A little lower than the angels

What is man? This is an important question because it affects our understanding of ourselves, the world around and how we try to reach people with the gospel. Yet to most people in our society man is merely the ‘naked ape’, the product of a long evolutionary process, although perhaps the most advanced animal of all.

The Bible teaches something much more wonderful and impressive. Man is made in the image of God. That is the testimony of Genesis 1:26-27: Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our 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 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. This is the essential dignity and splendour of what man was at the first, the finite mirror of God’s infinite being.

Man in his totality is in God’s image. All the checklists we may compile to explain this glorious fact are likely to omit a significant facet. It is the whole of what man is that reflects the image. There has been much debate about those two words ‘image’ and ‘likeness’. But it is now generally accepted that they are essentially synonymous. Man is a reflection of his creator and unique in all creation. Being made in God’s image marks every single human being out as valuable and distinctive.

Of course, Adam fell and the image has been sadly marred and defaced. Man lost his original righteousness. He is now corrupt in every faculty of his soul and in every aspect of the way he understands and expresses himself. But the image of God has not been obliterated. That is clear from Genesis 9:6: Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man. The heinousness of murder is that it is an assault on the image of God, no matter who is the victim. There is a similar argument in James 3:8-9 in regard to cursing and defaming other people. Human beings still retain to some degree the image of God and therefore to devalue them and hold prejudices against them is to ignore the glorious reality of who they are.

The Christian understanding of man is the most elevated and dignifying view. It reflects the fact that God not only created us in his own image, but he became man in order to redeem us: For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham's descendants (Hebrews 2:16). The implication of seeing man in this way is that every person is to be treated with respect and courtesy. A man may be from the most deprived background, he may suffer the most debilitating and restricting disabilities, he may in his conduct be quite unacceptable to us, but made in God’s image he is to be treated as someone with dignity and significance.

Everyone still retains a vestige of rationality. Much has been lost so that our intellect is disordered and we mistake matters of fact and are in error in our thinking. But human beings are still capable of careful reasoning, detailed research, meticulous enquiry and some ability to look ahead. We are to be grateful for great scientists, deep thinkers, clever politicians, brilliant musicians and people of outstanding competence. In accomplishing what they do they demonstrate the comprehensiveness of this image of God in man. Even when what they say and do impinges on matters of faith our disagreement with them and opposition to their ideas is to be carried out with courtesy and consideration remembering in whose likeness they are made.

Equally so, every man retains the faculty of conscience (Romans 2:14-15). Even though that conscience is itself corrupted and not a reliable guide, yet the requirements of the moral law are written in the soul, which knows deep down what is acceptable (Romans 1:32). No human being can plead ignorance of God’s law. Man’s problem is always how to perform. The gospel is not, therefore, an ethical directive but the word of life which brings with it the ability to do what is required by God (Romans 1:16-17).

Then again everyone retains some knowledge of God – Calvin calls it ‘some sense of Deity’. People are without excuse before God. They may not know the details of the gospel – that is why they need constantly to be told the truth. But they know enough to seek God in order to know more. Of course, they wilfully choose to suppress what they already know and to resist the message they hear. But as someone made in God’s image each person is responsible for his condition. He has the freedom to act according to his own will. His great problem is that he is now in bondage. But what he is enslaved by is the result of his own nature. No one can legitimately claim to be a victim. He is responsible for what he is, and all he does. Therefore we must deal with each one as a person who carries a solemn responsibility, and needs his ignorance and darkness towards the gospel to be removed. He is in a state of disobedience and rejection, but is not without the ability to relate to the facts and implications of the message of Christ. Our attitude is to be one of love and compassion, not condoning his condition, but seeking always to see before us someone with essential dignity – the bearer of the Divine image.