MISREADINGS IN GENESIS 1-3: OUR CALLING: THE “IMAGE OF GOD”(1)

 What does it mean that humans are created in the image of God (Gen 1:26)?  How should we respond?

I have posted before on misunderstandings regarding the significance of people being created in the image of God.²  Basically, in the ancient Near East, images represented one’s presence.  Kings claimed to be regents of their patron god and placed images of their gods and themselves around their holdings.  It was a power move.  However, the biblical writers adopted and transformed that practice when they proclaimed that God created all humans, male and female, in God’s image.  They obliterated all hierarchical social structures by which we find ways to view others as beneath us.  Rather, all of humanity, each one of us, is created to represent God’s Presence.

How, though, do we represent God?  Although one can reflect on various important aspects of being created in God’s image, I want to pick up on the main one implied by the immediate context of Genesis.  The narrative about God’s creative activity in Genesis 1:1-2:3 starts with unexplained chaos, elements that are contra life.  God breathes and initiates order in the midst of that chaos.  The result is that life is produced and sustained.³  Therefore, to be created in the image of God and to be given sovereignty over the realms of the earth (1:26-28) implies that we, too, are to bring order into the chaos and light into the darkness of our domain.  This is our calling.  Each day we face is about how we somewhere, somehow can represent God’s Presence and bring some order into our world’s manifold expressions of chaos.  (The book of Isaiah is replete with calls to walk in God’s light.)

Last Sunday was the beginning of Advent.  So, too, order coming into chaos is the message of Advent.  Once again, Light comes into the world.  Once again, the coming of that Light did not result in a perfect world for God’s people.  Rather, God entered into our suffering and darkness so that God might bring that Light to everyone (John 1:9).  And, so, too, Jesus calls us to manifest light in the midst of darkness, “Thus let your (plural) light (singular) shine in front of people so that they might see of you good deeds and they might honor your Father who is in heaven” (Matt 5:16).

Lord, there is chaos and darkness all around me, but I know you are there.  I know your Light.  Equip and enable me this day to represent you, to be your image, and to bring your Light and Order into someone’s chaos and darkness that they might honor you.  Amen.
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1. See the previous post, Nov. 22, 2024, “Misreadings in Genesis 1-3: Background.”
2. See Feb. 1, 2024, “Created in the Image of God: Forgotten Aspects.”
3. See Nov. 22, 2024, “Misreadings in Genesis 1-3: Order in the Midst of Chaos.”

MISREADINGS IN GENESIS 1-3: ORDER IN THE MIDST OF CHAOS(1)

 On a popular level it is believed that God created a perfect world, and that it was ruined by the “Fall.”  This is not what one finds when reading the opening Genesis texts closely.  A perfect world was not created; and, the “Fall” is not even a biblical term (except where editors who supply headings add the term).

Genesis 1 follows a typical ancient Near East (ANE) story pattern: a title/summary statement (1:1), the opening, pre-actions conditions that function like a stage setting (1:2), and the start of the action (1:3).²  One must understand the opening conditions (1:2).  The text presents three symbolic elements of chaos that all function contra life: a) land with indistinguishable features encased in b) watery deep and all in c) darkness.  Into that chaos, God’s creative activity brings order: initiating light and separating it from darkness (1:3-5), separating the watery deep into waters above the heavens/firmament and below it (1:6-8), and gathering the waters below to form dry ground (1:9-10).  As a result, order that can support life exists within chaos.

This start of creation with unexplained chaos is typical of ancient creation stories.  It makes perfect sense phenomenologically.  This is our life setting.  Human survival – the survival of all life – is about overcoming the forces of chaos that are contra life.  For example: if one wants to have a garden, one first brings order out of chaos, but then, also must constantly labor to prevent chaos from encroaching on the plants until they are harvested.

A problem with such a beginning to the Bible is that modern people do not like matters like unexplained initial chaos – or any problematic biblical text.  They want to make the Bible answer all our questions and fill in all the blanks.  Therefore, people have come up with speculations to provide answers.  (One popular answer to our text is: 1:1 is a first creation that was ruined (1:2) by the “fall of Satan” – a matter of misreading a text in Isaiah – which is followed by a second creation (1:3).  However, the reality is that our first biblical narrative begins with unexplained chaos.³  As a creation account, it made perfect sense to a person in the ANE as it does to many today who do not experience the conveniences of modernity.  That is life!

Application:
Although there are many possible points of application, one speaks loudly to me about the nature of God’s role in the difficulties of life.  What is sometimes called surd evil, the chaotic and destructive forces of our natural world, is something all humans face daily from birth to death to one degree or another, from weeds to hurricanes, from sniffles to cancer, etc.  Life is hard.  It is a constant struggle against chaos.  Most importantly to me is the realization that God’s activity in our lives does not suddenly make everything idyllic for us.  A Christian conversion does not create a life free from chaos.  Rather, like the portrayal in Genesis 1 in which God breaths order into chaos, so God breathes order into our daily chaos, holds it at bay with God’s life-giving Presence.  Moreover, biblical eschatological texts promise us a new heavens and earth (e.g. Isa 66:22; 2Pet 3:13; Rev. 21:1.  In our world, chaos and order co-exist, but Divine Order will ultimately defeat all chaos.

An example comes to mind.  A pastor friend had a physician sister who ridiculed him for his faith and vocation.  She thought of herself as a scientist who knew better than foolish Christians.  However, as she worked in a hospital among dying patients, she observed Christian patients who met their deaths differently than others.  They had a sense of peace, a kind of peace that she wanted.  Seeing the Presence of Order in the chaos of their deaths led to her conversion.

Lord, whenever I suffer defeat, depression, disappointment, or disease, enable me to know your Presence, to know your order and your peace in the midst of that chaos.  You are my Rock; all else is ephemeral.
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1. See the previous post “Misreadings in Genesis 1-3: Background.”
2. For those who know Hebrew discourse grammar, these three parts are set apart by their clause types.
3. A practical perspective from physics about the chaos of nature in our current world is that we could not exist without it.  The very forces of nature that result in suffering from the micro-level on up to earthquakes are also necessary for life.  A cosmos of total randomness could not support life, but neither could a cosmos of total, crystal-like order.  Life in our cosmos is due to a balance of chaos and order.