Christians decry abortion and medical assistance in death because each human person is imago Dei. Christians decry sexism, racism, ableism, and other dehumanizing -isms because each human person is imago Dei. Christians care about alleviating poverty and providing holistic care because each human person is imago Dei. Christians seek justice for all who are oppressed, marginalized, and ignored because each human person is imago Dei.

We were listening to the music team finish their rehearsal before heading into the pre-service meeting. My five-year-old daughter, my middle-little one, stood beside me in the foyer as she does most weeks when she comes early to church with me. Oftentimes she doesn’t recognize the songs the band plays. But when she heard them playing the song “Great Things,” she confidently looked up at me and said, “I know this one!”
The band arrived at the chorus, and my daughter sang along.

Oh, hero of Heaven, You conquered the graveYou free every cactus and break every chain

I smiled at the thought of Jesus freeing every cactus from its chains. I didn’t correct her; we will sort that one out another day. She is in a stage of life where her vocabulary is growing exponentially, and she gets a remarkable amount of the words right. But sometimes a captive gets called a cactus.
Another one of the words my middle-little mispronounces these days is human: she calls them “few-man.” I’ve tried correcting this one, but to no avail quite yet. It’s one thing to mispronounce the word human, but it’s quite another to misunderstand the intrinsic importance of each human person. Ultimately, I am more concerned that my daughter understands the value of each human than properly pronouncing the word itself.
I have been contemplating the concept of theological anthropology for a while now as I search for answers to the question: what is a human? When it comes to the topic of humans as imago Dei, the response is often similar to my pre-service sidekick in the foyer. We either meet the term with silence because we don’t know what it means, or we meet it with confidence because we are sure that “I know this one!”
The Image of God
The bedrock scriptural passage for all Christian thinking regarding humanity is Genesis 1:26–27, 31 (NIV):

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
So God created mankind in his own image,in the image of God he created them;male and female he created them . . .
God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

This key anthropological passage contains the English phrasing the image of God, or imago Dei in Latin. There is no shortage of material written on imago Dei, but one fairly standard and representative definition of the image of God is “that man is like God and represents God” (Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology, 442).
Read More
Related Posts:

As we think about our daily call to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, we need to remind ourselves once more that the goal of the Christian life is not merely subscribing to a certain set of beliefs. Though it’s true that what we think is vital for the Christian life, the goal of the Christian life is that we are increasingly conformed to the likeness of Jesus. 

A few weeks ago my four-year-old daughter was obsessed with learning to ride a bike without training wheels. I was tired so I suggested a less demanding activity, ideally one that didn’t need me to bend at an awkward angle for long periods of time. But my daughter was persistent that now was the right time for her to learn. My own lethargy wasn’t a good enough reason to hold my daughter back. So on a sunny spring afternoon she put on her pink helmet and hopped on her hand-me-down Minnie Mouse bike.
She was so excited to ride a big girl bike. I awkwardly arched my back and started running behind her with my hand on the seat. I gave a few simple tips: Keep pedaling, sweetie! Look straight ahead!
We got to the end of the road. We did this a few times. I held on, and I repeated my expert advice over and over.
As my daughter became more comfortable, she began to get distracted with where she was looking. She started looking to the sides, gazing behind her to see if Mom was still watching, or looking at her feet pushing the pedals. Whenever she got distracted and looked in a different direction, she began to wobble. Eventually, the only advice I found myself repeating was: Look straight ahead, sweetie!
Before each attempt I would ask her two questions, the first one: Will you look to the side, or at your hands, or at your feet? She would respond with a smile: No. Then I would ask: Will you look straight ahead? She would respond again with a smile: Yes.
Looking to Jesus
She eventually got the hang of it. She knew she had to keep pedaling to stay moving, and she knew she had to look straight ahead to stay balanced. Where she fixed her eyes made all the difference.
This sunny spring afternoon provided a helpful image for the daily life of a disciple of Jesus. Christianity is not merely about mentally affirming certain ideas and events.
Read More
Related Posts: