earth meet, the original temple – to encompass the entire earth.
God put the first humans in a garden for them to be sustained by it and for them to work it and care for it. And for them to meet God in it. God came to them there. God was with them there. Heaven and earth met in the garden.
All kinds of trees grew from the ground in the garden. There were two unique trees in the center. Genesis 2:9 tells us: “In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” “Life” indicated all that God was giving them and inviting them to experience – abundant life. “Knowledge of good and evil” indicated knowing what it’s like to do wrong along with doing right. So these two trees represented two ways of living. (1) Looking to, trusting in, centering on God and all he has for them. (2) Turning away from life with God. So from the very beginning humans have had the option to make a choice about how we will believe and live. But we cannot determine the outcome of the choice we make.
God warned his images about the outcome if they chose to eat fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:17): “See that tree. It’s dangerous. Don’t eat its fruit. You’ll die.” God gave them a warning. It was not a threat. The Lord did NOT say, “If you eat its fruit, I’ll kill you.” He was like parents warning their kids of potential danger. Or grandparents. Once, my wife and I were with our two young grandsons, walking through the apartment complex where they lived. Of course we told them to hold our hands when we came to a street and don’t go into street on their own. Of course, they did…step into the street on their own. Their grandmama yelled, “Stop!” Windows shattered, cars all around screeched to a halt, birds fell out of the sky, trees lay down. And two little boys stopped dead in their tracks. Was grandmama being mean, cruel, unfair? Of course not. She was yelling in love! Yes, she was loving the boys by warning them. That’s what God did.
Instead of freely joining with God, the Creator’s children freely rebelled against him.
Genesis 3:1-7 describes what happened:
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
A serpent, a snake showed up in the garden. It was one of the creatures that the humans were given authority to rule over (Genesis 1:28). But, somehow, it was controlled by or was the embodiment of God’s enemy (could we say the image of Satan?) – that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray (Revelation 12:9).
Even though it was Satan, they didn’t have to listen to it. In Psalm 8, which describes how God created humans and gave them authority over all creation, verse 2 says, “Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.“ They could have silenced the snake, but they listened.
The serpent hissed, “You will be like God.” Strange – they were already like God – that’s who they were – in his image. Yet, they fell for the scam, became convinced it would be better to act on their own instead of under God’s authority. They disobeyed. When they did, something drastically changed – and they saw it. Suddenly they weren’t what they were before, weren’t what they were supposed to be. They weren’t like God anymore. They tried to cover up, tried to look okay. Somehow they had been clothed in the image of God; now ashamed of who they are, they resorted to wearing fig leaves.
The Lord arrived in the Garden, as was his custom, and had to deal with them on a whole different level. God deals with reality. He speaks and acts on how things really are.
Genesis 3:16-19 explains:
To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
Let’s understand something here – pains, marriages being a hierarchy of rule, aching and difficult work, physical death, even some plants growing in the world are not what God created human existence to be like. We can’t look out at everything in the world and think that everything is God’s will, that’s how God wants everything to be.
What God created was now broken. She was supposed to be fruitful and multiply, but now that’s going to be painful. She was supposed to be a co-ruler, but now she will be ruled over. He was supposed to work and care for the ground, but now that’s going to be painful and difficult. They were supposed to subdue the earth, but now, returning to dust, they will be subdued by it. Creation was broken.
Genesis 3:22 tells us that God continued to deal with humans’ rebellion:
And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”
The man and woman became like God in a different way than what they were designed for – knowing good and evil. God knows good and evil by his omniscience, his ability to know all. They could know good and evil only by experience, by choosing to do evil, to disobey. God can handle knowing good and evil. They couldn’t. They were like God but were not God. The image was darkened, the authority was surrendered. They couldn’t be allowed to live like that forever. They had to die.
God clearly explained to them, “You will die.” Later, the apostle Paul told the humans of his day, “You were dead in your transgressions and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). Rebellious disobedience killed them. It kills all of us. We are like zombies – look alive but are dead. You can’t live in your identity as the image of God. You can’t be who you are intended to be. You can’t live out your destiny. You can’t do what you could do. Choosing the dangerous tree results in death.
The humans’ rebellion broke creation. Everything was messed up. How messed up? Their son murdered his brother. Things were not just a little off, not just mildly scuffed. In a short time, murder became a thing!
Speaking of their sons, Genesis 5:1-3 tells us,
This is the written account of Adam’s family line. When God created mankind, he made them in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them. And he named them “Mankind” when they were created. When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image…
This repeats the point that God created humanity – when he made Adam and Eve – in his own image. Adam then fathered a son – Seth, his third-born – who was in Adam’s image; he was like Adam. It seems like the Bible would tell us that Seth was also in God’s image. Maybe he wasn’t. The birth of all their children came after they had rebelled, disobeyed God, and “died” in the way Ephesians 2:1 states. So Seth was like his parents – fallen, broken, cursed. Their rebellion and brokenness were passed on to succeeding generations. I pointed out in part 1 of this series that after Genesis 9:6, the Bible has no reference to humans being in God’s image until in the New Testament, a couple of thousand years at least. I think this is why. Though humanity’s origin was being made in God’s image, the likeness had died. God did command the Hebrews to be holy because he is holy (Leviticus 11:44, for example), so being like God was still the goal. But all humans have “inherited” sinfulness and are therefore “dead” (see Romans 5:12-13; this is the doctrine called “original sin”). I would say the image of God is still there in us, in our spirits, but it is dead and needs to be raised to new life.
Humanity still mostly rejects the concept that it was created in the image of God. Have you ever heard anyone say, “I
identify as the image my Creator”? We mostly identify with other people with whom we have an affinity because they are already like us. We look alike or sound alike or feel alike or act alike or … The outcome of that still is a broken, messed up creation, a deformed, chaotic world.
I’ve seen it graphically. I worked in an adolescent treatment center. The residents were kids who at that time in their lives couldn’t function appropriately in society. Some had been pulled into gang mentality – anti-social, aggressive, uncaring, vicious. Some of the girls and boys cut themselves, beat themselves with their fists, rammed their heads against a wall, and some tried to kill themselves. Most of them had been physically and/or sexually and/or emotionally abused in all kinds of ways. There were kids who had been neglected, uncared for by parents who were addicted to drugs. Some kids had been given alcohol, marijuana, meth, or cocaine by their parents or older siblings when they were 5, 8, 10 years old and had become addicted themselves. Most had been taught destructive patterns for living. For example – two brothers in the facility – their dad would take them into the basement of their home and make them fight each other – not just wrestle until they were tired but fight it out trying to beat the hell out of each other – that’s how they learned to handle problems.
But I see this broken creation in myself as well – my selfishness, my uncaring, my anger, my hurt, my fears… You see it, too, don’t you – all around and inside. Now, society is trying to fix the brokenness and chaos and all the the pains and struggles that result. There are programs and policies, lessons and laws, experimental lifestyles and licenses (i.e. recreational drug use), and the massive entertainment industry – all attempts to make us “better versions of ourselves” and to feel better about ourselves and to function appropriately with each other. Some things do get better, but usually it doesn’t last.
It doesn’t last because we don’t know who we are and what we’re about. We reject being the image of God. We reject belonging to him and running the world the way he would. We keep eating the fruit that’s bad for us. And we don’t believe that it has any effect.
Look around, tell me what you see
What’s happenin’ to you and me
God grant me the serenity
To just remember who I am
(Joe South, Games People Play)
Yes, God’s creation was broken. God was not finished.