I wait with anticipation the chance to help my children learn to walk. I know when they take their first few steps they will inevitably fall, and I will smile and help them up, all the while knowing the process will be repeated over and over. I know, too, that as our children grow, they will invariably experience missteps of some sort throughout the formative years and into young adulthood. What I most hope for, though, is that my children know I will love them just as much after a fall than before, if not moreso.
Is this not a characteristic of our Father? Actually, is this entire process not us making our own children into our image? “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…’” Genesis 1:26. And then man fell, and ruined everything so God had to spend the next 4000 years teaching man the error of his ways.
I think the theology of “the fall” has been infected by sin consciousness. Eve just ruined everything, and Adam went right along, now we are separated from God.
I do believe there is an element of truth in this, but I believe this picture is incomplete. Human nature is best expressed when? Before someone makes a mistake? No. In this respect, Alexander Pope got it right, “To err is human, to forgive divine.” An Essay on Criticism (1711).
A more literal rendering of Genesis 1:26 is probably, “And He is saying, Elohim, we shall make man in the image of us…” Although I believe man was made in the image of God, I also think that God is continually saying, “let us make man in our image”. In other words, being made in the image of God was not a one time thing that Adam and Eve ruined for the rest of us. God knew all along this would be a process. How better to express one of his many natures(?): that of a redeemer.
Which man most resembles the image of God, Adam or Jesus? Adam fell, Jesus did not. Had Adam and Eve been what Jesus was, mankind would be quite different to be sure, but man would not be what man was intended to be: redeemed.
Notice that after “the fall” God says, “‘Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever’ - therefore, the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden…” Genesis 3:22-23. If the process of making man in God’s image was complete before the fall, man would not have become “like one of Us”.
After man knew good and evil, he was banished from the Garden so he would not eat of the tree of life. Why? Because this would circumvent the process. When do we get to eat of the tree of life? When Christ returns and we have overcome. Revelation 2:7.
Before the knowledge of good and evil, Adam walked with God. After Jesus died on the cross, “the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom”, and the barrier between man and God was removed forever. Now, through faith in Christ we are able to walk with God again, and not just side by side, but with His spirit in us.
Jesus was truly man made in the image of God, and “as He is, so are we in this world”.
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Though we must always approach the “Word” without an “arrived” perspective concerning “our” understanding of the mysteries of God/mankind/the Kindgom etc…for it is not God who changes, rather it is our understanding that must grow, be built line upon line,(truth upon truth. God never contradicts Himself, but is not too oppose to contradict “our” understanding of Him/Script etc….
So I say all this to encourage your seeking out of the “mysteries of the Kingdom of Jesus/God…but I would like to raise your awareness to what may seem to be “off balanced” assumptions you seem to be making in such a suggestion.
1. You state…
“but man would not be what man was intended to be: redeemed.”
Response:
You seem to assume that in “reality” God was pleased with the fall of mankind… b/c in perspective of your views, the fall was neccessary for man to “continue” his journey or God’s journey to make ‘man’ in HIS image.Is “good” good and bad “bad” or not? God created mankind… and it was good. Mankind fell and it was “bad”. Not just that is wasnt not good but bad and so bad that the wages, the reprecussion of such action was death… Eternal damnation… eternal seperation from God! (Such seems to be a little of kilter to accomplish a process a journey!)
And I understand the anology you gave about “your child” learning to walk…yet the difference in the anology and the situation at hand is that your childs learning to walk and falling in no way causes seperation between you two or is evil in terms of your nature!
There is a large difference in the attempt to learn something and in so there existing challenges to over come AND the complete evil that happened that “cursing”/ destroying” of the image of God that mankind was created in!In the fall mankind fell short of the glory of God… The very “carrying of the image of God” that mankind of created in was lost!Such suggestion cant be aligned with happening of how God created mankind! God’s redeeming mankind was to restore HIS rightful ownership of mankind, and to mankind his carrying of the imagine/authority he was created in and for. For whom he obeys he is a slave unto. (Romans) In mankinds fall he became possesion of the enemy (satan) and in honesty lost in a very great measure what God intended of/for mankind to have/exist/live in! Redeemtion… restored what was lost…
Your childs falling and raising in seeking to walk in no way is destructive in nature to that which he/she was created in or that which “natrually occurs for her/him to “grow in their being created”!
You state:
“If the process of making man in God’s image was complete before the fall, man would not have become “like one of Us”.”
Response:
You assump that it “is/was” good for mankind to have become like God in the seeing/understanding such! Man kind was not created in the knowning of such “orginally”. Could it not have been “good” for mankind to not know/understand such? You assume that is was “GOOD” for mankind to see such (the difference between good and evil)if you will… God created mankind and said what He created was good!
I guess I see the situation to be in the the very nature a contradiction of good and evil… God and the very essence that He is that that makes Him God, and it existing that God would intend in His launching mankind into being created in HIS IMAGE that God would see it fit to repulse Himself in the very essence of His nature in the “continueing to create Mankind in HIS IMAGE”
The assumption you make in you suggestion in you posting is the foundation issue that must be assessed in the matter.
Just a thought!
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. Although I hesitate to reply to any anonymous comments, this one merits discussion. And if my assumptions or anything else I write is “off balance”, I am most eager to learn and be corrected.
First, I would never suggest that the fall of man was “good” or that God was pleased with it, quite the contrary. I believe I was careful to point out that I am in no way attempting to replace the idea that man’s fall was bad, rather to supplement it.
Second, God’s rightful ownership of mankind was never in question. Man’s rightful relationship with God, however, was. It is the redemption of mankind that was for God’s glory, not the fall. I do not believe God intended or wanted man to fall, but He knew man would.
I do not assume man seeing good and evil was good. Again, quite the contrary. I agree with you that it was not good. Actually, I do not believe man is equipped to carry the knowledge of God, and God in his mercy prevented that. What I am suggesting, however, is that there is more glory in God’s redemption of mankind than in the creation of mankind. God made man and saw that it was good, yes. But, God redeemed mankind and it was much, much better.
I do not quite understand your “repulse Himself” idea. Again, I do not suggest it is either/or, rather both. God made man in His image, and continued to make man in His image. The accomplishment came through Jesus.
What about this…
Gen 5:1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;
Gen 5:2 Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.
Then…
Gen 5:3 And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth:
After the fall, Seth was born in Adam’s own likeness and in his image. We continue to be either born of Adam [every person is first born of Adam, except Christ, remember that is was the seed of the woman that would bring about the last Adam. ] then at salvation we are born again of Christ.
1Co 15:45-49 This, indeed, is what is written: “The first man, Adam, became a living being.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. The spiritual does not come first, but the physical and then the spiritual. The first man came from the dust of the earth; the second man came from heaven. Those who are made of the dust are like the man from the dust, those who are heavenly are like the man who is from heaven. Just as we have borne the likeness of the man who was made from dust, we will also bear the likeness of the man from heaven.
I just thought that this was interesting
Vee
I agree, Vee. We have to become reborn into the likeness of the “second” Adam. Even then, when we are saved, we go through the process of maturing in our faith and spiritual development. It is a process on the macro (all of humanity) level AND on the micro (individual - you, me, etc.) level.
God obviously knew this would be a process from the beginning. Granted He gave us the opportunity not to have to do it this way (I think), but we are constantly and are continually in need of being made in God’s image.
Thanks.