Dan Olinger

"If the Bible is true, then none of our fears are legitimate, none of our frustrations are permanent, and none of our opposition is significant."

Dan Olinger

Chair, Division of Biblical Studies & Theology,

Bob Jones University

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On What We Learn from Looking Around, Part 4: TLC

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Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Omnipotence | Part 3: Omniscience

There’s something else we learn by observing creation carefully. Despite its brokenness, it seems to fit our needs just perfectly.

Our planet is in the solar system’s “Goldilocks zone”: like the fabled baby bear’s porridge, it’s “not too hot, not too cold—just right!” Further, the temperature is finely tuned by the planet’s slant on its axis, which gives most of the inhabited areas seasons—whether 4 or 2—and furthers the thriving of plant and animal life. And unlike its sister planet Mars, ours has an atmosphere, an ocean of air, with just the right amount of oxygen to support human and animal life, and just the right amount of nitrogen to keep the oxygen from causing us to burst into flame at inopportune moments. (And from what I’m told, all moments are inopportune for that.)

The balance of the biosphere is a remarkable thing; as we breath oxygen, we exhale carbon dioxide, which the plants use to produce more oxygen. Helpful little critters, no?

And it turns out that the sun that warms us and lights our days is also something of an enemy; it sends out radiation at levels that are harmful to us from even more than 90 million miles away. But invisibly surrounding our planet are streams of charged particles, driven from the sun but held in place around us by the planet’s magnetic field, that serve as a shield to divert the lethal levels of that radiation away from us.

Let’s see; what else?

Well, areas of the planet feel really crowded, and sometimes folks in those areas wish there were more land. I grew up in the West, “big sky country,” where we didn’t feel that pressure so much—and preferred it that way. I note that the planet’s average density of humans per square mile is just over 39—though of course, much of the planet’s land surface is uninhabitable (think Antarctica) or nearly so (think Sahara). But the Creator was being kind to limit the extent of the land mass, because the rest of the surface—ocean—is a gigantic water purification system that collects, distills, and then delivers drinkable water right to our feet.

Now, our environment’s not perfect. I mentioned a few words back that the system is broken. Lions choke wildebeests to death—I’ve seen it happen, up close and personal—without mercy and without apparent regret. Some people are inclined to focus on the brokenness; Jack London made a living writing stories about a nature that was “red in tooth and claw.” I think it’s important to note the brokenness, first, for our own preservation, and second, for evaluating the brokenness that we’re causing and then remedying it. After all, the Creator has made us responsible for the care and preservation of the planet as well as its wise use.

But the obvious brokenness makes creation’s general kindness all the more impressive. We deal everyday with things, creations of fellow humans, that don’t work at all when any little thing goes wrong. That’s why so many people make such good money repairing and maintaining expensive systems.

But creation just keeps doing what it does so well—supporting life. It amazes me how desperately life wants to continue. You can be out in the middle of a lava field, and there’s a little weed growing up through a crack, clinging to a few grains of something resembling dirt, raising its tiny leaves to the sky and soaking up the sun, yearning to grow.

Of course it’s true that by foolish mismanagement we humans can interfere with the Creator’s systems and make life difficult or even impossible (think Chernobyl). But it really is astonishing that a system so complex continues to support life after millennia of inattention or even abuse.

Whoever made all this must really, really like us.

Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator (1P 4.19).

Photo by v2osk on Unsplash

On Beginning at Moses

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… with a nod to my former Greek teacher and colleague Dr. Mike Barrett.

One of my favorite experiences is gaining an insight into biblical material that has never occurred to me before.

That happens to me fairly frequently, and yesterday it happened right in the middle of class, thanks to a student question.

We know that the entire Scripture is about Christ. Jesus himself made that point in a conversation he had with two disciples on the road to Emmaus after his resurrection (Lk 24.13ff). (And that passage, Lk 24.27 precisely, is where Dr. Barrett got the title for his book.) Boy do we wish Luke had seen fit to include a transcript of that conversation in his Gospel!

I suspect it was pretty much like Paul’s standard synagogue sermon, recorded in Acts 13.14ff, but with a lot more prophecies included.

Those two disciples said that their hearts burned within them when they heard these things (Lk 24.32). It’s easy to see why. Here they were realizing that the Tanakh (the Old Testament)—a document they had studied all their lives and thought they knew well—was filled with meaning that they had completely missed. It was like the old book had become completely new again; they were starting over as neophytes, going over long-familiar words and seeing completely new things in them.

It’s also easy to see why the early church became really taken with the idea of finding Christ in the Old Testament, looking under every bush—burning or not—to see if he was there. They found a lot of good examples, but sometimes they found things that weren’t even there—for example, when they decided that Solomon’s personification of wisdom in Proverbs 8 was actually talking about Christ. The heretic Arius was able to turn that unfounded interpretation against them by citing Prov 8.22 as proof, then, that Jesus was created by God “in the beginning.”

Oopski.

Mistakes like that have made more recent interpreters, including yours truly, a little wary of suggesting that Christ is somewhere in the OT where he hasn’t been widely recognized before.

So it’s with some trepidation that I share my “insight.”

[Deep breath.] Here goes.

The New Testament tells us repeatedly that Jesus, the Son, is in fact the creator of all things (Jn 1.3; Col 1.16; Heb 1.2). I take that to mean that the Father is the visionary, the designer, in creation, while the Son is the active agent, actually doing the work of creating, while the Spirit hovers over and tends to what is created (Gen 1.2). (So far, that’s a fairly standard, common interpretation.)

And I take that to mean that Elohim (“God”) in Gen 1 and the first paragraph of Gen 2 is actually the person of the Son. (Many others would argue that the name refers to the united Godhead, the essence rather than any one of the persons. That’s not a hill I’m interested in dying on, but bear with me here.)

In Gen 2.4 the name changes from Elohim to Yahweh Elohim (“the LORD God”). Does that indicate a change of person, or is the protagonist still the Son? Well, if “God” created man in Gen 1.27, and in the theological retelling of the story “the LORD God” created man in Gen 2.7, then it seems reasonable to continue to see the Son as the protagonist in the account.

Now, “the LORD God” continues as the main character through the end of Gen 3; Gen 4 begins to use the name Yahweh (“the LORD”). (Eve uses that name in Gen 4.1, and the narrator—Moses—begins using it in Gen 4.3.)

All of this serves as a reasonable basis for seeing Jesus as the one acting in Genesis 3. An additional evidence of that is that “the LORD God” is described as “walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (Gen 3.8)—and the Son is the only person of the Godhead described as physically embodied in Scripture. (But is Rev 5.6-7 an exception? Hmm.)

So, finally, here’s the thought I had in class today.

Is it actually Jesus who utters the prophecy of Gen 3.15?

Is it Jesus who, perhaps with an animated glint in his eye, tells the serpent that one day, the seed of the woman will crush the serpent’s head?

Wouldn’t that put quite an edge on those words? Wouldn’t it be a lot like the time David gave Goliath a list of all the things he was going to do with Goliath’s various body parts (1Sa 17.45-47), but exponentially more fearsome, and exponentially more consequential?

The Son and the Serpent, standing in the Garden, face to face, making an appointment for a battle to the death, thousands of years into the future?

I’m going to have to think about that.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Sublime to Ridiculous

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God is great, and he is good.

He created all things in the span of six days, and the Scripture describes the origin of all the stars in all the galaxies in all the galaxy clusters in all the universe with just three words (two in Hebrew): “and the stars” (Gen 1.16). And the speed with which he made it all implies no hurry or lack of attention to detail; he made the earth perfect as a residence—a sanctuary—for us humans, with all of our needs—oxygen, water, food, light, heat—freely and abundantly provided (Gen 1.29).

He made us in his image (Gen 1.27) and sought out our companionship in the cool of the day (Gen 3.8). And despite our faithlessness to him and our rejection of his commands (Gen 3), he set out on a long plan to woo us back to himself, as the one whom his soul loves.

Why so long?

For at least a couple of reasons, I think.

First, because his long, unflagging pursuit of us assures us of his love. He’s serious about this. He’s not going away. This is true love of the purest and most devoted kind.

And second, because he gives us time. We are stubborn—he knows that (Ps 103.14)—and we need to be shown that we will not be satisfied with anything or anyone but him. So he lengthens our leash, and he lets us sniff all the sidewalks to our heart’s content. He patiently endures the jealousy his own heart feels toward us, watching us seek satiation in everything else there is. He lets us exhaust ourselves in our foolishness. He’s a patient lover.

And when we’ve come to the end of our orgy, to the end of ourselves, wrecked and ruined and unattractive and repulsive (Ezek 16), then he draws us to himself, graciously, tenderly, and whispers to us of love. And we ought to believe him. His patience tells us of his love; his revelation of himself tells us (Rom 2.4); and most especially, his giving of himself in brutalizing, deadly sacrifice—for our filthiness, not his—tells us beyond any doubt (Rom 5.8).

But even as believers—forgiven, welcomed, indwelt, gifted, guided, protected, loved—we find ourselves faithless. We doubt his promises—or worse, forget them—and fear the place he’s called us to serve. Like toddlers in the checkout line, we find ourselves distracted by bright colors and sugary treats, and we seek our fulfillment in light and worthless things. We go through the motions of marriage to him, but our heart is elsewhere. We’re glad for his grace—don’t you feel bad for all those (other) people going to hell?—but we pursue our own joys and our own ends. We’ve hired other people, you see, to serve him “full-time,” to take the gospel to the ends of the earth as he has commanded us.

And we fear. Oh, do we fear. Will I lose my health? Will the wrong guy get elected? Will the market crash? Will laws be broken?

What if it does? What if they are? Is our God asleep? Is he in the men’s room (1Ki 18.27)? After millennia of pursuing us, is he going to abandon us now?

This isn’t the first time the kings of the earth have raged against God’s anointed (Ps 2). It isn’t abnormal that God’s people are not the powerful of the earth (1Co 1). His plan for us, apparently, is very different from our plan for ourselves. Once again.

I sought the Lord, and he answered me

and delivered me from all my fears (Ps 34.4).

 

So then.

PSA: I’ve seen all those memes. You know, those fearful and snide and unoriginal and hostile and divisive ones about Colin Kaepernick and Cory Booker and Nancy Pelosi and Dianne Feinstein and whatever else. So you can stop posting them now, OK? Maybe you could post about–oh, I don’t know–the things I’ve mentioned above. Thanks.

Photo by David Marcu on Unsplash

Somewhere Out There

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OK, that car thing was really cool. Sure, it was a waste of a really good car, in the most materialistic of senses, and sure, it was symbol over substance, and sure, they’re saying the radiation will destroy it in a year, and sure, it’ll never actually get to Mars, and sure, even if it did, without any propulsion it would just crash into it and join the rest of the rust.

But still, it was really, really cool. Sometimes symbol is every bit as important as substance.

And it got me thinking.

Wouldn’t it be even cooler if somebody found it, out there, somewhere? What would they think? What would they do?

The half-full folks think, “They’d know we’re here! And they’d come looking for us! And share their technology! And wouldn’t that be just awesome!”

And the half-empty folks think, “Are you OUT OF YOUR MIND?! They’d know we’re here! And they’d come looking for us! And make us slaves! Or eat us! Or something!”

Well, I’ll observe that if they come looking for us, then they’re way more advanced than we are, and the outcome is going to be pretty much out of our hands at that point.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves, aren’t we? Shouldn’t we be asking if there’s a “they” at all?

A lot of people think there is. Are. Whatever.

I suppose we think like that because we want to. We’re social people—God made us that way (Gen 2.18)—and we want there to be Others. And since we’re broken, and everybody we know here is broken (Rom 3.23), maybe we like to hold out hope that there will be less irritating people Out There.

So we posit reasons and evidences. Evolutionists argue that as many galaxies as there are, there must be bazillions of planets, and a lot of them must be in the Goldilocks zone, and surely the odds favor that evolution has happened out there too. (Methinks they misoverestimate the odds that evolution happened even here.)

Even my fellow Christians—using the term fellow relatively loosely—have suggested biblical evidence for life on other planets:

Well, suppose we get a little more, um, down to earth, and give a little theological thought to the subject?

  • Could God have created life on other planets?
    • Of course! He’s omnipotent, and a multivariate creation of life is certainly not inconsistent with his nature.
  • Wouldn’t he have told us?
    • Not necessarily. There’s a LOT he hasn’t told us (Dt 29.29). He’s infinite, you may recall.

This possibility does raise a bunch of questions. For example,

  • Has this hypothetical extraterrestrial race been created in the image of God?
  • If so, has it fallen into sin?
  • If so, has God willed to redeem it? (Would it violate his nature not to redeem his image?)
  • If so, …
    • Is more than one method of redemption possible in some other planetary cosmos? Or is the specific method of redemption tied to the unchanging nature of God?
    • Or does the Son—or even a different member of the Godhead—incarnate with them and endure another death?
    • Or does God simply reveal to them what he has done on another planet (ours) and offer to apply it to them?
    • Are any of the above options completely ruled out by what we know of the nature of God?

I’ll tell you what we do know.

God has invested us with a stewardship here, and now, on this planet, and we need to make that our first priority. Speculation on matters like this are useful in that they can exercise our theological thinking and may provide insights into other theological questions. But they cannot replace direct obedience to the Great Commission (Mt 28.19-20) and to our fundamental purpose as images of God here on earth (1Co 10.31; Rom 11.36).

So that’s enough speculation for today. Let’s get back to Kingdom work, my fellow princes and princesses.

But that car is really cool.

Photo credit: SpaceX

Created. Now What? Part 9: Creature vs Creator, and the Surprise Ending

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Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

In our study of what it means to have a Creator, we’ve noted a couple of significant consequences: the fact that we’re in the image of God, and the fact that we’re responsible to the one who created us. Last time I noted that the Bible seems to place our sexual behavior fairly high on the list of our responsibilities to God. Here, rather than itemizing further down the list, I’d like to make a larger point.

Since we have responsibilities, it’s possible to shirk them. We can fulfill our responsibilities poorly, or half-heartedly, or we can ignore them altogether. Most of us know how irritating that can be; we’ve had children who didn’t do what we asked, or we’ve been assigned group projects with people who just didn’t care, or we’ve had employees who acted as though we were paying them primarily as a philanthropic endeavor.

Boy. Some people.

Imagine, then, the heart of the Creator when we ignore or trivialize our responsibilities to him.

He has made us—we are in debt to him for every breath of fresh air, every floral scent, every brilliant sight, every soothing sound, every delicious taste of food or drink, every hug, every laugh, every moment of passion or delight. We exist, and we know every one of the joys that existence has brought, because of him.

Beyond that, he has made us in his image, far greater than any other creature, so that even mighty animals respond to us with respect. He has given us dominion over all we see, so that we can use it freely for our own survival and prosperity.

We owe him everything.

So how despicable is it when we despise his gifts and ignore the responsibilities he has given us? when we turn every one to his own way? when we treat him as absent, or even enemy, instead of loving Father?

There’s a word for that kind of attitude or behavior. We call it sin. It’s possible only because we are creatures: if we were random accidents, no other creature could claim that we owe him any duty; we would all be lords of our own flies and nothing more.

But we are not random accidents. There is such a thing as sin, and it’s very, very serious business. It’s far worse than anything any ungrateful child or apathetic fellow team member or entitled employee has ever done to us. It’s worse than inattention or even hostility; it’s a denial of our very selves and the One to whom our very selves are owed.

What should be a Creator’s response to such ingratitude and rebellion? After we have despised his many gifts, what more does he owe us? What should we now expect from him?

Well, the reasonable response would be for him to take our unappreciated toys away from us. Joy. Delight. Pleasure. Freedom. Rest. Peace.

And life itself.

But he doesn’t.

Oh, my friend, does he ever not.

In the midst of his anger, rightly earned, he gives more grace.

He determines to forgive—and to find a way to do so without violating his perfect justice.

He determines to do for us what we could never do for ourselves.

Astoundingly, he steps into our world, lives in the dump we have made for ourselves, and does perfectly what we have done badly or not at all. He meets his own standard of perfect righteousness.

And then—what?!—he punishes himself for our graceless acts of rebellion. He pays the price himself, through death.

Even the death of the cross.

And because he will not tolerate defeat, or even apparent defeat, he uses that death to destroy the one who has the power of death, the one who led us willingly astray in the first place. Rather than counting us enemies, he soundly defeats our greatest enemy and so counts us his friends.

There are no words.

Now, after all that, what does it mean to live as a creature?

It means gratitude, devotion. It means steely determination to live for him, for the publishing of his fame to every corner of what he has created. It means loving our enemies with the same fervor with which he has loved his.

It means using every breath, every neural impulse, every calorie, every heartbeat to be his servant.

What difference does it make that we are created?

Every possible difference. Every one.

What patience would wait as we constantly roam?
What Father, so tender, is calling us home?
He welcomes the weakest, the vilest, the poor!
My sins, they are many; his mercy is more!
(Matt Papa)

Photo by David Marcu on Unsplash

Created. Now What? Part 8: On Hurting Yourself by Ignoring the Directions

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Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7

If we’re created, then we’re accountable to our Creator. That’s just simple logic.

We’re accountable in many ways, great and small. We have to do what he says.

Does the creation account emphasize any specific kinds of accountability? specific design specs? our essential identity and proper use?

Yes, it does.

From the very beginning, we’re told, when God created us in his image (Gen 1.26), he created us male and female (Gen 1.27). That’s the original design, an essential part of what it means to be human.

And the first recorded words God spoke to his creatures, this male and this female, were straightforward: “Be fruitful, and multiply” (Gen 1.28). That’s the first way that humans are to implement dominion; there have to be enough of them that they can get significant things done.

Now, there’s only one way to multiply, to be fruitful.

Yep. God has designed, and then ordered, our sexual nature and behaviors. And to encourage things along, we’re told at the end of the next chapter, he creates the first couple naked and unashamed (Gen 2.25). His intent couldn’t be more clear.

So here’s the principle: our sexuality is an important part of who we are; it’s part of the image of God in us. And he has commanded the sexual relationship and the consequent fruitfulness.

There are a lots of observations to make about that, which are significant for the current culture, but let me focus on just one for now.

Sexuality is designed to be monogamous.

Monogamy was the only option, obviously, when Adam and Eve were the only people on the planet. But although it’s strongly implied in the creation story, we need later revelation to be certain of God’s intent in the matter. Polygamy becomes routine fairly quickly (Gen 4.19), but what does God think about that? The first identified polygamist, Lamech, is not presented as an admirable character (Gen 4.23-24), but that doesn’t necessarily discredit the practice. Eventually, in the Mosaic Law, God forbids adultery (Ex 20.14), but the polygamy question gets a firm and clear answer only with Jesus’ comment that God’s design intent was monogamy (Mt 19.4-9), and Paul’s later restatement of the principle (1Cor 7.2). Jesus, of course, was there at the beginning; he was in fact the active agent in creation (Jn 1.3; Col 1.16; Heb 1.2), if you will, the Elohim of Genesis 1. He is in every position to know what the designer’s original intent was.

It’s interesting to me how our culture has twisted that sentiment, and the horrific price it has paid for ignoring the designer’s specs. As just one example, the sexual revolution of the mid-20th century urged promiscuity (“Love the one you’re with!”) as a means to heightened sexual pleasure—variety obviously being the spice of life, and all. But with promiscuity, and especially with the frequent accompanying intoxication and lack of reasoned action, came hygiene issues and the rapid spread of sexually transmitted diseases. And in a few years along came an STD, HIV, with real teeth: it could kill you.

Well, then, we have to be more careful, don’t we? Not monogamous, of course—that’s obviously out of the question—but smarter in our rejection of norms. Turns out there’s effectively only one reasonably reliable preventative of HIV transmission: the condom. So the Surgeon General urges everyone to make it a practice.

And what do you suppose is the most immediate and obvious consequence of condom use? Reduced. Sexual. Pleasure.

Not only did the sexual revolution not deliver what it promised, it actually gave its fans the exact opposite.

How about that.

Doesn’t it make sense that the one who designed sex, who made it pleasurable in the first place, would want us to take pleasure in it? Wouldn’t the most potentially pleasurable practice of it, then, be in what the designer intended? And isn’t it a shame that by rejecting his design, his specifications, we damn ourselves to a lifetime of less than that? or much worse?

And we’ve noted just the biological side of things. We find that sexual activity is much more complex than the simple physical mechanics, much more of a whole-person experience—something that promiscuity directly undercuts by making the partners strangers.

This is just one example, the first one that comes to mind from the text. How much more joy do we miss, how much more pain do we feel, how much more substantial meaning do we replace with empty wind, all because we ignore the Designer’s specifications—because we act like a chimp with a chainsaw?

May I ask you a question?

Why not be smart about it?

Why not read the directions?

Part 9

Photo by David Marcu on Unsplash

Created. Now What? Part 7: On Listening to the Designer

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Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

In our consideration of the practical consequences of being created, we’ve identified the clearest consequence as our existence in the image of God, and we’ve noted the effects of that image in our dominion over the planet, our personal nature, and our social disposition. There’s a second major consequence, which is not stated directly as such in the creation account, but is assumed throughout Scripture, from the very beginning.

You see, if we have a Creator, then we are not self-existent, and we are not random, and we are not essentially independent.

If we have a Creator, we’re responsible to him. What he thinks matters, and his purpose in creating us is at the core of our responsibility.

In short, we have to do what he says.

This concept drives all of our lives, as a human race and as individuals. Whatever we think, however we feel, whatever we do, we need to derive from the Creator’s purpose for us. To do otherwise is inherently destructive.

When my wife and I bought our first house, the inspector recommended that I cut down a tree whose branches were rubbing slightly on the roof. He said the tree would shorten the life of our shingles, and eventually the root system might undermine the house’s foundation as well.

Yikes. Big stuff.

So I went to one of those big box home improvement stores—the orange one—and I bought me a chainsaw.

Every man needs a chainsaw.

And, to everyone’s surprise, I read the manual.

I learned a lot of things—how to tension the chain, where to put the sprocket oil, how much oil to mix in with the gasoline (2-stroke engine, you know), and where to put the gasoline mixture when I had the ratio right.

Most important, the manual had a section on a phenomenon called “kickback.”

Apparently you can handle a chainsaw in such a way that the Business End will proceed rapidly in the direction of your face, and I’m told that you really don’t want that to happen.

The manual explained what kinds of behaviors increase the likelihood of kickback. I read that section very carefully, because when your face is as attractive as mine is, you have an obligation to prevent anything untoward from happening to it. I have a duty to my public.

Now, I had bought and paid for that chainsaw. It’s mine, and I can do whatever I want with it. I can empty the sprocket lubricant reservoir. I can use straight gasoline, or even jet fuel, if I feel like it. I can juggle it while it’s running. I can use it to cut concrete.

I have my rights.

But if I do any of those things, I’m an idiot. I’ll shorten the life of the machine; I’ll waste money; and most important, I might do serious harm to myself and others. I wouldn’t be much of a husband or father if I did that to my family.

I have my rights, but I have responsibilities as well.

The engineers who designed that chainsaw know how it was designed to operate. They know its limits and its capabilities. I ought to listen to them.

And so it is with us. If we’re designed, the designer knows our specs. He knows how our equipment—physical, mental, emotional, spiritual—should be used. He knows what will lead to a long, happy, and useful life, and he knows what will send us to the scrap heap. So we ought to do what he says.

But it goes deeper than that. The chainsaw designers have a lot of expertise to share with me and advice to give me, but they don’t own either me or the chainsaw. But it’s different with us. God’s not just a designer whose product or services we’ve hired; he owns us. He has a right to tell us what to do. And if we ignore him, there are more than just practical or financial consequences—there are moral and even eternal ones.

We could apply this principle endlessly; God has sovereign rights over every decision we make, from the smallest to the greatest. We’ve noted in an earlier post that our obligation extends to the care with which we exercise the dominion that is ours as part of the image of God. There’s a second specific application in the creation account, one that speaks powerfully to the world we find ourselves in today.

We’ll talk about that next time.

Part 8 Part 9

Photo by David Marcu on Unsplash

Created. Now What? Part 4: Dominion

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Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

If the first takeaway from creation theology is that we’re all, male and female, in the image of God, despite our sinfulness and our damaged state, then we ought to figure out what that means.

What is the image of God, anyway?

I think the first hint toward an answer is in the text itself. As God meditates on what he’s going to do (Gen 1.26), and as Moses then describes what God did (Gen 1.28), the text emphasizes a single point: Adam is to have dominion “over all the earth,” including “every living thing that moves on the earth.” He is to fill the earth with descendants of himself (Gen 1.28), and these humans are to “subdue” the earth in their dominion over it.

So what’s that mean?

Several things:

  • God has given us responsibility for the state of the earth. We’re going to be accountable for how we use it. It’s not our playground; it’s our responsibility. That means we need to use it wisely and, dare I say it, sustainably. We should use our non-renewable resources with a view toward how long they’ll last at the current rate of use. We should prefer renewable resources wherever possible—and we should carefully think through what “possible” means, in both practical and financial terms. We should develop smart ways to conserve and extend what’s on and in the earth. Avoidable extinctions shouldn’t happen on our watch. We’re not drunken sailors—or we shouldn’t be.
  • And with the responsibility to use the earth wisely is the clear right to use it. Its resources are for our use, within the bounds of stewardship. We can harness the power of its energy sources; we can use our intelligence to make plants more productive or more useful in other ways (natural isn’t necessarily a more moral descriptor); we can domesticate animals and use them for work or for food, even as we care for them and seek their prosperity (Prov 12.10). We can kill them, but we do so humanely and only as needed.

And that brings other issues to consider:

  • Are there limits to this dominion? Selective breeding? Hybridization? Genetic manipulation? Cloning? What about cloning humans? Does that cross a line? How do we define the line?
  • Does our dominion extend beyond the earth? Space travel? Mining asteroids? How do we decide?
  • Does our dominion extend to “redeeming culture” in the Kuyperian sense? Should we embrace all cultural forms as morally neutral and exploit them for the advancement of the kingdom? What constraints would a biblical view place on that kind of activity?

The longer God gives us to steward the planet, the more complicated the questions get. Turns out we need to steward the questions about stewarding, as well as all the other stuff. Being in the image of God is serious business, and it requires us to know more about him than what he has revealed in us; we need to master the revelation he gives in his Word if we’re going to steward our dominion over the earth in ways that consistently please him.

Responsibility is hard work.

Next time, we’ll ask whether there’s more to the image than just dominion.

Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9

Photo by David Marcu on Unsplash

Created. Now What? Part 3: Recognizing the Image of God

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So the first major takeaway from creation theology is the fact that we’re special—specifically, that we’re in the image of God.

Before we get to what that means, I’d like to take a post to note whom it involves.

It involves every human—everyone who’s descended from Adam and Eve.

First, it includes sinful humans, and that’s all of us, of course. Every descendant of Adam and Eve is sinful, in at least three ways:

  • We’re guilty of Adam’s sin, because Adam was our representative in the Garden. Paul tells us that in Adam, “all sinned” (Rom 5.12)—not “all sin,” or “all will sin,” but “all sinned.” There are different theories as to how that works, but no orthodox theologian denies the fact that the guilt for Adam’s sin has been imputed to us.

What’s that you say? That’s not fair? Sure seems like it, doesn’t it? But let me encourage you to take a look at the whole picture. Adam’s guilt is imputed to you; that really hurts. But your sin is imputed to Christ (Is 53.4-6), and that’s not “fair” either. And the coup de grace is that Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us (2Cor 5.21), so that God sees us through Christ-colored glasses.

That’s quite an arrangement.

You can whine about fairness if you want, but this is the best deal in the history of ever, and you’d be a fool not to take it.

  • As descendants of Adam, we’ve inherited his sinful nature, so that we’re inclined toward sin; we naturally lean in that direction (Rom 8.5-8; Eph 4.22). We like it.
  • And we sin. Even if Adam’s sin weren’t on our account, we have plenty of our own to answer for. We’re guilty (Rom 3.10-18), as guilty as sin. And if you don’t think so, consider how you’d feel if your thoughts were broadcast, 24/7, to everyone you know. I sure wouldn’t like it. I’m not the only one like that, am I?

But here’s remarkable thing. Even as sinners, we’re still in the image of God (Gen 9.6; Jam 3.9). God’s image in us is so powerful, so deeply embedded by his sculpting hand, that all the sin in the universe can’t blast it away. God is bigger than sin, and so is his image in us.

And one more thing. At the moment he placed that image in us, he said specifically that it involved both kinds of humans: male and female (Gen 1.27).

No, the woman wasn’t an afterthought. That’s ridiculous; God doesn’t have afterthoughts. She’s in the image of God too. I’d go so far as to suggest that neither sex completely reflects the image of God; the image is most clearly and completely displayed by the two together. Which means, I suppose, that the sexes image God most clearly when they’re friends, not enemies.

So why did God delay the creation of Eve? He didn’t say, but as a teacher, I have a suspicion.

He wanted Adam to realize his own incompleteness before he completed him with Eve. He wanted him to treasure what a remarkable and perfect gift she was. So he set him out to name all the animals (Gen 2.19), and here they came, two by two, each male with his perfect female complement. And Adam noticed the obvious: there’s no one like that for me (Gen 2.20). He recognized his need. (Discovery learning!) And when God met that need, perfectly (Gen 2.21-22), Adam burst into poetry (Gen 2.23).

Men have been writing poems to women ever since, with varying degrees of skill. And reception, alas.

Now, how do you treat the image of God?

Well, suppose I’m in London, and I see a bust of the Queen. And I spit on it.

I’m going to have to do a lot of explaining to a lot of Brits, some of them undoubtedly in an official capacity.

And what if I say, “I didn’t spit on the Queen; I spit on a chunk of marble”?

Nope. That excuse is not gonna fly. It’s a piece of marble that looks like the Queen, and that’s the whole point. My treatment of the image can reasonably be taken to reflect my attitude toward the original, the person depicted.

That’s why murder is wrong, you know. Not primarily because the human has a right to life (which he does), but because murder is an attack on, a defacing of, the image of God (Gen 9.6).

So how do you treat the image of God that you see every day? In the rich? The poor? The white? The black? The male? The female? The stronger than you? The disabled? The respectable? The death-row inmate? The countryman? The refugee?

Images of God. All of them. Better not spit on them, or you’re going to have to answer to the Original, and he’s not going to be happy about it.

You disrespect certain kinds of people? Then you need to ask yourself why you despise God so much. You need to repent, and you need to make restitution. You need to repair the damage you’ve done.

Creation theology means that there shouldn’t need to be #metoo hashtags. Or any other campaigns to end abuse, physical or verbal, or even simple disrespect. It’s all ungodly, and in that sense it’s also subhuman.

Get with the species.

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Photo by David Marcu on Unsplash

Created. Now What? Part 2: Implementing the Image of God

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Part 1

We’re six days into Creation week. God has issued orders, as a sovereign from his throne, and the universe is running like clockwork.

It’s all good.

But now, on day 6, God changes everything. He comments to himself that he’s about to do something qualitatively different; he’s going to make someone “in our image” (Gen 1.26).

And he rises from his chair.

Why do I say that?

The account in Genesis 1 is tersely straightforward: God makes man in his own image (Gen 1.27), as he had said he would. But Moses, the narrator and cinematographer, has kindly given us a close-up shot of the same scene in the next chapter:

Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature (Gen 2.7).

Unfortunately, we’ve become so familiar with these words that their significance escapes us.

This is physical, not verbal, language. God is not speaking Adam into existence; he’s sculpting him, forming him, shaping him, with his hands. He’s “rescue breathing” into him, with his lungs and mouth.

This is shocking language. God is a spirit (John 4.24); he has no hands, lungs, or mouth. What’s this all about?

I’d like to engage in a little biblically informed theological speculation for a moment.

We know that the active agent of creation was the Son (John 1.3; Col 1.16; Heb 1.2). We also know that the Son is the person who later, in God’s eternal plan (Heb 10.5, quoting Ps 40.6-8 LXX), became incarnate, permanently united with a human nature, including a human body, which he retains to this day (Acts 1.11; Col 2.9) and apparently will forever. We’re also fairly confident that Jesus appeared in bodily form repeatedly in the Old Testament, before the incarnation, as the “Angel of YHWH.” In Genesis 18 Abraham has an extended conversation with God, apparently this same “Angel of YHWH,” after sharing a meal with him in his tent—a very physical activity indeed. (Centuries later, Jesus would ask for a piece of fish to eat [Lk 24.41-43], specifically to demonstrate to his disbelieving disciples that he was indeed with them physically.)

So here’s what I imagine.

The Son, Jesus, is the one speaking all things into existence. In embodied form, he rises from his chair and steps to an area of clay. Kneeling, he begins to work the clay with his hands—physical hands—and fashions a body—a recumbent statue—that looks like him. (Isn’t it more appropriate that our body is in the image of the Son’s than that his is in ours?) When the sculpture is complete, he leans back on his heels and surveys his work, not to inspect it for flaws but simply to take joy in it.

It’s good.

But it’s not complete. It’s not human. It’s not alive.

The Son leans over the lifeless form and, placing his lips on the clay mouth, he exhales.

Once? Twice? Several times?

One thing we know. There is none of the desperation that accompanies CPR today: Come on, buddy; breathe for me now. Don’t die on me, man. Breathe for me!

The Son exhales with sovereign authority, and this statue, this clay mass, pinks up. It comes to life.

And there, sitting in the clay, is a living, breathing image of God.

Adam.

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Photo by David Marcu on Unsplash