Life Project Blog

The Scriptures contain God’s complete revelation of Himself to Mankind; they contain everything He has revealed to us. Yet this is not to suggest that He has revealed to us everything that there is to know. When my kids were young, there was a time when I had taught them everything they knew about politics, but I hadn’t come close to teaching them everything I knew about politics. At that time, I was right in the middle of the fray, and I knew things they simply were not ready for or capable of handling responsibly. God, our Creator, our loving heavenly Father has not revealed everything He knows to us, simply because He knows things that we can neither handle nor properly comprehend; He has revealed to us what we need to know.

So, for the purposes of our exploration into the image of God, there are aspects of it that we will most likely not fully comprehend, and one of those is how a spirit can have a form which, on occasion, can be seen by a person. Yet Scripture does reveal that they do, and that God, who is Spirit, has a form and that we have been created in His likeness, as we have already seen.

As I mentioned earlier, this was a tough one for me to grab a hold of, to get my brain around, until I recalled this verse:

Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

John 14:9

Contextually speaking, this verse falls within Jesus’ final discourse with His disciples (John 14-17) on the night of His arrest. He is giving them encouragement and guidance for the trials they lay ahead, and in this particular part of the discussion, He is telling them that He is in the Father, the Father is in Him, and that He is in us, another little concept that is not easy to comprehend the mechanics of.

So imagine you are there with Jesus that night, and He says this, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father”: What do you see when you look at Jesus? (Try to picture this in your mind)

If you are honest, the first thing you will see is His physical presence, His body, but knowing who you are looking at, you will perceive much more than that, for Jesus embodied the power of God, healing the sick, making the lame whole again, giving sight to the blind, chasing out demons and bringing justice and the Kingdom to the people, and just as we cannot separate Jesus from the Word, we also cannot separate His humanity from His divinity. When Paul said that Christ was “the image of God” in 2 Corinthians 4:4, he spoke of the complete package.

Many scholars have observed, and I think rightly so, that Jesus was the Holy Spirit in a body. You and I are earthen vessels that contain the Holy Spirit, for in Christ, we have the Holy Spirit indwelling our mortal bodies, for we have been created in the image of God, body, soul and spirit, and it is the entire package that comprises God’s image and likeness.

I think I should give you some time for reflection on this, for it truly is a really big deal to be made in God’s image. I will conclude for now by simply saying that the more I think about this, the more I realize that the implications of this are beyond huge; they are profound and vast.

Do you have any thoughts? Please share them. If you are convinced that I have lost all semblance of reason and sanity, please share that too, and don’t forget to share why you think so. Have any questions? Please ask!

See you tomorrow!

Yesterday we looked at the issue of images, form and spirits through the lens of a few Old Testament passages; today we have a few from the New Testament in Jesus’ words, before we move on to another line of exploring. Getting right to it, we come to a verse from Matthew’s Gospel that we have looked at recently:

See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven. (Matt. 18:10)

It was just a few weeks back, on January 4 that I posted on this section within the context of Matt. 18:10-14, the Parable of the Wandering Sheep. As you recall, this falls within a larger section in which Jesus was “discipling the disciples”, teaching them about what it means to follow Him, and focusing in on His messianic mission. Remember also that this was a transitional verse that moved into the parable, and it was all about how a disciple should not disdain or diminish anyone. This transitional verse has a way of flying past us without much notice, but for our purposes have a look. Jesus speaks of the angels in heaven who “see the face of my Father” almost in passing, really as a given, as though it would be so obvious that it really didn’t deserve any attention of its own, as He moves onto His larger point. Yet for our present adventure, we need to see that God has a face means that even in heaven, God has some sort of a form.

If this were simply a turn of phrase or an idiom, wouldn’t we expect to see in other places? We have just completed a fairly thorough review of Matthew; we have just read every word of his text, and Jesus only used this phrase once, thus it would appear that Jesus means the words literally. Shall we try another one?

I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to finish—the very works that I am doing—testify that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent. You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me,  yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

John 5:36-40 (emphasis added)

This passage falls within the context of 5:1-47, beginning when Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath. The man told the Jewish leaders who had done the shocking deed, and beginning in verse 16 they confront Jesus about His unlawful behavior. Jesus’ defense in vv. 19-30 is essentially that He is doing His Father’s work when the Father sees fit to do it, and then in 5:31 ff. Jesus is citing that He has two witnesses to prove this: John (the Baptist) and the Father Himself. Contextually speaking, His words in verse 37 (You have never heard his voice nor seen his form) are an integral part of His defense in which the fact that the Father has both a voice and a form are understood to be facts. If this were not the case, then Jesus is making a very poor defense and opening Himself up to further accusations.

To be quite candid at this point, the first time I looked at these passages, I was a little uneasy for even though the way I had been taught never rang true for me, and I could easily see its flaws, I find myself struggling at this point because I don’t understand how this works, and I am the sort who likes to understand how things work. Then, a certain statement that Jesus made, that we can all quote, came to mind; a passage that made the whole thing make sense to me. I can’t wait to share it with you!

But wait I will. Any thoughts?

(See you next time.)

We continue now with our discussion that began last time; welcome back. We left discussing an interesting passage from Numbers 12:5-8 in which God is rebuking Miriam and Aaron for speaking against Moses, and as you will recall, God told them that Moses is the one to whom He speaks in person, rather than in visions and dreams; directly and not indirectly. During our break, I once again checked to see what Hebrew word was used in these verses to indicate that Moses saw God’s form, and I have some interesting results to share. First, here’s the verse again:

With him I speak face to face,
clearly and not in riddles;
he sees the form of the Lord.
Why then were you not afraid
to speak against my servant Moses?” (Num. 12:8)

The Hebrew word used is temuna (H8544) which means “form, image, likeness, representation, semblance” and is found ten times in the Old Testament (Ex. 20:4; Num. 12:8; Deut, 4:12, 15, 16, 23, 25, 5:8; Job4:16; Ps. 17:15) with consistent meaning and application.

It is beginning to be clear to me that God does in fact have a form, and He may from time to time, at His sole discretion, choose to be seen by humans, and it is also becoming clear to me that we cannot discount this as though it were some sort of a fluke. Yes indeed, God is Spirit, that fact is not in despite in this journey of ours, but as I’ve long suspected, it is beginning to appear as though our understanding of what that means has been a bit short-sighted. Ask yourself a question: How many times have we read passages of Scripture in which someone saw an angel of the Lord? Angels are also spirit beings, and yet when the occasion arises, they too can be seen to have a form in Scripture.

I don’t know about you, but I’m intrigued. Let’s continue to follow this trail; there are more passages to examine…

Take a look at Exodus 33:18-21:

Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory.”

And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”

Then the Lord said, “There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock.  When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by.  Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen.”

At this point in his experience, Moses wanted to see God, but that was not permissible, for no one could tine see God’s face and live. In order for this to be true, wouldn’t God need to have a face? So God decided to let Moses see His back… Wouldn’t He need to have a back? Of course, it would also appear that He had a hand, since He was going to us it to cover Moses’ eyes…

What shall we say  is this just anthropomorphism (human terms used to describe divine attributes)? Many say so, I’ve even said so! Yet they don’t ring true when describing an actual event, because as we know, God did just as He said, and Moses saw His back. If there is a question presented by these two verses, it would be: What happened between Exodus 33 and Numbers 12 that made it possible for Moses and God to talk face to face?

Nothing in our discussion thus far negates the fact that God is Spirit, nor does anything negate the fact that humans also have a spirit: These things are not in dispute in our adventure together. Remember, we are exploring the meaning and significance of being created in God’s image. Humans as we know already have both form and spirit, and if God also has both form and spirit, then there is more significance for us in the here and now of being created in His image, than there would be otherwise, and that is what we are investigating.

Next time, let’s see if we can find any place where Jesus might have shed some light on this…

1 Corinthians 11:2-16

Good morning everyone and welcome to Corinth where we have come to check out a passage Paul wrote about men, women, hats and Imago Dei…

To begin with, Corinth in the first century was a moral cesspool even by the standards of the ancient world. By modern standards, even the wildest and most “progressive” thinkers would likely be grossed out by some of the things that went on there; it makes for an interesting study, if you have a strong stomach. Not surprisingly, the church in Corinth was a mess, and when news of what was going on there reached the Apostle Paul, he grabbed his pen and fired off a letter addressing the issues that had come to his attention.

The church there was dealing with rampant sexual immorality, chaos and disorder in worship and false teachers, heresies and false apostles, to name a few of their problems. Make no mistake, Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church is a letter of correction, containing quite a few rebukes; it is not just lovey-dovey chapter 13.

It would seem that one of the problems they had there was with people causing disruptions in the worship, disruptions of more than one variety. Paul addresses these in a section that includes chapters 11-14. Yes, that’s the context into which the great “love chapter” falls, and isn’t that interesting? Our exploration is concerned with a part of this larger discussion that is found in 11:2-16, and the particular verses that concern out study of the image of God are these:

A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.

1 Corinthians 11:7-9

So, now that you have read the passage (11:2-16), and re-read these three verses, is Paul telling us that only males are made in God’s image?

Many have taught that it does mean that over the centuries…

While you’re considering your answer I’ll share something with you: When I was a boy, both my mother and sister always wore hats to church on Sunday, but my father and I did not. Funny thing is… I haven’t seen women wearing hats in church now, for 30 years or more; I wonder why that is…

OK, what did you decide, are women created in the image of God?

Well, if they are not created in the image of God, then we have a real problem, because Moses and Paul would be contradicting each other!

As I see it, here’s the solution: Paul is writing to Corinth at a specific point in time when they were having very specific local problems to contend with, and they were losing their way. Paul’s corrective measures were specific and local in nature, and only applied to Corinth and congregations with similar problems and circumstances; in Corinth, both the problems and the solutions were local and cultural in nature; neither was either transcendent or universal.

Yet there is also another factor in play here, for within Scripture there is a certain metaphorical hierarchy that Paul has expressed here as part of his solution to the problems of Corinth. That hierarchy is this: The Father is over the Son, who does the Fathers’ will. The Son is over the church that serves the Son. The husband is over the wife, as Christ is over the Church, and the parent is over the child, also as Christ is over the Church. This hierarchy is quite common in Paul’s writings, see Eph. 5:21 ff. for one of them. None of this means that men are better than women, or that women are less than men; it means that Christ is over the church! (cf. Eph. 5:32)

Thus, Paul is not putting women beneath men as any kind of universal dictate or directive, but rather trying to bring order out of chaos for the sake of the Gospel. For me, this becomes very clear in these verses, and I’ll give them the last word:

Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God. (11:11-12)

I’ll see you back in the Garden next time!

(And don’t forget to stop by Church Set Free for the conversation about Justice!)

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 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 (NASB)

How are you enjoying your visit to Eden so far? It sure is beautiful this time of year; quite a contrast to the snow and ice where I live. Well, let’s get back to work…

If we decide that humanity is made in God’s image, and we cite a text in which God speaks of Himself as “us” and “our”, which is to say in the plural, then we need to consider what this plurality refers to so as to ensure that our understanding of this “likeness” is correct. One way to work this out would be to look at the other “In the beginning” passage in Scripture, which is found in John 1:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:1-5, 14

In John’s account, which actually begins before the Creation, it is clear that at least 2 Persons of the Godhead are present, for the Word that became flesh and was with God, and was God from before the beginning of Creation, is quite clearly a reference to the Son, Jesus. So it would seem that Father and Son were very much involved in Creation; I wonder if we can find the Spirit as well…

Returning to the Genesis text, I found this:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. (1:1-2)

Thus, we find all three Persons of the Godhead present and at work in the Creation, and we humans are made in the fullness of the image of God; that appears to me to be the meaning of the “Us and the “our”.

The next lead found in our text (Genesis 1:26-27) is that of male and female:

in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

You can take this and interpret it in one of two ways: You can say that God made the man in His image, and God also created the woman, but only the man bears God’s image because, although God also created the woman, she was taken from the man, and must be in the man’s image. If you want to go this way, you can then cite 1 Corinthians 11 as your “proof text” and many have done this over the centuries, and even today some still do this. To be honest with you, as a man myself, I’d like to do this whenever my wife hands me a “honey do” list. However, I hesitate to try, for one simple little reason:

Do you see that little semicolon in the phrase? Do you see those two clauses on either side of the semicolon? They are parallel; this phrase is a Hebrew parallelism, like those you find throughout the Proverbs. In a Hebrew parallelism, the clauses on either side of our semicolon are equal; they mean the same thing. Thus, sorry guys, both male and female bear the image of God. In fact, we might begin to suspect that they bear the image of God in its completeness when they come together as “one flesh”.

Of course, at this point in our exploring, that is only a suspicion, a lead to follow before we are finished, but I don’t quite think we have gotten that far yet. I think, and I would be interested to see if you agree, that before we do that, we should have a quick look at 1 Corinthians 11 to make sure I haven’t missed something, and then look at what kind of an image God actually has. Next time, let’s step out of the Garden and pay a visit to the Church in Corinth. Be sure to dress modestly; ladies grab your hats and guys, you can leave your hats at home for this one…