The Distortion of the Divine Image
Original Sin (Part 3)
Greetings, Ruminators! I had a very busy month of April, and so this is my first post in over a month! Last time we made a distinction between human nature and sin nature. Human nature as created by God is and remains good, but attached to that good human nature we are born with a sin nature that has corrupted us like a disease. Sin attaches to us like a powerful parasite, crippling us at every turn. We identified the image of God as the clearest biblical expression of humanity’s enduring goodness. Turretin’s “essence of the soul” and Kuyper’s “essence of man” both appear to overlap the divine image found in the Scriptures.
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (Gen. 1:27)
This little verse is profound, packed full of meaning, and is certainly one the most vital statements from Scripture that helps us properly define what it means to be human. God gave us the capacity to commune with him by making us in his image. There is a spiritual dimension to our being that is God-given. The exact definition of the divine image has long been debated. What makes us different from the animals? Maybe it’s our souls. Maybe it also includes our deeper self-consciousness. Maybe it’s our capacity for rational thought. While these things do set us apart from the animals, it is not clear that they fully explain what it means that God made us according to his image.
We won’t attempt an exhaustive treatment of the divine image,1 but we can be sure of this: that in setting his image on us, God gave all humans value, dignity, and some sort of connection to him. God “crowned [us] with glory and honor” (Psalm 8:5). This value and connection given to us by God exceeds that of the plants and animals (Matt. 6:26; 10:31). Because all humans are made according to the divine image, the fulfillment of every human is communion with God. The problem is that humanity fell into sin and started down a path away from God and his purposes.2
Broken Mirrors & Distorted Images
God created humans good, and according to his image, but that image has been deeply broken and distorted by sin. We are all like broken mirrors, but the work of Jesus Christ in redemption and the Holy Spirit in sanctification is to restore humanity. Christians are being refashioned into better images of God one piece at a time like a mirror in the process of repair. Christians are becoming more and more like Jesus, who IS the image of God (Col. 1:15). The key here is that even after Adam sinned, humanity retained the divine image (Gen. 9:6; James 3:9). Everyone is still a mirror, but the effect of sin is that we are shattered to the core. And we cannot repair ourselves.
Therefore, when we talk about original sin and total depravity, we are not saying that humanity has lost the image of God. So far in this study of Original Sin, we have left much unsaid. We have not yet dealt with the major facets of WSC #18. But I thought it would be best to start with the negative: what do we not mean when we talk about sinful humanity?
Let’s recap.
- We do not mean that mankind is physically or even spiritually equated with their sin, although there are both physical and spiritual consequences for sin. Simply put: humans are not sin, though humans are sinful.
- We do not mean that humans are essentially evil in a manner that threatens either the reality of God’s good creation (1 Tim. 4:4), or the incarnation of Jesus Christ.
Human nature as created and sustained by God is good, but has been thoroughly corrupted by a sin nature.
If to be human is necessarily to be evil, then God could not have become human in Jesus Christ without being immediately corrupted by sin.
- We do not mean that mankind has lost the divine image. There remains at least a faint capacity to commune with God, a slender thread connecting every human to God. Every human has a God-given dignity even in their sin. This all helps us to understand how/why God “discloses himself in the heart and conscience of every individual (Job 32:8; 33:4; Prov. 20:27).”3
But then the question is, what exactly did humanity lose in the fall? We’ll answer that question next time.
The best treatments of the divine image I have come across include Created in God’s Image by Anthony A. Hoekema, Man: the Image of God by G.C. Berkouwer, and Dignity and Destiny by John F. Kilner.
Of course, not all humans reach this good destiny and fulfillment in everlasting communion with God. Nonetheless, that is what every human was created for, that is the God-given longing of every human heart. The reason not all attain this end goal is three-fold. God ordained that some of Adam’s sinful race would remain in their darkness (Rom. 9:21-23; Prov. 16:4). And the consequences of sin are alienation from God and increasing misery. Some people just dig their heels in when these consequences hit them, going from bad to worse (Rom. 1:18-32). But based on 2 Timothy 2:20-21 & John 5:40 we must equally affirm that those persons who remain in their sin and refuse to follow Jesus Christ have no one to blame but themselves for their rebellion. The sinful unwillingness to seek after God and find fulfillment in Christ is deeply rooted in the human heart. But God does not coerce anyone down the path of wickedness; sinful humanity freely moves down that path under its own sinful momentum. Only God the Holy Spirit can persuade and renew the human heart in effectual calling (Acts 13:48; 2 Tim. 1:9-10). But this does not eliminate the human responsibility to turn away from sin and towards God. No one has a valid excuse because sin is freely chosen, and the reality of God has been stamped throughout the entire created order. God has written his signature on all that he has created (Rom. 1:19-20).
Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 310.