Who Do You See In The Mirror?
Man’s creation story begins in Genesis 1:26 when God determines to make a new creation, man, and He decides to create him in a unique way. God makes a decision to make this creation “in our image, after our likeness.” This isn’t said about any other creature. Man was created uniquely with a specific plan and purpose from our Creator! The original audience would have understood Moses’ use of “image” and “likeness” here. Having just left Egypt, they would have just experienced the Egyptians using images to represent their gods. An image was something that was similar to but not exactly like what it represented. So it must have been shocking to hear that humans were images of the real God who created them! This would have changed their thinking in at least two ways that it should also change ours.
Created With Humility
We are just images of God, made from the dirt of the earth. In our story, we weren’t created as gods or to become gods, we were just created as an image of the one true God. Unfortunately we see people forgetting this all the time. When one person or group of people believes that they are better than another person or group, what they’re really communicating is that they believe that they are created with more value than those other people. When we see racism today, it’s one group believing that they have more value than the other. Whenever we see abortion, it’s one person believing that their needs are more valuable than another person’s. Whenever we see grown children neglecting to care for their aging parents, we see one group believing that they are in a more valuable stage of life than another group. We often forget that we are all on the same playing field as humble images of God. We try to add to our value as if we are more important than images. We should view ourselves and others with humility, realizing that in our story God created us out of the dust of the ground to be images.
Created With Dignity
We are images, yes, but amazingly we are images OF GOD! Nothing else represents God in creation like we do. We were created with a purpose and a plan to image God in this world. So that means we were created with dignity. There is a certain and definite dignity that comes with being a man or woman that no other creature in the world possesses. Our Creator gave us a purpose, and we are the only ones who can fulfill that purpose. There is incredible worth and value to being a person! Sadly, we sometimes fail to recognize our own worth. If you’re honest about your failures, your sins, your inadequacies, then you may look in the mirror and see a person you don’t think anyone could value. But according to our story, you are incredibly valuable because God created you with value and dignity. However broken, frail, or tarnished, you’re still an image of the majestic and glorious God of the universe! So is each person you meet. The one who cuts you off on the H-1. The one at work who drives you crazy. The kid on the plane who keeps crying. They are incredibly valuable creations of God!
People have been furious at San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick recently because he’s decided not to stand for the National Anthem before games this season. People are upset because they believe that if someone dishonors our flag, then that person is directly dishonoring the nation the flag represents. The flag is an image of the nation. In the same way, if we dishonor an image of God, we are dishonoring the God those images represent. God cares how we treat each other. God cares how we image Him. It’s what we were created for! As we continue in our series “The Story”, we’ll see how well the first people did at imaging God in this world.