Order-Taker/Order-Maker
And God said, “Let us make man in our image; according to our likeness.” Genesis 1:26
In Our Image – What does the Genesis account mean when it says that human beings are made in the image of God? That question has certainly been at the forefront of countless theological treatises. Over the centuries, the Church has entertained great debates about just what is and what is not included in the idea that we somehow carry God’s image. It would be impossible to review all the material about this idea, but it is obviously critical to our understanding of who we are. We know that the Hebraic view does not endorse the Greek idea that every human being has a bit of the divine spark within. We know that the Hebraic view is also a long ways away from the idea that human beings are merely extensions of the animal kingdom. But we haven’t settled the issue about exactly how we are related to God’s image. So, the door is open for one more look.
What does the pictograph of the word for “image” tell us? The Hebrew word is tselem. In this text, the word is be-tsalmenoo. The prefix be is the preposition “in.” The suffix noo is the pronoun “our.” The root consists of three consonants: Tsadik-Lamed-Mem. These three consonants give us the picture, “the desire or need (hook) to control or have authority over chaos.” That makes a lot of sense. If Genesis is anything, it is the proclamation of God’s authority over chaos. Genesis announces the God of order, the God who brings organization and purpose to the deep and who conquers the formless and void (Genesis 1:2). If human beings have this much in common with the Creator, they too are designed to bring order to chaos and exercise authority over structure. We represent the divine character when we bring order to life under the banner of God’s creative activity. Our authority is derivative. It depends on God’s sovereign authority. But it is authority nonetheless. As long as we are acting as His agents, we exhibit His image.
Ah, did you get that? The image of God is not a static element in human being. It is a dynamic activity of being human. I carry God’s image as the order-maker when I act as the order-taker. It is the action within the relationship that constitutes the image. With this in mind, we can understand Paul’s commentary in Romans 1 and Onkelos translation of Genesis 1. The image of God is a verb, just like God is a verb.
There is one more level in this investigation. “In Our image” is not tselem. It is be-tsalmenoo. The root doesn’t change, but the structure of the word does. When we add Bet and Nun, the picture enlarges. Now “desiring control over chaos” becomes “the house of desiring control over chaos in life.” In other words, being in God’s image is limited to the boundaries set by the Creator. We carry His image – the dynamic exercise of authority – within the house of life that He provides.
This leaves us with only one question: Who are we when we do not exercise our authority within God’s house of life? At least this much seems clear. Whatever we are, we are not carriers of God’s image. His image flows within the boundaries. Our actions outside those boundaries make us something other than human. Human beings are those who minister in the house.
Topical Index: image, tselem, be-tsalmenoo, boundaries, Genesis 1:26
This is HUGE for me.
May the Father grant each of us grace to operate abundantly within the boundaries He long ago established, that He might be glorified.
Boundaries are the name of the game when it comes to understanding God’s point of view. Fences protect. To do not prevent. We need to shift our Greek idea of freedom and see it for what it really is.
As a mother, I get a picture here of a swaddled baby. When babies first come home, they startle. They are used to the boundaries of the womb. When they are ‘free’ from those boundaries, it is a shock to their system. They cannot make order out of their new world. A smart mom learns to swaddle her baby and let him/her feel the boundaries of the blanket. The baby then relaxes in the comfort of the blanket boundaries and is able to have order again. We as humans have been let loose in the world (somewhat), however, by order taking we are swaddled and enabled to be order makers with the help of our God.
Here it is again. It is all a verb. Faith is a verb. Image is a verb. God is a verb and lo and behold, man is a verb or he isn’t a man. Believe me, I am being stretched!
Stretched is a verb!
Skip is a verb!
Very nice Skip …. perhaps however you would like to expound a bit as to the framework of the boundaries?
Surely it is Yeshua Who builds The House of Adonai and I am presuming of course that you implicitly mean haTorah as the behavioral manifestation of the boundaries … Yes?
External to the ways of righteousness any exerted authority would be self determined authority! Or am I on a different page here?
Shalom
Torah is the manifestation of God’s character in action, but the process of boundary-making starts long before that (except, of course, if Torah is eternally existent as the Word). God starts at the beginning. Fortunately, that’s where the Bible starts too. What we discover from the creation story helps us establish the parameters for the rest of the biblical worldview. One of the very first things that we discover is that God is a God of order. This is an incredibly important point. The account of creation in Genesis differs from every other ancient account of the beginning of the world because in the Genesis account God creates order as soon as He begins to speak. There are many competing myths about how the world began. Most of them involve struggles between good and evil or wars among the gods or some other kind of conflict. Many include the domination of one god over another. But not the Genesis account. It alone distinguishes God from all creation. It alone describes the creative activities as order making events. The common phrase “after it kind” and the references to boundaries sets the stage. When God creates, He establishes peaceful harmony and divine design. This pattern is repeated in the creation of human beings. If we’re going to understand the fundamentals about being human, we must pay close attention to the order making activity in the creation of Man and Woman.
Shalom
The renowned student of the Vilna Gaon, R’Chaim of Volozhin, uses this idea to explain the description of man as a being created in the image of ELOHIM. The image means to convey that just as the universe is totally dependent on constant input from God, it is equally dependent on constant input from man. The energy that keeps the universe in being is God’s energy, but the decision to inject that energy belongs to man
Further thoughts…When He created man and gave him free will, God made a policy decision. After His initial acts of creation, all further inputs of Divine energy would be supplied by Him only in response to the thoughts, words and deeds of man. The amount of energy supplied to the universe by ELOHIM at any time, on every level – from the sphere of the highest angels down to the most physical aspects of being – is totally dependent on man’s actions. This makes man an active partner in creation whose contribution very much resembles God’s.
It is my opinion that the first step is to determine in image of what name of God we where created. Then, as soon as we are sure of what divine aspects reveals that specific name of God, then we can move on to seek out which characteristics of God we received. The word “image” is not defined just philologically but contextually. It is the name of Elohim that determine our characteristics. This is quite important because in various Jewish documents says that the angels can’t distinguished between God and Adam the day that they were created.
YG
In Rabbinic Literature
Elohim occupy the seventh rank of ten in the famous medieval Rabbinic scholar Maimonides’ Jewish angelic hierarchy. Also Maimonides told that:
I must premise that every Hebrew knows that the term Elohim is a homonym, and denotes God, angels, judges, and the rulers of countries, …[8]
Hi Ismael,
I’ve been reading your comments over the last week or so and looking up the Hebrew definition of the words you focus on.
Very interesting!
May Hashem bless you, Michael!!!