concerning humanity…

NOTE: This is part 4 in a series -- which I did not intend on "politics and social concern." Last week, I ended the post by saying:

I believe there are 5 great confessional understandings of the Church concerning 


1. God

2. Humanity

3. Jesus Christ

4. Salvation and

5. The People of God -- The Church


that will ground, inspire, shape, and commission us. Together, these 5 will provide us with a compelling framework for multiplying God’s Kingdom presence in our world today. While I think any one of the above is reason enough, I think holding all 5 together will compel us to engage our world as an act of worship, gratitude, and love.

This week, I am focusing on our confessional understanding of humanity...

Genesis 1:26-26:   Then God said, “Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the wild animals of the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” 27 So God created humans in his image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them.

Genesis 9:6   Whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall that person’s blood be shed, for in His own image God made humans.

James 3.9: With it [the tongue] we bless the Lord and Father, and with it, we curse people, made in the likeness of God.

Psalm 8.1-9: O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. 2 Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger.
 3    When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; 4 what are humans that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?
 5    Yet you have made them a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor. 6 You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet, 7 all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, 8 the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
 9    O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

One might be tempted to say, "If God is socially concerned (see last week!), then we should be socially concerned. That's it! Case closed!" Quite the contrary, I would say it is "Case opened!" God's social concern creates the pathway for our own social concern by allowing us to explore why we feel the need to care for others and why we feel guilt, shame, guilt, and/or remorse when we witness injustice, poverty, and personal need we cannot address, be present to care for or alleviate the needs of others.

What is it about our humanity that beckons us to be "our brothers' keeper?" Let me suggest 6 biblical foundations that should compel our social concern.

First and most obvious, we were created in God's image. In one sense, the Bible "out Darwins" Darwin. In his "Origin of the Species," Darwin says that humanity descended from apes; hence, we were not entitled to ascribe lofty notions to our humanity. We are animals, nothing more and nothing less.

The Bible does him one better: it says we came from dust! While we truly are "animals" -- creatures God has created our origins are not even as lofty as an ape! Left to ourselves, our fate and the fate of all created life is the same -- we have a start, a lifespan, and a death. As Ecclesiastes (3.19-20) observes:

> For the fate of humans and the fate of animals is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and humans have no advantage over the animals, for all is vanity. All go to one place, all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again.

More to the point, and what Darwin cannot embrace, is that while we are creatures, animals to use Darwin's designation, we are the only animals possessing the unique dignity of being created in the image of God. This is the message of Psalm 8. Humanity is the animal God relates to graciously, in remembrance and care. Humanity alone is God's partner in the stewardship and care of Creation. It is our given dignity (the image of God) that allows us to be transcendent over the Creation we co-inhabit with the rest of the animal kingdom. Without the awareness and circumspection of this bestowed dignity, we will become (revert?) to a mere animal existence whose survival instincts will reduce us to live as predator and prey. In other words, without God and this critical worshipful awareness, humanity is bound to descend into mere animality, as George Orwell fabled in Animal Farm.

Second, our image is shared—He created both males and females. While there is great debate over what the "image of God" means, there is no debate regarding who has it. Fundamental to our humanity is a shared dignity. We were created in community (male and female) for shared lives. Care, like love, existed long before humanity's descent. Our origin story should elevate our vision, inspire our creativity, empower our curiosity, and magnify our steadfastness towards one another.

Sadly, that dignity continues corrupted... even something so basic as our speech illustrates the plight of humanity, for with our words "We bless the Lord and Father, and with it, we curse people, made in the likeness of God." Now, we live in a world of "we and they," "safety and threat," "wealth and poverty," "generosity and greed," and the list can go on and on. While some may be flourishing, all are not. Humans were never intended to live in a Creation that has been breached by sin and brokenness. Our divisions are not endemic to our created nature; they are the epidemic that evidences the corruption of it. The tragic irony is the shared dignity bestowed upon all humanity, even in the wake of its corruption, still cannot avoid sharing a common sorrow and fate.

Third, despite our fallen state, the image of God, remains intact. While we may lose our esteem for the "image of God" in others, God has not. Whether it is the words we use or the acts of violence taken, these are "image-of-God bearers" we are mistreating. While no one has ever seen God, there is a sense that we behold His image every day in the women, men, youth, and children we meet. Our compassion, care, and concern should be awakened when we see "us" suffering, faltering, dying, grieving. Our lament should arise to God when we see "us" dividing, warring, harming, stealing. We should be alarmed when our hearts grow cold, indifferent, rationalizing, and isolating... This is the "image of God" under siege by a trilateral axis of power which Scripture calls the world, the flesh, and the devil... and their intent is to refute and erase the dignity stamped upon humanity at creation -- that we are all made in the image of God. You have never met a person who was not!

No one captures this better than C.S. Lewis in his essay, "The Weight of Glory":

“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which,if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”

Fourth, our very creation is an act of grace. God did not need to make us. The fact that He did and decided to make us in His image is a wonderment beyond words. However, once we lose sight of this, we devolve into a society where all human life is not valued because there is no image of God to regard. In that society, alarmed by diminishing resources, what do we do with the chronically infirm, the senile, the hardened criminal, the unborn, the unproductive, the starving? Would it not be to society's advantage to put them to sleep like a well-loved dog, lest they hinder progress and bleed our resources? The truth is the higher our regard for humanity, the more we will be inclined to care. What could be higher than regarding one another as made in God's image?

The image of God compels us to care for the simple reason of who humanity already is in light of God's pronouncement at creation. Dr. James Houston (I Believe in the Creator):

For these human but godlike creatures are not just souls (that we should be concerned exclusively for their eternal salvation), nor just bodies (that we should care only for their food, clothing, shelter and health, nor just social beings (that we should become entirely preoccupied with their community problems). They are all three. A human being might be defined from a biblical perspective as a body-soul-in-community. For that is how God has made us. So if we truly love our neighbors, and because of their worth, our desire will be to care well for them. We shall be concerned for their total welfare, the well-being of their soul, body and community.

Fifth, our history as a Christ-following people commends our social intervention. The early Christians went everywhere preaching the transforming power of the Gospel, fully believing that there is nothing so fully transformative as the Gospel. Across time and nations, they founded schools, hospitals, and shelters, abolished the slave trade, improved working conditions for mill and mine workers, cared for prisoners, started orphanages, and protected children from labor and sexual exploitation... shall we stop there?! No! Christ's followers have also cared for the blind, the deaf, the widowed, the sick, the dying, the starving and the addict.

I am not claiming that all Christians have always and in all places given their lives in this manner, but a sufficiently large number have to make our record noteworthy and undeniable. Why have Christ-followers done it? We have endeavored to care because we confess that all humanity, male and female, although fallen is made in the image of God.

Finally, because God became fully human -- a perfect image-bearer-- to save and care for humans who are not. Our confession of Christ and our distinct understanding of salvation have everything to do with social concern. and to that we will turn next week!

Let me close with a true story... In 1884, Dr Frederick Treves, a young surgeon and lecturer in anatomy at a London Hospital, met Joseph Merrick. When he first met him, living across the street in a rented shop, he thought him "the embodiment of loneliness." Treves later described him as: "the most disgusting specimen of humanity I had ever seen. He had an enormous misshapen head, with a huge bony mass projecting from his brow and another from his upper jaw, which gave him an elephantine appearance. Spongy, evil-smelling skin, like fungus or brown cauliflower, hung in bags from his back, chest, the back of his head and his right arm. His legs were deformed, his feet bulbous, and he had hip disease. His face was expressionless, and his speech spluttering, almost unintelligible. His left arm and hand, however, were as shapely and delicate as a young woman's." Merrick's suffering was unimaginable -- beaten, treated like an animal, pimped from carnival to carnival to be displayed as a freak for 2 pence a viewing. Traves recalled, "he was shunned like a leper, housed like a wild beast, and got his only view of the world from a peephole in a showman's cart. He received less kindness than a dog, and, terrified of staring eyes, he would creep into a dark corner to hide." It was in a dark corner in a shop across the street that Treves met a beaten and abandoned Merrick.

Treves would host and care for him for the next 3 ½ years in a little apartment in the back of the hospital, where he would die in his sleep a few days after he received Easter Day Communion.

Treves had imagined, when he first met Joseph Merrick, that he was also severely mentally disabled from birth. Actually, Merrick was quite the opposite. Treves discovered that he was "a man in his early twenties, highly intelligent, a voracious reader, with a passion for conversation, an acute sensibility and a romantic imagination. He was also a gentle, affectionate and lovable man."

The first woman to visit Merrick paid him the common courtesy of a smile, a greeting, and a handshake. Merrick, in turn, broke down into uncontrollable sobbing because it was the first time he had ever been regarded as human. From that day on, his transformation began with many notable people visiting him to discuss poetry, music, and literature. Treves records, "Gradually he changed from a hunted thing into a man." But the actual truth is this: Joseph Merrick had always been a man. [1]

... in the image of God, He created them; male and female He created them.

Remember, we have never met a mere mortal...

... to be continued!

[1] Summarized from The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences by Sir Frederick Treves (Cassell, 1923). For a thoroughly researched account of the whole affair, see The True History of the Elephant Man by Michael Howell and Peter Ford (Penguin, 1980).