The Inescapable Image of God: A Summary
August 13th was an exciting day for the Apologetics Simplified Podcast. I started posting weekly with a three week series called the “Inescapable Image of God.” I’ve really enjoyed being able to publish new content weekly and I think this series hits something important in our human identity. My goal for the series was to demonstrate that a person is made in the image of God no matter what they do, say, or believe. The image of God in each person is inescapable.
The concept of the Image of God (also called Imago Dei) comes from Genesis 1:26-27. The beginning of Genesis 1 describes God’s creation of everything. It was good. When God got to the sixth day, though, he created something truly special. God made a creature that resembles God’s self. Think of a caricature. Certain features of the person are highlighted in the drawing. Perhaps the artist accentuates the nose or eyes. In this drawing called humanity, God is both the original and the artist. God draws certain features of God’s self into his “caricature.” The ways we image God are countless, but some of these highlighted features of God are His ability to have emotions, think, create, relate to others, and be moral. Those features are highlighted in humanity. The reason I believe the image of God on each of us is inescapable is because we can also image God poorly. We can let our thoughts and emotions lead us to do wrong. We can relate poorly to other people by mistreating them. We can have twisted morality which does not resemble God’s goodness at all. However, even in our ability to do these things well or poorly, we are using these God given abilities which means that God’s image on our lives in inescapable.
The paradigm I’m using to think about God’s image upon His most precious creation comes from John Wesley's sermon "The New Birth." In this sermon he describes the image of God being threefold: the Natural Image, the Political Image, and the Moral Image. The natural image, which I like to call “Freedom of Will,” is our God-given emotions, thoughts, and freedom of will. Our emotions and thoughts inform the free choices we make each and every day. The political image, which I like to call “Made to Relate,” is our intrinsic wiring for relationships. We are meant to relate with the earth, the animals, the plants, and each other. The final image is the moral image which he says is the most important. This image is that of righteousness, holiness, and justice. This image informs how each person should live out the other two.
There’s many paradigms for looking at the image of God on our lives, but I think Wesley’s model is a great place to start. If you want to learn more, make sure to listen to the episodes which go into much more detail! Regardless, I hope that you leave this series knowing that your emotions, thoughts, freedom of will, relational ability, and moral capacity are good because they are given to you by God. We don’t serve an emotionless God who can’t image what it would be like to hurt deeply. God feels deeply. We don’t serve a God who does not relate. God is three Persons in one Being where each Person is in eternal relationship with the other. He put these traits in you. God gets you because you are a reflection of God’s self. God’s image on your life is truly and wonderfully inescapable.