Why do you think God has
such an issue with idolatry?
Clearly, God is the only one
worthy of our worship. He was the only one worthy of our full allegiance. God
claims our lives as this one who is incomparable, as power and presence
unprecedented, as at once fearsome and loving, causing us to draw back in holy
dread lest we be destroyed, and also impelling us forward into yet closer
association and communion. But there is more to it than that. Listen to how
Genesis talks about a different kind of idol:
Then God said, “Let us make humanity in our image, in our
likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air,
over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move
along the ground.” So God created humanity in his own image, in the image of
God he created them; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:26-27
What does it mean to be made
in the image of God?
How does this image impact
the way we live, the things we say, and the things we pursue?
When God declared “let us
make humans in our image” He was, in a very real sense, creating "living
idols." Because no image can fully represent God, you and I are supposed
to represent God. Human beings are the closest of all the creatures of the
earth to God the Creator. There is only one kind of representation of deity:
the representation provided by a faithful human community bent on doing God's
will on earth. When the people of Israel
And so we, the human race,
created in God's image, become divine image-bearers. That's what Paul says in
Colossians 3: "Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old
self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in
knowledge in the image of its Creator." Colossians 3:9-10
We don't have images of God
because We are the image of the Creator when we live the right kind of life. We
were created to be beacons of His glory in the midst of creation—created as
reflections of the divine presence.
