Day 1496 – Imaging After The Fall and New Testament Application – Worldview Wednesday

Published: Oct. 14, 2020, 7 a.m.

Welcome to Day 1496 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.I am Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to WisdomImaging After The Fall and New Testament Application – Worldview WednesdayWisdom - the final frontier to true knowledge. Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend, I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy. Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. Today is Day 1496 of our Trek, and it is Worldview Wednesday. Creating a Biblical Worldview is essential to have a proper perspective on today’s current events. To establish a Biblical Worldview, you must have a proper understanding of God and His Word. This week, on our Worldview Wednesday episode, we will continue our study based on a course I recently completed taught by Dr. Michael Heiser. Our study is titled “Sons and Daughters of God: The Believer’s Identity, Calling, and Destiny” Throughout this multi-week course, we will demonstrate that, in the Old Testament, “sons of God” and “holy ones” refers to supernatural beings whose Father is God and who work with God to carry out His will and that this divine family was present before humanity. By fully engaging with biblical texts such as Psalm 82; Psalm 89, and Deuteronomy 32:8–9, our study will show that this divine family functions as a template for God’s human family. God desires of humans, as His imagers, to participate in His council. This study addresses issues such as polytheism, the nature of the (little ‘g’) “gods,” and Yahweh’s uniqueness. This study will apply insights to the New Testament texts and show how the metaphor of being in God’s family informs our sense of identity and mission as believers.
Imaging After The Fall and New Testament Application·      Segment 26: Imaging After the Fall
Image Remains After The Fall
If the image of God is about us being representatives of God, the fall, the entrance of evil into the world, is certainly a factor in our understanding. Our understanding is that we continue with our purpose. I’ve met Christians that believe that after the fall, the imaging idea was totally lost. Those Christians surmise the only people who image God now are Christians or believers because they’ve been brought back to a relationship with God through redemption. I don’t believe that. I think that’s an inferior understanding of the text and leads to some dangerous theology.
For instance, in Genesis 9:6-7 (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+9%3A6-7&version=NLT), which, of course, is after the fall, it’s after the flood—we read this, If anyone takes a human life, that person’s life will also be taken by human hands. For God made human beings in his own image. Now be fruitful and multiply, and repopulate the earth.” This is an obvious reference to Eden with the Edenic commands repeated. The commands that were originally given to Adam and Eve, the original imagers. The idea here is that the death penalty, taking the life of a person, is legitimized somehow, and we’re going to find out in the rest of the Torah when that situation might be the case. That idea is legitimized because God cannot tolerate the unlawful, unwarranted taking of any human life. After all, those humans are created in His own image. When you kill a person, it’s like killing God in effigy.
If the image were linked only to Christians or only believers, then this verse would, in effect, be saying, “Well, it’s only a crime if you kill someone who’s a Christian. You can kill other people, and God is not going to care about it, but only if you kill His children, then we’re in trouble.” That’s an absurdity, but this is where some thinking goes. We don’t want to go there. We want...