Are the Ungodly Really in God’s Image? (1)
There are three parties that all professing Christians agree are in God’s image or the imago dei according to Scripture: first, the eternal and incarnate Son of God (II Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:3), second, pre-fall Adam and Eve (Gen. 1:26-27; 5:1), and, third, all those born again by the Spirit of Christ (e.g., Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10).
But there is disagreement regarding unbelievers: Is fallen and unregenerate man in the image of God? This is the most controversial question involved in the whole subject of the imago dei. It is also a very important issue, especially in our day, when the notion that everybody is in God’s image has taken hold of many and is being used to promote all sorts of unbiblical teaching, including man’s free will (Rom. 8:5-8), the unequal yoke between believers and unbelievers (II Cor. 6:14-7:1), the salvation of unevangelized pagans (Rom. 10:14), women in church office (I Tim. 2:12), homosexual marriage (Matt. 19:4-6), etc., as well as to deny scriptural doctrines, such as total depravity (Rom. 3:9-19), eternal punishment (Matt. 25:46), etc.
The majority view in Christendom today is that all the unregenerate possess God’s image in a “broader” and lesser sense, whereas the regenerate have been restored to the imago dei in a fuller and richer way. The “wider” and unlosable aspect of the imago dei, they claim, includes man’s intellectual powers, volitional freedom and natural affections. They allege that every fallen and unbelieving human being retains the image of God, since he or she continues to possess an immaterial soul or spirit and conscience, with the ability to think, make decisions, use language and form moral judgments. In this series of articles, Lord willing, we will present numerous arguments against this popular but dangerous error.
First, if the ungodly are really in the image of God, then the man of sin (II Thess. 2:3) is in the image of the God of righteousness! To use some of his other names, according to this theory, the son of perdition (3) is the image of the Lord of heaven, the wicked one (8) is the image of the Holy One of Israel and the Antichrist (I John 2:18) is the image of Christ, the image of God par excellence! What sense does it make to identify as Jehovah’s image the coming beast who will open “his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven” (Rev. 13:6)? Can one who is truly in the image of God declare that he alone is God and the only object of worship (II Thess. 2:4)? Is the beast who will require all to worship his own image under pain of death (Rev. 13:12-15) really in God’s image?
Second, if fallen man is in the image of God because he possesses the power of reason and volition, then Satan himself and his demons are also in the imago dei. Nay more, as Martin Luther, arguing against the supposed “broader” sense of the divine image, points out, the devil “has these natural endowments, such as [a prodigious] memory and a very superior intellect and a most determined will, to a far higher degree than we have them.” Thus Satan is a particularly splendid image of God, possessing the divine likeness (in its “wider” aspect) far more than any believer! Rev. Stewart
Law and Grace
After writing quite a few articles in the News on the law of God, I had intended to move on to other matters. But then I received a rather urgent request from a brother in England, asking me to comment on the following statement which he believes to be erroneous, as also do I. The erroneous statement is: “The Ten Commandments have nothing to do with us [i.e., believers] now in keeping them. It is Jesus Christ who is keeping it [i.e., God’s moral law] for those who are in Him. He has obeyed it for us; He did everything for us. We are to walk and live by His faith in us through the Holy Spirit. We do nothing, but believe and trust Him by the help of the Holy Spirit in our new born-again nature. The kingdom of God is now in us spiritually by the new covenant which God the Father made with His Son. That is the true gospel of good news and it is glad tidings of great joy to us. We have a new nature in us through regeneration by the Holy Spirit.”
The brother then adds the following comments: “I think [he] is very wrong in saying that we do not have to obey or keep the law which Christ’s commanded. [He] is saying that we are saved by grace and have no need to keep the law, because we cannot do it, and that, because Christ is in us, He keeps the law for us.”
There are a number of matters to address in all of that, including the notion that we do not have to keep the law. That flatly contradicts what Jesus Himself says in John 14:15: “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” It is argued that Christ is not speaking of the Ten Commandments but of His commandments. But, as we have pointed out in recent articles, Matthew 5:21-48 makes it clear that Jesus’ commandments are essentially the same as the Ten Commandments that were given at Mount Sinai. Christ makes explicit reference to the law as given at Horeb in Matthew 5:17-20. There He also shows us that keeping and teaching the Ten Commandments is crucial.
If we do not have to keep the commandments, then Christians may indulge in idolatry, blasphemy, Sabbath breaking, rebellion against authority, murder, fornication, theft and every kind of evil speaking without any fear of consequences. Then the answer to Paul’s second rhetorical question in Romans 6:1 is an antinomian yes: “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?”
What is so ironic about the statements of the person whose views are being critiqued here is that the erroneous statement claims, “We do nothing, but believe and trust Him,” but even believing or trusting is something that Christ commands. Indeed, it is what He commands above all else! Jesus says to Thomas, “Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing” (John 20:27). Jesus says to His disciples, “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me” (14:1). These are commands! That faith is God’s gift, and a matter of the gracious work of the Holy Spirit in us, does not change the fact that believing is something commanded by the gospel.
Would the person whose views are being analyzed deny that we are active in believing, as some claim? He already says, regarding obedience to the commandments, “It is Jesus Christ who is keeping it [i.e., God’s moral law] for those who are in Him. He has obeyed it for us; He did everything for us.” It is only a very small step from that to saying that it is really Christ who does the believing or trusting as well. The Canons of Dordt rightly state that human beings are not “senseless stocks and blocks” (III/IV:16).
In the churches to which I belong, there was a controversy in this area a few years ago and some left us. The idea that we are active in anything, even in believing, is seen as a denial of salvation by grace, and so all the commands of Scripture are understood, not as requirements for us but, only as showing our inability. That leads to the notion that the “new man” in Christ is really not me at all but the Holy Spirit. That, in turn, leads to the teaching that believers in their entirety are still totally depraved, dead in trespasses and sins, which is a denial of the regenerating and renewing work of the Holy Spirit.
Thankfully, the person whose views are being criticized does not appear to hold that latter view for he says, “We have a new nature in us through regeneration by the Holy Spirit.” It is that new nature that loves God, obeys Him, believes in Christ, is sorry for sin. It is the believer, renewed and regenerated, who says, “For I delight in the law of God after the inward man” (Rom. 7:22) and “So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God” (25).
That “It is Jesus Christ who is keeping it [i.e. God’s moral law] for us who are in Him. He has obeyed it for us; He did everything for us,” is partly true. He kept the law for us as our justifier, doing all the law required as our Head, and so delivering us from the punishment of sin and eternal damnation. There is nothing left for me to do by way of making myself “right” with God. He has done everything necessary. All that is now commanded of me is that I show my thanks to God for what Christ has done by obeying Him and thus showing my love for Him in deeds as well as in words.
Even in that, He does not leave me to myself and my own efforts, for God gives me His Holy Spirit to work within me both the willing and the doing of what He commands (Phil. 2:12-13). Nevertheless, when all is said and done, I am the one who obeys, is thankful to God and lives a Christian life. My thankfulness and obedience have no merit in them. I cannot, and I do not need to, merit with God. Christ’s merits are my righteousness and acceptance with God. My thankfulness is not a reason for pride, because I owe every word of thanks and every grateful deed to God’s grace. Thankful and obedient, I thank God for my thankfulness and obedience.
It is similar as regards my eating and drinking. God does not keep me alive without eating and drinking. I must eat and drink to be strong and healthy. I must not think that my eating and drinking are a denial of God’s sovereignty as the Giver of life. I may not expect that Christ, who is my everything, will do my eating and drinking for me. So I eat and drink, trusting as a Christian that God will bless my eating and drinking.
Moreover, God shows me in different ways that He is sovereign even in that part of my life. He shows me this by occasionally keeping someone alive without eating and drinking (e.g., Moses and Elijah at Mount Sinai), but also by making eating and drinking the death of some by poison or by choking. For others, some of their eating (e.g., grains or seeds for those with diverticulitis) and drinking (e.g., contaminated water) not only does not keep them strong and healthy, but makes them ill.
This brings me to the final part of this article: the supposed conflict between law and grace. Just as the law that I must eat to live is not in conflict with the sovereign work of God in keeping me alive, so the supposed conflict between law and grace is false. This also is the explicit teaching of the Word in Galatians 3:21: “Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.” It is also the teaching of Romans 7:12: “Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.”
Indeed, in the matter of God’s law and His grace, there is more to be said. There is grace in what Jehovah commands, when He speaks to those whom He has chosen and redeemed and justified. The command, to them, is grace. “For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast” (Ps. 33:9). His Word is powerful and effective, so it never returns without accomplishing exactly what God intends (Isa. 55:11). He commands repentance and faith, and by His commands He works repentance and faith in some, His elect, those for whom Christ died and those whom the Spirit regenerates. He commands thankful obedience and by that Word works grateful service in the hearts and lives of His own.
I, redeemed, justified and renewed, begin to serve Him with a love that shows itself not only in words of thankfulness but also in a life of holiness. Until I die, I do so imperfectly and with much sin and struggle, for I am also that old man of which Scripture speaks (Eph. 4:22; Col. 3:9).
So I say with the apostle Paul, “I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin” (Rom. 7:21-25).
Thanks be to God, indeed! Rev. Ron Hanko
