The Image of God

The Image of God

 

1.    Uniquely Created by God

2.    Creation and evolution

3.    The Image of God / what does it mean that God made us in his image?

 

1.     The image of God is physical

PS 94:9 / Does he who implanted the ear not hear? Does he who formed the eye not see?

 

2.     The image of G is official

Gn 1:28 / As G holds the office of King, so he makes us his assistant kings, his vassel kings to have dominion over the earth.

 

3.     The image of God is ethical.

Injustice, poverty / The image of G = man is so precious in God's sight.

 

What does do to the image?

(1) sinful human beings are still in the image of G

(2) They have 'marred and distorted' the image' (Calvin)

 

What happens to the image after we're regenerated?

Christ replaced Adam as the head of the human race.

 

Sanctification

Biblical ethics is imitation specifically of Christ and God

The Holy Spirit remakes us in the image of Christ.

 

What is the relationship between the image in Adam and the image in Christ?

Christ himself is the image of G in a preeminent way.

 

What other metaphors are given to human beings?

Servants

Sons and daughters of G

Friends

Bride

->Image of G is the most comprehensive concept

 

 

What are the elements / aspects constituting the human person?

(1) We are dust (body ) which is something good

·         Incarnation

·         Resurrection

·         Second coming

·         Material existence

(2) We have the breath of life(soul/ spirit) G breathed into Adam

 

·         The Constituent Clements

 

Where does the soul come from

 

a.     Creationist: G creates a new soul each time a person is conceived in the womb. -> Creationists claim to do more justice …

b.     Traducianists : our soul is inherited from our parents as our body is. -> Traducianists claim to do more justice to our solidarity in Adam. / Scripture does not clearly support one view or the other.

 

Is there a hierarchy among intellect, will, and emotion?

 

5.    Freedom and responsibility

 

How can G's sovereignty and human responsibility coexist?

The B makes it very clear that we are morally responsible agents.

G rewards and punishes our actions according to whether they please or displease him.

 

As G judges human deeds, he sometimes take into account what we are able or not able to do.

 

What is freedom?

a.     Libertarianism freedom: free human acts are not caused by anything at all.

-> If our action can be completely explained by our desire, it is not free. Nothing compels it.

b.     Compatibilist freedom: a human action can be both free and caused.

-> the ability to do what we want to do.

c.     Moral freedom: freedom to sin or to do good.

·         We re slaves to sin

·         J liberates us so that in him we are 'free indeed'

·         Paul tells us how Christ has set us free from the bondage of sin into the glorious liberty of the children of G.

 

On moral Freedom

Augustine on the process of liberation in four stages.

a.     The state of innocence before the fall, in which Adam and Eve were good but able to fall(posse peccare)

b.     The bondage created by the fall, by which we became bad and unable to do anything good, not able not to sin

c.     The work of the Spirit's regeneration on the basis of C's work makes it possible for us not to sin

d.     Our existence in glory, in which we will be good and not able to sin