In the image of God

The second group discussion at church was about the Creation and how God intended things to be. As the previous week, that has got me thinking. The verses that we looked at reminded us of how carefully he made everything and how amazingly good it was. Creation was indeed God's masterpiece. Of course the pinnacle was the making of Adam, crafted from the dust, and Eve fashioned from Adam's rib. Ever since then humans have been fearfully and wonderfully made, each one of us.

Adam and Eve were given the luscious Garden of Eden to tend, which produced food for them without any effort and they lived in harmony with nature, as well as in communion with God himself. They knew good, and the good that they knew was very good. God came and talked to them personally. What more could they want?

Well, maybe a few days after they had been created, or possibly approaching more like 100 years (probably somewhere in between), the devil possessed a snake and came to talk to Adam and Eve. He asked them the same question as above: "Don't you want to eat from that tree in the middle of the Garden which God has forbidden you to have as food? If you do, you will know evil as well as good." The devil was offering them more than God had, and they wouldn't have known what evil was or its consequences. The devil painted a tempting picture of their eyes being opened to the more.

Jesus sets us free to live fully in God's image.

O dear, why did God allow us to choose? Why did he put the tree there as a temptation? Why didn't he just make us as people who had to love him? Because being made fully in God's image means that we have to be able to make choices, like him, and because love is not love if it's compulsory. Love has to be a choice to be love. He did, though, give us everything that we could possibly need and want so as to make the choice easy for us.

But Adam and Eve made the wrong choice and we became fallen creation, still intrinsically in God's image, but distorting that image dreadfully at times. We still possessed divinely inspired creativity and an enormous capacity to good when we so chose, but none of us choosing that all the time because we no longer could. Our very nature had become corrupt and sinful.

It doesn't have to remain like that, though. For those of us who have given our lives back to God and trust in Jesus for our salvation, we are now redeemed creation, free from the need to sin. We still make mistakes and need forgiveness, but we are free, free indeed, to start reflecting again that unfallen image of God.

Who is God?

This is probably one of my favourite questions. Exploring God is just amazing - there is always more to find. We had discussion at church about this topic a few days ago and it reminded me of the vastness of his nature. If we look at some of the major visions that a few people in the Bible had, we begin to realize that he is beyond our understanding. For example, we can read Isaiah's vision in the Temple (Isaiah chapter 6, verses 1 - 8), Ezekiel's vision by the River Chebar (Ezekiel chapter 1, verses 1 - 28), Jesus at his transfiguration (Matthew chapter 17, verses 1 - 8), or John's vision of Heaven (Revelation chapter 1, verses 9 - 18).

Some of the imagery that is used to express what people took away from these encounters is quite bizarre, which reminds us that we can't contain God within the limits of what we have experienced or can understand. Ezekiel, in particular, kept writing that what he saw was was like this, or like that, but he clearly couldn't really quite convey what he saw using human vocabulary. Perhaps his vision of the storm with what looked like glowing metal at the centre was a bit like the picture above - perhaps not.

Some parts of the Bible tell us about God's sterner side: there are lots of commands and threats of punishment if we disobey. For example, in Deuteronomy we can read a whole list of curses in store for those who don't obey God's commands (Deuteronomy 28:15 - 68). We were reminded the other night that these commands are, though, good. They are there to protect us and guide us into the best possible way of living. If we don't comply with rules put in place to look after us, then we shall end up getting hurt. In the end, though, if we don't properly acknowledge God as God, then he won't put up with that and there is a Hell to which we consign ourselves in the next life, if we go down that route - an afterlife forever separated from him and his goodness. Yes, he is uncompromising about that. God does indeed have a stern side.

Yet he does everything that he possibly can to avoid our ending up in that position. Even in the Old Testament, where traditionally we think the judgmental side of God is to be found, there are heart rending cries from God, through the writings of his prophets, calling us back to him, to live as his children, because he can't bear to be parted from us. In particular, I am always brought back to anguish that God described to Hosea when he was considering sending his beloved people into exile (Hosea chapter 11, verses 1 - 11).

We shall never fully understand God because his nature transcends human capacity, but we do know that this incomprehensible being who made the whole Universe, just by speaking, who made us to be like him, who is totally jealous of his position as the only real God, and rightly so, loves us so much that he will go to any lengths to give us a way to end up living the next life with him in Heaven if we so choose.

A Fresh Look at the Gospel

A Fresh Look at the Gospel week 1 - with

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