0:00

There's a lot of debate

0:02

among theologians, but there's no

0:04

debate in Scripture. Scripture unambiguously,

0:06

clearly teaches that after

0:09

the fall, man

0:11

is still in the image of

0:13

God. Why

0:20

do Christians believe in the sanctity

0:22

of human life? Why

0:24

did the Old Testament prescribe capital

0:27

punishment for those who commit murder?

0:30

Because all people are made in the image

0:32

of God. And as a result, all

0:35

of us, no matter what we

0:37

believe, our status in life, whether

0:39

we're inside or outside of the

0:41

womb, have dignity. Welcome

0:44

to the Saturday edition of Renewing Your

0:46

Mind. I'm your host, Nathan

0:48

W. Bingham. As

0:50

we said last Saturday, people today

0:52

have an identity crisis. People

0:55

don't know what it means to be human. They

0:57

can't explain why humans have worth, and

1:00

they can't agree why or if

1:02

human life is more valuable than animals

1:04

in a zoo. So

1:07

we're spending Saturdays working through R.C. Sproul's

1:09

series, A Shattered Image.

1:12

You can own this series and study guide,

1:14

and we'll send you Dr. Sproul's book, The

1:16

Hunger for Significance, when you give a donation

1:18

of any amount at renewingyourmind.org.

1:22

So let's consider what it means when the

1:25

Bible says that we are made in the

1:27

image of God. In

1:30

our first session in our study of the

1:33

doctrine of man, we had

1:35

a little historical reconnaissance where we

1:37

skated lightly over various

1:39

ways in which people have attempted

1:41

to define our humanity

1:43

in the biological sense or

1:45

in the psychological sense by

1:47

pointing to our mental capacities

1:50

or to our ability to

1:52

make choices, our volitional inclinations.

1:55

We saw a brief glimpse at attempts

1:58

to define man in terms of his sexuality

2:00

or in terms of his economics

2:02

or existential philosophy and the rest.

2:04

And I think that one of

2:06

the philosophers in the 20th century

2:08

wrote a book by a title

2:10

that itself said something somewhat

2:13

captivating. Herbert Marcuse wrote

2:15

a book called The

2:18

One-dimensional Man. Have

2:21

you ever wondered if you are who

2:23

you think you are? There

2:26

was an article in one of the recent

2:29

women's magazines when it answered this question, how

2:31

does a wife keep her

2:33

husband monogamous? And

2:37

the response that this psychologist gave

2:39

to that question said that the

2:41

insightful woman understands that when she's

2:43

dealing with her husband, she's not

2:45

dealing, well, in one

2:47

sense, she's dealing with one person, but

2:50

in another dimension, she's dealing with three

2:52

persons. That that man

2:54

that she married is part

2:56

boy, part adolescent,

2:59

and part mature adult.

3:01

They said the wise woman will

3:04

recognize that she has to deal

3:06

with all three of those competing

3:08

at times personalities that

3:10

she has just married. And

3:13

I think that what Marcuse was trying to say

3:15

and what this other woman was trying to say

3:17

is that no human

3:19

being is simply one dimensional

3:22

in their makeup. You have

3:24

a chemical dimension and your

3:27

body chemistry influences your life.

3:30

You do have a biological

3:33

aspect to your humanity. You

3:35

have a sexual dimension to

3:38

your life. Your

3:40

work is very important to who you

3:42

are. You have an economic aspect to

3:44

your being. You have

3:47

a sociological dimension, a

3:49

psychological dimension, an ethical

3:51

dimension, and you have

3:53

certainly a theological

3:55

dimension. And

3:57

any attempt, as I said earlier, to

4:00

reduce the essence of

4:02

a human being to only one of

4:04

those is to produce

4:06

a distortion, a

4:09

simplistic distortion, out of what it means

4:11

to be human because as human beings

4:14

we are very, very, very complex. It

4:17

always amazes me when somebody comes up with a type and

4:19

says, they're poor basic psychological types

4:21

of human beings, you know, the

4:23

disc test, the driver, the influencer

4:26

and so on. Well there

4:28

may be general big picture

4:31

trends or types of personalities,

4:33

but the great beauty of

4:36

the diversity of our humanity is that

4:38

there are no two people in

4:40

this room or in this world

4:42

exactly alike. And the

4:44

economic dimension drives this person

4:47

not the same way this one is driven

4:49

by it. And that's part

4:51

of the beauty in the diversity of

4:53

God's creation. And what I want to do in

4:55

this session is to look more

4:58

closely at the

5:00

theological aspect and it is

5:02

that, it's an aspect, it's a dimension to

5:04

what it means to be human. The

5:07

Scripture doesn't use this language

5:09

often, but where

5:11

it does use it, it uses it

5:14

in crucial and critical ways

5:17

by defining man and

5:20

male and female as

5:22

a creature that is made in the

5:26

image of God. We have a Latin

5:28

term for everything, so naturally we have

5:30

one for that. The

5:32

Latin term for to be a

5:34

creature in the image of God

5:36

is the imago dei. We call

5:38

that aspect by which we are

5:41

in the image of God to

5:43

be the imago dei. Now

5:46

that little phrase, that little

5:48

theological description makes

5:50

a couple of important statements.

5:53

The first one is to call man

5:56

the imago dei or the image of

5:58

God in the first place. instance

6:01

differentiates man, all

6:04

men, male and female, from

6:06

God. Because it calls attention to whatever

6:09

else it means to be human, the

6:11

first thing it means is that we

6:13

are creatures. And

6:16

all that that implies,

6:19

finite, dependent, derived, accountable,

6:22

that we are not God. We

6:24

may be the image of God,

6:27

but the image of God is

6:29

not God. The image of God

6:32

is subordinate to God. The image

6:34

of God is a creature. And

6:36

so the phrase, image of God,

6:39

says about us that

6:41

we are to be

6:43

distinguished from God. No human being

6:46

is divine. The second

6:48

differentiation that this phrase

6:50

does, biblically and theologically,

6:53

is that it distinguishes mankind

6:56

from all the other

6:58

creatures in the world.

7:00

That this sets man

7:03

apart from the animals.

7:07

Sets man apart from the animals. This

7:10

is a major motif in

7:13

the biblical account of creation. That

7:15

man, though he is subordinate to God,

7:18

is given a role by which

7:20

he is to have dominion over

7:23

all of the earth. That man is given a

7:26

position of authority

7:29

over the rest of the world. And there's a

7:31

certain sense in which the world is a

7:33

trust given to man with

7:35

all kinds of responsibilities imposed

7:37

upon him. And yet at

7:40

the same time, the world

7:42

is also a support system for

7:44

man. I remember Albert Schweitzer was

7:46

so committed to the sanctity of

7:49

life, you recall, that he wouldn't

7:51

swat a fly with a fly

7:53

swatter. If he found

7:56

a scary bug in his bed,

7:58

he wouldn't squish it. Have

8:00

you ever found yourself standing on an ant or

8:02

something like that and say, I've just killed something.

8:04

I did that the other day. I

8:07

stepped on one and I thought, you know, I hope

8:09

Shirley Maclean's wrong. And

8:15

I thought, you know, that creature's

8:17

existence just ended with

8:19

a kind of an arbitrary move

8:22

of my foot. There's a

8:24

movie I'd called, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. And

8:28

it sort of puts a perspective on this. And

8:30

what would happen to you if you got shrunk

8:32

to the size of an ant? Be

8:35

a tough world to live in, wouldn't it? But

8:37

Schweitzer had this reverence for life

8:39

to a remarkable degree. And I

8:41

always wondered how he squared

8:43

it with being a physician.

8:46

You say, well, wait a minute. The physician's task

8:49

is to save life, to heal

8:51

life. Well, yes and no. But

8:53

to save one life as a

8:55

physician, if there's an invading organism

8:59

into your body that represents a clear

9:01

and present danger to your survival, the

9:04

physician will find every means he

9:06

can to kill that parasitical type

9:08

of life. Even cancer itself

9:10

is a form of life. But it's

9:13

a form of life run amok that

9:15

kills normal life. And so at some

9:17

point we have to make a distinction

9:20

between what we're going to save and

9:22

what we're going to kill. If you're

9:25

really committed to the sanctity of

9:27

life in every imaginable way, you

9:30

wouldn't be able to kill animals

9:32

to survive. Nor

9:35

could you kill vegetables because they're alive

9:37

too. I mean, vegetarians don't

9:39

go far enough. We have to stop eating

9:43

if we're going to really take

9:45

that to its consummate point, aren't

9:47

we? But we

9:49

understand that biblically the

9:52

animal world is

9:54

given partly as an

9:56

adornment of the creation, but also partly as

9:59

a solution. support system to

10:02

the one that God has placed

10:04

in dominion over all

10:06

of the earth. Again, that's a two-edged sword.

10:09

One of the things for which mankind will have

10:11

to stand trial before the

10:14

heavenly tribunal will be

10:16

for our ecological transgressions,

10:20

the way in which instead of dressing the

10:22

garden and pilling the garden

10:25

and keeping the garden, we

10:27

have polluted the garden, exploited

10:29

the garden, and

10:32

raped the garden. On the

10:34

other hand, we'll have to answer to the fact

10:36

that in the world we live in right now

10:39

in the United States of America, by law,

10:41

fish eggs are

10:43

protected beyond the measure of

10:46

human embryos. You

10:48

look at India, where you have

10:50

people worshipping cattle, and

10:52

the cows have free reign on the

10:55

street while people are dying of starvation.

10:57

When you kill one cow, it can

10:59

save all these human lives, but the

11:01

cow is more valuable than

11:04

the person. I mean, to understand

11:07

the biblical view

11:09

of man is man

11:11

is not God, he's answerable to God,

11:13

he's ruled by God, but nor is

11:15

he a creature, and

11:17

he has a position of responsibility

11:20

and authority and privilege

11:22

over the rest of the world.

11:25

So we see these distinctions, and

11:28

the fact is that man is

11:30

different, and that

11:32

difference is somehow described biblically with

11:34

these words. Let me read

11:37

them from the Genesis account from

11:39

chapter 1, where we read, and

11:41

God said, let us make

11:43

man in our image, in

11:46

our likeness, and

11:48

let them rule over the fish of the sea, and

11:51

the birds of the air, over the livestock, over

11:54

all of the earth, and

11:56

over all the creatures that move along the

11:58

ground. And God. created

12:00

man in his own image.

12:03

In the image of God, he

12:05

created him. Male and female,

12:09

he created him. Now what

12:11

the Bible teaches us here in Genesis

12:14

is about the origin

12:18

of man. Man in

12:20

creation is made in

12:22

the image of God. I've often

12:24

wondered if the rest of

12:26

the creation is looking to me

12:28

and to you to get

12:31

their idea of what God

12:33

is like. What

12:35

kind of idea the

12:37

creation has? In

12:39

other words, if I am the image and the

12:41

likeness my dog

12:44

looks to to understand God,

12:47

what a terrible picture of

12:49

God my dog would have.

12:52

Because what the Scriptures are

12:54

describing for us here are

12:57

man in his origins, that

12:59

is original man, and

13:02

the next question that this presses

13:04

us to is, are

13:06

we now in the image of

13:09

God? We were in the image of

13:11

God. Are we now

13:13

in the image of God? Now that's

13:15

a crucial question for this reason. One

13:18

of the great conflicts today

13:20

between a theological understanding of

13:22

man and a secular understanding

13:24

of man, I see

13:27

as a difference between

13:29

evaluating man from a

13:31

descriptive perspective or

13:33

from a normative perspective or to say

13:36

it another way to understand

13:38

what it means to be

13:40

human from a theological perspective

13:42

or from a phenomenological perspective.

13:45

The phenomenological perspective says if you

13:47

want to know what it means

13:49

to be human is that we

13:51

study human beings now in their

13:53

normal patterns, in their normal activity.

13:56

We study a universe. We

13:59

examine behavior patterns. And

14:02

on the basis of sufficient research

14:04

of behavioral patterns, we come

14:06

statistically to

14:10

a description of normal humanity.

14:12

And then we build an ethic on it. I

14:14

call it statistical morality.

14:19

Where we go around, we find out that 67 percent

14:22

of people who are involved

14:25

in premarital sexual activity, therefore

14:27

it's normal if normal, it's

14:29

human if human it's

14:32

good. Whereas the biblical

14:34

theological view of man is that the

14:36

view of man we

14:38

have in creation

14:41

is normative, but

14:43

the descriptive version of man today

14:45

is man under judgment, man

14:50

in dreadful corruption, and

14:52

a descriptive analysis, a statistical analysis of

14:54

what we do in

14:56

our normal behavioral patterns only gives us the profile

14:58

of a normal sinner. Again, is

15:04

that normal sinner still

15:06

the image of God? Or has the image by which

15:09

we were created been

15:11

lost? There's a lot of debate about that

15:13

in among theologians, but there's no

15:17

debate in Scripture. Scripture unambiguously, clearly teaches

15:19

that after the fall something radical

15:27

happens to man, and we're going to spend a

15:29

long time looking at that, but whatever else happens to man in

15:31

the fall, man is still in the image of God. Now

15:37

how do we know that? Well, we know

15:39

it's simply because the Bible describes man as being in

15:41

the image of God after the fall at a most critical point, and I want

15:43

to skip over

15:47

to that for a second. Before I read

15:49

this passage, I'd like to give a little comment on

15:52

the side. With the abortion issue reaching zero,

15:54

I'm going to start with the question, zenith

16:00

proportions in this crisis in

16:03

America. It seems like every

16:05

newspaper editorial has something to

16:07

say about it. And I

16:10

have seen a particular argument

16:13

used now three or four times

16:15

in editorials in major newspapers where

16:19

the writer has said that they

16:21

have no respect for

16:24

advocates of pro-life

16:26

because of

16:28

the major inconsistency in

16:31

the pro-life movement, namely that

16:34

many, if not all, but most

16:36

at least, of the advocates

16:38

of pro-life, that is, who are

16:40

opposed to abortion, are

16:42

also in favor of the

16:44

death penalty for capital

16:47

crimes. And the editorials, have you

16:49

seen this in the papers where

16:51

they say, how in the world,

16:54

what a gross inconsistency. If these

16:56

people are really pro-life, they're going

16:59

to be picketing the penitentiaries where

17:01

inmates are held and incarcerated on

17:03

death row. And when I

17:06

read that perspective from the editors

17:09

of the newspapers, I say,

17:11

boy, they just don't get it, do they? They

17:13

don't understand that in

17:15

the whole history of Christianity,

17:19

the overwhelming majority

17:22

report has been

17:24

pro-life to such

17:26

a degree that the church, overwhelming

17:30

majority report historically has

17:32

been pro-capital

17:34

punishment in the case of

17:36

murder. I heard the governor

17:38

of Pennsylvania, when the state legislator passed

17:41

a bill restoring capital punishment in the

17:43

case of first degree murder in

17:46

Pennsylvania, the governor vetoed it. And

17:49

then when he gave a press conference, he said

17:51

that the reason he vetoed it was

17:53

because the Bible said, thou shalt

17:56

not kill. He didn't read the

17:58

next page. where

18:00

the violation of the Decalogue, the

18:02

violation of the prohibition against murder,

18:05

was to be punished by

18:07

death. And that goes back

18:09

way before Moses, all the

18:12

way back to what's called the Noeic Covenant,

18:15

when God restores his fallen universe,

18:17

his fallen creation, and

18:19

sets the basic laws of creation anew

18:21

for Noah and his family, when he's

18:24

more or less starting over. That's

18:26

where capital punishment was

18:29

instituted and ordained biblically. Now, I know

18:31

that there are vast numbers of people

18:33

who could care less what

18:35

the Old Testament says about capital punishment, particularly

18:38

as far back at the patriarchal period

18:40

or even back into the

18:42

period of Noah. But for

18:44

those of you who do have

18:46

some consideration for what

18:48

the biblical warrant is, I

18:51

think we need to at least try

18:53

to understand it. That if I would

18:55

say to people, whether you agree with

18:57

Christianity or Judaism or Islam or not,

19:00

can you articulate for me why

19:03

Judaism, historically, Christianity, historically,

19:06

and Islam, historically

19:08

favored the death penalty. I

19:10

can tell you what is not the reason.

19:13

It's not because these world religions had

19:16

a low view of life, the

19:18

whole impetus for the death

19:20

penalty. And all three of

19:23

those great religions has been

19:25

out of a profound commitment to

19:27

the sanctity of human life, all

19:30

tracing their roots back to Genesis 9

19:33

now, which I will read for you.

19:36

Beginning in verse 5,

19:39

I will demand an accounting from

19:41

every animal, and

19:43

from each man, too, I will demand an accounting

19:46

for the life of his fellow man, whoever

19:48

sheds the blood of man

19:51

by man shall his blood be shed. Now, let

19:53

me just make a statement here. Whoever

19:56

sheds the blood of man by man

19:58

shall his blood be shed. That is

20:00

not a prophecy. The literary

20:02

structure of this passage does not indicate

20:04

that what the word is saying is

20:07

that those who live by the sword

20:09

will perish by the sword. The

20:12

literary structure here, the grammatical

20:14

composition of that statement is

20:17

in the imperative. God

20:19

is actually a command. If

20:22

you willfully, maliciously shed the

20:24

life of a human being,

20:27

you forfeit yours. Now I want

20:29

you to follow the next clause,

20:31

for in the image of God has

20:34

God made man. In other

20:36

words, the rationale God

20:39

gives for capital

20:41

punishment is that God

20:44

regards a malicious

20:46

assault on a human life

20:49

on an image bearer of

20:51

God himself as virtually a

20:53

tack on his own dignity.

20:56

What God is saying here is that if you murder my

20:59

image bearer, you die. I

21:04

require your death. In

21:07

fact, the death penalty at this point in Israel

21:09

was not optional. It was

21:11

mandatory because they said

21:13

God's demanding this because he

21:15

said human life is so

21:17

sacred that I will not

21:19

tolerate the malicious destruction

21:23

of human life. Now again, I don't

21:25

mean to turn this into a discussion with capital

21:27

punishment, but I want you to see that

21:30

how we understand the image of

21:32

God and its

21:34

significance, how we understand the

21:37

holy foundation of a human

21:39

life will in large measure

21:42

determine where you come out on

21:44

abortion, where you come out on

21:46

euthanasia, where you come out on

21:48

capital punishment. And there is a consistency

21:51

here. I had one

21:53

person advocating pro-abortion told

21:55

me that a discarded

21:57

fetus is quote, double.

22:00

Mistake. so wage. Holsters,

22:02

Domestic sewage, there's nothing be

22:04

concern about. but if is

22:06

human and it's allies. And.

22:09

We're talking about the greatest ethical

22:11

issue and the twentieth century. If

22:14

not, In History. Okay,

22:16

what does it mean? When the

22:18

Bible says we're created in the

22:20

image and likeness of God? Notice

22:23

that there were two words: image

22:25

and likeness. To Hebrew

22:27

words Salem and the Moved or

22:29

use their in the text. Then.

22:32

The Hebrew language, there is

22:34

a common grammatical structure called

22:36

ahem Diet. Whereby

22:39

one saying. Is

22:42

defined by two distinct words

22:44

that are similar. I.

22:47

Would take the position on this

22:49

passage. The what the author of

22:52

Justice is saying is that there's

22:54

one thing about man that is

22:56

described here as big image and

22:59

likeness. And the Greek

23:01

here is icon and homeboy.

23:03

Juiciest that we are icons

23:06

of God. In

23:08

the sense that we resemble him.

23:11

A How do we resemble Some would

23:13

reduce it to the abstract the mentioned

23:15

as I've in the Kid Ory that

23:18

we can thank God can think we

23:20

can choose and God concerts we can

23:22

love and God can the Mormons take

23:24

it to mean that God has a

23:26

body because of where his image and

23:29

we have bodies than the original archetypes

23:31

was also have a boy well. What?

23:34

Is it that uniquely stamps

23:36

us as the image of

23:38

God? Oh my can answer that. I

23:42

was gonna say that there is

23:44

something special. and

23:46

vitally important and unique the scripture

23:48

speaks of again and again were

23:51

in is invested our basic humanity

23:53

and i'll give you a hint

23:55

of it's before the next lecture

23:57

is has to do with our

23:59

ability to mirror and

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to reflect the character of God.

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That the image that God gave to you,

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the lightness that he has put in you

24:09

as a creature, is

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an ability to show what

24:14

it means to be holy. Now

24:16

is that still there? Well

24:18

look at that in our next list.

24:28

Theology is not merely theoretical.

24:30

Now theology has direct implications

24:33

for how we live, how

24:35

we treat each other, how we protect each other.

24:37

So I'm glad you're joining

24:40

us as R.C. Sproul unpacks the

24:42

doctrine of man and helps us

24:44

understand biblically what it means to

24:46

be human. This is

24:48

the Saturday edition of Renewing Your Mind,

24:51

and the message you heard today is

24:53

from a six-message series that also has

24:55

a study guide. So this could be

24:57

a wonderful series to work through with

24:59

your small group, youth group, or Bible

25:02

study, especially as we live in a

25:04

time of great confusion when it comes

25:06

to answering the question, Who am I?

25:09

Own this series for life and

25:11

receive Dr. Sproul's book, The Hunger

25:13

for Significance, to give a

25:15

gift of any amount at renewingyourmind.org. This

25:19

offer ends at midnight, and thank you

25:21

for your support, as your generosity is

25:24

helping produce and spread teaching that is

25:26

providing answers to the

25:28

fundamental questions of life and eternity

25:30

that so many are getting wrong.

25:33

So visit renewingyourmind.org today. Is

25:39

man body and soul, or

25:41

body, soul, and spirit? Next

25:43

time, R.C. Sproul continues exploring the

25:45

makeup of man and what it

25:47

means that man is made in

25:49

the image of God. So join

25:51

us next Saturday here on

25:54

Renewing Your Mind. You