Wednesday, August 31, 2005

When we say “It’s the culture,” to excuse our or another’s acts or attitudes, we are saying that we are made in Caesar’s image; and certainly our social security, driver’s license, credit card numbers, and other forms of “identity” are Caesar’s superscriptions on ourselves.

Genesis says that God made man in his image, after his likeness—that is, after his kind. Later, Adam begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image. May we not then say that man made by God in His own likeness, and after His image, is God’s son by choice (adoption)? At least man, male and female, if not individual men and women. But man, male and female, disobeyed God and gave up sonship to live in the knowledge of good and evil, like the so-called prodigal son who by asking for his portion of goods in effect wished his father dead and went to live in a far country which may be called Caesar’s (man cut down or killed, by a curious etymology). And we, Adam’s, man’s, descendents, corporately man himself, individually man in spirit, we eat the husks that the swine did eat, for we still live in the far country, Caesar’s, among Caesar’s citizens, on whose fields we are most of us dependent for survival. Or maybe we are Caesar’s citizens and own fields of swine.

We therefore ask ourselves, Is man made in God’s image, or God in man’s image? If in man’s image we have at best mythology, at worst (if it is the worst, for there is worse, the image of the beast) idols. If in God’s, then we must learn what God is. We learn from Jesus, God’s begotten (not made, not adoptive) son.

Genesis 1:26
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Genesis 1:27
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Genesis 5:3
And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image; and called his name Seth:

Genesis 9:6
Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.

Hosea 3:4
For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim:

Hosea 10:1
Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself: according to the multitude of his fruit he hath increased the altars; according to the goodness of his land they have made goodly images.

Matthew 22:20
And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription?

Mark 12:16
And they brought it. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? And they said unto him, Caesar’s.

Luke 20:24
Shew me a penny. Whose image and superscription hath it? They answered and said, Caesar’s.

Romans 8:29
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

1 Corinthians 11:7
For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.

1 Corinthians 15:49
And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.

2 Corinthians 3:18
But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

2 Corinthians 4:4
In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

Colossians 1:15
Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: Colossians 3:10–11
And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.

Hebrews 1:3
Who being the brightness of [God’s] glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.