A Matter of Ownership
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Genesis 1:26-27 NASB
Make man – Unless we understand the depths of Genesis chapter 1 to 3, we will not be able to understand the rest of the Bible. We cannot start with Matthew or John. God’s involvement with us doesn’t begin at the cross. Genesis is the opening stanza. That’s where we must set the foundation. But Genesis 1 to 3 is not simply a story about creation. It is a story about the fundamental relationship between Man and God. Even the Garden account is about this relationship. It all starts here, in Genesis 1:26-27. It starts with a declaration of ownership, a cosmic pronouncement that you and I are not self-determining beings. We belong to a Creator, and He has the authority to decide our purpose and our fate.
Heschel makes this abundantly clear:
Life is a mandate, not the enjoyment of an annuity; a task, not a game; a command, not a favor. So to the pious man life never appears as a fatal chain of events following necessarily one on another, but comes as a voice with an appeal. It is a flow of opportunity for service, every experience giving the clue to a new duty, so that all that enters life is for him a means of showing renewed devotion.[1]
Our text introduces this thought with the verb ʿāśâ, translated as “to do” or “to make.” But notice the Hebraic nuance connected with this action. “ʿāsâ is often used with the sense of ethical obligation. The covenant people were frequently commanded to ‘do’ all that God had commanded (Ex 23:22; Lev 19:37; Deut 6:18, etc.). The numerous contexts in which this concept occurs attest to the importance of an ethical response to God which goes beyond mere mental abstraction and which is translatable into obedience which is evidenced in demonstrable act.”[2] The very formation of Man includes an ethical obligation to the Creator. Paul suggests this in his opening verses in Romans. It is not possible to be human without acknowledging this obligation and living accordingly. God did not make homo sapiens, mere biological entities. He makes men and women who owe their existence to Him. From the very beginning, they were given a mandate to be like God in thought and deed. Life is commissioned, not inherited.
It might be worthwhile to post Heschel’s words on your mirror.
Topical Index: life, mandate, make, ʿāśâ, Genesis 1:26-27
[1] Abraham Heschel, I Asked for Wonder, p. 92.
[2] Mccomiskey, T. E. (1999). 1708 עָשָׂה. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 701). Chicago: Moody Press.
We fight to the death for the right to assert our will, to have opinions, to oppose others, to resist being controlled and dominated, to even exercise force of will for our own preferences, desires, and pleasures, even if death is the ultimate outcome, for this is the gift of God, even “free will”.
All the while we fall short of the true purpose of this “free will”, to perfectly conform it to His, a seemingly impossible mandate.
Therefore, “HE will complete the good work He has begun”, that in the end, “at the name of Yeshua every knee should bow, in heaven and on the earth and under the earth, and every tongue profess that Yeshua the Messiah is Lord—to the glory of God the Father.”
It is more than a task, IT IS A COSMIC BATTLE!
May YHVH have mercy and grant unmerited favor to us all!!!
“Life is commissioned, not inherited.”
Ski[p, what a great summation of the Bible’s message.
And so, the work of God continues — through us!
“I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what
I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these,
because I am going to the Father.” Jn 14:12
And so, we listen — and obey!
“He will teach us his ways so that we may walk in his paths.” Micah 4:2
That’s our commission.
So clear. The flesh has no way for choice to effect life, because I think all choices in the flesh are just reactions to (which are forced BY) the past. The Greeks are right about the flesh; it is helplessly gripped in the flow of time, and the East is right, too – the flesh is resigned to ‘fate’, which is the past that it then worships.
All attempts to serve self – to have it ‘my way’ – are mere responses to the past shoving us around. We react to the split second that has already past. The present is, like Aesop’s grapes, just tantalizingly out of reach. Life is simply not possible in the flesh, because choice does not actually work there. Reactions are not effective choices of the free will. Therefore, I think the choice to remain in the flesh IS the choice to have no true choices.
We were created with free will, but I think we chose the free part of that will away when we chose to limit ourselves to experience – which is the flesh response to life. The flesh is not free; I think the flesh can only react because it is limited to existence in the physical creation.
I think we see the command – the commission – to line our will up with God’s in the negative because, when we look at it in the flesh, it appears impossible – which, to the flesh, it is! We have to be free (to choose again, of course) before we can obey. That is why obedience (sanctification) necessarily comes second to deliverance from sin; including the sin of the choice to limit ourselves to the flesh, which we all automatically do by not cooperating with the Spirit of God. The flesh is not inherently sinful, but WE are sinning when we act like the flesh is all there is (paradigm of the unredeemed human). That is because I think the flesh was designed to be only half of the equation. The choice to realign ourselves with the will of God returns us to the other half, which is the spirit.
The spirit of man was clearly designed to align naturally with other spirits; not all of which are the Spirit of God. The Bible talks about negative spiritual forces. We get to decide whose side we are on by deciding which spiritual reality we are in agreement with. I have become convinced our ‘own’ spiritual reality – our ‘own’ way – a third way – does not exist for a human. There are only two sides, after all; not three or more. The decision to obey – to submit our will to the will of God – moves us back out of the limitations of the flesh (which aligns us with the spiritual FORCES of evil) and returns us to the FREEDOM (of choice, of course) our spirit enjoys in that great present which is the only place to find the Presence – the Spirit – of God. At that point, obedience (which the flesh interprets in the negative) seamlessly slips back into the the positive experience where all choices are valid (possible), but, as Paul notes, not all are “expedient”. Great understatement!
It is not possible to be human without acknowledging this obligation and living accordingly……..He makes men and women who owe their existence to Him. From the very beginning, they were given a mandate to be like God in thought and deed.
Ex. 33:34 and he said, (Moses) let me see (to understand, perceive or conceive) please, Your Glory.
And how did God make Moses “see”? He showed him His works, (what He does) “YHWH,YHWH God merciful and gracious, slow to anger”…………..
Obviously there’s a link between knowing God, (really knowing who and what He is) and “seeing” His works. Preach and study all you want, those are good things, but when it comes to knowing Him, it’s doing His works that reveal Him. Ethical obligations.
Just in case we thought that doing His works is what reveals Him to US, there’s one who said, “I’m the light of the world”. He never left Israel, but we have. “greater works than these”
Ethical obedience isn’t about us, it’s about revealing Him to the world, is He the God of the Jews only? How do THEY “see” God!
Good thoughts, Robert! Thanks for sharing.
I was wondering what is the difference or hebrew meaning between the Genesis1:26 likeness & the serpent temptation to be like God Gen 2:5 …..????
Briefly (I have a long lecture about being in God’s image which I have given a few times), the “image of God” in Hebrew is a VERB, not a set of nouns as described by most Greek-based Western theology and philosophy. For example, Aquinas lists the “attributes” of God (the usual omni- stuff and some others) and then proceeds to describe MAN as completely other than this (which is obviously true). God is infinite, Man is finite, etc. But that only means that the Genesis 1:26-27 passage should be read, “Let us NOT make man in our image.” Western philosophy/theology gets around this by speaking of “analogy,” but Hebrew doesn’t need such manipulation. God creates us as verbs just like He is a verb, that is, we are defined by what we do, how we act and react, just as He is. God creates. So do I. God brings order. So can I. God demonstrates compassion. So can I. Etc.
When the serpent suggest the woman can be like the gods, this is not about being a verb. That is already the case. This is about specifically DETERMINING what is good and what is evil, a prerogative exclusively for God (remember the recent quote from Ellul?). That’s the issue in the Garden. Who will decide what is GOOD FOR ME?