Made in the Image of God

1.     Genesis 1:27; So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (NIV)

2.    Exodus 28:3 Tell the skilled men to whom I have given wisdom in such matters that they are to make garments for Aaron, for his consecration, so he may serve me as priest. (NIV)

Times have greatly changed and the world has since become a global village. We have seen advancements in various fields from the medical world; transport and communication human civilization has come to birth so we could say. Evolutionists would tell us that the modern man has greatly evolved and we then are ushering in a different caliber of men all together. The most interesting bit is that the more we have advanced is the more our social fabric has been torn apart, in a way we hoped to emancipate ourselves but instead we have gone deeper into the woods.

Terrorism, inequality, battle of the sexes, egomaniac leadership, disease, increased crime rate, divorce, what we have decided to call global warming, drug trafficking, love for money , racism, cyber crime, pornography, among other vices continue to plague us even in increasing measures. The worst end is yet to come but so far man has bought into a lie that he is in charge of himself and thus brought all kinds of harm on himself and the rest of humanity. If man is not the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end then who is?

A.    God made us in His Image

Over the years there has been a battle that has ended up seeing various groups being formed under certain allegiances. With more advanced knowledge and technological advancements there are those who have taken the label of being Atheists. This group rely on human reason and philosophy to justify their case. Because man has made computers and can program them then there is no God. We are simply products of a random process of evolution and we are becoming more and more sophisticated overtime so the conclusion is there is no God. The question still remains who made man?

Of all creation, human beings are known to subdue and take charge over every other thing in the planet. Man has tamed both the tiger and the cobra with much success. Elephants and Buffalo’s have always been domesticated by man. The human mind is known to be more powerful than the personal computer. Humans epitomize a perfect design and just by observing the various historical civilizations one can’t help but appreciate all that man has been able to “create”.  The Bible tells us more about this and goes to explain what makes it possible for man to “create”. God has made man in His image, this attribute and ability to create from that which God has already created in the world is God given. God created everything from nothing out of His Sovereignty and after making everything He then made man as the crown of His creation. Man unlike the rest of the animals is very precious to God and that is why human life is sacred and we all tend to treat it that way whether we are atheists or theists we have regard to human life though the motivation and degree differs.  God made man or human beings  to multiply and increase in numbers and thus be stewards of the creation that He had made perfectly without any corruption.

God made man, and bestowed upon him a responsibility and also ensured that he had the ability to fulfill the end to which he had been made. Man has a powerful intellect and great abilities that we have seen him apply in “creation”. All that man has made and invented though is confined to what God made in the beginning, i.e. for man to make golden chains he had to use the brain and the strength that God has given him to extract and refine the gold that God had made and placed in the earth, the same earth that God made, then he made man out of it and gave him power to subdue it. In essence God made the earth with all the precious stones and also made man too. As it is, both man and gold are the workmanship of God. Man can never create gold chains out of nothing.

If God has made man and given him all the wisdom and abilities how comes man does not acknowledge God’s hand in all that he has and does and all the inventions that man has “created”?

B.     The fall of man and man’s depravity

Man is living under a curse, the curse of sin. All that God had made perfect is also suffering under the corruption of sin. Sin has affected both the man that God made perfect and the world which was without imperfection upon its creation. The Bible which is the true word of God tells us this:

                            Genesis 3:16-19: To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing;    with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband   and he will rule over you.” To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, you must not eat of it,’

                 “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the   days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you and you will eat the plants of the field. By the Sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” (NIV)

The corruption of sin has terribly affected man that all his faculties and intellectual abilities though powerful and God given are bent towards selfishness, man has become proud and thus seeks to dethrone God and take on the mantle. The problem is in his heart, the seat of all that he is.  

            Genesis 6:5 The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.

Ever since sin entered the world, the perfect image of God in man was tainted by sin. Though man can do what would look and seem to be good in the eyes of other men e.g. turning in a lost wallet to the police with millions of shillings in it without picking a dime, all that man does cannot bring him close to God and in right standing with Him. Man like Satan is after taking the throne of God, he is always looking for equality with the Sovereign LORD the maker of the heavens and the earth and all that is therein.  Our conscience has been seared and we cannot help but hate God.

             Romans 1:29-31 f :They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

The Bible then tells us that in our conscience we have the awareness of God, but we have learnt to switch off the bulb by our sins and wickedness. Because of this we are living under God’s anger and judgment. God has given us over and we are now wallowing in our sins and wickedness. God made man in His image but sin has totally corrupted this image, yes man has a will, but this will is under the bondage of sin and curse. Man is dead in sin and transgressions against the Sovereign Lord and Creator.  

Having seen that God made man in His image and likeness as regards all that man has made and invented over the years, and also seeing that man is living in sin and is under a curse that makes him seek to dethrone God, is there any hope for the enemy of God?

C.     The Gospel of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ

Man is now living as the arch enemy of God because of sin and being under a curse, man cannot begin to look for God until God has drawn him to Himself. Though this man’s case is serious God still gives hope to man as He seeks to restore the imperfection by pardoning some men’s sins through a man that He appointed in the eternity past and this man is a perfect man whose existence is eternal -has no beginning and has no end. This man has been able to obey God perfectly and has no even an iota of sin that was found in Him. He was wrapped in human flesh and lived and walked amongst men yet He was God. 

There is no forgiveness of sins/ the healing of the corruptions in man apart from the shedding of blood. When we sin we do so against God, when Adam our federal head sinned and disobeyed God’s decree as we saw earlier it sent forth guilt to all of us, and that is not just the problem we always act upon the sin nature that is in us, that is why we kill others like Cain, steal, adulterate, fornicate all these are the symptoms of the corruptions that make who we are. No one is as bad as they can be but we all have fallen short of the perfection and holiness that characterizes who God is. God is perfect and he condones not all kinds of imperfections which are actions of disobedience against His perfect laws and decrees.  None of us has and can perfectly keep these laws of God.

Jesus Christ is the Saviour, the begotten Son of God. He is not born by human decent and He was not created, instead He created all things and was there since the beginning of time and He obeyed and kept all the laws of God perfectly without breaking even a single law. And on Him God placed all our sins and transgressions against the perfect laws of God that God sent Him to die on the cross to take away the sins of those that will believe in Him.  Sin is a curse and Jesus took the curse on behalf of all that will believe in Jesus Christ  that their sins will be forgiven.

                                           Death Through Adam, Life through Christ

Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned.

Now that we have established that Jesus Christ is the second Adam but perfect without sin what are we to do?

In Jesus Christ unlike the first Adam there is life and life eternal and what awaits all those who have believed in Jesus Christ  is eternal life with the Holy and Sovereign God the creator of the heavens and earth. The Bible calls us to repent of our sins and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ who died on cross, was buried and on the third day he rose again from the dead and overcame both the curse of sin and death. All who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ have all their sins forgiven both past, present and future sins are taken care of. Repent by praying to God through Jesus Christ to forgive you of all your sins including Atheism.

Romans 8:1-4 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. 

Written By:

Bonface Ochieng