Extra Credit Recap

Night Four Recap

In our discussion about the sixth commandment, both in Dr. Brown’s sermon on Sunday morning and Sunday night, we learned that murder is an assault on the image of God. To understand why that is, we need to look at what it means to be made in the image of God and what bearing that has on the Ten Commandments.

Genesis 1:27 says “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Historically, people have explained what it means to be made in the image of God by equating it to our ability to create, whether that is art or a new life; our ability to cultivate, whether that is by farming or forming entire civilizations; our ability to reason; or our ability to relate to God. All of these are true and they are all good aspects of what it means to be human and made in the image of God. They are also affected by the introduction of sin into the world.

Through sin, our reflection of God is tarnished and all of the ways that we might contribute to cultivating, creating, and helping society flourish is hindered in one way or another. But sin doesn’t diminish the innate value we have in being image-bearers. Even after the fall, God says in Genesis 9:6 “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.” So being a sinner and living in a fallen world doesn’t mean we have ceased to be God’s image-bearers.

The Ten Commandments affirm this as well. Not only did they lay out how the Israelites should relate to and worship God as his image-bearers and reflect his glory to the nations, but the commandments also showed the Israelites how they were to relate to one another as image-bearers. And they teach us the same lesson as well. Just as the first half of the Ten Commandments tells us not to approach God like a commodity, to manipulate however we want for our own selfish purposes, the second half tells us not to treat people like commodities as well. Once again, the Ten Commandments remind us of our purpose to love God and love others and also reminds us of how much sin has hindered us from doing that.

Thankfully, Jesus came to do what we could not do on our own. We know that Jesus is the “image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15) and he told his disciples that if they’ve seen him, then they have seen the Father (John 14:9). Through his life, Jesus demonstrates what it means to be fully human and to live as an image-bearer. And through his death and resurrection, he took on the full force of the consequences of our sin so that we might do the same. In Christ, we’re able to live as image-bearers in service and in love to others and to better reflect the glory of God.