Imaging
Then God said, “Let us make man in our own image, in our likeness and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and the over all the creatures that move along the ground.
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him,
male and female he created them.
Genesis 1:26-27
There is a quote from philosopher Blaise Pascal that reads, “God made man in His own image and man returned the compliment.” The way those words are put together is so amazing to me. It sounds almost positive at first read.
My Gram, and my mother, taught me never to return a dish empty. If someone brought a dish with food in it to our home, we were then to return it with a gift of food for the giver, or at least put in a thank you note. My mother grew beautiful roses and I remember on more than one occasion returning a dish with a rose or two placed in or on top. God made me in His image so let me make Him into…. Oh wait a minute now the real meaning of the statement comes to light. This isn’t cherry pie and pastel flowers. This is minimizing at the very least.
Read the statement again, “God made man in His image and man returned the compliment.” Ouch! The idea of taking what is perfect and making it into something far less, vastly inferior makes no sense and yet old Pascal is so right. From the earliest Bible stories we see it. Didn’t Adam and Eve immediately return the compliment? We don’t need to obey you. We’ll make our own choices, with the help of this very knowledgeable serpent. The Israelites made wooden gods and golden gods. Anything that could be cast or carved was a possible god.
Let’s return for a minute to the dish analogy. Let’s say I bake a nice chocolate cake for my friend Charlene. She accepts the cake and instead of enjoying it, she takes it, adds things from her cat’s litter box, mixes in a bit of wet coffee grounds and a dash of window cleaner for good measure and then returns it to me. How do you suppose I would feel about my cake? Granted it’s a thin and stretched analogy but hopefully it makes sense.
Having been made in the image of perfection, we then choose to live far from perfect lives. Then judging our perfect, supreme Father by imperfect, flawed standards, we get frustrated when God is not who we want Him to be. Wanting to be “good” Christians, we mold and fashion a god who will fit better into our days and be more approving of our lifestyle.
The first commandment tells us not to put other gods before him. Again, wanting to follow that rule, we just change the God we have to fit our understanding. Fortunately for us, it doesn’t work that way. God never changes and while we’re trying to change Him, He is faithful to show us over and over again exactly who He is.
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him,
male and female he created them.
Genesis 1:26-27
There is a quote from philosopher Blaise Pascal that reads, “God made man in His own image and man returned the compliment.” The way those words are put together is so amazing to me. It sounds almost positive at first read.
My Gram, and my mother, taught me never to return a dish empty. If someone brought a dish with food in it to our home, we were then to return it with a gift of food for the giver, or at least put in a thank you note. My mother grew beautiful roses and I remember on more than one occasion returning a dish with a rose or two placed in or on top. God made me in His image so let me make Him into…. Oh wait a minute now the real meaning of the statement comes to light. This isn’t cherry pie and pastel flowers. This is minimizing at the very least.
Read the statement again, “God made man in His image and man returned the compliment.” Ouch! The idea of taking what is perfect and making it into something far less, vastly inferior makes no sense and yet old Pascal is so right. From the earliest Bible stories we see it. Didn’t Adam and Eve immediately return the compliment? We don’t need to obey you. We’ll make our own choices, with the help of this very knowledgeable serpent. The Israelites made wooden gods and golden gods. Anything that could be cast or carved was a possible god.
Let’s return for a minute to the dish analogy. Let’s say I bake a nice chocolate cake for my friend Charlene. She accepts the cake and instead of enjoying it, she takes it, adds things from her cat’s litter box, mixes in a bit of wet coffee grounds and a dash of window cleaner for good measure and then returns it to me. How do you suppose I would feel about my cake? Granted it’s a thin and stretched analogy but hopefully it makes sense.
Having been made in the image of perfection, we then choose to live far from perfect lives. Then judging our perfect, supreme Father by imperfect, flawed standards, we get frustrated when God is not who we want Him to be. Wanting to be “good” Christians, we mold and fashion a god who will fit better into our days and be more approving of our lifestyle.
The first commandment tells us not to put other gods before him. Again, wanting to follow that rule, we just change the God we have to fit our understanding. Fortunately for us, it doesn’t work that way. God never changes and while we’re trying to change Him, He is faithful to show us over and over again exactly who He is.
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