"And God Said Let Us make Man in Our Image and Our Likeness" Genesis: 1:26
The great God .who brought all things into being announces his divine intent for the creation of humanity. God declares from the pages of the Holy writ that humanity was to be in his “image and likeness".
"let us make man in our image and our likeness" Gen:1:26
Over the centuries Christian Scholars and Theologians have come to understand
that God is telling us, that he, himself, is the pattern for each and all of
us; that the human race is to be an expression of who God is.
All Things Human
When we read the words of the Holy Bible,
which speaks to us that we are made in the "image and likeness" of
God, we understand that this applies to us as individuals, but when we look
closer at just what God is telling us, about us, and then consider who God is,
it speaks to each and all of us about much more.
God is telling us that all of human society
individually and collectively was to be in the "image
and likeness" of God. This gives us a deeper understanding as
to who our Lord is and what he has accomplished for us in and by Jesus Christ.
The Shema: “Hear, O Israel"
The people of Israel, the very descendants of
the Patriarch Abraham to whom and with whom the creator God had made a Covenant , had been set free out of the bondage of slavery and led forth to freedom.
To this people of Israel, the Lord God had declared to them, his uniqueness;
that he and he alone is God and that there is but one God.
The people of Israel expressed this
understanding of the one God in the great Shema Creed or Profession which framed and supported Israel’s
understanding of who their God is and defined their national relationship with
their God. The Hebrew word Shema means to
"hear" or "give great attention to”.
The Shema Creed is
found in the book of Moses Deuteronomy: 6:4 "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one".
The Shema Creed,
expressed the people of Israel's understanding of God, and gives Christian’s
insight into the very one who came and continues to come to each and all through the very person of Jesus Christ in the Gospel proclamation, as the Reformer John Calvin observed "Christ comes to us clothed in his own Gospel”.
The God spoken of in the Shema Creed we
are told is "one”. The Hebrew word translated
"one" in the Shema is "Echad". This word's emphases is not on
the numeric nature in the way that we would normally understand it, but rather stresses his "perfect wholeness", and his "self-unity" .
Incarnation: God in the Flesh
In the ancient world, in which the Apostolic
Church ministered and proclaimed the Gospel, there were many views of God and
or gods. Some saw God as alone divine being.
Some ancient peoples believed in a host of or
pantheon of gods each with their own particular realm of influence over human
affairs or resident powers of nature. Some viewed God as a consciousness
or over mind or impersonal force or power which over saw and guided the
material creation.
The Ancient Church however, came to grasp
something altogether different than the pagan peoples around them. Christians
now understood that in the person of Jesus Christ, God himself has visited humanity,
and not only that, but, the very Creator who speaks his divine intent to make
humanity in "image and likeness"
took on our very humanity and lived a human life and forever joined himself to
us, and we to him all through the incarnation and the resurrection and the
glorification of the humanity of Jesus.
The Gospel of St. John,
which reflects a deep grasp of the very deity and humanity of Jesus gives us a
view into the nature of our Lord Jesus Christ.
" In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.…" Jhn: 1:1-2
St. John , begins his account of the history of
Salvation and God's purposes, in "Eternity Past"
before all else was, even prior to the creation the Heavens and the angelic
host there was God alone.
The Apostle St. John is stressing and emphasizing to us all the very divine nature of Jesus, who, he reports, takes on our humanity and brings to us a revelation about who the very creator God is; which the Shema declares is "one". That in Jesus, in his incarnation, this God is made known.
" and the Word became flesh"(14)
Where is the Holy Spirit?
Some, when examining the passages in the Gospel of St. John, have noted the expressed mention of
the Father and Son, so they have questioned regarding the Holy Spirit, that if
the God of the Shema is the Trinity, they ask
"would not this be the obvious place to find the Holy Trinity?
However, if we look closer at St. John's Gospel,
we will perceive the Holy Trinity in clear view. Some may ask "where is this revelation taking placed”. The Trinity is
there before our very eyes in the account itself, for it is the Holy Spirit the
Third person of the Holy Trinity, who is speaking to us from of the pages of
the Bible, and from where the Holy Spirit is speaking about the Son of God.
That means when we look into Eternity past, it
is the Son of God whom the Sprint declares to us , the very Son the Second
person of the Holy Trinity who comes to us bearing our "image and likeness" in the incarnation that
we may bear the "image and likeness" of
God.
The Self of God
In the incarnation all of God is made manifest in the person of Jesus,
that is in Jesus no "part" of God is excluded in this divine self-revelation.
This tells us that if Jesus was not God himself, and the self of God, then God
could not reveal himself in Jesus. This is the
God of the Shema who has "perfect wholeness" and "self-unity".
In the person of Jesus , the Second Person of the Holy Trinity , all of God is perfectly revealed, that
is, all his fullness is seen in its
clearest and most powerful revelation thru which we are invited to live in and
out of this community of the Trinity.
"The Son is the image of the
invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.For in him all things were
created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones
or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him
and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the
firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the
supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him," Col:1:15-19
In and throgh Jesus God in his fullness is
revealed to us. Everything of eternal value is found in Jesus and made available
to us.
"My goal is that they may be
encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches
of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God,
namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge" Col:2:2-3
Prayer for Oneness
Jesus, in speaking of his place in Eternity, says in his Highly Priestly Prayer says;
"And now, Father, glorify me in your
presence with the glory I had with you before the world began." Jhn: 17:5
This "oneness" in the
glory of Eternity with the Father and the Son is the same in which is found in
the Shema.
The Apostle St. Paul recognizing that Jesus Christ is the very Son of
God tells Christian two thousand years ago, and to believers throughout the ages,
that in the fullness of time God sent his Son.Gal:4:4
Wholeness and Perfect Unity
That in Jesus, this God who is declared in
the Shema Creed, the very one who made us in his "image and likeness”, is made known to us thru Jesus and
is in his incarnation truly takes on "our image and likeness" so that we might share in his.
This
one in who's "image and likeness" and who
has "perfect wholeness" and "self-unity" , in whose image that we
are declared to be made in invites us all to
join him in this divine relationship that he has within himself .
This relationship of "perfect wholeness"
and "self-unity" , is what our Lord Jesus prays that
we, that is believers and by extension all humanity , to share in for
eternity. Jesus Praying for his disciples two thousand years ago and throughout
the ages lifted up his voice in his high priestly prayer for each and all.
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will
believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just
as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may
believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me,
that they may be one as we are one—I in them and
you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will
know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me" Jhn: 17:20-22
This prayer for "oneness" for believers is the
same "oneness" that Jesus has with the Father and the
Holy Spirit in Eternity and into which we invited to be a part of thru Jesus.
This "oneness" that God has in himself is the very
"image and likeness" that we were created to live in and out of. That
is, all of human society, individually and collectively, was
intended to be "in the images and likeness " of God reflecting the
"perfect wholeness" and "self-unity" of the Holy Trinity.
We see that Jesus does not reckon the Father and the Holy Spirit to be "separate persons" from himself in the
way in which we might normally think of. Jesus sees the Father and the Spirit to
be "one" with himself, yet distinct but not separate,
this is what Jesus prayed that believers would have. Jesus wants Christians and
all humanity to see each other as "distinct" yet not separate.
God wants us to live in a mutually edifying and extended community of love
toward and for each other, as the Holy Trinity has for eternity, and through Jesus
we are able to join in this community relationship with God and one another
through his shared humanity with us and the Holy Spirit.
The Ancient Church described this relationship that God, the Holy Trinity has within himself as the "Paracorisses", a Greek word which means to "dance together in eternal joy" that is how the Trinity lives, in joyful eternity in mutual love and regard and speaks of what our Lord wants for each and all of us if we will but freely receive it.
This way reckoning of each other, is the same
way that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit do, this would transform our lives
and relationships with those around us, we would begin to see others as "distant" yet not "separate" from
one another.
We would "love them as ourselves",
for as St. Paul wrote " no man ever hated his own
self but takes of himself".
One God Not Three
As the early Church proclaimed the Gospel
about Jesus and the Kingdom of God through out the world, some pagans interpreted
the message of about the One True God as a message about three Gods.
The Apostolic Church had to address this
charge and come to a means which explained what they saw in the writings of
the Apostolic Fathers and experienced in their own
lives, which is God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that is, One in Three who
live in "perfect wholeness" and "self-unity" , "distinct"
but "not separate"; co-
eternal all of one essence, not less than the other "distinct" yet not "separate" this is the "image and likeness" of God , the
community relationship into which humanity is invited into. The "image and likeness" of God which God has
always decreed for humanity. This is the God of the Shema Creed.
Tri-Theism
The concept of Tir-Theism, three in one,
is that, there are three "separate" and distinct divine
"persons" who have chosen to work together and is referred to
as Tri-Theism.
Tri-Theism, “three in one” would
provide no entrances into a "whole" and
"unified" relationship for they would be "separate" and "distinct" without
a bound of true "oneness" , only an agreement
to come together, this is not what we see in the words of Jesus and his prayer
for us.
Community Found in Jesus
When we come to Jesus, we find all that God has to show us about himself, the
Holy Trinity, which is a community relationship that God has within himself.
That in Jesus, we find anything and everything of eternal value. In Jesus we
are part of community relationship that we see ultimately will be shared by any
and all who will but freely received.
This community relationship, the New Jerusalem,
which perfectly express the Holy Trinity, the "image and
likeness" of God is found at the end of human civilization
descended from God out of Heaven, that is only God can bring this to pass for
it is not found nor brought about thru the agency or wisdom of humanity but
comes from God alone.
St. John saw the full expression of the "images and likeness” of God as it will be made up
of those who have entered into the very relationship of the Holy Trinity thru
Jesus. The Scripture calls this community relationship which reflects the
"wholeness" and "self-unity" of
God as the New Jerusalem.
"And he carried me away in the Spirit to
a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down
out of heaven from God. It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was
like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. It
had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates.
On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. There were
three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on
the west. The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the
names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb"
Rev: 21:10-14
This is where and when humanity will live
eternally in a community relationship that perfectly express the "image and likeness" of the Holy Trinity in perfect
"wholeness and self-unity” all thru our Lord Jesus
Christ as God has always intended for us even from the very beginning.
Benediction: May we each and all ever grow and live in
the very image and likeness of our God. today, tomorrow and forevermore.. Amen.
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Rev.Todd Crouch, Norman, Oklahoma
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