In Genesis 5, the Bible says that God created man in the image of God and then Adam had a son in his own likeness. The genealogy that follows in this text seems to be like an avalanche, started with one small rock rolling down a scree slope. God created Adam. Just one soul created, a single solitary stone, barely a pebble. Then Adam had a son in his likeness, Seth, and the small rock kicked loose another. And then another, and another. And then a the trickle became a rockfall and then a landslide. But as sin took hold, the image of God was covered with the ugliness of rebellion. The repeated refrain in Genesis 5 "and then he died" is a horrible drum beat, a deep bass pounding that carries the heaviness of God's sorrow for the corruption of man's sin. Adam lived 800 years and then he died. Seth lived 912 years and then he died. Enosh lived 905 years and then he died. Kenan lived 910 years and then he died. Without sin's corruption, the Bible would have read: Adam lived. Seth lived. Enosh lived. Kenan lived. Period.
God's image has never been erased from people, but thousands of years of ugliness and tarnish obscured what lay below the surface. Until Jesus. From Adam to Jesus, thousands of years passed, and millions of souls perished with the image of God marred. Not destroyed but certainly defaced, sometimes beyond recognition. Until Jesus. With the Second Adam, the image of God was restored, and in Jesus we see the fullness of the Godhead, we see the Truth, the Light, the Life. We see love, mercy, grace undiluted.
And with the redemption by Jesus' blood, our sin and stain is washed away, so that the image of God is restored in us. First in our justification, the one-time forgiveness and cleansing when the Holy Spirit filled us. And the image of God is being restored in us through our sanctification, the daily and life-long work of God perfecting us, continuing His work in our lives until our death. And finally, the image of God is ultimately restored with our glorification when we're given a new body, an incorruptible body free of sin and death. On that day, we will fully reflect the truth of God, we will shine and live in the light, our life will be eternal, and we'll enter completely into the fellowship of His love.
When we read the genealogies, there's an interesting progression. The first people lived a really long time, almost 1000 years! But eventually sin took hold, wormed it's way deep into our souls. But not only our souls got corrupted, but the depths of our genetic makeup. Into the adenine, guanine, thymine and cytosine of our DNA (the "seed of man"). And so the lives that once 10 centuries long were rapidly shortened from decay to 1 century (Gen 6:3). I picture a telescoping downward, so that the life God meant to be eternal, shrank to nearly a point, a tiny span cut short by death.
It's interesting that the blood of Jesus is able to cleanse our souls, but not able to cleanse our bodies. We're forgiven, but sin has penetrated so deeply into the physical stuff of our bodies, that the only fix is for God to destroy our bodies and give us new ones. Genesis 6:5 captures this:
God's image has never been erased from people, but thousands of years of ugliness and tarnish obscured what lay below the surface. Until Jesus. From Adam to Jesus, thousands of years passed, and millions of souls perished with the image of God marred. Not destroyed but certainly defaced, sometimes beyond recognition. Until Jesus. With the Second Adam, the image of God was restored, and in Jesus we see the fullness of the Godhead, we see the Truth, the Light, the Life. We see love, mercy, grace undiluted.
And with the redemption by Jesus' blood, our sin and stain is washed away, so that the image of God is restored in us. First in our justification, the one-time forgiveness and cleansing when the Holy Spirit filled us. And the image of God is being restored in us through our sanctification, the daily and life-long work of God perfecting us, continuing His work in our lives until our death. And finally, the image of God is ultimately restored with our glorification when we're given a new body, an incorruptible body free of sin and death. On that day, we will fully reflect the truth of God, we will shine and live in the light, our life will be eternal, and we'll enter completely into the fellowship of His love.
When we read the genealogies, there's an interesting progression. The first people lived a really long time, almost 1000 years! But eventually sin took hold, wormed it's way deep into our souls. But not only our souls got corrupted, but the depths of our genetic makeup. Into the adenine, guanine, thymine and cytosine of our DNA (the "seed of man"). And so the lives that once 10 centuries long were rapidly shortened from decay to 1 century (Gen 6:3). I picture a telescoping downward, so that the life God meant to be eternal, shrank to nearly a point, a tiny span cut short by death.
It's interesting that the blood of Jesus is able to cleanse our souls, but not able to cleanse our bodies. We're forgiven, but sin has penetrated so deeply into the physical stuff of our bodies, that the only fix is for God to destroy our bodies and give us new ones. Genesis 6:5 captures this:
The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.Even the very stuff of earth has been utterly defiled by sin (Leviticus 18:25, 28). So that God must burn the earth up, roll the heavens like a scroll, and make a new heavens and earth. It illustrates the terrible power of sin:
- The power of sin to corrupt all flesh for all time. I wonder if sin seeps into the minuscule regions of microscopic space between the atoms of our bodies. If we could "see" sin and peer into a cell of our thumb with a very high-powered microscope, would it be there, next to a gluon or muon, sneering back? (Out of necessity, Jesus escaped the contamination of sin by the virgin birth.)
- The power to corrupt the rest of creation. Creation groans to be free from the bonds of sin. The order of animals have been corrupted and made savage. Just like man must die in order to be fully redeemed, the natural creation must die, be consumed in order to be rid of sin and corruption.
But the power and horrible magnitude of sin, also magnifies the saving power and redemption of Jesus. By His blood I am made clean. But not just me, the mounding heap of sin of all people for all time was atoned for by his blood. Occasionally we hear in the news of atrocities beyond imagination. Acts that are entirely repulsive and sickening. But there are thousands of years where such acts have been committed millions of times. The mass of sin could not begin to be weighed. Yet Jesus bore it all on the cross. I think that we'll spend eternity trying to understand the agony Jesus endured on behalf of a fallen world He so loved.
By this sacrifice, the image of God is restored in us. By His love beyond compare we are born again in the likeness and image of God.
No comments:
Post a Comment