The Making of Man

Gen 1:27 “So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.”

Gen 2:7 “then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”

These two verses complement each other as woman complements man. The first is told in the context of the creation of the world where man is the climax, and in chapter 2 man is the pivot of the story.

Imago Dei – In a single word we are given the single, central truth about us. Many think that being in the image of God means that we are rational or morally responsible. I believe this isolates man’s mind and spirit from the body. We are a unity: acting, thinking, and feeling with our whole being. Derek Kidner puts it: “This living creature, then, and not some distillation from him, is an expression or transcription of the eternal, incorporeal creator in terms of temporal, bodily, creaturely existence – as one might attempt a transcription of, say, an epic into a sculpture, or a symphony into a sonnet.

Humans by their very nature are in the likeness of God though due to the fall we lost our spiritual likeness. That can only be present where God and man are in fellowship. Only redemption can recreate and perfect it. 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. (I John 3:2)

Implications – 1) God, our Maker, is not “wholly other”. 2) We are to take all human beings infinitely seriously. 3) God’s stamp on us constitutes a declaration of ownership.

Formed – this expresses our relationship to our Maker, while implying skillful design (Cf. Ps. 139:14-16), and a sovereignty which we forget to our peril (Is 29:16).

Breathed – formed being a somewhat impersonal activity (though, in many ways it is intensely personal, given that God intricately forms each one of us), breathed implies the intimacy with which God made us, invoking face-to-face imagery such as a kiss. So this was more than an act of making; it was an act of giving. Even here, in the opening chapters of the Bible we find the pattern of what was to come many thousands of years later, though at that time for our desperately needed recreation, “For God so loved…that he gave.”

Already…Not Yet (pt 3) Faith to Sight

Who hopes for what he sees?  (Rom 8:24)

I find it interesting that we are told time and again the Bible that our sight will be restored. Of course, other things will be restored as well – our entire bodies will be resurrected and glorified.  But I suppose what I find interesting is that despite such advancements in terms of sight that the human race has made, it still needs to be restored.  Now, I’m speaking of it in the physical sense, while the Bible the spiritual sense but I think a lesson still applies.  Think about how we are able to see galaxies thousands and millions of light years away with telescopes; we are able to see single cells with a microscope, we are able to fix eyes with surgery and use corrective lenses; the list could go on.

And yet despite all this seeing, with more advances being made daily, our sight is still incredibly deficient.  We still can’t see the most important things.  We cannot see Jesus, and even many in his own day were blind, in a spiritual sense, to him.  We cannot see heaven or hell; we cannot see the future; we cannot see the fulfillment of our promises from God.  We cannot see the log in our own eye; we cannot see the love of God in the midst of difficult situations. 

The verse above is referencing the redemption of our bodies.  The redemption of our bodies is a promise of what will happen in the future for God’s adopted.  But we cannot see it yet; it has not happened. So for the present, in this time without sight, we have faith, faith in the promises of God. 

Think about other promises from God regarding the fulfillment of the kingdom.  These are all things we must have faith in.  And, as discussed in the previous post in this series, faith in the promise determines obedience to God. 

Lack of faith tends to produce fear, inability to act, etc.  Think of the story of Elisha in 2 Kings 6,  when the city was surrounded by an army.  When the young man woke up in the morning he about freaked out when seeing they were surrounded by the enemy!  When Elisha prayed that his eyes would be opened the young man saw the entire mountain full of horses and chariots of fire.  Sight revealed the reality of the situation.  So it is with the Christian, except unlike this young man we are not privy to having our sight in the present.  In the meantime, we have faith, faith in the certainty of the fulfillment of the promises of God.

Jesus came to “give sight to the blind”.  In a physical sense he healed people’s deficient eyesight. However, this was done to point to the more powerful miracle of giving people spiritual sight.  Sight to see Him, to believe, to see our own sin, to see our sin gone and nailed to a cross.  Sight to believe that we now see as if in a mirror dimly, and later we will see clearly, as if face to face.

Beginnings and Ends - Genesis 1

The passage leaves no doubt as to what the point of the story of creation – and by extension, the world – is.  It was the triune God who created and it was the triune God who saw and said that it was good.  The point, the purpose of the world, of history, of all situations, whether devastating or delightful, is not me (or you).  The ultimate purpose of things is that God would be glorified, that he would be supremely satisfied with his work, that one of more of his attributes or characteristics would be displayed.  This doesn’t mean that we always understand how something is glorifying to him (or makes him look great).  But since the point of the story, since God’s design isn’t that we are always happy, that we always understand what is going on that’s ok.  We can rest assured knowing that the ultimate purpose is always being fulfilled even if we don’t understand – God is being glorified and accomplishing his purposes.

So if the question is: What was the chief end of the world creation of the world and what is the chief end of the world? The answer is that God’s purposes might be fulfilled and that he might be fully satisfied in himself. 

To say the story of creation in Genesis chapter 1 is sweeping and magnificent would be an understatement.  And yet there it is, filing up roughly one page of a Bible, the story, in brief, of the beginning of the world.  Whether what is described there took 6 literal 24 hour days or perhaps much, much longer does not matter so much. The point is that God made it.  The first three days activities describe giving form, and the next three fullness (light > sun, moon; seas > fish; etc.).  And it is all the prelude, merely the curtain-raising, so to speak for what was and is to follow – the whole of redemptive history, of God calling a people to be his own possession, saving them from the punishment for sin and granting to them eternal life, to be with him for ever and ever.

Already...Not Yet (pt 2)

Promises are the foundation of our faith, and they change our behavior.  Abraham changed his behavior and obeyed God based on faith in His promises.  And so it is for every person since (and before).  When we believe the promises of God we change our behavior to be pleasing to God.  It is when we doubt God’s promises that our obedience falters.  Are there certain commands or expectations of you that you believe you are not living up to?  I believe we can trace this to absence of belief in a promise (or promises) of God.   It is not a matter of discipline; it is not a matter of growing up in a Christian home, or sitting under the teaching of a renowned pastor.  If you believe the promises of God you will obey.  If you do doubt, then you will cut corners, or flat out disobey.

The promises of God tend to tell us what the “Not Yet” of the Kingdom will be like and look like.  They tell us what the Christian’s condition will be in the future.  That they are promises indicates that their fulfillment is “Not Yet”.  However that they are given, and that King Jesus has come and conquered death (All the promises of God find their yes and amen in Him) indicates that in the present we can and should base our behavior on their fulfillment.  That the promise alone is given though not yet fulfilled tells us that something has “Already” happened. 

Think about it like this:  Lets say your rich uncle calls you up to tell you that next Saturday he’s going to give you a check for $50,000 with no strings attached (Also assume that this is someone who would not joke around. He’ll follow through here.).  Do you change your behavior this next week at all?  Maybe purchase some first class plane tickets, maybe go out to some nice restaurants, buy that new car, give to charity?  You probably would.  In fact, it would be odd if you didn’t (similar to the man who just saved his single talent in the ground without investing it during his master’s absence).  You don’t actually have the money yet, but the promise is good enough.  You can count on it and literally bet 50k on it.  

That is what it means for the Kingdom of God to be already but not yet.  Jesus has come, inaugurating the Kingdom, ascended and now reigning over the world.  But the Kingdom is not yet in full form, though someday it will be.  The Christian has been given promises, incentives, disincentives, and commands to guide our behavior during this “in-between time” while we wait for the kingdom in its fullness.

The promises of God are certain to come to pass. They are also inestimably great and glorious.  One’s actions, and the sum of their actions on earth tend to indicate the strength of person’s belief in the greatness promised, and the certainty that it will indeed come to pass.

The reward is God, in the future

            Trust and pursue

                        To give God the glory

                                    Philippians 3:12-14 

Do we forgive every offense?

This is a continuation of my previous post on forgiveness.

Adams says:

"A good question. No. God has provided a means for handling a multitude of offenses that we commit against one another. But it is not by forgiveness. In I Peter 4:8, quoting Proverbs 17:9, Peter points out that those who love one another "cover a multitude of sins" in love. It is only those sins which throw the covers off that must be dealt with by the Luke 17 and Matthew 18 process: those offenses that break fellowship and lead to an unreconciled condition require forgiveness. Otherwise, we simply learn to overlook a multitude of offenses against ourselves, recognizing that we are all sinners and that we must gratefully thank others for covering our sins as well."

So, practically speaking that probably means you overlook your sister’s sour attitude tomorrow at 7:00 am. But when she uncharacteristically yells at you or a friend of yours on Friday night, might want to talk about that one...

He goes on to say that we need to avoid making lists - those sins that can be covered by love and those that create unreconciled conditions. This requires discernment. The same offense may or may not result in an unreconciled condition, depending on many changing and unpredictable factors. And we should also be careful about telling ourselves that we have overlooked one's sin(s) when we really have not.

Conditional Forgiveness

(This is part of the series on Forgiveness based on “From Forgiven to Forgiving” by Jay Adams.)

Forgiveness is conditional.  It is not something we are to give unconditionally.  Contrast this with the way a Christian is to love and pray.  We are to pray for our enemies and love those who hurt us.  We aren’t allowed to let others “earn” our love.  We just have to give it.  Forgiveness isn’t like that.  It can’t just be given out.

A handful of authors claim that Christians ought to forgive unconditionally, (mainly basing this on Jesus’ prayer on the cross) forgiving those who haven’t asked for it, haven’t confessed, perhaps even forgiving an animal, an entire denomination or race of people, and dead people. This teaching of forgiving without repentance has become so widespread that it has been picked up by non-Christians.

Adams first addresses Jesus’ prayer on the cross and concludes that he was not forgiving unrepentant people.  Rather, he was asking his Father to forgive them.  One might respond then that it was an ineffectual prayer and how could Jesus pray a prayer like that?  Well, it was not ineffectual.  In fact, His prayer was answered on the day of Pentecost when Peter preached to the crowd in Jerusalem and on those other occasions when Jews repented and believed the Gospel (cf. Acts 2:37-38, 3:17-19).

Regarding other claims that we ought to forgive the dead, entire groups of people, or otherwise those who don’t or can’t repent we should remember that no example of this or command like this is in the Scripture.  We must remember the purpose of forgiveness.  It is not for ourselves, to make ourselves feel better.  It is to obey God, follow his example and for the sake of the other person. 

But what about Mark 11:25?  From that verse it looks clear that we don’t have to go on record, making a promise to the person who wronged us.  Here Jesus is concerned about the believer’s attitude as he stands before God in prayer.  If one is inwardly unwilling to forgiven then God likewise will not forgive.  So, here the verse is talking about one preparing to lift guilt from his neighbor, changing his attitude, so that when the two people are able to communicate the one is “ready to forgive”.  While one doesn’t commune with the dead or pretend to forgive another he does express to God his willingness to grant forgiveness and be reconciled to (if possible) his brother. 

From Page 34 on conditional forgiveness being modeled after God’s:

It should go without saying that since our forgiveness is modeled after God’s (Eph. 4:32), it must be conditional.  Forgiveness by God rests on clear, unmistakable conditions.  The apostles did not merely announce that God had forgiven men, who should acknowledge and rejoice in the fact but, rather, they were sent forth to preach “repentance and the forgiveness of sings” (Luke 24:47; Acts 17:30).  The sins of those who repented and trusted in the Savior as the One who shed His blood for them were forgiven on the conditions of repentance and faith.  Paul and the apostles turned away from those who refused to meet the conditions, just as John and Jesus did earlier when the scribes and Pharisees would not repent.

Leave behind everything, gain even more

Genesis 12:1-3

If Genesis can be divided into two parts, a top candidate for such division would be 1-11, and 12-50. The first part telling of Creation, the Fall, Flood, and the nations. The books second part focuses in the promised seed, or posterity, and to a lesser extent the promised land, as four patriarchs are biographed: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.

In chapter 1 God created the world, and the human race. Now in chapter 12 He zeroes in on the man by whom the entire world will be blessed, Abram. And just as creation began with God speaking, the work of redemption begins with his words (Gen 12:1).

Abram is told to leave behind his kindred, family, and country. I think this is a foreshadowing of what our Lord tells us in the Gospels regarding the cost of discipleship (cf. Luke 9:23-26, Luke 9:57-62, Luke 12:49-53, Luke 14:25-35)

The last passage, I think is most revealing:

…If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and eve his own life, he cannot be my disciple…So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

So it was for Abram, who had to faithfully leave his country, kindred, and father’s house, a gradual disentanglement that was not complete until the end of chapter 13.

This was Abram’s part; as significant as this was (and is) the heaping of the “I wills” show how much greater was the Lord’s. Bare faith alone was required – Abram had to exchange the known for the unknown to find his reward in what he could not see (a great nation), in what was intangible (your name), and in what he would impart (blessing).

Jesus tells us that if we do not live with this kind of faith, counting the costs, and hoping singularly in our Lord we’re like salt that isn’t even good for the manure pile.

Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Already…Not Yet (pt 1) Crosses to Crowns

One of the characteristics of the Kingdom of Heaven is that it is “already and not yet.” In other words, the kingdom manifests itself through the church, and thereby the future reign of God breaks into the present. It is here; it is “already”. Cf Matt 12:28. However, it is “not yet” here fully, cf. Matt 25:34.

I’m beginning a series looking at those things which we Christians have or experience now, those things a part of the “Already” and contrast them with the corresponding “not yet” promise that we have to look forward to. If any readers have suggestions they would like to submit for me to write on that would be fantastic. One of the reasons I am doing this is because I have recently been convicted that I do not spend too few thoughts meditating on the future glory and too much thinking about the present. I hope that reflecting on what is in store for the Christian will be a benefit to you as well.

Today the Christian bears a cross. The gospels are replete with the words of Christ that his followers must take up their cross. Cf. Matt 16:24, Luke 14:27. My first thought when reading these passages is usually something to the effect of “This means life will be hard”, or “I’m bound to have difficult situations, just gotta barrel on through in the name of carrying my cross.” But the metaphor here, crucifixion (talk about being blunt with His followers!), must mean more than “a difficult life”, or the certainty of “tough situations”. For Christ taking up his cross meant dying to self-will and submitting to the will of God the Father, no matter the cost. And so it is for us. The Christian must die to his will and submit to God’s will, no matter the costs. It could mean a lower standard of living, a difficult family situation, persecution, an extraordinary giving of one’s time and resources to the unloved, and so forth. In short, for the Christian to take up his cross in this life means nothing less than the kind of submission and obedience to God that our Lord had on Maundy Thursday and the Friday of his death.

When the kingdom of God is in its fullness, there will be no more cross bearing for Christians, but we will have crowns. All those who have loved his appearing, Paul tells us in 2 Tim 4:8, will be given crown of righteousness. James 1:12 promises the crown of life to all who love God. “When the chief shepherd appears [Christians] will receive the unfading crown of glory.” Crowns belong to conquerors, to people who reign.
Romans 8 tells us that we are more than conquerors! And we know that someday we will reign with Christ in his kingdom.

The Rainbow in Heaven

Amidst many other more memorable details surrounding the throne in Heaven such as the twenty-four elders, and the seven spirits of God, there is something I never thought much about before – a rainbow around the throne.

On earth we never see an entire rainbow, only partial ones, but their meaning is the same it’s always been since Noah saw the rainbow.  In heaven, since the partial is gone, this rainbow is a full circle all around the throne.  How breathtaking that must have been for John to see! 

The rainbow was a token of covenant.  God relates to his people in terms of covenant promise. Since the rainbow forms a perfect circle, everything that proceeds from this throne must pass through it.

The circling rainbow suggests two things:

1) The necessity of working by his covenant; He must act through his promises. (To be consistent in Himself)

2) The perfection of his working by covenant (we need nothing more than His promises)

Praise God for his faithfulness to his people; Testing us, trying us, disciplining, blessing with material goods, and blessing his people with spiritual blessings.  Though we sin, he forgives.