My soon-to-be 4-year old, Elliot, made a confession to us while we were driving in the van tonight. He said that he killed a caterpillar. When his sister pushed back on him and said that he shouldn’t do that, he said it was okay. My wife, wanting to put things in perspective for him, told him that we shouldn’t kill what God had created.
His response to this profound spiritual insight from my wife? “It’s okay, mom. God didn’t make that caterpillar; someone else did. So, it’s okay.”
It’s humorous how the mind of a 3-year old works, but there is a valuable insight in what he said. Don’t miss it. Once you take God out of the equation life loses its value. If God didn’t make it, then it doesn’t matter what we do with it. Perhaps this is why we can allow unborn babies to miss out on the chance at a full life or think that atrocities like we see in Darfur are okay or at least not worth our effort. Maybe it’s why we can be so quick to want to go to war “to get the bad guys.” It’s perfectly acceptable to exploit the earth for our own gain because there is nothing all that special about it. If God is not Creator of life, then life isn’t sacred or holy or all that important.
But if you put God in his rightful place, then everything takes on a sacredness. God creates the earth and calls it good. It’s valuable and special. Then he creates humanity in his image, and then he says it is very good. The earth is now filled with people who reflect the divine. The earth and it’s people are important, dare I say, sacred.
When the earth is mistreated or people are exploited (girls sold into sexual slavery or albinos killed or maimed in a remote African village, or blacks in racially prejudiced parts of America), or people are killed, whether unborn babies or grown men (regardless of their ethnicity or political affiliations), it breaks the heart of God. God made it all…he made us all…and it’s not okay. Sorry, Elliot. It was cute and humorous, but it was wrong.
Your three-year-old didn’t particularly do wrong. From his innocence, and through your perspective, a wonderful teaching tool has taken form for our supposedly more mature minds. In this sense, Elliot functioned within the creative Mind of God.
I halt with your juxtaposition of the ideas that God “creates humanity in his image” and that humanity, therefore, “reflect[s] the divine.” Granting that this is the most commonly taught and accepted of understanding of scriptural texts, there’s reason to consider it’s a rather ‘puffy’ rating of humanity.
“Image” can be thought of with several contentious connotations: idea, mind, magic. Earliest use of the term, however, has never been shown to mean ‘reflection’ or ‘likeness’.
@Donn Coon I’ll be the first to admit I have a high view of humanity…not because we are great, but because we are created in the image of God. I’ll also be the first to admit that humanity doesn’t reflect the divine like we should. But this does not mean that we are not created in the image of God. A dirty mirror does not reflect clearly. If it is dirty enough, it won’t reflect at all. This doesn’t mean that it is incapable of reflecting or that it ceases to be a mirror. Every analogy breaks down, and I am sure this one is no exception, but it helps us understand that humanity is created in the image of God and when humanity, with the help of Christ and the Spirit of God, rises to its best, to the original intention of God, humanity reflects the divine because that’s the image we were modeled after.
The poet in Psalm 8 makes this connection. He reflects on the greatness of God and then he makes a connection with the amazing reality that God has wrapped up his greatness in humanity. He says, “You have crowned them with glory and honor.” He is amazed that God would do this. Quite frankly, so am I. But our amazement at this fact doesn’t change its truth.
I simply want us to take a high view of humanity…that God knew what he was doing when he created humanity…that he did not make junk…that what he saw after he created humanity he judged it to be very good. This allows us to hope for humanity to reach its potential, even if right now so much of that potential is covered with dirt.
What do you think?
I’ll be honest with you, your post really challenges my thinking. Especially when I think of those who hate our freedom & would just as well destroy you & I. But for me its Jesus’ words that come to mind that it is not eye for eye & tooth for tooth, but that when we are hated we are to love in return. This is the way of Jesus & this is the way of freedom & victory. So I appreciate you helping me to wrap my mind around this truth, that every person has worth & value — even our enemies.
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