image – Perspectives

He who saves his country does not violate any law.

So wrote on social media one world leader who had 80% of the vote from the evangelical population. Yes it is obvious who I am writing about but my concern is not primarily for that geography but closer to home, as there is a mirror for here.

The clear danger signs are there in the post: ‘saves’, and the inference ‘above the law’. However quite some god-like qualities – or NOT! God saves and in the eyes of many is above any law, hence genocide, a commitment to back up violence to ensure that the land is ‘forever’ in the hands of those who are Jews. I wrote yesterday about the Canaanite woman and her child and Matthew’s deliberate (wrong) use of the term Canaanite to show Jesus response to those who were to be wiped out!

Jesus turns everything upside down, including some portions of Scripture. And he turns our view of God upside down… God is under the law of love – other than it is not a law for God, for GOD IS LOVE. And Jesus revealed how far that love was to go – love one’s enemies, for while we were yet sinners God sent Jesus to die.

Whether we think we have the right person in the White House, #10, Moncloa, Kiev, Moscow etc. the biggest issue for us to get straight on is who God is. All the time we see God able to act in ways we are not ‘allowed’ to we will turn a blind eye to all kinds of atrocities, and fearfully acts often done in the name of our God. (One time I think I should write on the sarcastic element in Romans 13 in Paul when he writes about the authorities being appointed by God… Paul writing while Nero, the madman, is in charge!)

The quote at the beginning is the final piece in the Imperial descent, with the implicit or explicit claim to divine authority. The Emperors of Rome were the ‘saviours’, they proclaimed themselves as bringing peace – with the temple to Peace (Pax) built on the field dedicated to war (Mars). (Again the sarcasm in Paul about the sword I do not think would have been missed by his readers.) The final piece was always the divination of the Emperor.

By all means we have to vote according to what we think is best. We might currently be divided over Zelensky’s appeal for a European army – without it what will Russia annex next (and sadly there is talk of annexing in other quarters too)… and with such an army where do we go? Not easy decisions, but there is no salvation of the human race and creation that would ever come from a violent god (small ‘g’), and there certainly is no salvation coming without aligning at some level to the image of God.

God made humanity in his/her image and we have ever since been making God in our image – hence the appeal of those who look like the (our) image of God.

Jesus is the one lens through which we see God, and see the image of the divine in true form.

Now I’m the king of the swingers rule
The jungle VIP
I’ve reached the top and had to stop
And that’s what botherin’ me
I wanna be a man, mancub
And stroll right into town
And be just like the other men
I’m tired of monkeyin’ around!
Oh, ooh-bee-doo,
I wanna be like you-hu-hu
I wanna walk like you
Talk like you
To-o-oo!

No biblical reference to the above… but I had this crazy thought, who do we want to be like?

‘I want to be like you when I grow up’. The advantage that some of us have is we have a lot of growing up to do, so I guess we can still adapt and change as to who we want to be like when we finally grow up! [Not sure if that was a confession or not!]

I am fascinated by the stories in Scripture, and the original Garden one seems to carry a lot of provocative thought within it – and of course it carries so much more weight for me when I read it as story, as original myth that illuminates so much of life. ‘Who do you want to be like?’ is one of those questions in there.

But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

I want to be like God… that must have been the appeal that was the hook. The internal response must have been something like, you’ve hit it in one, and if this fruit is the path. Bring it on!

If however we have a warped view of God, and by that I mean a warped view of who God is, not a warped view of what God can do, but of who s/he is we can end up in big trouble. Knowing good and evil, knowing all of that outside of relationship, outside of a life flow, outside of listening… having power like God… but without connecting to God as life… And so on.

A desire to be like God can sound so good, but to take an aspect of God and home in on it without realising WHO God is can be catastrophic.

Being in the form of God he kenosised himself.

OK rough translation, but my point is there is no ‘though / although / in spite of’ in the verse. Jesus does not do something un-godlike, something we would never expect God to do (and if we start there we are likely to take that wrong starting point to the finish point of the cross and have a God who forsakes the Son). There is no ‘in spite of’ but a big ‘being’ / because he is the express image of God he does what God does. He emptied himself, he went down.

The lie of eating the fruit of the tree is not tied primarily to disobedience, as if here is the law and you broke it so out of the Garden you go; it was that the fruit eating experiment was not an ’emptying myself’ path but a ‘filling me up’ path (and no pun intended). Eating the fruit did not change the task but for sure made the task a whole load harder:

By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread.

The task is still an expanding Garden to fill the whole world… just originally the boundaries were there just to be expanded and moved out; now we move out and find that the Garden hasn’t automatically come with us. Sweat, sweat… but we shall eat!

I am not writing about some path of suffering, of a ‘woe is me I have to go down for there is no worthiness in me’. There is no unworthiness in God… of course we do understand that there is an ongoing sense of suffering, of holding pain in his/ her heart by God, but another level ‘he suffered once for all…’ There is laughter, joy in heaven. There is so much that God does, and invites us to do as well, for the ‘works I do you will do… and greater’. But to focus on what God does, and I want to be like God doing what God does is to miss it some. I want to be like God… and there is a growth that can then take place, there is no overnight fruit that can be eaten and then – look at me I am now like God! As if!

The path is – from a place of security – learning that because we carry something, ultimately we carry the image of God. (There is the irony in Genesis 3 as we read, ‘you will be like God’, but God has already declared ‘image & likeness’; the temptation should have been ever so ineffective; the stories have so much ironic humour in them.) Carriers of the image, with all the seeds to be like God already placed within us we can pour that out taking on the form of a slave. Not becoming a slave with our heads down and all beat up, but appearing as a slave to those who look on who do not understand who God is, and appearing ever so human. Not super-human, human.

Response to temptation in the Garden?

Nah, I think you have missed the mark. I am already like God, the seed is in there, the fruit on offer really will not help, in fact it will throw me off course. So step back and watch the effect as I give my life away, and actually act God-like by emptying myself. Watch as there will be an endless flow from a source that does not dry up. (That is the wonder of emptying the infinite, the effect is simply a flow of life; we can see the flow of life, but miss how it happens.) I will resemble God a lot more, becoming more like God as I grow up. You might only see what God does, you might be impressed, but there is something much deeper.

He made known his ways to Moses,
his acts to the people of Israel (Ps. 103:7).

Tag: image

Saviours – do we recognise one

Who do you want to be like?

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