Skip to main content

The Image of God as Language Users

The last few weeks we have been examining different views on what it means to be made in the Image of God. The first was the functional view, that being made in God's Image is a calling and vocation we live out. The second was the structural view, that what it is is how we were designed by God as both physical and spiritual beings. Last week we discussed the communal view, that being made in God's Image has to do with us being made for community, much as God is community in the Trinity.

This week we are going to talk about the last view, that we are made in God's Image by virtue of our use of language. Language is something unique to human beings in this world. While other animals communicate with one another none do so with the sophistication as human beings. It is this ability to communicate that some believe is, at least in part, of what makes us made in God's Image.

When God created the heavens and the earth the Bible specifies that he spoke everything into being. It is this special form of communication that only human beings share with God on the earth. God chose to communicate to human beings through the Bible, through language. In John 1 Jesus is called the "Word" or "Logos," a complex idea that has to do with rationale, reason, and linguistics. The Word then became flesh and dwelt among us as one of us.

It is language that lets us debate and discuss truth, which ultimately points to God. Our ability to use language gives us extraordinary powers to encourage, heal, and uplift people. When used wrongly words can be used to destroy, tear down, and hurt people. We are particularly susceptible to language and how we use it, both for good an ill.

This view contends that this is no accident. God made us language using beings to be able to express truth, goodness, and beauty in a way that no other creature could. We can praise God and commune with him far more deeply through our words than most living things. However, sin caused us to misuse this gift for harm. The serpent deceived Eve with words. Adam blamed Eve and lied. 

Jesus, being the perfect Image of God and also the Word of God, supremely embodies this view. He is the Word made flesh. He is perfect rationale and language made incarnate. He is truth, goodness, and beauty in the flesh. He only ever spoke with love and in truth. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thankful

Today is Thanksgiving, the day that we are supposed to celebrate all the things we are thankful for. It is a time of family reunions, football, and turkey eating. I sincerely pray that each and every one of you has a good day today. I'll admit that being thankful has not been easy for me this year. As pretty much all of you know, my mother passed away December of last year. Though she had been in the hospital for months, we were not expecting it. In fact I was sure she would be finally able to come home within a matter of weeks. Instead she peacefully passed on into the arms of Jesus, whom she loved more dearly than anyone else. As you can imagine, the entire family was heart broken. After what can easily be described as the worst Christmas ever, I returned to home to Illinois. It was here that I finally broke down. I spent the next months doing everything except being thankful. I cursed God, wept, screamed, begged to have her back, and was generally not the nicest person to be...
3 comments
Read more

Proverbs, Wisdom

Wisdom is an essential part of living a godly life. The ability to make good judgments and identify potentially sinful situations are skills all Christians should have. The Bible repeatedly emphasizes that it is the duty of parents and older Christians to pass on these skills and train younger generations in wisdom. The book of Proverbs is a book all about wisdom. The various authors of the book are trying to pass on the things they have learned to a younger generation. They want all that come after them to know that true wisdom comes from God. Background Like the book of Psalms, the book of Proverbs is a collection of various sayings and proverbs from many different people. The primary author we associate the book with is King Solomon, who wrote the most out of any single author, but he is just one of several writers. It is a very interesting book in this regard. The book of Proverbs can be tricky because it isn't always consistent in how the text flows together. Some...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ordinary Means

The Bible is a book. Think about that for a minute. One of the primary ways God chose to communicate to humanity was through a book. Think about just how many books there are in the world. We have entire stores dedicated to selling books and government departments whose sole job is preserving books. Almost every culture on the planet, in some form or another, has used books.  I think we often forget just how ordinary something like the Bible is. Is it inspired by God? Yes. Is it authoritative? Yes. Is it also a book? Yes. It amazes me more and more the more I think about it that God chose to communicate to us not by some miraculous arrangement of the stars or a telepathic message but rather through a book.  Just like any other book, the Bible was written by ordinary people in their specific cultures, languages, circumstances, genres, styles, and purposes. God chose this ordinary, mundane thing to communicate eternal truth of the most fantastic sort. God took the ordinary and t...
Post a Comment
Read more