The Image of God Created

Order of Service

• Call to Worship — Psalm 100
• Hymn — All People That on Earth Do Dwell
• Prayer of Invocation
• Confession of Sin
• Assurance of Pardon — Isaiah 12:2
• Scripture Reading — Ezra 6:1-12
• Hymn — Children of the Heavenly Father
• Pastoral Prayer
• Offering
• Hymn — God, All Nature Sings Thy Glory
• Sermon
• Hymn — This Is My Father's World
• Benediction — 2 Corinthians 13:14

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Sermon Title: The Image of God Created

Scripture: Genesis 1:1–2:3

I. The Distinctiveness of the Created Image of God

A. The creation of man is marked by a unique and abrupt change in language

1. All other creatures are made by a word directed outward: Let the land…let the water…
2. Man's creation involves an inward divine council: Let us make man in our image — an ad intra word within the triune God
3. There is no according to its kind language for man, only intimate divine deliberation

B. Man's distinctiveness is evident in his God-given dominion

1. The language of subdue and rule (Genesis 1:28) is royal language used of kings in the ancient world
2. Man rules as a vice-regent, a mini-king, because he alone bears the image of the King of creation
3. God is not playing favorites among equals — he is blessing the one who alone is in his image

C. The Hebrew word for image (tselem) carries the idea of a conquering king placing statues of himself throughout a nation to signify his sovereign rule

1. The propagation of man as image of God is about the glory and magnification of the triune God over all creation
2. Man is unique both ontologically (in his nature) and functionally (in his calling and duty)

D. Man is distinct from all other religious ideas of humanity in the ancient Near East

1. Pagan gods sought to limit human multiplication; the God of Genesis commands man to be fruitful and multiply
2. This uniqueness flows from what man is by nature: imago Dei

II. The Dependence of the Created Image of God

A. We are images of God, not the original — we are replicas entirely dependent on God

1. John Stott: Human beings are not self-explanatory. They derive their meaning from outside themselves, from God in whose image they are made.
2. We are not autonomous individuals; our dignity is derivative

B. Man shares creatureliness with all other creatures

1. Man is created on the sixth day alongside the land animals — there is no special day set apart for him
2. The Hebrew word Adam echoes adamah (ground) — he is made of the dust of the earth, not from some heavenly substance
3. This shared creatureliness is not evidence of evolutionary derivation from animals, but of a common Creator

C. Caution against defining the imago Dei by a single characteristic or capacity

1. Philosophers and theologians often narrow the image to one faculty: reason, speech, creativity, free will, etc.
2. This creates gradations of God's image, implying some humans bear it more than others
3. The text is clear: man is God's image because God declares it before Adam does anything — not because he expresses any particular trait
4. Therefore the mentally handicapped, the child in the womb, the deaf, the blind, the infant are as fully image of God as the most gifted intellect

D. Support from 1 Corinthians 1:26–29

1. God chose what is foolish, weak, and despised to shame the wise and strong
2. Purpose: so that no human being might boast in the presence of God
3. All human beings, whatever their capacities, are dependent creatures who owe their image-bearing existence to God alone

III. The Delight in the Created Image of God

A. Man is the crown of God's creation

1. After each of the first five days: God saw that it was good
2. After the creation of man: God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good — the word behold means most surely, most certainly
3. Like an artist finishing a masterpiece, creation reaches its apex with the image-bearer

B. God's rest on the seventh day (Genesis 2:1–3) is not exhaustion but delight

1. God rests as one who beholds and delights in what he has made
2. This gives the pattern for Sabbath observance: we too rest as we delight in God's handiwork in creation and new creation
3. Job 38:4, 7 — the morning stars sang and the sons of God shouted for joy at creation
4. Zephaniah 3:17 — the Lord exults over his redeemed people with singing

C. The third heaven — the glory realm — is where God delights over his creation

1. The three heavens: the sky (day 2), the stars (day 4), and the invisible glory realm (2 Corinthians 12:2; Isaiah 6; Psalm 104)
2. From this throne room, surrounded by angels, God delights in his image-bearers

D. The fallen image and its restoration in Christ

1. Sin has distorted the image: pride (false independence from God) and self-loathing depression (denial of one's dignity as image-bearer) are the two poles of the fallen condition
2. Only in Christ is the image perfectly harmonized — utterly dependent on the Father, yet radiating God's glory as the exact imprint of his nature (Colossians 1:15)
3. At Christ's birth the angels sang Glory to God in the highest; at his baptism the Father declared This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased
4. Fallen image-bearers are now utterly dependent on Christ, the spotless image of God, so that the Father can once again delight over his people — but only as he sees them in and through the Son
5. Outside of Christ: the frown of the artist whose masterpiece has been soiled; in Christ: the Lord exults over us with singing and the heavenly chorus joins