Humanity’s supreme value (part 2)

We continue on the areas where the Genesis statement that God created man in his own image brilliantly illuminates our self-understanding. This key also reveals:

1. The best arrangement for sex and family life. The verse just following the Creator’s word making man “male and female”, Genesis 1.28, says: “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply’”. He it was who gave humans their sexual appetites and capacity for procreation. He thus instituted the family by bringing Eve to meet Adam, enunciating the principle, “for this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.” God created the body of the man and the counterpart body of the woman for the purposes of bringing into existence more human beings – in the image of their parents. Sex was God’s idea; he knows how best we should enjoy it – in the security of a committed, unique relationship of mutual love, with a view to founding a family and bringing up children. In the family we can even discern the reflection of the image of a triune God.
2. The gaining of a due regard for moral truth. God’s holiness is reflected in our conscience. Whether we like it or not, moral truth is inscribed into our inner being, and the voice of conscience makes us aware of the evil of temptation, and the duty of following the good. No materialist explanation of our existence can properly account for this inherent reality we all experience. The biblical fact of being created in the image of a good and holy God alone justifies the supreme value of our conscience (even though it can be tarnished and downgraded by being unheeded). God’s creature works best when following the dictates of holiness that he communicated in his Word by the Holy Spirit.
3. The understanding of the important place to be given to God. Coming from the hand of a Creator God means that our essential orientation is towards God. All our miseries are ultimately due to man’s turning away from God himself and spurning his wise commandments. The first two of the Ten Commandments insist that God be given the prior place that is his due in our thoughts, worship and behaviour. This is basic wisdom. We “work” best when we follow the Makers instructions. Ignorance of God’s wise and good commands is the way of folly and frustration, not human fulfilment.
4. The essence of true religion: it lies in our human relationship with God. Man is lost and suffering if he is not in relationship with God – or rather, if that relationship is bad rather than harmonious. True blessedness comes from being loved. God loves his creation, but he detests human wickedness. So long as our hearts are set on selfish disobedience to God’s will, he is displeased with us and we suffer dysfunction. When in repentance we commit to doing his will, expressed in his commandments, we find that he welcomes us and leads us into the way of true happiness. So long as we wander far from God in the selfishness of our sin, our hearts are restless, disquieted, burdened, guilty. But when we see at what cost God seeks to bring us back into a good relationship with himself – when we see the gift of his Son, Jesus Christ, suffering on the cross as he bears our sin and expiates our guilt – and when we hear and heed his call to repent and believe in our Saviour, then we can start a new relationship with God. He forgives our past sins and gives us power to live a life that pleases him, that reflects afresh his holy character and brings us to fulfil the divine purpose and find true fulfilment.

Clive Every-Clayton