In His Image

As I continue to work my way through Bruce Waltke's An Old Testament Theology, I arrived, today, at an exegesis of Genesis 1:26-28. For those that are not familiar with this passage, it is the sixth creation day, and the day in which God creates man in His image. This passage is the first poem in the Bible, and it appears that the writer shifted his writing style to show the magnitude of this aspect of creation. Man is the only creation that is made in God's image, and thus deserves more attention.

Traditionally, theologians, such as Thomas Acquinas and John Calvin, believed that the image of God was found in man's intellect, will and heart. Although this is partly true, it does not describe the whole picture. The image of God is shown in man as a whole. There are four key aspects of man that reflect the image of God. First, the human physical form reflects God. As the Psalmist says, "Does he who implanted the ear not hear? Does he who formed the eye not see?"(Ps 94:9). God is spirit, so He differs from us, but through His image, we know that he sees the needy and hears the cry of the suffering. Second, our intellect and our ability to make decisions through our intellect reflect God. However, our limited knowledge is vastly different than God's omniscience. But through His image we see that God does everything based on His will which comes from His perfect knowledge. Third, the image of God is made male and female. This shows that God exists in relationship. Even before time began, He existed in the fellowship of the Trinity. This aspect of His image disproves the idea of a dispassionate, removed deity. Rather, God is in an active relationship with His people.

The fourth aspect of God's image takes some background explanation. In the Ancient Near East, the image of a god was a statue that represented that God. It was seen as the physical dwelling place of that deity. The image was capable of ruling and exercising the deity's authority. Kings were viewed in the same way. If they were ruling on behalf of the deity, they were seen as a manifestation of that deity. Man, as the image of God, was created to bring God's kingdom to the earth. Man gives names to all the animals, thus signifying his authority over them. Man is meant to be God's representative on Earth. However, this is the point where the Biblical idea of image and the ANE view of image differ. Man is not God. There is a second phrase in this creation story that separates man from God. Man was also created in God's "likeness". This shows that although man reflects God's qualities, he is not God. Man's knowledge is limited, God is omniscient; man is limited by time and space, God exists outside of time and space; man's power is weak and feeble, God is omnipotent. So, although we reflect God's qualities, and we are to live as ambassadors of Him, we still dependent on Him, and when we try to usurp His power, it leads to our fall.

R & R

It is amazing to me how the Word of God convicts. I am currently working through Bruce Waltke's An Old Testament Theology, and today's section dealt with the form of the creation narrative. My intention for most of my reading was to get onto a soapbox and talk about the reasons that Christians should not get lost in a scientific debate about how God created the cosmos. I was going to borrow from Dr. H. Bruce Stokes and Dr. Nathan Lewis and talk about spheres of influence to show that science can never prove the biblical creation narrative, and the Bible does not attempt to explain itself in a scientific manner. But, I reached a point in Waltke's theology that talked about God resting on the seventh day. This launched me down the rabbit hole, and ended showing me that I have been lacking in a key spiritual discipline. So, I shall give a single quote by J. I. Packer that I think sums up my argument against trying to prove the creation narrative through science.

"Genesis 1 and 2, however, tell us who without giving many answers about how. Some today may think this is a defect; but in the long perspective of history our present-day "scientific" preoccupation with how rather than who looks very odd in itself. Rather than criticize these chapters for not feeding our secular interest, we should take from them a needed rebuke for our perverse passion for knowing Nature without regard for what matters most; namely, know Nature's creator." (Packer, I Want to Be a Christian)

That being said, a small passage in Waltke's book lead me to what I think is a greater understanding of our Creator. Waltke was discussing anthropomorphisms in our descriptions of God. For those that do not know, an anthropomorphism is giving a human trait or characteristic to something that does not have that trait. The Bible is full of anthropomorphisms because we have to use what we know and what we can see to describe God whom we cannot see. The particular anthropomorphism that Waltke touched on was that of God resting on the seventh day. God does not grow weary, but on the seventh day, he is described as resting, and Exodus 31:17 goes further to say he refreshes himself. How can this be? I believe that this anthropomorphism is here to describe the nature of God as a juxtaposition to the nature of man.

Augustine pointed out that the seventh day is the only day that is never terminated by "it was evening". This shows that the seventh day never ends, and that God is presumably still at rest. This does not mean that God is not active in the world. His hand is always present. Rather, God's rest is a state of being that is opposite to that of man. Man was once part of God's rest, but through the sin of Adam, man was separated from God's rest. Genesis 3:17-19 lays out the curse that God places on Adam. "In toil you will eat of [the ground] all the days of your life... By the sweat of your face you will eat bread..." Man's curse is to work to survive. God is separating man from His rest.

Despite this, God has a redemptive plan. He wants to bring man back to Him and lift the curse of Adam. The Bible is full of shadow and substance. Shadows are earthly images of an eternal substance. One of these shadows was the land that God promised to Abraham. The Promised Land is a shadow of the New Jerusalem where man and God will dwell together for eternity. Deuteronomy 12: 9 refers to the Promised Land this way, "for you have not yet come to the resting place and the inheritance which the Lord your God is giving you." In the promised land, God promises to give Israel rest from their enemies if they will follow his commands. When the Israelites disobeyed God, and were afraid to enter the promised land, God swore that they would not enter into His rest (Ps. 95: 10-11).

Ironically, the command that Israel has the most trouble following is the command to remember the sabbath. Of the ten commandments, the command to cease working on the seventh day is the longest. It sets apart the sabbath as holy. Why is this day given so much importance? When we cease from work and focus on worshipping God, we experience a shadow of what eternity will be like. We get a taste, albeit a very small taste, of what it is like to be in God's rest. God created the Sabbath so that His people could draw closer to Him and experience what he is like.

There is much debate in Christianity over whether or not we are still required to remember the sabbath. Personally, I don't understand the debate. If God prescribed a way to draw nearer to Him and experience His presence, why would you not want to do it? This is what God has convicted me of this morning. It is funny how there are famous verses in Scripture that everyone knows, but no one can remember the context of that passage. Hebrews 4:12 is the famous passage, "For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and the intentions of the heart." However, what God convicted me of this morning was the context of that passage. Hebrews 4:9-11 says this, "So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience" (NASB). When you couple that with verse 12, it is clear. If the intention of your heart is to grow closer to God, you will enter into his rest by remembering the Sabbath. But, if you hear the good news preached and do not obey His commands, you will be like the Israelites that did not enter the promised land, and you will be separated from God's rest.

My prayer is always that as God speaks and convicts me, He will speak to others through me. I plan on making sure that I set aside time to enter God's rest from here on.

And God Said...

Every time I dive into studying the creation narrative in Genesis 1, I am always blown away. This passage is glossed over so often, and yet, it is probably one of the most profound pericopes in all of Scripture. There are two reasons why this passage does not get the recognition it deserves. First, everyone who grew up in the church has been taught the creation story since they were in diapers. However, this child-like understanding of what God created misses what that narrative tells us about who the Creator is. The second reason we miss the profound nature of the narrative is that we try to explain how God created. We get locked into scientific debate with evolutionists about the methods God may or may not have used to bring about this creation. I will get into the reasons why we should not waste our efforts on this pursuit in a later post, but suffice it to say, "The Bible is not a science book" (Bruce Waltke, An Old Testament Theology). These arguments cause us to miss what God is trying to tell us about himself. So, today I want to focus, with the help of Bruce Waltke's An Old Testament Theology, on a couple of key elements in the structure of the creation narrative that reveal some elements of who God is. 

One of the key differences between the Biblical narrative and the other creation myths of the Ancient Near East is creation by word. The Canaanite, Babylonian, and Egyptian mythologies were all influential to the people of Israel. I include the Babylonian myth because even though it was probably Moses who wrote the creation narrative, it probably did not reach its final form until sometime during the Babylonian captivity. These three mythologies all have creation narratives. In these narratives, the gods fight against a force of chaos, usually represented by the sea or a sea monster. In order to defeat chaos, they create order, and the deities become the god of whatever they created to drive away chaos. The Biblical writers borrowed imagery, not theology, from these myths. In this narrative, we see God triumphing over the chaos (Gen. 1:2) not through a battle royale, but rather through the spoken word. This is what separates the God of Israel from every other god. He is one God, and yet, as the psalmist says, "But at your rebuke [the waters] fled, at the sound of your thunder they took flight" (Ps. 104:7). The notion that one God rules over everything is further emphasized when god names the cosmic elements. In the Ancient Near East, naming something represented having power over that thing. When a king conquered another king, he would change that kings name (2 Kings 23:34). When God names the cosmic elements ("day", "night", "land", "seas", "sun", "moon", "stars"), he is declaring his power over them. This eliminates the notion of a sun god, or a moon god. Instead, it boldly proclaims that the God of Israel is in control of all things. 

God's control is also emphasized in the syntax of the narrative. The announcement of each creative act ("And God said...") precedes the action. This announcement "by putting word before event, implies that the cosmos is created according to the plan of one God" (Bruce Waltke). Those three simple words show that everything in the universe is under a divine plan. It rejects the notion of an impersonal God. Rather, it shows that God planned every detail of creation. It also reinforces the notion of God's control over everything. While creation is not part of God, it depends on him, and is bound to him by His word. In John 1, John reveals that Jesus is the Word of God, and that all things are created through him (John 1:1-4). Paul also echoes this and adds that through him all things hold together (Col. 1:16-17). So, at the very beginning of scripture, we see that God has a plan, and that all creation is bound to him through Jesus. This plan will reach its full fruition when one day, every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. Then, God and His creation will be brought physically together through the sacrifice of His Son. 

Thank you for reading what God was teaching me in my quiet time this morning. My hope is that God will use it to speak to you too.

What does that mean?

Welcome to our Blog! Katherine and I (Steven) will be posting on this blog jointly, and we will sign the bottom of each post so you know who the author is. We hope you will enjoy.

I wanted to start the blog with an explanation of the name. The name was pulled from Act I, Scene 4 of Hamlet. While the context of the phrase is not really relevant, the terms themselves convey what we hope this blog will be. Pith is "The innermost or central part of a thing; the essential or vital part; the spirit or essence; the core, the nub." (Oxford English Dictionary). It refers to the center of a leaf, or the substance of which the spinal cord is made. Marrow is similar in its meaning. In case you do not know, it refers to the soft inner tissue of bone. It is also used to describe the essence or core of something. For example, Thoreau went to Walden Pond to "suck the marrow out of life." When combined, the two terms refer to the heart, or very essence of a person or thing. That is what we hope you will see in our blog through our sharing of experiences.

Enjoy,

Steven