5-1-26 Weekly Devotional – Change is a Promise and a Reality
Some have said that human beings were/are created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), that they were/are created to reflect the attributes of God—such as moral reasoning, creativity, love, and the ability to relate to others. This was true of Adam and Eve, but the exact image of God was marred when they disobeyed God and took of the forbidden fruit; when they tested the waters of that which God had forbidden (Genesis 2:16-17; 3:1-8). Immediately upon their disobedience Adam and Eve saw each other differently, their moral reasoning changed, their creative minds were affected, their love for one another and for God changed to self-introspection and focus, and self-consciousness distanced each one from the other. Their God created attributes were changed forever and this was passed to all their descendants, from the first to the child just born. So, it cannot be correctly said that we created in the image of God. As asserted, all people after Adam and Eve are born, not created. Born with the likeness of Adam not God.
In support of that assertion we read from Genesis 5:1-3 “1This is the book of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female, and blessed them and called them Mankind in the day they were created. 3 And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.” Verse 3 is significant in that it qualifies that Seth was born in the likeness of his father (Adam) with his father’s nature, his father’s proclivities. He had Adam’s tendencies to worship God but also his father’s tendencies to satisfy self-determination. Turning to the New Testament, to the book of Romans we read that “ There is none righteous, no not one” (3:10) and “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (3:23). Adam and Eve were created in the exact likeness and image of God, but Romans 3:10 and 3:23 certify that all other persons were/are born in the likeness of Adam, not created in the exact image of God. Romans 5:12 identifies > that through one man sin entered the world, that sin spread to all men, evidence by the truth that all person’s sin and eventually die, the consequence of sin. That is the bad news, but there is good news > God created man for His glory and fellowship. He could not and would not leave man (represented in Adam) in his acquired state of fallenness. Jesus in John 3:4-18 gives us part of the good news. Consider >
“14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. 18 He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
And the apostle John added: “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him” (John 3:36).
God became a man (John 1:14) so as a man He could satisfy the wrath of God against sin by giving His life for man’s atonement. All that fallen man (which is all human beings) can is turn to God, recognizing that he or she is a sinner, separated from God, deserving of God’s wrath, repent of (turn from) his or her sin and commit themselves to Jesus Christ seeking His mercy and grace (His unmerited favor). That opens the door to restoration of being in the likeness and image of God. Romans 8:29 tells us that being conformed is an ongoing process and that full realization will occur when we escape the hinderances of this life as we enter into His presence. Our regenerated spirit has already experienced this transformation, but our spirit is housed in corrupted flesh (a corrupted nature), and our true likeness and image of God is obscured. But some day; Oh’ glorious day!
Blessings!
Steve