So at the risk of being perhaps a little non-relatable to some, maybe, I'm gonna bring an example from a popular film series, The Lord of the Rings. So when Gandalf discovers the ring, he goes to an ancient library to search ancient texts, and he looks at what these ancient texts have to say. And the only reason I bring that up is because When we look at modern day issues, we go back to an ancient source because the older is better. The older is better. Also, when Aslan defeats the White Witch in the Narnia series, he says there's a deeper magic that the witch didn't know about, an older magic. So it just kind of illustrates the fact that in Even in epic literature, they kind of have a sense of the fact that the older is better. The older has priority. So when we as Christians, we have an ancient text in the Bible and we look at it as having more authority than the most recent viewpoints. We look to something old and ancient. And actually, there are theologians who make it their life work to find fresh perspectives of looking at the Bible and Sometimes they divide the Word of God into the Scripture and to the Word of God, which they kind of see as you encounter it in kind of a mystical sense. And that's really unnecessary. When we look at the Word of God, we look at it as a complete perfect representation of God's will for us, something that He expresses to us in a unity that is completely God's Word, and it's inerrant, and it's infallible. In Genesis, we find the simple declaration of the fact that mankind was created in the image of God, male and female, He created them. He created them with inherent beauty and significance as mediators of the world to mediate the creator's blessings on each other and on his creation. They could walk with God and call him Father. God did not condescend in speaking to them. He did not take on limited form and communicate in an imperfect way just because he was using human language. He is a God who speaks. He is a God who communicates and fellowships with us. Church history has often tried to break down the image of God into one point, into something that is really specific, like man's rationality or his goodness or obedience to God or his soul. And I really appreciate Men like Calvin, John Calvin, who saw it as a unity, kind of took an all of the above approach. And there are others who do that. Really, you can't limit the image of God down to a specific part of who we are. We represent him functionally and materially. But focusing on the reformers, Luther was much more skeptical about the Reflection of the Trinity being found in any part or parts of people, he shied away from narrowing a specific part of the human form or constitution as that which most typified the image of God. Rather, he asserted that it had been mostly lost. due to the fall, but Calvin and Luther agreed that it could be reformed, remade, the portrait could be remade, and we could represent God anew when we come to Christ in salvation, when we know him through his gospel, that Jesus died for our sins, was buried, and rose again the third day. When we believe that, and we are made new. John Calvin thought holistically about the image of God pertaining to a return to the mental and spiritual and natural attributes of the whole person when in the garden. He believed that a person could not specifically point to one part of a human being and say that such and such is the actual point of God's image. Rather, more comprehensively, when in rationality and in spirituality, the whole person showed characteristics of the original righteousness from before the fall. That was when he or she was more like their original design purpose, that is the image of God. And there have been more recent studies, more, Scholars that kind of try to divide form and function they talk about the physical part of man is not the image of God, but functionally he is and Bart talked about being in becoming and I think that that I think he related that somehow to that concept, but really I see that as unnecessary and I think a lot of a lot of more legitimate Bible students would, or scholars would say similar things. The themes of Genesis 1 and 2 come from different sources, or a lot of people say, these same scholars say that they came from different sources that were piecemealed together. So you have the Elohim of Genesis 1 and Yahweh of Genesis 2, and they somehow say that these came from different sources. But really, the Elohim of Genesis 1 and the Yahweh of Genesis 2, same God, different emphasis. We need to take a unitary approach to it and say that in Genesis 1, Elohim, he is the God who alone creates. Elohim is the theme of Genesis 1 because he alone is almighty God who gives life. We tend to cheapen the idea of God, but he alone is the all-powerful, ultimate supernatural being in the universe. Of all the natural and supernatural beings, in the world, God transcends all of them. He alone is worthy of worship. In creation, he is so ultimate that he creates the lights in the heavens, and he doesn't even name them because the ancient world tended to worship the heavenly bodies, but God says that he isn't even going to name them. He alone is God. They are nameless and mean nothing next to him and his glory. And the second narrative Genesis 2, Elohim is his name. God creates Adam, I mean, Yahweh. He uses the name Yahweh. God creates Adam and Eve and gives them purpose and identity. He places his image in the midst of the garden, and at this point, creation is very good, it says. An image in ancient times was meant to represent a person or a god. An image was made to represent a likeness. So when the ancients created an image of a god, it was meant to represent that being. Likewise, Adam and Eve were designed physically and spiritually to represent Yahweh in a tangible way. The text uses God's covenant name in Genesis 2, because Genesis 2 is a snapshot of day seven in the Lord's Sabbath rest, and he is a covenant god who is in fellowship with his creatures. He relates to them. Jesus said, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. The rest which God wants to return creation to is the Sabbath rest of day seven, which is magnified in Genesis chapter two. It's kind of, it's the emphasis, all of Genesis two is about day seven and God's Sabbath rest, where God stopped not because he was tired and needed to recuperate, which is oftentimes what we kind of infer because that's oftentimes the way we treat the idea of Sabbath. But because God is perfected in day seven, he perfected all his work and he stopped to enjoy and relish in the complete fruit of what he had done. Sabbath rest was supposed to continue on forever as we related perfectly to God and to each other in fellowship and we did his work to build and cultivate the earth in a way that fully enjoyed God's grace and goodness. What is man's chief end? Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever, and that was what we were intended to do. The creation of Genesis 2, 1 through 3 stands opposed to the fall of Genesis 3, 1 through 6. Genesis 2 is emphasizing satisfaction and completion, whereas Genesis 3 is talking about shame and ruin. But our purpose after the fall is to reform that original Sabbath, and not in the sense that we actually are able to do that in ourselves, but Christ has instituted a new creation. The purpose of humanity is to find their worship directed towards Yahweh as he intercedes in human affairs to reveal himself and his plan. Just because Sabbath is a time of rest, we do not need to confuse this with the idea that the Pharisees had of doing no work whatsoever, or of ritualistically abstaining from those things which defiled the day, as if it was ritualistic. Sabbath rest should characterize us in a spiritual sense, and we should do the work of God the work that honors him, the work that represents him and blesses him. Jesus did miracles on the Sabbath because he was Lord of the Sabbath. He wanted to show that he was Lord of this rest. He was a mediator for bringing about this Sabbath rest. He was going to form a new creation and we are the first fruits of that. This is Sabbath rest as it was originally intended to be. Can you imagine how dynamic our presence would be on this earth if we as Christians were more characterized by a restful spirit and a confidence in God's presence and the peace that we have with him, the lack of anxiety? Can you imagine how dynamic our presence would be if we relied on God and trusted him and did his will? So why do we meet on Sunday instead of Saturday? Because Jesus rose on the first day of the week to institute a new creation. And James 1, as I said, says that we are first fruits among his creatures. We are a new creation. So Genesis 3, the fall of man is simply what Adam and Eve would value as what was at stake. They had the choice of deciding to value obedience to Yahweh, or they had the choice of choosing to value what the serpent offered, being like God, knowing good and evil by doing what Yahweh had forbidden. It is important to mark out the point that the garden was the place where God told his image bearers to cultivate and to keep it. It is a sacred space and culminates with the act of when God sets his image in this temple that is earth that he has just designed. Humanity, therefore, is to cultivate it and expand it, expand the limits of that throughout the whole earth so that the whole earth is meant to worship God. I repeat that the whole point is to make the whole earth a temple of worship to Yahweh with humankind as his image in the midst of it. It is critical to see the Garden of Eden, the picture of God as a portrait that was perfectly placed and situated as male and female within Eden. a paradise where his and her goal was to cultivate and increase the boundaries of that sphere. Each had their own goals that were characteristic of their gender, and each was fulfilled and in harmony with their purpose before the Lord as they walked with him in the garden and enjoyed the rest of harmony and completeness without anxiety or doubt. But they were portraits of God. They were representations of his likeness and image. They were stamps of his bearing and character. They were representations of his quality, and they were to increase and multiply and fill the earth with his image. However, as portraits of his likeness, they decided to step out and define good and evil for themselves, and this separated them from the garden where they were meant to represent Yahweh. They were cut off from their purpose and isolated from God. They marred the image that they were meant to bear, and the portrait was ruined. So they were cursed in Genesis 3 to work the land by sweat and toil, but the earth would no longer yield to them as it had. They were cursed in certain things that pertained to their individual responsibilities. The woman was cursed in childbearing and her relationship with her husband. She would desire to manipulate him and he would be overbearing towards her. But in the midst of this, there was hope for the seed of the woman that would ultimately overcome the seed of the serpent and crush the serpent's head. And the serpent was made to slither on the ground instead of walk on all fours, because he was to be perpetually reminded, this is almost a mascot for Satan, and in Revelation, he's seen as a dragon, so it's kind of his mascot, and the serpent slithers on the ground now because it's a constant reminder that one day, the Messiah's gonna stomp on that head and he's gonna crush him. Throughout the narrative of Genesis, you can trace this battle and interplay between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. Cain kills Abel, Esau hates Jacob, and Joseph is sold by his brothers, but in all things, God is sovereignly at work to make the seed of the woman overcome. The image of God is mentioned explicitly in Genesis 1, and also it's mentioned where, it's more implied where Eve begets Seth, or Adam begets Seth after his own image, so that that image theme is continued. And then in Genesis 9, God warns that whoever sheds man's blood by, by man his blood shall be shed because he is created in the image of God. So this is an example of the institution of government. So in between, so where you have this image talk in Genesis one through nine, and then you leave that and you go through the rest of the Old Testament narrative, you don't really have explicit times where the Bible mentions the image of God. Not explicitly. So it isn't brought up again until Jesus, who is the image of God par excellence. He is the perfect representation of what the image of God should be. He is exactly what we should have been. He is exactly just the perfect representation of the Lord. So what you have in between Jesus and these sections in Genesis are a problem with idol worship, false images, false image worship, and it's a sin problem. And constantly you have this battle between Yahweh showing that he alone is God and the false worship of the Canaanites or the Egyptians in the Exodus, Elijah's miracles on Mount Carmel and elsewhere in his dealings with Baalism. The image of God, excuse me, to get a bigger perspective, it is important to note that the image of God theme is central, and that it is to be brought about in the person of Jesus, and that he is to receive the worship. So I want to point out the centrality of worship to the image problem. We were made to image God because we are inherently purposed for worship and reflection of who God is. Every human being invests him or herself in what she or he values. We all value things or ideas or people. We talk about what we value, spend five minutes with somebody, asking them questions or listening to them speak, and you'll find out what they value. Some value their children, some value music, some value good things, some value bad things, but none of us should value anything more than our creator whose image we bear as his representatives, using things like music or our relationships to bring value and honor to him. This is our intended purpose, and when we are sanctified to do this by the Holy Spirit who regenerates our hearts, then we are getting back to Eden in more or less a metaphorical sense now, but the end of the end of the world is meant to get back to Edenic paradise where God is God and we are his representatives. God is in the process of recovering history back to its intended purpose by redeeming for himself a part of humanity across time to worship him one day on this earth when history as we know it will end. This is our return to Sabbath rest. When we image God in a practical sense or even in private, when we are pure in heart, we are returning to this goal or this purpose of what we were made to be. All of our purpose and meaning is found in worship. Our original intent was to reflect Yahweh and represent him as caretakers in his temple in Eden, to mediate his blessing and care on others all around us. All this falls under worship because it is the value given to what God values and the care towards what he cares about. The Sabbath rest of day seven had no end. The fact that we are now fallen shows that this world is not right. Death and pain and things like COVID-19 are abnormal and alien to God's intentions for us. If you want to be a small part in the Lord's kindness and goodness, then you must come to the second Adam. In the first Adam all fell, but in the second Adam, that image is restored. The portrait is remade. When someone like you or me works a job that provides a practical service outside of ministry, well, immediate ministry, or direct ministry, I should say, because all of our works are ministry, the point is to fulfill our intended human purpose. If it is done in the name of Jesus, then it is sanctified and good. Take value in your work and your sweat. God has given us value in the things we build. We weld, we construct, we heal, we teach, we care, we feed. We do things to build civilization as a reflection of cultivating the earth. But all is for nothing if you do not do this for Jesus, who is the one who will restore all things in the end and employ us as workers in his new earth if we have repented and sought forgiveness. Worship is a reflection of all that we do and value. It is what gives meaning and significance. And God is seeking such people to worship him in spirit and in truth. So what was the temptation to Eve? It was do this and you will be like God. So was the serpent lying? And I think, I think in some sense he was telling the truth. Because they were in the image of God. They were already in the image of God. They were perfect and holy and pure. And being like God isn't like being in the image of God. Being like God is just like kind of being like him. So it's like Satan's trying to tell them to turn in their sports car for a free lemon. It's not the same. It's not a fair exchange. Eve left, when Eve told, let's turn to Genesis 2 real quick, or Genesis 3. Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, indeed, has God said you shall not eat from any tree of the garden? The woman said to the serpent, from the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat. So she left out a word, it was any. And God said you could eat of any of the trees of the garden. And Eve left out that word. So you see, in just a small way, just the omission of that word, she's questioning God's generosity. So what was the original temptation? The original temptation was to question that God is a generous, kind, loving father. That was the original temptation. Instead, and we do this all the time, we think God is miserly and he only cares about giving us specific rules and he only loves us when we complete those rules and fulfill those rules, but God loves us and God forgives us freely with pure and unmerited favor. And he does this all the while giving us rules and laws to follow because he loves us like a parent does their child, telling us what we should and shouldn't do so that we can conform to the image of his son, so that we can become like him and have the benefits of knowing him. So what is the difference between legalism and antinomianism? Legalism is somebody who strictly wants—they see God as this miserly person who only cares about fulfilling certain rules, and they seek to follow God conforming to a strict set of rules. because that's how they think they please him. And somebody who lives anti-law, lives against God, thinks the same thing about God, that's all he cares about, but they're gonna choose to reject that and follow their own way. Both of them make the same mistake. Legalism, legalists and people who don't care to follow the law both make the same mistake and they miss out on a loving, tender, heavenly father who loves us and gives us his law as a means of blessing us. Jesus said that the law is fulfilled in loving God and loving your neighbor. The gospel reconciles us to God because we're all sinners. Jesus died on the cross for our sins so that we could we could know him and be new creations, be this first fruit that James 1 talks about, first fruits of a new creation. So I would challenge you to be focused on the gospel, be focused on the fact that God reconciles us to himself in the cross. that Jesus Christ is the exact imprint of his nature and that we were made to image him. We were made to be like him. That is what it means to get back to this principle, to this image of God principle in Genesis. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you for these folks that are here to gather and listen to your word. I pray, Lord, that we would be faithful. I pray that we would live out this truth, that we would represent you on this earth, that we would bless others, minister to others, and bless your name and honor you, that we would know that you're not a miserly father. You are pure and loving and generous, and you bless us in immense ways that we could never understand. Lord, I just pray that we would truly love you back and know that you were with us in all things. Jesus said he will be with us. Thank you for this truth. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.