Thesis #1 of 95 – Human beings were made in the image of God and even after “the Fall” are to be regarded as such

BIBLICAL REFERENCES

Gen1:27 So God created mankind in His own image. In the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Gen9:6: Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed; for in the image of God He made man.

Jn14:9: Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? The one who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

COMMENTS

Given that God is invisible, the image referred to in Genesis cannot be God’s appearance but His NATURE. That nature has been besmirched by the fall, but as Gen 9 indicates, by no means obliterated. Every virtue that man is still capable of exhibiting such as compassion, mercy, a sense of fairness and justice, humour, tolerance and the desire for the wellbeing of others, is derived from God.

A key corollary to that statement is that God must possess ALL the above qualities, and to a superlative degree. Any theology that infers, especially through its eschatological outworking, that God’s nature is alien to that of man when he is at his best (as perfectly portrayed by Jesus, even whilst in human flesh – Jn14:9) needs to be revisited.

CONTEXT

^{I am currently commenting on each of the 95 theses that summarize key outcomes from The Little Book of Providence. These were originally published in 2017*, so I suspect more recent visitors to Richard777’s website’s Homepage (latest posts) will not have seen them…   [*the original publication date being Halloween 2017, the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s version].}