Image Bearers
1984 was a memorable year when I became a freshman at Coffee High School. I was a young Christian teenager with a limited worldview. My focus on life was more inward than outward. In contrast, that same year, Archbishop Desmond Tutu received a Nobel Peace Prize for being more outward than inward focused. During his 1984 Nobel Acceptance Speech, he rightly pointed out an essential truth about the eternal value of those created in God’s image when he asserted,
When will we learn that human beings are of infinite value because they have been created in the image of God and that it is blasphemy to treat them as if they were less than this and to do so ultimately recoils on those who do this? In dehumanizing others, they are themselves dehumanized. Perhaps oppression dehumanizes the oppressor as much as, if not more than, the oppressed. They need each other to become truly free, to become human. We can be human only in fellowship, in community, in koinonia, in peace.
Bishop Tutu’s perspective of the imago Dei (created in God’s image) motivated him to labor tirelessly as an anti-apartheid and human rights activist. If Bishop Tutu were still alive, I suppose he would have much to say about the wars between Israel and Hamas; Ukraine and Russia; and the number of lives lost on both sides. After he died in 2021 (90 years old), he was buried in a plain coffin as he had requested. Even though I cannot entirely agree with Bishop Tutu’s doctrinal positions, I celebrate his legacy of prioritizing and valuing other image bearers more than the material things of this world.
In Genesis 1:26-27, the writer focused on God’s image bearers when he wrote, “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created Him; male and female He created them” (vs. 26-27). Humans are not made in the image of angels or animals. Humans are made in God’s image. What does it mean to be made in God’s image?
Mentally, we have been created to reason and make life choices like God. Socially, we have been created like God for fellowship. God is a community of three in perfect fellowship. Thus, God knows we should value being in community. Morally, we have been created to be like God. God is good, and He has given us His moral compass as a standard of good. Spiritually, we are like God because He created us with a soul that will live eternally. That is why the writer in Ecclesiastes 3:11 said, “He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.” Because God has created us with the capacity for eternity, a part of us always longs for the eternal. Thus, the only One that can give us true satisfaction is God. Our jobs, families, money, businesses, careers, successes, achievements, homes, and material possessions can never give us the satisfaction that the eternal in us longs to experience. In Conformed to His Image, Kenneth Boa said, “We need to be more impressed with God and less impressed with people, power, and things.”
What are the implications of being created in God’s image? One is that even though we have the divine image, we are not little gods with the divine nature to speak things into existence (Ps. 82:6; Rom. 4:17; 2 Pet. 1:4), but it does mean we have value and worth because we have been created in God’s image. Because we have been created in God’s image, our worth and value are not based on possessions, achievements, physical appearance, or public approval. Because we are created in God’s image, every human being has worth and value. As a result, we need to be careful how we treat others who are also created in God’s image. As James talked about the power of the tongue, he said, “With [the tongue], we bless our Lord and Father, and with it, we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God.” James said that we can use our tongue positively or negatively. The goal should be to use our tongue positively. However, some people, even Christians, use their tongues negatively toward image bearers.
Even though people are created in God’s image, we sometimes use our tongues negatively: spouses against each other, parents against children, children against parents, employers against employees, employees against employers, church members against the pastor and church leaders, and the pastor and church leaders against church members. We should have more respect for the image of God in another image bearer. Respecting God’s image can remove racism, sexism, ageism, discrimination, injustice, violence, hatred, selfishness, greed, and abuse.
Someone might say it does not matter about the image because it became marred when Adam sinned in the garden (Rom. 5:18-19). Even though the image was marred, it can be restored. That is why we thank God for twice creating us. Paul helped us to understand how we have been twice created in 2 Corinthians 5:17 when he said, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” In Romans 8:29, Paul said, “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren.”
As we approach another Black History Month celebration, we can rejoice that we have been twice created. Our second creation gives us hope of becoming like Christ and living eternally in God’s kingdom (Dan. 4:3; 1 Peter 1:11). Our task is to respect and value all image bearers as we wait on the Lord’s second coming and the day when all of God’s new creatures will become like Christ (1 John 3:2) and fully conformed to His image (Rom. 8:29).