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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In the Image of God, Part 3: One Last Thought 

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Part 1: What It Means | Part 2: So What? 

One last thought. 

Christ perfectly images God.  

In whom [i.e. the lost] 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 (2Co 4.4). 

[Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation (Co 1.15). 

[Christ] being the brightness of his 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 (He 1.3). 

Those who have seen him, he said, have seen the Father (Jn 14.9). 

And God is making us like Him. We are being sanctified into that image. 

28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. 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 (Ro 8.28-29). 

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 (2Co 3.18). 

And He will certainly take us all the way there; we will one day be glorified into that image.  

As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly (1Co 15.49). 

[Christ] shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself (Php 3.21). 

Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is (1J 3.2). 

As surely as the sun came up this morning, God will finish His work in us. He will conform us to the perfect image of His Son. In this life you will never image God as you should; you will never image Him as He deserves to be displayed. But your Savior, the God-Man, has always imaged Him perfectly and completely, and because of His work for you and in you, the day will come—will certainly come—when you image Him in a way that you can’t today.  

And in that day, with a numberless throng of people who don’t look like you, but with whom all of you radiate the image and glory and mercy and grace of God, you will sing His praise: “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain.”  

Take His hand, and follow Him through the trials and the challenges by which He is sanctifying you.  

He promises you that you will love where He’s taking you.  

Image God today. You’ll be better at it tomorrow. And every tomorrow after that.  

Photo by Ilia Zolas on Unsplash

In the Image of God, Part 2: So What? 

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Part 1: What It Means 

We’ve thought about the fact that humans—all of us—are in the image of God, and what that means. We turn now to what difference it makes in how we live on a Monday in February. 

For starters, we’re not animals. We’re not just a fortunate combination of mutations that allows us to survive, even prosper, in the place where we find ourselves. God created us by direct action, and in a way distinct from the way he created all the living organisms that preceded us. We are fundamentally different from amoebas, and slugs, and snakes, and trout, and robins, and even chimpanzees.  

You are not an animal. You are not controlled by your impulses. You don’t have to do everything that occurs to you. You can make choices. You can rise above the evil that screams in your ear. You can be a man. You can be a woman. You do not have to be a victim.  

Yes, you’re a sinner, and there are some things—many things—you can’t do without divine enablement. But you are not a brute beast.  

Further, we’re worth something. Humans—all of us—are valuable. Those of us who are “process people” rather than “people people” need to remember that as we wend our way down crowded hallways or sidewalks. Those bodies around us are not simply obstacles to be navigated around as efficiently as possible; they are eternal beings with stories and histories and loves and struggles and cares. They are worth infinitely more than whatever has us in such a hurry to Get Somewhere. 

And all of them are valuable in that way. People who are not like you. People who look different. People who act differently. People who think differently. People you know, and people you don’t. People who take the name of God in vain. People who are arrogant. People who voted for Trump, and people who voted for Harris, and people who voted for somebody who didn’t have a chance, and people who didn’t vote at all. 

People who have no money. People who have no home. People who live under an overpass. People who smell bad. People who have disabilities. People who are dying of AIDS. Muslim refugees. And Muslim terrorists. People who make you really, really uncomfortable. And yes, people who are still in the womb, and can’t speak for themselves. 

All of them are in the image of God, and all of them are worth infinitely more than all the bank accounts of all the rich people in all the world.  

All humans are valuable. 

One more thing. 

Everything you love about the people you love should move you to praise and worship God, who is the perfect originator of all of it.  

You are surrounded, right now, with thousands of reasons to worship.  

All day, every day, you should be driven to your knees at the glory of this magnificent Creator.  

And you know what? If we were to live that way, the sin that so easily besets us would not seem so appealing. We’d be living for something worth far more than the shiny little trinkets that distract us. We’d start to see victory instead of regular, frustrating defeat.  

Next time, one last thought. 

Photo by Ilia Zolas on Unsplash

In the Image of God, Part 1: What It Means

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In my previous post I mentioned that God’s Spirit is working in us to conform us, eventually perfectly, to the image of the Son. I’d like to follow that up by thinking more deeply about our standing as in the image of God. 

It’s the first thing God tells us about ourselves. After He tells how He made everything else, He describes the last act of the Creation Week:  

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. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Gen 1.26-27).  

You and I are made in the image of God. What does that mean? And what difference does it make? 

What is the image of God? Interestingly, the Bible never tells us directly what it is. But there are some clues: 

  • It distinguishes the human from the animals, who immediately precede man in the creation narrative.  
  • It characterizes both male and female (Ge 1.27).  
  • It’s something like the way a son resembles his father (Ge 5.1-3).  

 Over the centuries there have been a lot of suggestions. I’ve gone into more details about this in a previous series, but let me summarize the views here: 

  • It’s something we do: Dominion (Ge 1.28) 
  • It’s something we are:   
    • Morality (Ep 4.24) 
    • Relationship (male & female; social health)  
    • Sonship (Lk 3.38; Ge 5.3-5)  
    • It’s something we have:  
    • Creativity (Ge 1.1)  
    • Immortality  

    Or maybe it’s all of the above.  

    You were created to radiate the love and mercy and grace of God.  

     Now, we need to note a critical point: 

    We’re not the way God made us. 

    We’re not the same as the Adam that God created. Something significant has happened to us. Adam chose to sin, and now we’re busted.  

    The image in us has been marred. But it has not been destroyed. 

    After the Flood God told Noah, 

    Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man (Ge 9.6). 

    Here we’re told that the murder victim, though fallen like everyone else at this time in history, is in the image of God. 

    Further, James writes, 

    Therewith [with the tongue] bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God (Jam 3.9).  

     The word similitude here is the word Genesis uses for “likeness.” And it’s spoken of a time when there’s cursing going on—so it’s after the fall. 

    So we sinners are still in the image and likeness of God. 

    Toward the beginning of this post I asked two questions: what does it mean that we’re in the image of God? and what difference does it make? 

    Next time, we’ll get to the second question. 

    Photo by Ilia Zolas on Unsplash

    On Certsitude, Part 2: “Well, Actually, You Are Both Right. Kinda.”

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    Part 1: “You’re Both Right!”

    I’m meditating on the fact that I repeatedly see discussions on social media where my friends are taking directly opposing positions, yet I find that they’re both making legitimate points, ones worth considering. In a sense, they’re both right, even though their positions logically can’t both be true.

    The Bible gives us reason not to be surprised by this.

    According to the Scripture, humans are complicated; specifically, they’re characterized by a nature that’s in tension with itself.

    • On the one hand, we’re created in the image of God (Gn 1.26-27). There’s considerable discussion about what that means precisely, but most would agree that it includes the abilities to think, feel, and decide, as well as an innate sense of right and wrong, and the ability to rule, to take dominion over the created world in various ways. We have the ability to seek truth and to discover it.
    • On the other hand, we’ve been damaged by our sin, damaged in every corner of our being (Ro 3.23). Our thinker is busted and can’t be trusted; our feelings may misguide us; our decisions are not always based in truth.

    We’ve all experienced this bifurcation; we want to do one thing—say, be kind to our extremely irritating neighbor—and we disappoint ourselves by snapping back at an unusually irritating remark from him. Even the Apostle Paul described this ongoing struggle in his own life (Ro 7.7ff): he wants to do one thing, but he does the other in spite of his good intentions.

    Even more simply, we should expect that all of us are going to be right about some things and wrong about others. Nobody’s right all the time, and nobody’s wrong all the time, either.

    But in public discussions we act as though that simple principle isn’t true. The other party’s guy is unremittingly and irredeemably evil, and I won’t give him an ounce of credit or an inch of slack. My party’s guy is unremittingly good, and everything he does can be justified. But this approach, based in utter falsehood, cannot bring good results.

    I remember when this point was first driven home forcefully to me.

    In 1983 Congress passed a federal statute making Martin Luther King’s birthday a federal holiday. Forty years later we don’t typically see that as controversial, but in those days the debate was heated. Opponents of the bill argued that King was characterized by low moral character; supporters argued that his accomplishments outweighed any imperfections. (I’m simplifying here.)

    During the Senate debate, Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC), an opponent of the bill, argued against the position of Sen Ted Kennedy (D-MA) by saying, “Senator Kennedy’s argument is not with the Senator from North Carolina. His argument is with his dead brother who was President and his dead brother who was Attorney General.”

    Yikes.

    I’m politically conservative; I believe in limited government and personal responsibility and a bunch of other ideas espoused by Russell Kirk and Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek and, yes, Jesse Helms.

    But that outburst is just inexcusable.

    And I’m not going to be forced, because someone agrees with me on philosophical ideas that I hold dear and deeply, to justify things he does that are just plain wrong.

    Coming back to the present. The fact that Rush Limbaugh held some views that I also hold doesn’t mean that he’s exempt from the biblical command to “be kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven you” (Ep 4.32) or to “let your speech be always with grace” (Co 4.6). On the other hand, the fact that he intentionally made people angry doesn’t mean that a person can’t appreciate the contribution he made to popularizing conservative philosophies like limited government or personal responsibility.

    The fact that Ravi Zacharias was a moral monster does not mean that his apologetic arguments were invalid. But the fact that his arguments are helpful doesn’t mean that we minimize the horror of the damage he has done to women who didn’t encourage his reprobate behavior—or that people in position to know should have let him get away with that nonsense in the first place.

    In short, we need to listen to one another rather than simply arguing. We need to recognize when people we disagree with are right, and we need to learn from them, even if we’ll never arrive at all their conclusions.

    That’s sensible. It’s normal. It’s healthy.

    It’s the only way we can have a society worth living in.

    Photo by Icons8 Team on Unsplash

    On Certsitude, Part 1: “You’re Both Right!”

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    Yeah, I meant to spell it that way, even though Mr. Gates puts a squiggly red line under it.

    Almost 60 years ago now, Certs produced a TV commercial featuring identical twin sisters arguing over whether Certs was “a candy mint” or “a breath mint,” only to be interrupted by the omniscient announcer inserting, “Stop! You’re both right!” and then pontificating that Certs is “two, two, two mints in one!”

    If it’s more important that a commercial be memorable than artful, this was one of the great ones, because the other day it sprang fully formed from the murky mists of my memory.

    I’ve commented before on one of the pre-eminent features of our culture, The Outrage of the Day—something that calls to mind Orwell’s “two-minute hate.” Over the past few weeks, we’ve witnessed a mob invasion of the US Capitol, a disputed certification of votes, and an inauguration; an explosion of sewage from the life of Ravi Zacharias; a significant weather event across the nation, but especially noticeable in Texas, from which one of its senators escaped briefly to sunny Cancun; the death of the World’s Most Controversial Celebrity; and a bunch of highly controversial executive orders, which, despite the ease with which an incoming president can spay and neuter the previous set, seem to be the most popular way of governing in a democratic republic with a largely incompetent, ineffective, and self-absorbed legislature.

    There—did I leave anything out?

    There’s a lot we could say about the social commentary on all this—

    • The psychological phenomenon of confirmation bias, in which we believe what we want to and explain away or ignore what we don’t;
    • The long-lost art/science of evaluating the credibility and reliability of sources;
    • The weird way everybody suddenly becomes an expert on whatever topic is currently under discussion;
    • The compulsive need to comment publicly on matters we had no interest in yesterday.

    Feel free to add to the list.

    I’d like to give some attention here to something I noticed just the other day, on a couple of unrelated issues:

    Even my commenting friends who are asserting diametrically opposed positions have something true and useful to say.

    It’s counterintuitive. They’re saying opposite things, and yet they’re both right, in at least some sense.

    I’ve been thinking about this for a couple of days, and I’ve ruled out a couple of facile explanatory possibilities:

    • I’m intellectually infantile, and easily convinced by flagrant rhetorical fallacies, consequently agreeing with whoever was the last person to opine. I got good grades in school—punctuated by the occasional down-spike typically as the result of character failure rather than lack of ability—but there were always kids in my classes who were smarter than I was—I wasn’t the valedictorian in my small high-school class of 27. And these days I regularly have students who are demonstrably smarter than I am, though I try not to tell them that. :-) And in any case, I’ve learned over the years that academic smarts are not the most important indicator of success in life, and in fact are sometimes inversely proportional to that success. At any rate, I used to teach rhetorical fallacies to college freshmen, and I draw on that teaching all the time. Since I often recognize rhetorical fallacies in the social commentary today, I’m not inclined to think I’m falling for them in the case at hand.
    • I’m reading arguments from my friends, and I like my friends, and I’m subconsciously trying to justify friends who disagree with one another; I’m a peacemaker. Well, I don’t buy that either, since I haven’t noticed a strong tendency to be a peacemaker in days past. :-) I’ve noticed when other friends are wrong, so I’m inclined to think that I’d notice in this case as well.
    • I’m getting soft on moral absolutes, turning into a mealy-mouthed relativist. I don’t think so; feel free to ask my friends if I show any tendency in that direction.

    So I’ve been meditating on this for a few days. Next time I’ll lay out a biblical and theological basis for the phenomenon I’ve described, and I’ll draw some conclusions and make an application or two.

    Part 2

    Photo by Icons8 Team on Unsplash

    On Frustration, Part 2

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    Part 1

    In my previous post I noted that the Bible says, to the surprise of many, that life is frustrating—and it means it.

    And that raises a question: why is it frustrating? And what’s the answer—how do we handle the frustration?

    As I noted last time, a good many Christians are surprised that Ecclesiastes means what it says—that all is vanity (emptiness) and vexation of spirit, or chasing the wind (frustrating).

    But if you’ll think about it, my surprised Christian friend, you’ll realize that there was no reason to be surprised at all.

    The Bible tells a story—one story, a true story, that explains everything we know and a lot of things we don’t.

    It begins with God, all-powerful, all-wise, relational (“let us …”) and loving, creating a perfect universe, with little to no apparent effort but with great care and attention to detail, and placing in that world two humans, who we are told are in his image. And he offers them a relationship with himself.

    But they reject that priceless offer and go their own way, bringing ruin not only to their souls but to their bodies, and indeed to all the created order.

    So here we are, in the image of God, and in a world that we broke. What would someone in the image of God think about that?

    The first thing we’re told about God is that he is a creator. He can envision things that don’t yet exist, and he can bring them into being. And we find that we can do the same thing—oh, not ex nihilo, of course, but artists envision products and bring them into existence all the time. And all of us—even the non-artists—can envision the way things ought to be, and we can recognize all the ways they’re broken. Nothing works as it should. Not relationships, families, communities, nations. Not even the DMV.

    Now what do you think would be the expected response of someone in the image of God to all that brokenness?

    So why are we surprised that life is frustrating—or that the Scripture, revealed to us by the God of truth, would come right out and say so?

    Of course it’s frustrating.

    But the Scripture doesn’t end with Genesis 3. The story of Scripture is the story of God graciously, patiently, and sovereignly fixing what we broke, including us ourselves. He’s taking a long time to do that—not because he needs a lot of time to fix the colossal mess we’ve created (he made the whole universe in six days, you know), but because sovereign people never have to be in hurry. If you see someone who’s in a hurry, you’re seeing someone whose life is out of control at that moment. God never experiences that. So he’s not in a hurry.

    And in time, his time, his good and perfect time, he will make all things new, and that new heaven and earth will last forever, infinitely longer than this little bubble we call our earthly lives.

    Let me illustrate.

    Suppose someone with more money than brains decides that the school where I teach really needs a fleet of Ferraris for its Public Safety Department. So he buys us half a dozen.

    Do you know what the speed limit is on our campus?

    20 mph.

    In front of the Child Development Center, 10 mph.

    Now, how do you suppose the Ferraris feel about the prospect of going 20 mph for the next hundred thousand miles?

    Ferraris weren’t made to go 20 mph. They were made to go 220 mph. They’re going to be really frustrated at good old BJU.

    And here’s the point.

    You’re a Ferrari. Not because you’re all that—this isn’t at all about your self-esteem—but because you’re in the image of God, who is all that.

    Right now you’re in a 20-mph world. And it’s frustrating. It’s supposed to be.

    You’re not made for this world. You’re made for the next.

    And one day, in time, his time, his good and perfect time, your Creator is going to take you out onto a highway that was made for speed, and he’s going to give you the throttle and “see what this baby can do.”

    And in that day you’ll go really, really fast, and you’ll bring a delighted smile to his face.

    So how do you handle frustration?

    You take it as a gift from a gracious God, a reminder that you are made not for this world, but for an unbroken one—one that will last for all time and beyond.

    That’s going to be just awesome.

    Photo by mwangi gatheca 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

    7 Stabilizing Principles in a Chaotic World, Part 3

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    Part 1 Part 2

    Number 2: Image of God. Everyone is infinitely valuable. Treat him that way.

    God not only runs the world; he created it. From scratch. (Google ex nihilo sometime. The official meaning is “from scratch.”) All of it. Everything is from his hand, originally.

    But not everything is of equal value. He created light, and darkness, and water, and dirt, and plants, and animals. They’re all worth something, because he decided they’re worth creating.

    But humans are different. In the creative process, the creator set them apart. He did so in many ways—by creating them last, climactically; by eagerly anticipating what he was about to do; by getting his hands dirty in the act of creating them. And most clearly, by speaking of them as specially gifted—they are, he said, “In our image, after our likeness” (Gen 1.26-27).

    You’re in the image of very God. You’re not God, but you’re like him in some ways, and that makes you infinitely valuable.

    Now, we’re all fine with that part. But here’s the thing—every other human is like that too. The people you like, sure; but the people you dislike as well. Even the people you hate.

    When Noah left the ark after the flood, God established a system of human government, including capital punishment; he gave Noah, and by extension other humans, the right to kill murderers. This is the same God who later told Moses, “You must not kill!” (Ex 20.13). Is God unstable? Self-contradictory? Forgetful?

    Of course not. God gave a reason why murderers could be killed while others must not be: the murder victim was in the image of God (Gen. 9.6).

    Now, that’s really interesting. Sometimes murder victims get killed for no reason. But sometimes they don’t. Sometimes there’s a very good reason–or at least an incitation. My great-grandfather Olinger was murdered in Missouri, back in the 1800s, in a dispute with his neighbor over water rights. The details of the story haven’t been preserved for my current family members, but I’ve often wondered if he did something to provoke his neighbor, in word or deed. Sometimes that happens.

    Sometimes murder victims, well, kinda have it coming.

    But God says the murderer still gets executed, because that murder victim, distasteful and unlikable and rage-inducing as he may have been, was in God’s image.

    Broken, sinful, perhaps—from all outward appearances—worthless. But also in the image of God.

    The implications of that are far-reaching.

    The homeless person is of unlimited value. Even if he’s homeless because of his own stupid inattention to personal responsibility.

    The illegal immigrant is of unlimited value. Even though he’s broken the law.

    The political enemy is of unlimited value. Even though he’s obviously an idiot. And eeeevvvviiiillll.

    Now, suppose I pay a visit to the United Kingdom, and I see a bust of the Queen, and I spit on it. (All my British friends, please bear with me for a moment.)

    I’m going to get a response. It might be just a cocked eyebrow. Or it might be a verbal rebuke from a passerby. Or, more likely, it just might be a visit from a bobby.

    Why? It’s just a piece of rock!

    Well, no, it isn’t. It’s a piece of rock that happens to look like the Queen, God save her, and spitting on the image of the Queen is going to get you in a lot of trouble, deservedly, from the Queen’s devoted subjects.

    So when you treat God’s image with disrespect, what do you think is going to happen?

    If you ignore the plight of the homeless, or the need of the illegal immigrant, or if you treat your political opponent with disrespect, these actions are not without consequence. The God of heaven sees, and he knows, and he cares, and boy, you’re in a heap of trouble.

    Now, this all screams for a disclaimer, the one you’re eagerly waiting for. There are ways to address the needs of the homeless without forcing taxpayers to foot the bill, and without being wasteful or creating dependency. And illegal aliens have broken the law, and there are consequences for that. And your political opponent might well have no idea what he’s talking about; that has happened. I’m not saying that socialism or lawlessness or moral relativism are necessary consequences of the image of God in humans.

    But I am saying that the image of God matters, and that at the interpersonal level, you need to treat everybody—everybody—with that kind of respect.

    If you’ll see all those around you in that light, the way you feel about them will change. And so will the way you respond to them on social media.

    Frankly, I doubt that the chaos of the current culture will go away just because your perspective has changed.

    But it’s a start.

    Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

    Photo by Keith Misner on Unsplash

    Some Thoughts on the Sexual Harassment Thing, Part 2: On Celebrating Sin

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    Part 1

    One interesting feature of the recent scandals is their breadth. The current wave began with revelations about the office atmosphere at a conservative Republican—leaning (!) media outlet, Fox News, with the most visible examples being founder Roger Ailes and star talent Bill O’Reilly. Then there was a bit of a pause until revelations about Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, who was not, um, conservative or Republican. And then the dam broke—media personalities at the left-wing Vox and at NBC, powerful Hollywood icons, a fashion designer, and the usual string of libidinous politicians, both red and blue.

    This breadth has given us an opportunity to watch partisanship in action. When a politically conservative abuser is uncovered, the left calls for his head; when a leftist is uncovered, the right does the same. But when the perv is “our guy,” each side rushes to the ramparts and defends The Cause against Scurrilous and Unfounded Charges by Evil or Manipulated Women Out to Make a Fast Buck or Just Get Attention.

    Yikes.

    We call that hypocrisy. And nobody likes it—when it’s practiced by the Other Side.

    There’s a reason why we don’t like it, at least in other people. Because we’re created in the image of God, there’s something deep inside us, even as broken and sinful people, that wants to be like him—that resonates with his qualities, even if we have difficulty putting them into practice.

    And this particular quality is truthfulness. God is true and faithful and trustworthy. Interestingly, the Hebrew word for that quality, ‘emunah, is the source of our English word amen (“May it be so!”). We celebrate his truthfulness, and we seek it in others. Every government makes it a crime, or at least a misdemeanor, to break your word, to fail to keep a contract, to slander or libel someone. We expect truthfulness.

    And that’s why we jeer at the opposition for their hypocrisy, even as we excuse it in ourselves. That’s different, you see; ours is a completely different situation. Apples and oranges.

    Nonsense.

    When we engage in such sophistry, defending vice against virtue when it suits our cheap temporal goals, we have descended to the level of the perverts themselves. We despise them for being one thing on TV, or on the Senate floor, and being something very different after they’ve pressed the button under their desk to lock their office door. They’re hypocrites.

    Just like us.

    Others have noted that sinfulness is not necessarily hypocrisy; a legislator can vote for a law against fornication while being a fornicator who is trying desperately to stop. The hypocrite is one who does not see his sin as sin—who continues it while demanding that others stop. And neither side in this controversy shows any interest in stopping the partisan hypocrisy.

    As evil as all this is, I think there’s another element to it that’s even worse, especially when practiced by believers.

    In his classic passage on love, Paul lists a number of admirable characteristics of genuine love. Among those is the remarkable statement that love “does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth” (1Co 13.6). And love, you’ll recall, is both the first and second great commandment, according to Jesus (Mt 22.37-40).

    I think we’ve all had this experience. There’s a new allegation; a new perp is uncovered. And he’s on the Other Side.

    There a place deep inside us that feels really, really good about it. Oh, yeah, the other guys have another sleazeball.

    And we rejoice.

    Oh, we tell ourselves, as we shake our heads, it’s just a shame. Those poor victims—how they must be hurting. How sad that it took so long for their abusers to be unmasked. Such injustice. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Let’s see that justice is done, for the good of all, and for truth, justice, and the American way.

    But we still rejoice.

    We’re glad it happened. This’ll look really bad on the Other Side’s resume. How many House seats will this give us in the next election? How many more Supreme Court justices will this give us? How many decades of Our Side winning?

    Yaaaaaay!

    When we think that way, we’re not thinking like God. We’ve taken sides against him.

    Time for us to change too.

    Part 3 Part 4

    Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash

    Created. Now What? Part 6: Relationship

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    Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

    We’re exploring what it means to be in the image of God. The context of Gen 1.26-27 makes it pretty clear that the image includes our dominion over the earth. And as we saw last time, we are persons, like God, and fundamentally different from the animals. But is there even more to it than that?

    Well, thanks for asking.

    I think there’s another way that we’re in God’s image, but it’s not something we can deduce from the Creation account, or even from our logical processes.

    We’re going to need the New Testament for this one.

    In Genesis 1, we notice that God’s name—Elohim—is plural, and we also notice that when he’s anticipating making man, he speaks to himself in the plural: “Let us make man” (Gen 1.26). That makes us go, “Hmm,” but it’s not enough evidence to develop a robust view of the Trinity. It’s the New Testament that provides that evidence.

    I don’t intend to review all that evidence here—it’s available in lots of other places—but suffice it to say that with a completed Scripture we know that the one God exists in three distinct but not separated entities, or persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Since God is both eternal—he has always existed (Ps 90.2)—and immutable—he has never changed (Ps 102.26-27; Jas 1.17)—we know that God has always existed in these three persons.

    God has always been in relationship. The relationship among these three persons is not exactly the same as our relationships with other humans—God is One, after all, and the Three are united far more perfectly and essentially than any two ordinary humans—but the fact remains that being relational is an essential, definitional part of who God is. He has never been alone.

    A medieval church father, Richard of St. Victor—admittedly not one of the more well-known fathers—argued that if God is love, he has always been love; and if so, then he must always have had someone to love—for how can there be love if no other person exists? On this basis he argued that since only God is eternal, God must exist eternally in more than one person, and that thought in turn formed the basis of his argument for the deity of Christ—indeed for the Trinity itself.

    He was right, of course.

    So if God has always been in relationship, then it shouldn’t surprise us at all when he says, “It is not good that the man [in my image] should be alone” (Gen 2.18). As I’ve noted earlier in this series, God graciously allows Adam to realize his need for companionship before he gives it to him; and when he sees his match for the first time, he speaks (extemporaneously!) in poetry:

    “This is bone of my bone
    And flesh of my flesh!”

    In other words, “This one is like me! This one is for me!”

    We can imagine his joy at being, like his creator, in relationship.

    Now, some caveats.

    First, our Creator is creative, and he makes everyone different. While we all need social interaction, we don’t all need or approach it in the same way. Some of us thrive on social interaction; some of us are drained by it and need some alone time to recharge. The former we call extroverts; the latter we call introverts. We need to respect and appreciate one another’s differences in this regard; introverts are not “less” in the image of God than extroverts. There’s been a lot written on this; we would do well to learn about those differences so that we can be social responsibly.

    Second, there are many kinds of social relationship. For most people, their primary relationship is with their spouse. But God has not ordained that life for everyone; many are called to be single. We should note that they are in the will of God, and the image of God, as well; no life lived in the will of God is a deficient one.

    The social aspect of the image of God is a delightful gift. Of course not all relationships go well, and sometimes we’re tempted to just let go of all the drama and keep to ourselves. But we must not choose that as a lifestyle; we are here to image our Creator, and we need to represent him well.

    To begin this series I noted that there are at least two ways that creation theology changes the way we think and live. The first is the image of God; in the next few posts we’ll consider the second.

    Part 7 Part 8 Part 9

    Photo by David Marcu on Unsplash