The Social Image of God

The psalmist asks one of the most important questions ever to be raised by a human being in Psalm 8:4: “What is man, that you are mindful of him?” The answer to this question is not simply an exercise in mental curiosity by those seated at the intellectual round table. Our whole being cries out for an answer. And improper identification can be dangerous and even fatal because it can result in an improper prescription. And here we need the science of Anthropology.

Ury defines Anthropology by saying: It is the nature of human personhood. The term Anthropology, as its composition indicates, is the science of man – from Anthropos, man and logos, science. It is used in both a scientific and a theological sense.  As a science, anthropology deals with the problems of primitive man, the distinction of races, their geographical distribution, and the factors which enter into man's development and progress. In a theological sense, the term is limited to the study of man in his moral and religious aspects. It may be said, however, that the two viewpoints are not mutually exclusive.

When we study the theological realm of Anthropology, we will learn that Identification comes to us as a “given” from the Creator. The real nature of man’s personality and what it takes to meet human needs will never be discovered by observation and experience. It must come to us as a “given.” Human beings are created in the image of God. Man is the crowning work of creation. The divine revelation as found in the Holy Scriptures must ever be our authority concerning the origin of mankind. (Two accounts are recorded in Genesis. The first is brief, and is found in connection with the account of the animal creation on the sixth day (Gen. 1: 26-30); the second is more extended and stands by itself (Gen. 2:4-35). There is no discrepancy in the accounts. Brief as they may be, we have here the only authoritative account of man's origin.

As H. Orton Wiley says in his book Christian Theology:

 The new order of being involved, and its pre-eminence over the animal creation are indicated by a change in the form of the creative fiat. No longer do we have the words "Let there be," which involve the immediacy of the creative fiat in conjunction with secondary causes; but "Let us make man in our image. after our likeness" - an expression which asserts the power of the creative word in conjunction with deliberative counsel. This counsel, involving as it does the doctrine of the holy Trinity, becomes explicit only as read in the light of added revelation. Man therefore, is the culmination of all former creative acts; at once linked to them as the crown of creation; and distinct from them a new order of being In him the physical and the spiritual meet. He is at once a creature and a son. It is evident, therefore, that in the first account the author introduces man as the crowning act of the creative process; while the second is intended to be the starting point for the specific consideration of man's personal history.

 

But strangely, there are only a few references to this in the Old Testament. Kenneth Gardoski observes that in theological studies, the more sparse the biblical information on a particular subject, the more theories are advanced to explain it. Such is the case with the subject of the image of God in man (imago Dei). As important as this subject is to our understanding of man’s relationship to God, there are only three Old Testament references (Gen 1:26-27; 9:6) which teach that human beings were created in God’s image.

Gerald Bray posits that man, being in the image and likeness of God, means that, “unlike the rest of creation, human life is not an end in itself.” Because man is made in God’s image, he is different from the other created beings. Man’s image-bearing status places upon him a privilege and responsibility of “fulfilling his earthly existence in relation to God, and this entails responsibility for his actions.” The concept that we are finite is not still preventing us from being reflective as humans. We can image God. The Reformers and others focus on the moral nature of the image, which of course, we Wesleyans agree with but it must be added with more complete concepts. We are not just a standard of morals to be fulfilled.

The Social image of God is the most central concept, as all the other things cannot be revealed except in relations. it combines them. You have the aspect of consciousness, doing, being, morality, and function. And that is shown obviously in our sexuality, which is the base of our humanity. Sexuality shows our incompleteness; neither Adam was made to be fulfilled in God alone nor Eve was made to be fulfilled in Adam alone. But they were made for each other. The Christian understanding is that any autonomous individualism is an antichrist concept. we are relational beings. Our very sexuality is one of the most things that is attacked in the church today because the devil wants to destroy the image of God that God created like himself.

In the Trinity, we can see that relationship that reflects our need for relation. Especially since the Trinity persons are meant to be defined as the one who moves towards a relationship, and we are the image of God who is living an infinite relationship inside himself.

To be the image is to be the symbol that points to something behind me. And that’s a good answer to the question, what is man?

We are all the result of incompleteness, and we will not be fulfilled until we become in a relationship with the body of Christ, where we fulfill one another. We are created for community; we are called for a community. The new community is a place where people are fulfilled with the image of the Trinity, by the power of the spirit we live reflecting his image and putting other's needs before our needs. 

At the end we say Ury contemplation on Anthropology by saying it is not about us. It is about Jesus, the one who became man—the Trinitarian existence. We do not live to be fulfilled but for others to be fulfilled for the glory of God.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1.     Bray, Gerald L. “The significance of God's Image in man.” Tyndale Bulletin 42, no. 2 (November 1991): 195-225.

2.     Forlines, F. Leroy. Classical Arminianism. (Nashville: Randall House Publications, 2011).

3.     Gardoski, Kenneth M. “The Imago Dei Revisited.” The Journal of Ministry & Theology 11, no.2 (Fall 2007): 5-37

4.     Wiley, H. Orton. Christian Theology. (Missouri: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 1940).