Our family has spent countless hours at a ski resort every winter. Each year, the resort issues each of us a new picture ID card that serves as the lift pass. In the spring, we tend to pack our ski gear away along with the pass tucked into a coat pocket. Then, when the snow begins to fall across the Rocky Mountains the following year, we pull out all the gear and insert the new updated pass.
Yet it never fails that when we get to the gate on the first day of the ski season with both old and new passes in the same coat, the gates refuse to open. As we protest that we do have valid passes, a resort employee patiently explains (it must happen to others) that we probably used our expired gate pass instead of the current one. The electronic gate mechanism is programmed to recognize only the current pass, not any expired or counterfeit cards. It automatically rejects any expired ones.
The computerized gates (machines) at the resort are programmed to operate only when the correct pass is used. They know nothing but the right. In the face of any alteration or mix the gate refuses to accept it. Applying this directly to Bible preachers, it is an impossible task to be forever identifying and correcting every nuance of wrong in our world today, even if only about sexuality. Could it be that, if our messages as preachers communicated the powerful and the beautiful, the saints in our congregations would be best prepared to reject a substitute and be transformed by Scripture?
As preachers, we have committed our lives to that posture. God placed His plan in our hearts (Eccl. 3:11) God has called us to proclaim the right, and when people in the world know the right, the powerful and beautiful, they will not only recognize the wrong more easily, they will also be transformed (2 Cor 3:18).
His image
In Genesis 1:26, 27 active Creation ends with forming humans. The place humans had in creation was not accidental, and the classic Broadman commentary unpacks this well. “By a special decision, by its fulfillment, and by a comprehensive blessing, God creates man. By his creation as the last act of a whole series, by the status and destiny which are prescribed for him, by some quiet exultant undertone which may be detected in the semi-poetic form of the Hebrew sentences, and in the triple use of the word create, the coming into being of man is seen as the crown and climax of the creation story.”1
These two verses point to the goal of Creation week. Described in lofty grandeur,2 the man and woman represent the most beautiful, powerful, and regal aspect of all creation, as indicated by the report of the divine counsel that took place before their creation. This fact gives a special significance to the man-woman pair.
The physical likeness
This image of the male-female couple seems to be of great interest to heaven. Not only does verse 27 repeat part of verse 26, but it also repeats itself. The intentional use of Hebrew repetition here stresses that humanity is the image of God. That image is comprehensive and includes intellectual, emotional, and spiritual aspects. Yet in the declaration coming from the divine huddle that humans would be made in the likeness of God, we find a significant emphasis on the physical or even biological.
“Likeness” in Genesis 1:26 is translated from the Hebrew word tselem (v. 26), which also indicates “pattern” or “shape.” The Hebrew word appears 25 times in the Old Testament.3 Arguably, the most significant verse using it, outside of those describing the initial human creation, is Genesis 5:3: “And Adam lived . . . and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image” (NKJV). We see here an immediate double application. Seth was born not only as the son of his father, reflecting Adam’s physical attributes, but also as the one through whom the godly line was to be perpetuated, a spiritual image.
The use of the two terms image and likeness4 has led to much theological discussion. Although the two terms may not be sharply different, there appears to be an intentionality in their use. Image indicates a physical similarity between God and man, but with the repetition of man being in both the image and likeness there is a stress on a depth of how many can reflect his Creator. The word likeness strengthens “image” by giving the impression that the resemblance is exact. (Of course, it does not exclude the fact that a profound difference exists between the infinite God, the Creator, and the finite human creation).
The language of Genesis 1:27 makes two important points. First, both human sexual differentiation and pairing are uniquely integrated into God’s image. That makes it possible for humans either to enhance or to efface that image through their sexual behavior. Second, a male-female intimate pairing manifests the fullness of the imprint of God’s image. Our bodies are in the image of God. They are important to understanding who we are. No wonder Satan hates our bodies and sexuality. He hates God. The Genesis account points to our biology as sacred as the Sabbath and arguably even more so.
If the body has divine image value, then it ought to be allowed to determine life or sexuality. Author Nancy R. Pearcy, in her phenomenal work Love Thy Body, declares, “A Christian ethic respects the teleology of nature and the body.”5 As an example, she cites the experience of Sean Doherty. While Doherty recognized that he was same-sex attracted, more importantly, he understood that the creation of his body was by and in the image of God. His body then informed his identity even while some emotions conflicted with it. He testifies how liberating it was that through recognizing the significance of his body, he could establish his identity.
When we bring back the understanding of the original pattern our bodies were made after, we will be able to provide guidance in the confusing issues of sexuality. Still, more importantly, it will restore the focus on the beautiful and the glorious. Theologian Anthony A. Hoekema concludes that “to touch the image of God is to touch God himself; to kill the image of God is to do violence to God himself.”6
Appeal to preachers
Satan has repeatedly sought to blur the issue of God’s image by corrupting how we view our physical bodies and sexuality. It was the target of his deadly attack in Israel’s encampment before it entered the Promised Land (Num. 25; 31). And it is and will continue to be one of the destructive issues on the border of the eternal Promised Land.
What is most beautiful and satisfying is the image of God described in the Bible. What could happen if we, with radical determination, focused on being known more for what we are for than what we are against? What if we keep unpacking what we know from the divine huddle before Creation, that we are all in the image of God, even in the physical? Let it be that a generation of preachers will focus on presenting the glorious image of God and that through the power of the third Person of the Godhead, it will cast the greatest light in the darkest moments of earth’s history.
- Clifton J. Allen, ed., The Broadman Bible Commentary, vol. 1 (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1969), 129.
- Richard M. Davidson, “Homosexuality in the Old Testament,” in ed. Roy E. Gane, Nicholas P. Miller, and H. Peter Swanson, Homosexuality, Marriage, and the Church (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 2012), 5.
- When it is found parallel to the verb, it can indicate a simple comparison as in Psalm 58:3, 4: The lies of the wicked are “like the venom of a snake” (NIV; emphasis added). “However the nom. has more specialized functions. It is used to indicate an image or a shape.” In 2 Kings 16:10, Ahaz sends to Uriah the priest the design of the altar that he had seen at Damascus. Second Chronicles 4:3 states that the laver of Solomon’s temple had supports in the shape of oxen. It finds frequent occurrences in the visions of Ezekiel. “And above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne” (Ezek. 1:26, KJV; emphasis added).
- Anthony A. Hoekema, Created in God’s Image (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1986), 13.
- Nancy R. Pearcey, Love Thy Body (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2018), 23.
- Hoekema, Created in God’s Image, 16.
