Cain and Abel: The Tension between Human Evil and Flourishing

From the current conflicts in the Middle East and Europe, to the brutal battles of antiquity, human history has been littered with war and violence.  Millions and millions of human lives have been taken through the actions of other human beings.  Sadly, it's been this way from the beginning.  Genesis 4 gives us deep insight into the human proclivity for violence.  Let's dig into the story.  

Anger and Resentment Leads to Murder  

In Genesis 4, we read of conflict between two sons of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel.  We are told that both brothers offer a sacrifice to God, but only Abel's sacrifice is deemed acceptable.  We're not even told exactly why this is the case, but it seems to have something to do with the quality of the two sacrifices.  Certainly, Abel's offering is from the first fruits of his flock, while Cain's may be a less choice offering.  At any rate, anger and resentment bubbles up in Cain's heart and God confronts him with this, warning him that sin is crouching at his door, waiting to master him.  However, Cain has the freedom to resist this temptation to sin and can choose a productive path, if he so chooses.  But if he chooses poorly, and rather than mastering sin, sin masters him.  Cain invites his brother out into the field where he murders him.  God confronts Cain, and like his parents had done in the garden, he tries to cover up his action, but God of course, knows better.  Faced with the reality of his sin, Cain will now suffer the consequences of killing his brother.

Cain the Wanderer and the Widening of Human Violence and Sin

As the story continues, we learn that Cain becomes vagabond, wandering from place to place.  Fearing that like his brother Abel, he too will be murdered, God places some kind of mark on Cain to prevent others from killing him.  He eventually settles in the land of Nod, East of Eden.  To be East of Eden is to be in exile, just as the Jews would be centuries later.  He finds a wife and begins a family of his own.  This part of the story raises some interesting questions for the careful reader.

First of all, Cain and Abel, along with their parents, Adam and Eve, are the only other people mentioned thus far.  Where did all of these other people come from?  And where did Cain find his wife?  In a sense though, these questions miss the point.

Just as in the story of Adam and Eve in the garden, the story of Cain and Abel is not historical.  And just as Adam and Eve were not individual people, so neither were Cain nor Abel.  As Adam and Eve represent all of humanity, so Cain and Abel are representative of some of the best and the worst traits of humans.  At our best, we are all Abel (pun intended), and at our worst, we are all Cain.  

The Big Picture 

Ultimately, what we discover in the story of Cain and Abel is that when humans fail to love God with all of their heart, soul, and strength, not only does this sever our relationship with God, but it also distorts and destroys our relationship with others, eventually leading to the violence and destruction that we see all around us. 

Now, this does not mean that all of human existence is only strife, hatred, and killing.  We also discover that many of Cain's descendants are skilled in the arts, sciences, and technology.  Humanity lives within the tension of human flourishing and human brokenness.

But a question must be asked.  Is all of life simply the delicate balancing act of living within the tension of flourishing and brokenness, or is there something more?  Will there, could there ever be a solution the problem of human sin and evil?  We must read on to discover the answer.  But warning - it's gets worse before it gets better. - Shay 

Unoriginal Sin

 I lived in Nottingham, England in 1999 and 2000.  As you probably know, if Nottingham is famous for anything, it's famous for Robin Hood.  There have been debates for centuries about the validity of the Robin Hood stories.  Some academics believe that Robin Hood was a real-life person, while others believe that he never really existed.  Still other scholars think that Robin Hood is a kind of amalgamated character formed from legends of many different individuals who lived in parts of Britain throughout the centuries - a bit like King Arthur.  What is certain is that the stories we now have about Robin Hood are "fictional".  Certain aspects of the stories might have been based on real events at different times, but they are almost certainly not based on the exploits of any one individual.  But does that make the stories untrue?  I would argue no.  There are many truths to be gleaned from stories like the Robin Hood tales.  

Something like what occurs in the Robin Hood stories is happening at the beginning of Genesis.  The human characters in Genesis 2-11 are not real historical individuals (though some of them may be based on real people or may be the amalgamation of many different historical figures into one individual).  Rather, the people we read about in Genesis 2-11 represent all of humanity.  We are all Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Seth, Noah etc.  And Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Seth, and Noah are meant to represent all of us.  Though these stories might be described as "fictional", they are true in ways that transcends basic facts and figures.  

So, when one considers "The Fall" or the first "Original Sin" of humanity, one should expand this idea to encompass all of Genesis 3-11.  All of these stories describe in various ways and from different angles the story of humanity's sinfulness and brokenness.  These stories do not describe sin in the sense of being inherited or passed down from generation to generation, rather they describe a world in which sin is inevitable for everyone.  We are not born sinners, but it doesn't take long for us to become sinners.  

So, as we begin our journey through these foundational narratives, let's go back to the garden with Adam and Eve.

Idolatry is at the Heart of Human Sin 

If you've never read Genesis three or if it's been a while, I encourage you to spend five or ten minutes perusing this narrative.  We've all been exposed to artwork depicting the serpent seducing Eve into eating the fruit (note the text doesn't say which kind of fruit - just picture your favorite).  We've probably also seen paintings of Eve sharing the forbidden delicacy with her husband.  But on the surface the idea of one tree being off limits for the first humans seems a bit arbitrary.  Why were they not allowed to eat from this particular tree?  This is where the symbolic nature of the story comes in.  The tree is described in chapter two as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  It is implied that by eating of its fruit an individual would gain the understanding of the difference between good and evil.  As the serpent says to the woman, your eyes will be open, and you will be like God.

The idea that Eve might become like God is what is so tempting to this archetypal woman.  It is the temptation to usurp God and to place him in a lower place than his status rightly demands.  It is a form of self-worship.  Essentially it is idolatry.  And as Eve shares this idolatrous act with Adam, both of their eyes are opened, and they discover that they are naked.  They recognize that they have sinned and so to cover the shame of their sin, they cover their bodies with fig leaves.  

Adam's and Eve's idolatry immediately damages their relationship with one another.  They are no longer as innocently and intimately connected.  As chapter two ends, the man and the woman are naked, but feel no shame.  Now they must cover up their exposed flesh.  But it's not just their relationship with each other that is damaged.  So too is their relationship with God. 

As God walks in the garden in the cool of the day, the humans hide from their creator.  Their shame has extended vertically, as well as horizontally.  At the heart of this story, we discover that every act of human sin is on some level an act of idolatry on our part.  Rather than seeking God's way, we search out our own way.  We seek to be the divine authority in our lives, and we alienate ourselves from the truly divine.  

 Sin Has Consequences 

The remainder of Genesis three describes the consequences of human sin.  Again, it is important to remember that this story is highly symbolic.  On a literal level, women don't have pain in childbirth because Eve partook of the fruit.  On a literal level, women have pain in childbirth because human babies have enormous heads, and it stretches a woman's birth canal to the extreme to give birth to these big-headed babies.  Likewise, farming is hard because the soil produces thorns and thistles as well as grasses and grains.  But on a symbolic level, we learn that life is not made easy in the wake of human sin.  Life becomes harder for all of us as we sin and as we are sinned against.

And relationships are damaged by our short-sighted and selfish human choices.  Consider the relationship of men and women.  In the garden, they related to one another on an equal plane, but east of Eden, it is the man who will dominate and the woman who will yearn for the man's position.  We've seen this played out in the world throughout human history.  Notice, God does not prescribe this breakdown in the male and female relationship, rather he simply describes it.  God's ideal is for men and women to both complement one another in their relationships and to form a partnership of equality.  That's one of the things that will be finally realized in the age to come.  But in this age, unfortunately, we continue to struggle.

And struggle is at the heart of this narrative.  We discover from the very beginning that life will often be a struggle.  Our idolatry and sin have made life far more difficult than it had to be.  The story of Genesis three is not the story of original sin, it is rather the tale of unoriginal sin, because all human sin begins with idolatry and leads to broken lives and broken relationships.  

God's Grace is Evident from the Very Beginning 

Though this is the first story of human sin, it won't be the last.  But it is not only a story of brokenness, it's also a story of grace.  In verse 21 we learn that God provides the humans with skins to cover their nakedness and their shame.  And even the cherubim and flaming sword guarding the garden of Eden from the man and woman is an act of grace.  Transformation and redemption must first be accomplished before flawed, sinful, and broken people are fit to partake of the eternal life of the age to come, for otherwise eternal life would not be worth living.

There's far more to explore in Genesis chapter three, but that can be for another time.  In the meantime, read on...Genesis four is waiting! - Shay  

Formed from the Soil: Did Humans Evolve?

One of the most controversial scientific theories of the past two hundred years has to be Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.  Even non-religious people may not relish the thought that we share common ancestors with not only chimps and other great apes, but even with non-mammalian creatures.  In fact, if Darwin's theory is accurate, we share common ancestors with cockroaches and even plants.  On the surface, this seems to diminish humanity's special place within the cosmos.  But is that really the case?  Read on.

First of all, let me confess, not only am I not a biologist, but I also struggled in my college biology classes.  Having said that, I love what biologists, and other scientists can teach us about life, especially human life.  My struggle in the sciences comes down to details.  I am not very strong in the minutia of mathematical and scientific formulas, but I enjoy scientific concepts from the macro level.  I just need really smart people to dumb it down and communicate it to me in ways that I can understand.  So, I am not in a position to argue for or against Darwin's theory from a scientific perspective, but I do feel qualified to comment on it from a theological and philosophical perspective.  

Second, in this blog I am not arguing that a person should necessarily embrace evolution, but rather that there's nothing inherently heretical for followers of Jesus to do so.  A great resource on this is the BioLogos website and organization (BioLogos ). The founder of the organization is Dr. Francis Collins, the former director of the National Institutes of Health.  Collins is a committed Christian and endorses Darwin's theory of evolution.  

In this post I just want to shed some light on a short passage in Genesis 2 that might provide us with a different way of considering the way in which God created humanity.

"...then the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature." - Genesis 2:7 (NRSV)

There is a lot of intimacy and care in how this verse describes God's creation of humanity.  He doesn't just speak mankind into existence; we are told he forms or fashions the man from the ground - the soil. In fact, the name Adam is the Hebrew word for man and comes from the same Hebrew root word for land, ground, or soil.  God uses the stuff of creation - dirt - to create humanity.  I don't believe that this passage is a historical, much less scientific description of how God created humanity, but rather a symbolic account of the significance that YHWH places on humanity from the very beginning of creation.  It's not an accident that the "name Adam" literally means "man".  But there was not literally one man, named Adam in the Garden of Eden. Rather, the Adam of the Genesis 2 story represents all of humanity.  The stories in chapters 2 and 3 give us insight into the plight of all of us, not simply two individuals in the beginning.  In a sense, we are all Adam and Eve.

So, how does this relate to evolution?  If God is able to create humanity from the dust of the earth (from the molecules and atoms of creation), then he is capable of creating humankind from lesser and lesser developed organisms going all the way back to the primordial soup of the primeval Earth.  What distinguishes us from other living things, and the rest of creation isn't our chemical and material makeup, but that God used the chemicals and materials of his creation to form us in his image.  The process (or the length of the process) isn't the defining factor.  Afterall, none of us place a great deal of importance on a shovel full of dirt, but it's pretty cool that our God can take basic stuff like that and create all of us!  

So, whether or not evolution turns out to be 100% accurate, what all of us can be sure of is that we have been created in the image of the God who loved us and in fact became one of us.  And that gives humanity its ultimate dignity. - Shay 

The Goal and Destination of Creation (part three)

 

This is the final post in a three-part series on the goal and destination of creation. The Biblical story as a whole can be summed up as: "Creation to (re)New(ed) Creation".  It is the story of God and his people, a story of becoming.  It begins like this.

In the Beginning 

"In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind (or spirit - ruach in Hebrew) swept over the face of the waters." - Genesis 1:1-2 (NRSV)

God's creation begins with the heavens and the earth, but in the beginning, they are without form and are void of the necessities for life and meaning.  Though Genesis 1 describes God's creational process symbolically and poetically as a seven-day journey, in our human way of reckoning it has been a multi-billion-year evolution.  God is far more patient than the average 21st century person!

As God's story with his people progressed, through gradual and unfolding revelation, it began to emerge that this grand epic has a goal and destination.  The prophet Isaiah described it like this, "On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.  And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all nations; he will swallow up death forever.  Then God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken." - Isaiah 25:6-8

In the next chapter of Isaiah, we discover a cryptic description of how God will defeat death. Some scholars believe this to be the first reference of resurrection in the Hebrew scriptures.  "Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise.  O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy!  For your dew is a radiant dew, and the earth will give birth to those long dead." - Isaiah 26:19

So, in these chapters of Isaiah we see that God has a hope and future in store for his people that goes beyond the grave.  It is not an ethereal, non-physical, non-bodily, spiritual existence, rather it is a full-bodied, robust, and ultra-physical reality.  Later in Isaiah (chapters 65-66) we discover that this new reality is not to be experienced in some distant heaven, but rather that God will create new heavens and a new earth, just as he had done in the beginning.  These later chapters in Isaiah do not describe the life of the age to come as eternal, but as a full, well-lived, and meaningful life. However, as the doctrine of the resurrection of the body became the norm in much of Judaism, Isaiah's visions in chapters 25 and 26 were combined with the visions found in chapters 65 and 66.   By the time of the 1st century of our era, most of mainstream Judaism held to a belief in a future bodily resurrection leading to eternal life in a new age and a renewed creation.  They believed this was the goal and destination of creation, but there were questions of how and when God would bring this new reality about.  In stepped Jesus, believed to be the Messiah by many of his Jewish brothers and sisters.  

Jesus' Death and Resurrection: The Gateway to the Age to Come 

The earliest Christians (both Jews and Gentiles) believed that through his death and resurrection, Jesus ushered in the age to come.  In their minds and hearts, the new creation had already been launched on Easter Sunday.  However, as the Apostle Paul so ably communicated in Romans chapter 8, this new age has come not all at once but can best be described as simultaneously as an "already" and "not yet".  The renewal of all things has already begun, but it has not yet been brought to completion.  When will it all come full circle and why has it taken so long?  The writer of 2 Peter answers these questions in chapter 3 of his short letter.

God's Timing is Not Our Timing 

"But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.  The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.  But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything done on it will be disclosed...But in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home." - 2 Peter 3:8-10 & 13 

The writer of 2 Peter claims that Christ has not yet returned and brought all things to completion because God is still at work bringing the good news of salvation to all people and helping those people to realign their lives with his new creational purposes under the Lordship of Jesus.  Like he did through the flood in Noah's day, God will one day cleanse the creation again, but this time with fire.  On the other side of this cleansing will emerge a (re)new(ed) heaven and earth where righteousness is fully realized.  

The New Heaven and the New Earth 

At the end of the book of Revelation, John sees the goal and destination of creation up close and personal.  He describes it thus, "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more...And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'See, the home of God is among (people).  He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes.  Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.'  And the one who was seated on the throne said, 'See, I am making all things new.'" - Revelation 21:1 & 3-5a 

John describes the consummation of creation as the coming together of heaven and earth.  In other words, God's will is finally done on earth as it is in heaven.  And God comes to live with his people in the renewed creation.  He makes all things new.  Though we cannot fully grasp what this new reality will be, here are three brief things to consider and imagine.  

1. All Wrongs Will Be Made Right 

Anyone who has lived long enough in the present world knows that things don't always go as we would hope.  The world is broken, and all people are also broken.  So often, injustice reigns and those on the margins are exploited and left without a voice.  One day, these wrongs will be undone and those things left undone in our own lives will be made right.   

2. Humanity's Vocation Will be Fully Realized 

We discussed in a previous blog that baked into creation is God's plan for humanity to live meaningful and productive lives.  When we engage in purposeful and impactful work, we not only bless others and the creation, but we also become who we were created to be.  In the age to come, we will fully realize our potential as human beings and we will creatively work alongside one another and alongside God himself (Revelation 22 says that we will reign with him) in stewarding the world.  This work will not be "toil", but rather "productive play".  

3. The New Creation Will Include Unfolding Drama and Adventure

Just as the initial creation is not static, so the new creation will include an element of unfolding drama and adventure.  This is probably where we need to harness our imaginations the most.  In fact, we can probably only skim the surface of the adventure that lies before us in the age to come when we dream about all that we hope to experience and achieve in this lifetime.  We probably all have regrets about those moments and areas in life where we failed to live up to our full potential.  In the renewed creation we will be given the opportunity to plumb the depths of who we truly are and where the longing of our hearts might take us.  The best movies, plays, books, and dreams are foretastes of the drama and adventure that is yet to come.  But as compelling as we might find these stories now, the narratives we will continue to write and live out in the age to come will far exceed anything that we can conjure up in the present.  The goal and destination of creation is not so much an ending, but rather a new beginning.  No wonder the early disciples cried out, "Maranatha!" (Come Lord Jesus!). - Shay  

The Goal and Destination of Creation (part two)

In the previous blog we explored the goal and destination of creation, and this is where we will pick up again in this post.  

The Freedom of Creation to Become 

It is often supposed that God created a kind of static or steady-state universe.  It is imagined that God said, "Let there be mountains!" - and then there were 20,000 feet mountains dotted everywhere across the landscape.  But the sense of the "let there be" phrases in the Hebrew of Genesis 1 carries more of the idea of both being and becoming.  It might be better to translate these verses as, "let there be the power of (mountains - or anything else, including humans) to become".  

Even the name, YHWH carries within it the sense of both being and becoming.  YHWH is the God who is and also the God who "becomes".  Theologically, this has a profound impact on how we understand God, creation, and ourselves.  

Within God's very nature is freedom.  In fact, there is no being or entity with a greater freedom than God.  Humanity is also given the freedom to not only "be", but to "become".  This is true of the creation itself.  But becoming is a process, it is not static.  To put it bluntly, it takes time.

If you've ever been to the Grand Canyon, then you have seen what the slow trickle and flow of water can create, if given enough time.  Like Rome, the Grand Canyon was not made in a day.  In fact, it didn't take thousands of years, rather it took millions of years for the Grand Canyon to be carved by the forces of nature that God established.  Mount Everest and the Himalayas did not automatically tower over Asia and the Indian subcontinent overnight but were formed through millions of years of plate tectonics.   

In Genesis 1, like he does for the rest of creation, God speaks humanity into existence.  In Genesis 2, he forms the human out of the dust of the earth - using the elements of creation to sculpt humankind.  Neither of these descriptions tell us exactly how God created humanity, nor do they tell us how long it actually took.  Instead, they describe the significance and role that humanity is given within God's creation plan.  Like mountains and canyons, humanity's formation took not thousands, but millions of years to complete.  

And here is the interesting thing.  The job of forming and creating humanity is not yet complete.  Like the rest of creation, we too are on a continuous journey of becoming.  And like the rest of creation, God has allowed a freedom in our journey.  What we will become is not set in stone.  There is an open-endedness to not only creation as a whole, but for individual lives within creation.  God's plan for the creation - and for us - includes a great deal of latitude.  

Though we are given freedom to become, some of the free choices that we make, ironically lead us into a path of slavery, rather than freedom.  The Bible describes these free, but suboptimal choices as "sin".  Sin limits our freedom to become the true humanity we were originally created to be and instead condemns us to slavery and eventually death.  The message of the New Testament declares that through Jesus' sacrificial death on the cross, he destroyed the power that sin has over us, setting us free to truly become human.  Through Jesus' resurrection, we can be sure that death will not have the final word on our lives.  Just as Jesus was raised from the dead, so all of God's faithful people will one day overcome death through bodily resurrection.  At that moment, we will truly be free to become.  And so will the rest of creation be set free. 

 The Creation Will Be Set Free 

The apostle Paul, in Romans 8:18-21, describes it like this: "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.  For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God."

Paul tells us that one day, we will be set free from death and decay and will obtain the ultimate freedom to become the humanity that we were created to be but failed to be.  In the same way, the rest of the universe will also be set free to freely and truly become that which it was always meant to be.  Creation isn't just about "being", but much more about "becoming."  But what will that (re)new(ed) world look like?  What will it be like?  We'll tackle that question in the next post.  In the meantime, consider who you are now and who you wish to become one day in the future.  We are all on a journey of "becoming" and who we are becoming has not yet been determined. - Shay    

The Goal and Destination of Creation (part one)

There are those within the scientific and philosophical communities who argue that ultimately everything within the universe is meaningless.  According to these, often brilliant minds, there is no purpose, there is no morality, and there is no goal or destination for us or for anything!  And yet, these super smart people (and I really do believe that these individuals are incredibly intelligent) spend their lives exploring and searching for the deep structures that underlie reality.  Kind of ironic, eh?  

For those of us who hold to the Christian faith, we believe that all of creation is fueled by purpose and meaning.  We have faith that what we do with our lives, really matters.  In fact, from the very beginning, the Jewish and Christian scriptures argue that God has a purpose and plan for the entire universe.  Let's consider God's final destination for creation, beginning in the beginning. 

Sabbath Rest 

As well as serving as the climax of the creation narrative in Genesis 1:1-2:4a, God's celebration of the first Sabbath on the seventh day points to God's ultimate goal for all of creation.  Throughout the remainder of the Bible, the Sabbath reminds both Jews and Christians that peace and rest will one day come to the Promised Land, the whole world, and in fact, to the entirety of the cosmos.  Meaningful work is baked into creation from the beginning, but so is Sabbath rest.

Purposeful Vocation 

Sabbath rest is baked into creation from the beginning, but so is meaningful work.  We often think of the Garden of Eden as a tropical paradise on steroids - it makes resorts like Sandals appear quaint and under-resourced.  And though there is an element of paradise associated with Eden; God doesn't plant humanity in the garden to simply lounge around on hammocks, eating pineapples and drinking Mai Tais.  Genesis 2:15 tells us that God placed the man in the garden to till it and to keep it.  Humanity is created to engage with the creation around it and to build creatively upon the foundation provided by God.  To mix metaphors, women and men are to paint freely upon the canvas of creation that God has established.  It is clear that the universe is not simply created for its own sake, and that the cosmos has not yet come to completion.  It is as it were, a work in progress.  We are called to join God in this work, and we will continue to engage in our purposeful vocations in the age to come as well. 

East of Eden 

The first 11 chapters of Genesis tell the truest of all true stories, but they are not true in the way a news report about a car crash or a political scandal might be true.  However, the truths that emerge out of such newspaper stories are already embedded in the universal truths that emerge from the primeval narratives of Genesis.

A large number of Biblical scholars have noticed that the early chapters of Genesis tell the story of the world in general and Israel in particular through a grand sweeping epic narrative.  In particular, the Garden of Eden can be seen to represent the Promised Land of Israel.  Just as Adam (humanity) and Eve (the mother of all the living) are banished from the garden, so the people of Judah (the southern kingdom of Israel) are exiled from the Promised Land and sent east to Babylon (589-586ish BC).  Throughout much of the Biblical corpus, to be "east" is to be far from home and distant from that which is desired.

After Judah is exiled, much of what else is written in what Christians call the Old Testament is centered around returning to the Promised Land, both geographically, and even more so, spiritually.  Eden represents what the world is supposed to be like.  The Promised Land of Israel and Judah was also to be a kind of foretaste of the age and world to come.  Getting back to the Promised Land or Eden was in part the journey to a renewed creation where stuff finally worked right and where everything and everyone functioned effectively, and people interacted appropriately within their properly defined relationships.  

Isaiah 35 describes both the journey and the destination like this: "The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing.  The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.  They shall see the glory of the LORD, the majesty of our God.  Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees.  Say to those who are of a fearful heart, 'Be strong, do not fear!  Here is your God.  He will come and save you.'  Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.  For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; the haunt of jakals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes.  A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God's people; no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray.  No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there.  And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." (NRSV) 

Sounds pretty good, eh?  There is more to be said about the goal and destination of creation, but we'll have to do that in the next blog.  Until then, let's continue to live into that new reality, even now. - Shay 

  

In God's Image

In both creation stories of Genesis, the crown of God's creation is humanity.  Genesis 1:26 & ff describes it like this: "Then God said, 'Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.'  So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them: male and female he created them.  God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth...God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good." (NRSV)

Genesis 1 describes God's creation poetically using a seven-day structure.  With all that God creates over the five days before he creates humanity, God declares that his creation is good.  But after creating humanity on the sixth day, God exclaims that his creation is very good! Humankind is the jewel in the crown of creation.  Unlike the plants and other animals, humans are made in the image of God.  But what does it mean that mankind is created in the image of God?  We'll explore a few ideas about imaging God in this blog post, although it's certain that we'll only be skimming the surface of what it might fully mean.

Humans are Relational Beings 

We were made for relationship.  The fact that we were created male and female highlights this.  Through sexual union and companionship, the building blocks of community are established.  For the past several thousand years, the family unit has served as the bedrock of society.  As a child we relate to our parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, aunts, and uncles.  As we age and mature, those relationships extend outward into our communities.  Through them we learn what it means to be human and how our individual lives can be taken up into the larger tapestry of civilization.  

God, with the participation of his heavenly council, creates us as beings who relate not only to each other, but also to him.  This only makes sense, as God's very being is relational.  In fact, as the Christian doctrine of the Trinity implies, within his own being, God exists in an eternal state of relationality.  Part of what it means for God to be love is that within his own nature, God is personal, relating within Godself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  The relational God has created humanity to also be relational.   

As a side point, the male half of humanity does not image God independently of the female side, nor does the female side image God independently of the male side.  It is both male and female together who are created in the image of God.  This reminds us that whatever characteristics we describe as feminine are as much a part of the nature of God as those we describe as masculine.  Though it has been common to refer to God as male, there are quite a few places throughout scripture where feminine metaphors are also used of God.  God (the Father and Spirit) is neither male nor female, but the best qualities of both male and female are a part of God's eternal nature.  The incarnation of Jesus means that God the Son is in fact male and remains eternally so.   

Communication, Meaning, and Understanding

There is no evolutionary reason for humans to have developed our enormous brain power, but here we are - the only animals on earth who build massive cities, create technological marvels, and ponder the universe, including our existence.  We are capable of not only asking who, what, when, where, and how, but we also ask that pesky question, why.  How did this come to be, or better yet, why did this come to be?  Genesis 1 says it is because God created us in his image.

At some point in our development, we became capable of thinking deeply and then expressing those deep thoughts with others through spoken language which only ramped up our capacity as a species to collectively probe the depths of meaning and understanding.  Scientists believed that there was a "great leap forward" in our evolution when we developed speech.  Could this have been the moment that God bestowed his image upon us?  

Partnering with God in the Stewardship of Creation

God's image does not just afford us privilege, it also presents us with responsibility.  As the second creation story in Genesis 2 makes clear, God invites humanity into a partnership as custodians of the creation.  Many believers have interpreted this to mean that people are free to exploit, dominate, pollute, and strip the world of its natural resources, regardless of the outcome.  Some take this attitude with the misguided notion that all that we see will one day be destroyed and annihilated by God, so we might as well get all that we can while we can.  In a later blog I'll reflect on God's ultimate purpose and plan for the creation (it's not annihilation, but renewal), but in the meantime, it's worth remembering that at least part of the way that we image God is in the care and concern we are to provide for the created order, including plants, animals, and natural resources.  

We aren't just tasked with stewardship.  In addition to the responsibility of looking after God's world, we are given immense freedom to follow God's lead and create as well.  Art, music, poetry, engineering, fields of education, and countless other creative ventures are made possible by the freedom and imagination given to us by YHWH.  

Reflecting Creation's Praise Back to the Creator

The great Biblical scholar, NT Wright, has aptly stated that part of our role in imaging God is that we reflect creation's praise back to God, while simultaneously serving as God's image back out into the creation.  So, in a sense, we serve as a conduit or a medium between God and his creation.  Certainly, we were made for worship and if you are like me, when I witness the majesty of God's world, I can't help but break into praise in honor of my creator.  If creation already praises God in a sense, humanity is able, and often willing to give voice to that praise.  

These thoughts certainly fall far short of exhausting all that it means to be made in the image of God.  Of course, we have much to still learn and discover as it relates to humanity, so how much more do we fall short in our understanding of God!  What is clear is that if we are in fact made in God's image, it should transform the way we view ourselves and those that God places in our paths.  As the Psalmist so ably put it, we are "fearfully and wonderfully made." - Shay