I preached this the other day in my Speaking as Ministry class. It's about the image of God in people and what kind of effect that should have on all of us.
To start off today I would like to read an excerpt from a book called “The Irresistible Revolution” by Shane Claiborne. One of the stories in his book spoke to me and helped me to really apply what it means to be made in the image of God. Shane is in a car driving through war torn Iraq on his way to the Jordan.
“We began to lose sight of each other, and suddenly one of the tires on our car, the last in the convoy, burst with a loud pop and we spun out of control. The car plunged into a ditch and flipped onto its side. We were able to climb out of the doors on the top side of the car and pull everyone out. The five of us were injured and badly shaken and two had life-threatening injuries – one person was bleeding profusely from his head. The first thing I noticed was a car of Iraqi civilians that had stopped to help us. (It was the first car to pass, and within one minute of the accident.) Without a second thought, they piled all of us into their car and headed to the nearest town, waving a white sheet out the window as the war planes continued to fly overhead. Miraculously, only minutes away, there was a little town called Rutba, a city of about twenty thousand people located about 150 km east of the Jordan border. As they drove us to the hospital, many thoughts went through my mind, including the worry that we could become hostages. So I handed them a sheet that explained in Arabic who we were, and they nodded with smiles. As we drove into the town we were deeply disturbed to see that it was devastated by bombing. Before we could get out of the car, doctors greeted us, and the town began to gather. When they learned that several of us were from the US, the head doctor asked loudly, ‘Why this? Why? Why is your government doing this?’ We had frequently asked this question ourselves. With tears in his eyes he explained that only a couple of days earlier one of the bombs had hit the hospital, the children’s ward. So they could not take us to the hospital. He added with a dignified smile, “But you are our brothers, and we will take care of you. We take care of everyone – Christian, Muslim, Iraqi, American… it doesn’t matter. We are all human beings. We are all sisters and brothers.” And they set up a little clinic with four beds and saved my friend’s life, apologizing for the scarcity of supplies dues to the sanctions. …
As we left, the townspeople and the doctors gave us hugs, kissed us, and placed their hands on their hearts. We offered the doctors money, but they insisted that they were caring for us as family. They did have one request: ‘Tell the world about Rutba.’”
This story brings to mind two different Scriptures and ties them both wonderfully together in a very vivid way. The first that I would like you to turn to is Genesis 1:26-27. It reads “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Here in the account of creation we have God making humans in his own image. We have God imprinting on all humanity for the whole of time, something unique. God from the beginning gives people a special relationship that we alone out of all creation are privy to. Men and women share characteristics that are like God’s. We represent God.
The second verse I would like to take you to is Matthew 25: 31-46. I will not read the whole thing as many people are familiar with this passage and for the sake of time, but please read the rest on your own. Here we have Jesus talking to a crowd and telling them what the kingdom of heaven will entail. He gives a scenario with two groups of people. The first group give themselves to the poor and destitute, filling needs as they find them. They visit those in prison, they clothe the naked, and they fill those who hunger. The second does just the opposite, only caring for themselves. They see the naked, the poor, and those moaning in hunger and do nothing.
What I want you to take special note of in this passage are verses 40 and 45. These are kind of a mirror image of each other. Jesus commends the first group for aiding him and rebukes the second for not doing the same for him. Both groups exclaim, “When did we see you in need?” Jesus says to the first group, “Whatever you have done for the least of these, you have done for me” and to the second he says “Whatever you have not done for the least of these you have not done for me.” The first group is allowed entrance into heaven and the second group is excluded.
We know from Jesus’ explanation that it is because he is in all people that each group’s actions are towards him personally. This is because all people have been made in the image of God. Each and everyone one of us has the mark of God in our very being and so in our relationships with others we affect God. When we insult anyone, we insult God. When we hurt others, we hurt God. When we love the poor, the destitute, and the hurting we show our love for God. It is in this way that we “fulfill the whole law of God”.
The story of the town of Rutba exemplifies this whole thought perfectly. Though they were being bombed by the very country Shane Claiborne and his group was from, they not only opened up to them and treated their wounds they did it at no charge and refused all attempts at payment. This group recognized the words in Colossians and Galatians, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
It is because each one of us is made in God’s image that all other forms of identification are meaningless. To each of us when we go out we ought not see black or white, Iraqi or American, poor or rich but only Christ in every person we meet. It is through this view of people that all will be reconciled and the grace of God spread to all people. This is what the people in Rutba saw when the group was driven in to them. Though they themselves were suffering they gave. They did not give out of their riches but like the widow whom Jesus commended in Mark 12 for giving her last two coins, they gave out of their poverty. This is a love for people that is directly from God and it is based on their understanding of people. Those people understood that people are made in God’s image and the way we treat people is the way we treat God.
But I do not want to leave you with a simple warm and fuzzy feeling towards all people. It must not stop there. Firstly it must be more than a simple feeling of connectedness to all people. It must be demonstrated. We must not become the second group because when we shun those the world loves to shun we are throwing out Christ himself. In Matthew Jesus very explicitly states that our actions towards others will play a role in identifying the followers of Christ. The book of James is all about this. This is what he means when he says, “Faith without works is dead”. His book explains that someone with no love or regard for his fellow human beings surely must have no love for God. This is because it is God’s image in people that we love or hate.
We do this passively as well as actively. There are times when we could do something and we will not, like leaving the poor man alone on the street. There are other times when we do something we ought not, like being rude to the woman handing us our coffee simply because we were having a bad day. These are the things that must be changed within us if we want to represent Christ well to others.
I do not know how many times I have heard the question asked, “If Jesus were in the room, would you have done that?” What we must realize is that, not only does God see and hear everything anyways; if there is a person in the room with us Jesus is represented there. If this could be fully realized imagine the difference it could make in our daily lives. Imagine the difference it should make. Would we say hurtful things to those around us? Would we put down someone for their choice in clothing, or their hairstyle, or how they spoke? Could we be for war if we saw in the face of every Iraqi the face of Jesus?
We must not simply realize and tuck away the thought that all people are made in God’s image. It must permeate our daily lives if we are to be called Christ’s followers. What are the ways that come to mind to you? I encourage you to make a habit of daily reminding yourself that every person that gets on your nerves, that seems completely unlikable, that even attacks you is made in the image of God. We must learn as a people to see in the face of every person the loving face of Jesus. It is in this way that we will be able to love people as we ought, even our most hated enemies.
As always comments and criticisms are welcome.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Sovereignty
Sovereignty is having power over something, the ability to influence or move a thing. It can be in terms of absolute or relative power, absolute meaning there is no other influence or power that supersedes the first, relative meaning the first has some sway or power but is not the ultimate or prime influence. In relation to God, sovereignty is the idea of how much power and influence God has over and on creation. The question of how much freedom is left to creation while under the power of an all powerful deity often comes along with this idea.
I always thought I understood much of sovereignty, but after reading Bloesch I feel like I’ve gained a much more expanded and in-depth view of it. The best way I can think of to describe the sovereignty of God is to say that God is the ultimate free being. God is ultimately free to do whatever is in the scope of his will. Humans, in contrast, despite our cries of “land of the free,” are not ultimately free. We will many things to happen, but many things will never come to pass or are simply out of our reach. I cannot make happen everything I will to happen, and therefore I am not ultimately free, not in the truest sense of the word. I have limitations both in understanding and activity.
Another way to look at being ultimately free is to think about influence. To be influenced is to lose freedom. Influence changes our decisions, makes them for us, or at least pushes them in a certain direction. Humans are under the influence of a multitude of things, including other humans. God is completely free of any influence outside of himself. He has no misinformation, he has no fears, and he has nothing directing him from the outside. His will is purely his own, unaffected by anything outside of the trinity that is God.
To understand human free will within the scope of the sovereignty of God, we must have a good understanding of what God’s sovereignty is. According to Bloesch, God has absolute power over all things and can affect all things but does not have to will all things. Here comes the clash between many different opinions and ideas. The spectrum goes from one end—absolute control over all things with no movement or true will in anything besides the Godhead—to the other end, where God creates and subsequently abandons creation completely to its own devices. As is often the case, I believe the best position lies near the middle. Bloesch and his sources do a beautiful job of explaining this.
There is a will of God, an ultimate plan, which, no matter what, cannot, by any power or choice, be thwarted. God is moving through history, shaping it as he sees fit into the form of his ultimate plan. Despite this, there is a human will and free choice involved. To say that nothing occurs that God could not influence is not the same as saying God wills all that happens, or, to rephrase it, saying only the will of God can happen. The latter would insinuate that God willed sin, and this cannot be said, because God is holy; sin is a personal affront to his nature. I love the words Bloesch uses to explain this. He states that God is not in “omnicausality” meaning God is the cause of all things that happen but “omnicompetent,” competent in that he has the power to deal with all situations.
Another facet of sovereignty is the idea of omniscience. God knows everything that has been and all that ever will be. An analogy I have heard that I thought fit rather well was that time is like a parade and all humanity like a child watching it from the street. We are short in stature and there is a great crowd around us, and so the only part of parade we are able to see clearly is what is right in front of us. We can remember bits of what has passed and we can try and guess what will come next in line, but we can only truly know that which we have marching right in front of our noses. God in this analogy is a bird high overhead. The bird looks with a keen eye over the parade and can see both the beginning and end of it. He can see past the parade to where it is headed and he can see where it began. Nothing is hidden from his eye.
This omniscience goes back to the issue of true freedom. We as humans can make decisions based solely on information we have at hand, and even that is often untrustworthy. God, with his knowledge of the infinite, makes all his decisions without any facts being hidden from him. He can guide our steps because he knows which steps will lead where. He saw each pitfall long before our journey began. It was by his knowledge and wisdom that he made us and by his knowledge that he can lead rightly.
Another thought that comes to many people’s minds when discussing sovereignty is the doctrine of predestination. I believe that the Bible does agree with predestination, but the idea of sovereignty does not necessarily assume it. We can combine other doctrines and ideas with it to give good argument for predestination but by itself it does not demand that God preordains every soul that is saved. It does not demand it because God does not have to will everything to happen.
Because predestination so often comes with sovereignty I will briefly give my thoughts on it and how it helps the argument for it. Firstly, we must remember that it is the infinite that reaches down to give us understanding and not the finite that breaks through to the infinite. Even the view that the Bible cannot be the “Word of God” without the Holy Spirit revealing the truth within agrees with the idea that it is only revelatory when God reveals it. If we cannot fully realize the truths put down in writing for us how are we to begin a deep relationship with the infinite creator? His sovereignty over us allows him to choose freely, to overcome our ignorance and pride, in order that he might receive the glory in our salvation.
To me the issue of sovereignty is a comfort. It is comforting because I know God is ultimately in control. He cannot be swayed from his purposes. We as humans, myself in particular, can mess everything up as much as we want but God will still be in control and his plan will continue unabated. Not only does God have a solution to every problem, he foresaw each problem and its answer before they occurred. His eyes can scan all of time and beyond. God’s sovereignty dispels fear and brings hope. At times it may bring us discomfort to realize that God knows our every misdeed, but it brings about much more comfort when we also realize that God knew we would commit that misdeed when he first came to us. We cannot surprise God, and when he declares his love for us we can know he declares it with full knowledge of who we are.
I always thought I understood much of sovereignty, but after reading Bloesch I feel like I’ve gained a much more expanded and in-depth view of it. The best way I can think of to describe the sovereignty of God is to say that God is the ultimate free being. God is ultimately free to do whatever is in the scope of his will. Humans, in contrast, despite our cries of “land of the free,” are not ultimately free. We will many things to happen, but many things will never come to pass or are simply out of our reach. I cannot make happen everything I will to happen, and therefore I am not ultimately free, not in the truest sense of the word. I have limitations both in understanding and activity.
Another way to look at being ultimately free is to think about influence. To be influenced is to lose freedom. Influence changes our decisions, makes them for us, or at least pushes them in a certain direction. Humans are under the influence of a multitude of things, including other humans. God is completely free of any influence outside of himself. He has no misinformation, he has no fears, and he has nothing directing him from the outside. His will is purely his own, unaffected by anything outside of the trinity that is God.
To understand human free will within the scope of the sovereignty of God, we must have a good understanding of what God’s sovereignty is. According to Bloesch, God has absolute power over all things and can affect all things but does not have to will all things. Here comes the clash between many different opinions and ideas. The spectrum goes from one end—absolute control over all things with no movement or true will in anything besides the Godhead—to the other end, where God creates and subsequently abandons creation completely to its own devices. As is often the case, I believe the best position lies near the middle. Bloesch and his sources do a beautiful job of explaining this.
There is a will of God, an ultimate plan, which, no matter what, cannot, by any power or choice, be thwarted. God is moving through history, shaping it as he sees fit into the form of his ultimate plan. Despite this, there is a human will and free choice involved. To say that nothing occurs that God could not influence is not the same as saying God wills all that happens, or, to rephrase it, saying only the will of God can happen. The latter would insinuate that God willed sin, and this cannot be said, because God is holy; sin is a personal affront to his nature. I love the words Bloesch uses to explain this. He states that God is not in “omnicausality” meaning God is the cause of all things that happen but “omnicompetent,” competent in that he has the power to deal with all situations.
Another facet of sovereignty is the idea of omniscience. God knows everything that has been and all that ever will be. An analogy I have heard that I thought fit rather well was that time is like a parade and all humanity like a child watching it from the street. We are short in stature and there is a great crowd around us, and so the only part of parade we are able to see clearly is what is right in front of us. We can remember bits of what has passed and we can try and guess what will come next in line, but we can only truly know that which we have marching right in front of our noses. God in this analogy is a bird high overhead. The bird looks with a keen eye over the parade and can see both the beginning and end of it. He can see past the parade to where it is headed and he can see where it began. Nothing is hidden from his eye.
This omniscience goes back to the issue of true freedom. We as humans can make decisions based solely on information we have at hand, and even that is often untrustworthy. God, with his knowledge of the infinite, makes all his decisions without any facts being hidden from him. He can guide our steps because he knows which steps will lead where. He saw each pitfall long before our journey began. It was by his knowledge and wisdom that he made us and by his knowledge that he can lead rightly.
Another thought that comes to many people’s minds when discussing sovereignty is the doctrine of predestination. I believe that the Bible does agree with predestination, but the idea of sovereignty does not necessarily assume it. We can combine other doctrines and ideas with it to give good argument for predestination but by itself it does not demand that God preordains every soul that is saved. It does not demand it because God does not have to will everything to happen.
Because predestination so often comes with sovereignty I will briefly give my thoughts on it and how it helps the argument for it. Firstly, we must remember that it is the infinite that reaches down to give us understanding and not the finite that breaks through to the infinite. Even the view that the Bible cannot be the “Word of God” without the Holy Spirit revealing the truth within agrees with the idea that it is only revelatory when God reveals it. If we cannot fully realize the truths put down in writing for us how are we to begin a deep relationship with the infinite creator? His sovereignty over us allows him to choose freely, to overcome our ignorance and pride, in order that he might receive the glory in our salvation.
To me the issue of sovereignty is a comfort. It is comforting because I know God is ultimately in control. He cannot be swayed from his purposes. We as humans, myself in particular, can mess everything up as much as we want but God will still be in control and his plan will continue unabated. Not only does God have a solution to every problem, he foresaw each problem and its answer before they occurred. His eyes can scan all of time and beyond. God’s sovereignty dispels fear and brings hope. At times it may bring us discomfort to realize that God knows our every misdeed, but it brings about much more comfort when we also realize that God knew we would commit that misdeed when he first came to us. We cannot surprise God, and when he declares his love for us we can know he declares it with full knowledge of who we are.
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