Made in the Image of God

At the height of World War II, a 30-something illustrator named Theodor Geisel began making a name for himself as a political cartoonist.

Among his many cartoons supporting the war effort, Geisel took a strong stand in support of Japanese internment camps. His highly racist caricatures of Japanese Americans implied that they were a threat to our country, even secret terrorists.

In one cartoon he depicted Japanese Americans as alley cats, breeding uncontrollably and taking over the streets.

When I show you these images, you might recognize this cartoonist’s style.

Yeah. Theodor Geisel is better known by his middle name, “Seuss.”

I imagine you’re wondering at this point, “How did a cartoonist making such racist and dehumanizing images go on to become the beloved and compassionate Dr. Seuss?”

Well, the answer is fascinating. After World War II, Theodor Seuss Geisel had the chance to visit American-occupied Japan to write an article about children’s education in the post-war nation.

During his visit he saw firsthand the destruction of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and witnessed the suffering of Japanese families attempting to rebuild their lives.

He even struck up what would turn into a lifelong friendship with a fellow educator named Mitsugi Nakamura.

Put simply, he saw the humanity of the Japanese people. His dehumanizing racism was replaced with a newfound respect.

So much so that a year after his trip he published the book, Horton Hears a Who!, about an elephant who saves the people of Whoville, a microscopic town on a clover that everybody else ignores.

The message of the book? “A person’s a person, no matter how small.”

You see, the people of Whoville were an allegory for the people of post-war Japan. Dr. Seuss even dedicated the book to his new friend Mitsugi Nakamura.

His worldview had completely changed simply by seeing in the Japanese people something he had never seen before: their shared humanity, their implicit worth, their dignity… You might even say, he saw in them for the first time the very image of God.

SERIES SETUP

And that is what this new series is all about. The thing at the core of all humans where our truest value lies. Where we find our own worth and the worth of others. This month we’re exploring the fact that, We are all made in the image of God.

At a time like this, with so much hate and dehumanization in the air, at a time when our algorithms are depicting “those people” (whoever “those people” are on your feed) as a mindless, senseless horde… as alleycats taking over the streets…

I think we would all benefit from a reminder about how God sees those people we are daily encouraged to hate.

And what perfect timing, as our latest production, Seussical, follows the adventures of Horton and the neglected citizens of Whoville.

“A person’s a person, no matter how small.”

Why? Because every one of them was made in the image of God. Let’s pray together, and then we’ll get into it.

MADE IN THE IMAGE OF GOD

Ok, the image of God. In the weeks ahead we’re going to talk about how that image is disfigured through sin and restored by Christ. We’re going to talk about how to see the image of God in others and even how to see it in yourself.

But today, I want us to start with a simple question. What do we even mean by the phrase? Where does it come from?

We’ll find the answer on the very first pages of our Bibles. Please turn with me to Genesis 1:26

The book of Genesis opens with a beautiful, poetic depiction of God creating the universe. With each day of creation, God brings order out of chaos, and then fills the world with increasingly complex life, culminating in the creation of humanity - essentially the apex of all creation in the biblical story.

It’s all been leading to this, in other words. Let’s read. God has just created all the creatures on the land…

Genesis 1:26-28

Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.”

So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”

“In the image of God he created them.”

Now, as you can imagine, over the centuries there has been a lot of debate about exactly what this idea refers to.

The image of God - does this mean that God looks like a human? Two arms, two legs, vocal cords, opposable thumbs? Well, it’s possible. The biblical authors do describe God having a face, walking, talking, “stretching out his arms,” etc.

But those could also just be poetic descriptions of the indescribable. Knowing the profound literary artistry of the Hebrew Bible, the “image of God” is probably more complex than us just looking like God.

Maybe it has something to do with us having a soul. A rational mind. Some spark of the divine. Maybe that’s what sets us apart from the other creatures: Consciousness - the fact that we think about the fact that we think.

That’s also possible. It could even be some combination of these things, but in all my studies about the “image of God,” one idea has risen above all the rest for me. I find it really compelling.

The idea is this: That what the ‘image of God’ is really all about is purpose.

IDOLS

Let me explain. The Hebrew word for “image” here is

tzelem - image, idol

And it’s a word usually used to describe a statue or an idol of an ancient god.

I think it’s hard to wrap our minds around just how important these statues were in the ancient world - these tzelems of the gods. But let me just say… they were everywhere. In homes, in town squares, and, of course, in temples.

the center of every ancient temple (Greek, Roman, Babylonian, Egyptian, you name it) would be an idol or a statue of that temple’s god. The god’s tzelem, or image.

But these idols weren’t just static representations of some transcendent deity. Ancient people understood that these statues were actual extensions of the gods themselves.

They believed the gods could see and hear and even speak through their statues. That offerings and sacrifices made at the foot of these idols were received and consumed by the gods themselves.

In other words, these images weren’t revered because they were well-made pieces of religious art. They were considered the embodiment of the gods themselves on the earth. They had power as extensions of the divine.

But here’s what’s interesting… the Israelites, the people of God, were different. In fact, one of their core laws, in the 10 commandments, explicitly prohibits making idols like this.

Exodus 20:4-5

You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea. You must not bow down to them or worship them…

Put simply, although it may have worked this way in the rest of the world, in Israel you did not find statues of God anywhere.

One of my favorite little stories from history is when Pompey the Great, the Roman general, in 63 B.C. conquered Jerusalem as part of a Judean civil war.

After taking the city, Pompey entered the temple. He was so curious to see what this God of these troublesome Judeans looked like.

He went all the way into the Holy of Holies, the very center of the temple, and he found… nothing. There was no statue of God in the temple. There was just… empty space. And of course Pompey was baffled.

But of course this raises the question of why? Why were idols, even statues of Yahweh himself, banned in Israel? Why was there no tzelem of God in the temple?

Well, I’ll tell you why. There was no image in the temple because we are the image of God. You and me. Humanity.

Genesis 1:27

God created human beings in his own image.

We are tzelem of God on the earth. Not statues of stone, but living creatures of flesh and blood who are alive with God’s Spirit.

But here’s what’s so cool about this. Just like those ancient idols of the pagan gods, the biblical authors understood that we are the Creator God’s representatives on the earth. Extensions of his will. We, in some way, express some of his power.

REIGN

Let me show you what I mean. Look back at verse 26.

Genesis 1:26

Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign…”

We’ll reign over all the creatures of the earth. Verse 28.

Genesis 1:28

Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”

In other words, God did not create humans as static reflections of his appearance. We were made as dynamic extensions of his will.

We were put on this earth to extend God’s gracious, creative, loving rule over all the beings under our care.

God is the king of the universe, but we are his governors on the earth. Just like those ancient statues, where we go, God goes. Whatever we speak or do, it is as extensions of God’s very presence in the world.

We were made in the image of God. There is no statue in the temple because that statue is you.

If this idea feels a little shocking to you, you’re not alone. The author of Psalm 8 was equally amazed.

Psalm 8:4-6

What are mere mortals that you should think about them,

human beings that you should care for them?

Yet you made them only a little lower than God

and crowned them with glory and honor.

You gave them charge of everything you made,

putting all things under their authority…

It is a profound idea to consider: that God chose us, his creatures, to be co-rulers with him over all the things he has made. Every one of us was made in the image of our God. When creation looks at us, it sees him. Wow.

NEW PERSPECTIVES

Now, what I’ve just described is a biblical ideal. But obviously, when you look at human history, we have not done a very good job as God’s representatives on the earth.

In fact, the gracious rule we are meant to embody as God’s images has far too often turned into violent despotism.

Instead of spreading peace and joy and abundance through creation, as God designed us to do, we’ve spread injustice, hatred, and death. We’ve caused untold suffering for the creatures under our care and for our fellow image-bearers.

We’ve broken the world we were meant to rule. It’s kind of what the rest of the biblical storyline after Genesis is all about.

And so next week we’ll explore how the image of God in us has been warped and disfigured through sin. And we’ll talk about how God chose to respond to that disfigurement through Christ.

But for now, I just want us to sit with this core biblical idea for a moment longer. Humanity made in the image of God. And consider how such a profound concept can change the way that we see the world.

So I have three ideas I want you to chew on this week. First,

Ignoring the image of God in others is a recipe for disaster.

This brings us back to my opening illustration about the early days of Dr. Seuss. Before he traveled to Japan and began seeing the value and dignity in Japanese people, Theodor Geisel’s racism was all too common and familiar.

And it began, as it always does, with dehumanization. With seeing his enemies not as unique people formed in God’s image and loved by their creator, but as sub-human. Monsters. Animals. Alley cats.

I have seen the mass graves of the Rwandan Genocide. I’ve visited the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Just a couple of weeks ago while I was in Poland I visited the death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. I understand the patterns of human depravity.

In every single case we wonder, “How could people possibly do this to one another?” But in every single case the answer is clear: dehumanization which begins by ignoring the image of God in our neighbor.

Now let me be clear: Do I believe we’re on the verge of another genocide here in America? No. But I do see the seedlings of dehumanization sprouting up everywhere I look.

I hear people describing those on the other side of politics as sheep. As mindless insects. As monsters. I see people from other cultures and religions being described as evil, as demonic, as terrorists worming their way into our culture.

I want you to picture in your mind the person or type of person that most infuriates you in our world today. They’re the reason everything is such a mess, right?

Now listen to this. That person was lovingly hand-crafted by God in his own image. That image might be distorted by sin, sure. But our God adores that person. Jesus died for that person. That person was made as a representative of the divine.

If that idea causes you discomfort, which I’m sure it does for many of us, then we’ve still got work to do. Ignoring the image of God in others is a recipe for disaster.

But the good news is the opposite is also true.

Seeing the image of God in others is how our world can begin to heal.

Something profound happens to us when we see another person’s shared humanity. When we look into their eyes and recognize a glimmer of the divine.

I love the imagery of Psalm 8 as the author reflects on human beings.

Psalm 8:5

You crowned them with glory and honor.

What would our world look like if we saw everyone else, including our enemies, as “crowned with glory and honor” by God? If we saw them as fellow representatives of God’s character and presence in this world?

I think it would change everything. It did for Dr. Seuss! He went from depicting the Japanese as alleycats to, “A person’s a person, no matter how small.” Why? Because he started to see their true dignity as fellow image-bearers of God.

In Matthew 25, Jesus teaches his followers that when they feed the hungry or give a drink to the thirsty or show hospitality to a stranger or clothe the naked, it’s really him they are caring for. He says,

Matthew 25:40

I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!

That is how radically our God identifies with those that we so easily dehumanize: The hungry, the stranger, the poor…

Can you even imagine how beautifully we would begin to heal our world if we approached the forgotten with this mindset? If we saw Christ in the ‘least of these’?

Not viewing them as dehumanized objects of charity or pity, not viewing ‘the other’ as a threat to our way of life, but seeing them all as walking, talking images of God himself. Living statues of the divine all around us.

“What you did to the least of these you were doing to me.”

If we can see our neighbor with that kind of “glory and honor” crowning their heads, it will transform our broken world. Again, this doesn’t come naturally. We’ve got work to do. But seeing the image of God in others is where that work begins. Finally,

Finding the image of God in yourself is the key to discovering your ‘why.’

So far we’ve talked about looking outward. How we see others. But I want to end today by reminding you that you are also made in the image of God.

You are here on this earth with a purpose. You are the dwelling place of the divine.

This is so important for us to remember because how often do we buy the lie that our lives are meaningless? That we’ll never amount to anything? Have you felt the shame of those thoughts?

If so, I want you to remember that you are not an accident. You are not a mistake. Our God has lovingly crafted you on purpose, with a purpose, to be his image: his hands and feet in this world.

God adores you. He loves you. And he has crowned you with “glory and honor,” even if you can’t see it.

Here’s my invitation to you this week. If you feel like a nobody, look in the mirror, and see staring back at you the very image of God. That might seem crazy to you. It seemed crazy to the author of Psalm 8! “Who am I that you would think about me at all?!?”

But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s true. You were made in the image of God and now it’s time to discover the very reason you were born: to reign as God’s representative in this broken world.

To spread his life, his joy, his healing love in whatever situation he has planted you. It’s time to discover the ‘why’ of your life, because we already know the ‘who.’

“A person’s a person, no matter how small,” because our God has loved you from the beginning.