Inestimable Human Worth

If there’s an idea that we Christians have given abundant lip-service to but that has failed to reach deep into our hearts it’s the notion of humanity as the image of God.

Yes, we like to play with the idea.

Whatever might be the valued asset of the day is said to be a reflection of the divine image: community, mission, creativity.

Ancient Near Eastern scholars will tell us that being the god’s image has to do with looking like the god and ruling for the god. I might add that it has to do with being a child of the god. 

But for me the place where the rubber meets the road is Jesus. Describing Jesus has always been an exercise, to some extent, of looking in a mirror. What we see there is what we truly value as people who are striving to follow God. And this is how I know that we haven’t really learned to stand in awe of humanity as image of God.

And this is a large part of why I think it was worth my time to spend seven years writing A Man Attested by God.

Behold the Humans!

We have been conditioned in our reading of scripture, and our reading of the Jesus stories in particular, to see God as so wholly Other that anything that receives veneration other than God is a wrongly “worshipped” idol.

There’s something right about this: it is completely possible to take a high and beautiful gift and turn it into an object of worship, serving the creation rather than the creator, the gift rather than the giver. Also, such a posture can rightly keep us from reading biblical narratives as hero and example stories.

But sometimes there are glorious humans.

Sometimes there is a true divine image bearer, such as Eve or Adam.

Sometimes there is one who bears in his physical face the glory of God, such as Moses.

Sometimes there is one who can pass his own glory onto another, such as Moses or Elijah.

Sometimes the Spirit comes upon someone and he is empowered over both worldly enemies and spiritual powers, such as David.

Sometimes the birth of a royal figure fills the people with such hope that they call him almighty god and everlasting father, the prince of peace.

Sometimes there is a resurrected faithful one who is honored and enthroned by God for perseverance to the point of death, such as Israel, pictured in Daniel’s human-like figure.

Sometimes the king is seen to be so specially marked by God that psalms are sung to him in Israel’s worship, such as happens whenever Psalm 45 is taken up.

The God-Man?

What we should have known from such episodes is that it’s actually a lot harder to know a divine human when we see one. Or, maybe it is better to say: there are lots of different kinds of divine humans, and not many of them preexistent.