The fact that we are “made in God’s image” sets us apart from every other creature on earth (Gen. 1:27). Today, Barry Cooper reminds us of the extraordinary privilege we have of being made in the image of the triune God.

value. We came from somewhere significant and we are headed toward a destination of importance.

Mechanistic determinists and hyperevolutionists say that the human animal is the highest advance up a scale of life that emerged out of primordial slime. Humanity, the grownup germ, is the result of accidental cosmic forces, and the destiny of the human race is at the mercy of these indifferent, impersonal forces. This view does not leave us in total darkness about the goal of human existence, nor does it point us in the direction of significance. What began in the slime is destined for organic disorganization or disintegration.

The mechanistic view ofers no understanding of the meaning of life. Attempts have been made to develop a sense of mechanistic ethics. All have failed. Why should germs be moral? If I am a cosmic accident, why should I care about you? Why prefer life over death? What is so special about life? Why should a human being be valued over a stone?

Modern versions of secular humanism embrace this mechanistic or evolutionary description of our origins, and yet they do not follow through to the inevitable conclusion. Yes, all forms of humanism share a concern for humanity and its well-being, but apart from God there can be no lasting, permanent foundation for such a concern. Both Christianity and humanism seek the healing of estranged relationships, and both honor the dignity of the human being. However, their bases for dignity are radically different. The Christian sees the horizontal, interpersonal relation as inseparable from the vertical relationship with God.

To remain at the human, horizontal level is to neglect the path toward eternal human significance. To establish human dignity without acknowledging the God of creation, the humanist must act in an arbitrary and irrational fashion. If humans rose by chance from chaos, why should dignity be ascribed to them? Since the advent of the Christian faith, humanism has constantly incorporated Christian values and ethics while ripping the heart out of Christianity’s theological context. Yet that context is the only reason the values and ethics make sense. As a representative human, I resent the moral demands if someone tells me I “ought” to do this or that, without giving me any reason. Humanists have for no reason made dignity and value the “givens” of human experience. To be sure, our experience agrees with their assessment. It screams that life is valuable and that each person is a creature of immense worth and dignity. That scream is hollow, however, if it comes from a germ with no destiny but death.

Christianity teaches that human dignity is rooted in the holiness of God; it reflects God’s dignity. That is because human beings are made in the image of God (Gen. 1:27). The Creator, who possesses infinite value and worth, has stamped us with a value and dignity that is derivative of His own value and dignity. Lose that idea, and you have lost any transcendent, foundational reason to treat human beings any differently than you treat

The New Oxford Annotated Bible, third edition, says the following in its “Introduction to the Pentateuch”: For example, it has long been noted that chs 1–3 of Genesis twice narrate the creation of the world. People are created first in 1:27 . . . and then again in 2:7 . . . . Furthermore, the second creation account does not simply mirror or repeat the first, but differs from the first both in outline and in detail. (p. 5)

One often hears the idea that there are two creation accounts in Genesis 1–2, almost as if it were intuitively obvious. There are certainly differences between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. But the question is whether we have here two separate accounts of creation that have been joined together by some much later editor, or whether we have one unified account with different emphases. The former view came from the skeptical scholarship that arose from the Enlightenment. The latter has, for millennia, been the view of the church.

There are differences between Genesis 1 and 2. Perhaps the most apparent difference between the two chapters has to do with the creation of man. Chapter 1 seems to say that man and woman were created simultaneously: “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). In chapter 2, the man is created first (Gen. 2:7) and, later, the woman is created (Gen. 21–22). While this appears to be a significant difference between the two passages, it is not necessarily so.

The matter of plant life is a less noticeable but more difficult difference between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. In Genesis 1, God created plants on the third day (Gen. 1:11–12). In chapter 2, it appears that man was created before the plants (Gen 2: 5–8), thus putting the creation of plants on the sixth day.

The answer to this difficulty lies in recognizing the proper relationship between chapter 1 and chapter 2. Rather than seeing these two chapters as competing accounts of creation, the reader should see them as complementary. An illustration may be helpful at this point. In the days before Google and Apple maps replaced road maps, a map of a state would show the roads in the state as a whole. In addition, there would be insets that showed more detailed maps of major cities in the state. Genesis 1 is like the road map of the entire state. Genesis 2 is like the inset, focusing on a particular city.

In this case, Genesis 1 summarizes the entirety of creation. Genesis 2 focuses on the sixth day and all that is related to it. Genesis 2 is primarily about the creation of man and the garden of Eden. This reading makes the solution clear. Genesis 1:11–12 refers to the creation of the plant world, while Genesis 2:5–8 mentions the plants associated with the garden of Eden. At the beginning of the sixth day,

our thinking, prayer, and interaction as we engage with people.

The people around us are “fearfully and wonderfully made” in God’s image (Ps. 139:14; Gen. 1:27). People are the pinnacle of creation, and God has sent us to meet them. We can get to know them by asking friendly questions. What we’re seeking to do here is to simply find out about their lives. We’re not asking spiritual questions at this point. Rather, we are authentically getting to know them better. These are “level one” questions: Where are they from? What are their hobbies? What are their passions? What is their family like? What is their work like?

God gave them their skills, temperament, intellect, and experience. He uniquely wired them. He sent Christ to die for sinners like us and like them, and He’s put us in their lives. May they see the excitement in our eyes as we realize the big story we’re in together.

Second, we don’t just value meeting people, we also want to serve them. We serve them not only because they’re made in God’s image, but also because Jesus came to serve and we want to follow in His footsteps: “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). Everyone we meet is of great value to God because He created them in His image and sent His Son into the world to die so that whoever believes may have eternal life.

In an age where life is about me, my needs, my feelings, and my fulfillment, where we are absorbed by our phones and personal algorithms, our kindness toward and care for others makes us stand out as we shine as lights in the world (Phil. 2:15).

Third, cross the pain-line by asking a spiritual question. There is discomfort in doing so because the other person may find it offensive. So, as we ask this question, we must remember our identity in Christ. Whether we are accepted or rejected does not make us more or less valuable. What makes us valuable is that we are made in God’s image.

By asking a “level two” question, we see if there is any spiritual hunger in the person God has placed before us. We might want to preface the question with something like, “This friendship is really important to me, so I’m a bit nervous to say this because it can offend some people, but can I ask, ‘Do you celebrate Easter?’ or ‘Do you ever think about spiritual things?’ or ‘Where do you find hope amid conflict and change?’”

In the Gospels, Jesus asks over two hundred questions. What spiritual question would you like to ask that neighbor whom God has placed in your life?

In Matthew 10:14, Jesus says, “If anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake

More than fifteen hundred years have passed since the fall of the Roman Empire, yet the moral decay and indulgence that contributed to its collapse continue to echo through Western civilization today. The Roman statesman and orator Cicero once proclaimed, “History is the teacher of life” (Historia magistra vitae est). While proponents of so-called “progressive” lifestyles celebrate their cause, history reminds us that what is labeled as progressive is often regressive.

This regression, though troubling, is not entirely surprising. What is truly alarming, however, is the eagerness of the visible church to adopt secular ideas about sexuality, even celebrating them as virtuous. Ordaining “gay pastors” was once thought to be confined to mainline denominations—surely, a Reformed church would never host an LGBTQ-affirming conference. Or would it? In the midst of such widespread confusion, God’s light shines in the darkness.

To understand biblical sexuality, it’s essential to consider both the biblical proscriptions—God’s “no”—and the biblical prescriptions—God’s “yes.” A comprehensive understanding of what the Bible teaches about sexuality requires a well-rounded and thoughtful theology on the subject. At its core, a proper theology of sexuality must begin with the foundation of marriage. In fact, one of the most compelling defenses of biblical sexuality is presented by Jesus Himself in the gospel of Mark.

From the beginning of creation:  “God made them male and female.” “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. (Mark 10:6–9)

Jesus responds with a sharp rebuke, condemning the practice of ending marriages for trivial reasons and exposing the hardness of their hearts (Mark 10:5). Rather than drawing from the many passages that affirm the lifelong nature of the marriage covenant, He points to the foundational example—the union of Adam and Eve. This Edenic prototype underscores the sacred and covenantal essence of marriage as God intended.

Marriage is a sacred institution created by God, making Him the One who unites man and woman as one. The command “Let not man separate” reminds us that divorce contradicts God’s design and intentions “from the beginning.” It is not for humans to undo what God has joined together. To intentionally forsake the marriage bond without biblical grounds is, in essence, an act of defiance and an attempt to usurp God.

If Jesus’ sole intention was to reaffirm the unity of marriage, referencing “one flesh” from Genesis 2:24 would have sufficed. Yet, He deliberately includes the binary distinction of “male and female” from Genesis 1:27—a detail that may initially seem unrelated. However, it is deeply relevant: the institution of marriage is inseparable from the biblical framework of male and female.

Jesus tethers the creation of “male and female” (Gen. 1:27) to the creation of the “one flesh” marital union (Gen. 2:24). This beautifully illustrates that God both differentiates male and female at creation and unites one male and one female in marriage. Thus, when God made male and female, He already had in mind the marital union that followed.

Genesis 1:27 carries profound implications for marriage and humanity that cannot be overlooked. This verse not only establishes the reality of sexual differentiation but, more importantly, serves as the foundation for the doctrine of the *imago

asserts)? Or did we fall so far that now we’re unable to will true spiritual good apart from the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit (as classical Protestantism asserts)?

Moreover, the doctrine of total depravity, which has come to define the Reformed understanding of sin, wasn’t even introduced at these debates between Luther and the pope, though Luther likely would have agreed with the doctrine. It was a century after the Reformation, at the Synod of Dort, that internal debates among Reformed churches in the Netherlands led to the doctrine of total depravity being systematically codified. These debates, like the debates between Protestants and Roman Catholics a century earlier, centered around how sin had affected man’s being made in the image of God.

Arminians at the Synod of Dort posited that mankind wasn’t affected wholly by sin; rather, we were affected only partially. The Reformed responded that sin has wholly affected our every faculty. Sin goes deeper than we all might realize; we cannot fully trust our minds, wills, hearts, souls, and bodies anymore, for they are prone to sin. Man can still achieve a measure of relative good (e.g., caring for our families, helping our community, being honest at work) apart from regeneration. However, apart from grace we don’t do these things unto God’s glory, so they are not spiritual goods. God’s common, non-saving grace remains in effect, yes, because man is created in God’s image. But his sin goes deep—in short, he’s totally depraved.

The Image of God

Today, we are five hundred years removed from these debates. The average individual on the street often has no inkling of what it means to be made in the image of God, much less any subtle theological understanding of just how much sin has affected our being created in His image. The very foundation for total depravity—the assumption that we’re created in God’s image—has been eroded. Witness the ongoing debates in our culture about human dignity: whether babies in utero have rights; whether women are women and men are men; whether sexual exploitation and pornography are empowering or not. Christians, as a result, may be tempted to forget about our being made in the image of God as well. And if we do, we will also forget what total depravity actually means, and we will be caught on the horns of a false dilemma: How can we say that man has inherent dignity (the image of God) and yet at the same time he is a terrible sinner—worthless (total depravity)? Isn’t he either the former or the latter?

The answer to this false dilemma is simply “yes.” We are both. Man is far above all other creatures (Ps. 8:5); he is “wonderful” (Ps. 139:14) and “beautiful” (Prov. 20:29). No other creature has the honor of being created in the image of God (Gen. 1:27). But he has also fallen very far: Their throat is an open grave;    they use their tongues to deceive. (Rom. 3:13) All we like sheep

worth more than all human wisdom, power, and wealth (Jer. 9:23–24). God uses His Word to set us free and make us holy, as He is holy (John 8:31–32; John 17:17).

How Can We Read Theology in a Helpful Way? The responsibility to make theology helpful does not rest solely on the author. The reader has work to do as well. Here are some tips on how to make the best use of systematic theology.

Knowledge tends to puff us up with arrogance, but if our motive is love we will aim to build up other people (1 Cor. 8:1).

Look up Scripture references. Read them in context. Be like the Bereans, who were “examining the Scriptures daily” to verify what they heard (Acts 17:11).

Don’t just read about God; read in the presence of God. Seek God as you study. Feed your soul with His glory and grace (Ps. 63:5–8). Love God with “all your mind” (Mark 12:30).

Depend on Him to open your mind to understand the Word (Luke 24:45).

We read some books quickly for tidbits of insight. But a good systematic theology is worth reading carefully.

You are not God. Therefore, it is foolish to think that you can fully understand God (Ps. 145:3). But you are a human being created in the image of God (Gen. 1:27). Therefore, by Christ’s grace you can know God (1 John 5:20).

Frequently offer God praise and thanksgiving for what He is revealing about Himself (Ps. 119:164). That makes theology a foretaste of heaven!

In the beginning, God created. He made the earth, sea, heavens, creatures, and He formed male and female. God did not have to create life. He didn’t need humans to inhabit the earth. But He chose to breathe life into us.

Don’t let the familiarity of this diminish its significance. Psalm 8:4 asks the question, “What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” And we should all wonder the same. As we know, God is holy and majestic. We agree with David in Psalm 8 that when we look at the heavens and see God’s handiwork, we are perplexed by His love and kindness to sinful man. God’s love for mankind cost Him His Son. Jesus died for those who would believe.

This awareness, an awareness of the love, kindness, and goodness of God toward people—His creation—ignites a different kind of conviction and fire in the Christian heart. If God created man, both male and female, in His image (Gen. 1:27), then shouldn’t we love the people He created? If Jesus would not discriminate between the types of sinners He would die for—people from every tribe, tongue, and nation; poor, orphan; men and women; and more—shouldn’t we be willing to view all men and all of life as immensely valuable?

These are some of the big questions with which we must wrestle when considering the pro-life position. Being pro-life is often exclusively linked to being anti-abortion. It isn’t less than that, but it’s so much more. The pro-life position encompasses all of life. It recognizes that babies are created and important in the womb, but it also upholds the dignity of every person throughout every stage of life regardless of disabilities (Ps. 139:13). Being pro-life means remembering the orphans and widows (James 1:27) as well as the elderly (Acts 20:35; 1 Tim. 5:1–8). Being pro-life also informs our views on suicide and assisted suicide. To be pro-life is to hold to a belief that all of life matters.

Ultimately, being pro-life is to obey the law summarized in the two great commands: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. . . . You shall love your neighbor as yourself “ (Matt. 22: 37–39).

I believe there’s an interesting example of what Jesus is saying about our love for our neighbor in how we approach social media. The increased use of social media has ushered the word narcissist into our daily language. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t see the term referenced. Quite honestly, most people seem to be throwing stones: You are a narcissist if you take a picture of yourself—a “selfie”—and post it onto social media. You are a narcissist if you post anything about yourself at all. Don’t express your feelings because if you do, you are a narcissist. Although I don’t think it’s good or right to throw stones and judge others, I do think

Lewis Grizzard, the famous Atlanta newspaper columnist, wrote frequently of his ill-fated marriages, divorces, and remarriages. Eventually, he said he was going to give up on marriage altogether, that there wouldn't be another Mrs. Grizzard. "I'm just going to find a woman who hates me and buy her a house," he quipped. Grizzard's lament elicited laughter, despite the obvious tragedy of his relational life, because it rang true to an American culture increasingly rife with gender wars. The universal tensions between men and women sometimes show up in their most innocuous form in jokes from women about men who fail to clean up after themselves around the house, or from men about women who can't remember to keep their cell phones turned on. But the gender tensions run into much darker territory.

The divorce culture around us is the most obvious sign of men and women in conflict with one another, as marriages are ripped asunder and the custody of children fought over in law courts in virtually every major city on the planet. Even beyond that, many reverberations of the sexual revolution are built on self-protecting mechanisms for men and women who, at best, don't trust one another and, at worst, want to exploit one another. Divorce courts and abortion clinics, porn sites and chick flicks— these all reveal men and women who, far from merging into some sort of unisex utopia, find it impossible to give themselves fully to the other.

That's what the biblical concept of manhood and womanhood is about. The biblical notion of certain creational distinctives of what it means to be a man or a woman isn't really about "who's in charge," and it certainly isn't about "who's the best." King Jesus dismisses such categories— though common in our commercial, corporate, and athletic spheres—in favor of a newer sense of servant-dominion in His kingdom.

The chief analogy used for the male/ female relationship—specifically in terms of the marital one-flesh union—is that of head and body. This is because, the Bible maintains, we are not genderless persons who happen to have been placed in arbitrary male and female bodies. Sexual differentiation isn't simply a matter of genital architecture. From the very beginning, Scripture teaches, humanity is created "male and female" (Gen. 1:27; Mark 10:6).

Sometimes Christians will argue that male/female distinctions are obliterated by the new covenant. Doesn't the Apostle Paul tell us that there is neither "male nor female" in Christ (Gal. 3:28)? Certainly, in terms of inheritance, there is no distinction. Men and women alike— not just firstborn sons—share in Jesus' identity and, thus, in His inheritance of the universe. But Scripture doesn't teach that this differentiation is in every way gone—in fact, the Bible directly applies some aspects of God's commands to men and some to women. Masculinity and femininity are not aspects of the fallen order to be overcome; they are instead part of what God declared from the beginning to be "very good" (Gen. 1:31).

In fact, the mystery of the gospel explains to us

Richard Dawkins, based at Oxford University, officially operates under the title of Charles Simonyi Reader and Professor of the Public Understanding of Science. Unofficially, he may be the best-known atheist in the world, partly as the result of his best-selling book The God Delusion, published in 2006. With these credentials, we should expect Dawkins to answer the title of this article with a resounding yes, and he does not disappoint us. In a 1999 BBC Television programme Soul of Britain, he stepped up to the plate and let fly with his trademark panache: “I think science really has fulfilled the need that religion did in the past, of explaining things; why we are here, what is the origin of life, where did the world come from, what life is all about…science has the answers.”

If Dawkins is right, religion is an outdated indulgence and God an irrelevant myth. But is he right? The simplest way to answer that question is to test each of his four claims to see whether they can be substantiated.

Science explains why we are here.

In context, the word why can have one of two meanings: either “How did we get here?” or “What is our purpose in being here?” As the final claim touches on the second of these, let us look at the first — and Dawkins has no doubt as to the answer: “It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is stupid, ignorant, or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that).” Having dispatched all opposition with a single sentence, he then endorses the idea that Homo sapiens is the state-of-the-art product of a vast sequence of tightly related species and kinds, beginning with the first living cell and moving on through invertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, furry quadrupeds, and ape-like mammals.

All atheists are evolutionists, and this is the default setting for the model they promote. If they are right, we should expect to find our planet teeming with fossils of intermediate life forms — but they are simply not there. Writing about such evolutionary links, Colin Patterson, senior palaeontologist at the British Museum of Natural History says, “I will lay it on the line. There is not one such fossil for which one might make a watertight argument.” On the other hand, if God created fully formed and separate kinds, we should expect to find the remains of countless fully formed specimens, all without any apparent ancestors — and that is exactly what we do find.

In the early chapters of Genesis the creation narrative comes to a climax with the words: “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27), a statement that resonates with all we know about our unique and astonishing properties. If the full text of Encyclopædia Britannica had arrived on earth from outer space it would be regarded as unchallenged proof of

his glory.

In addition to lexical considerations like those above, Bible teachers also often talk about capacities, functions, and/or relations of man to understand the image of God in him more fully. It will suffice here to discuss the nature of man as God’s image from parallels in Genesis between the predications about God and those about man. We note that, having created male and female in His image (Gen. 1:27), God greeted the couple with a benediction, thus empowering them to fulfill His commission to rule and fill the earth (1:28). By examining the days of creation, we are able to discern that this commission had to mean that man was to imitate his Creator in his person (character, being) and work (conduct, actions). Let us consider each in order.

As for His person, Genesis reveals God to be the one who achieved His creative purpose through the medium of His word. The Creator demonstrated His dominion over the components of the creation by first speaking them into existence and then calling them by name. In Genesis, man is a mirror image of God. It is man alone who speaks as God had spoken, and it is man alone who names the woman and the animals as God had named the day, the night, heaven (sky), earth (land), and the seas. Accordingly, as he exercised dominion through his word, man would reflect the image of God in his person.

As for His work, Genesis reveals God to be the one who brought form and fullness to the originally unformed and unfilled earth. In the first three days, He ruled the darkness and the deep to form an inhabitable cosmos. In the next three days, He filled the visible heavens and earth with their respective hosts. On the seventh day, God rested from His labors. The same was to be true for man. He was given six days in which to work, and God sanctified a sabbath for him to rest from that work. Thus, as he engaged in the weekly cycle of work and rest, man would reflect the image of his Creator in his work.

The pattern of predicates in Genesis, then, underscores fundamental truths about human nature in the image of God. Man is at once lowly in origin and exalted in purpose. In his person and work, the creature is to reflect the person and work of God his Creator. Formed from dust by the Creator and set over the rest of creation, man is God’s vice regent. In fact, contrary to postmodern mythology, individual humans — male and female — have shared a common reality consisting in their human nature as God’s image.

Our postmodern culture is lost in an amoral universe because, among other things, it has abandoned the doctrine of God’s image in Scripture, preferring instead to deify the individual self. But multiple deities yield competing moralities, which is to say, no universal morality. In such a context, sin is incomprehensible and Christ is unnecessary. David F. Wells

What does it mean to be made in the image of God (Gen. 1:27)? Over the centuries, Christian theologians have sought to answer that question, pointing to things such as our capacity for reason, for language, and for love as part of what it means to be made in God’s image. In reflecting on this truth, however, we dare not overlook one often neglected aspect of being made in God’s image, namely, our love for beauty. This love for beauty is reflected in many different ways. We craft and purchase beautiful jewelry. We marvel at the works of history’s greatest artists. We seek to adorn the most ordinary places with tokens of beauty—artwork, floral arrangements, finely made furniture, and so forth. No matter what we do, we cannot help but try to make it more beautiful.

But how can we say that our love for beauty is part of our bearing the image of God? Because we know that our Creator loves beauty as well. He Himself is beautiful, and He makes everything beautiful in its time (Eccl. 3:11). When we consider His instructions to ancient Israel regarding worship, we see that some of what God commanded He commanded for the sake of having beauty in worship. The garments for Aaron and the other priests were made “for glory,” yes, but also “for beauty” (Ex. 28:2).

In our day, the church needs to recapture a proper love for beauty. So often, it seems that we go to extremes. Some theological traditions have a great love for visual beauty that comes at the expense of a love for truth and for what is holy. They might build exquisite cathedrals and produce many fine artists but misunderstand the gospel. Other traditions place a premium on the truth, proclaiming the unchanging biblical gospel, and yet their concern for beauty might seem almost nonexistent. But truth and beauty need not be opposed—indeed, they must not. Love for truth and love for beauty perfectly coincide in our Creator, and so must they in us.

No better setting than corporate worship exists for the church to recapture and display a love for beauty. This will entail a richer understanding of vocation, in which we enthusiastically embrace the idea that God calls some people to serve Him in the musical and visual arts. It will also mean making sure that our worship services not only proclaim truth but reflect divine beauty. Our beautiful Lord deserves no less than such attention.

God’s Word calls us to repent (e.g., Ps. 7:12; Mark 1:14–15; 1 John 1:8–9), but it does not leave us alone to figure out what true expressions of repentance look like. We find models of true repentance throughout Scripture, perhaps most notably in Psalm 51. This famous prayer of David after he sinned in the matter of Bathsheba and Uriah (see 2 Sam. 11:1–12:15a) has guided generations of believers in expressing their contrition over their transgressions. Looking at some key portions of this psalm will help us better understand repentance.

On a human level, it is clear that the wrongs we commit have an effect on other people. Unkind words can scar people emotionally for a lifetime. We can harm others through lying, stealing, and a host of other offenses.

In the case of David and Bathsheba, we see that David sinned against her, against her husband Uriah, and even against his own army by ordering them to put Uriah in jeopardy so that David could escape the consequences of his sin. We do not want to downplay the grievous harm David inflicted on all of these people, yet in Psalm 51, we find that David emphasizes the way in which he sinned against God (v. 4).

Let us not think that David was attempting to lessen the heinousness of his transgressions against other people. Since this psalm is a model of repentance inspired by the Holy Spirit, that cannot be what he is doing. After all, the Spirit also inspired those Scriptures that call us to confess our sins to others and to ask for their forgiveness, and the Spirit cannot contradict Himself (Matt. 18:15; James 5:16).

David is not trying to lessen his sin in Psalm 51; rather, he is recognizing that as bad as it is to hurt other people with our transgressions, above everything else our wicked acts are an affront to our holy Creator. He is the sovereign Lawgiver, the standard of right and wrong, so we are committing cosmic treason whenever we violate His law. When we sin against other people, we are really and truly sinning against them, but we are sinning primarily against God. This is because to sin against His image bearers is to sin against their God-given dignity (Gen. 1:27; James 1:9–10). It is to sin against the Lord, who gives us our worth. True repentance means being sorry for sinning against other people but also being sorry at the same time for sinning against God, our holy Creator and Judge.

John 8–9 records the profound resistance that Jesus encountered during His earthly ministry even when He taught things and performed signs that demonstrated He was sent by God. This resistance shows us that the opposition to our Lord was not due to a lack of evidence regarding His identity and mission. Something deeper was going on in the hearts and minds of Jesus’ opponents that made them unwilling to accept the many proofs that Jesus is the incarnate Son of God. In theology, we identify this something as total depravity, which is the pervasive corruption of human nature by sin. So that we might better understand our depravity and its consequences, we will take a short break from our study of John’s gospel and base our studies on Dr. R.C. Sproul’s teaching series Total Depravity.

Many people are reluctant to affirm that all people are depraved, and there are likely two main reasons for this. First, we tend to think of depravity as a characteristic of only the most heinously evil individuals. Mass murderers, rapists, and the like are clearly depraved, but can we really say the same thing of ourselves when we are not criminally evil? Here it helps us to understand that the notion of total depravity does not mean utter depravity. We are not saying that people are as bad as they can possibly be, that all of us engage in the worst possible behaviors. Instead, we mean that sin affects the totality of our personhood—our hearts, minds, wills, and bodies.

The second reason that many of us might be hesitant to say people are totally depraved is due to the influence of our culture. Every day we hear about the importance of good self-esteem and about the many accomplishments of human beings. We see philanthropists working to end disease, hunger, and other ills, and we experience the generosity of other people and are generous in return. As a result, surveys routinely show that a majority even of those who profess a high view of Scripture believe that people are inherently good.

As we will see, total depravity does not mean that people are utterly incapable in every sense of doing good things. Moreover, the doctrine of total depravity depends on the highest view of human nature possible. To suffer such a fall that every part of us is now tainted with sin requires that humanity originally enjoyed an exalted place in creation. We have fallen so low because God made us in His image and to reflect His perfect goodness (Gen. 1:27). We are totally depraved because we no longer live up to this high calling.

Inherent to God’s very being is His divine glory, His refulgent light that expresses His nature as holy, true, righteous, and just (Rev. 21:23; see Ps. 43:3; Isa. 6:1–7; Hos. 6:5; John 12:41). Yet while pure light, brighter than we can even begin to imagine, is part of what defines the glory of God, there are other ways in which Scripture speaks of divine glory. Certain biblical passages connect divine glory with divine beauty, as we see in Isaiah 28:5.

Divine beauty is something that the modern church does not often think about, but it is essential to who the Lord is. Our Creator is so beautiful that David’s highest desire was to gaze upon the very beauty of the Lord (Ps. 27:4). We also see how much God esteems beauty in the description of the tabernacle and the priests’ garments. The holy garments of Aaron were made “for glory and for beauty” (Ex. 28:2). Glorious colors and precious metals were ordained by the Lord for the tabernacle, His earthly dwelling place under the old covenant (Ex. 26). Being made in God’s image (Gen. 1:27), human beings esteem beauty and work to make their homes, their clothing, and other things beautiful. Since God Himself is beautiful and the standard of beauty itself, we cannot help but yearn for what is lovely.

We have seen that God has an inherent divine glory that He will not share with any creature (Isa. 42:8). However, that does not mean that there is no glory at all that He will give to His people. There is a glory of beauty that our Creator will bestow on His children, as is evident in today’s passage. This glory is God Himself, who will be for the remnant He saves a “crown of glory” and a “diadem of beauty” (28:5). The Lord has already made His people beautiful by clothing us with the robe of the perfect righteousness of Christ (61:10), but that beauty is not yet fully evident to all creation. But on the last day, in our glorification, all creation will see that God has declared us righteous and made us His people when the hope of righteousness is fulfilled (Gal. 5:5). On that day, Matthew Henry comments, “God will so appear for [His people] by his providence as to make it evident that they have his favour towards them, and that shall be to them a crown of glory; for what greater glory can any people have than for God to acknowledge them as his own? And he will so appear in them, by his grace, as to make it evident that they have his image renewed on them, and that shall be to them a diadem of beauty; for what greater beauty can any person have than the beauty of holiness?”

Chaotic winds and rain struck the disciples' boat on the Sea of Galilee until Jesus brought order and peace to the storm (Mark 4:35–41). As we move into Mark 5 in today's study, we see chaos emerge as a theme that connects the two chapters. Our Lord's actions on the boat brought order to chaos in the natural realm—a threatening weather event was brought to an end. As we will see as we examine the story of the Gerasene demoniac, Christ brought chaos to order in the supernatural realm when He exorcised the many evil spirits who possessed the man (5:8–13).

Through His work of ordering the chaotic, our Lord yet again demonstrated His deity. We see throughout Scripture that one of God's characteristic desires is to take what is confused and disorderly and organize it into something that is coherent and orderly. We see in Genesis 1, for example, that God created everything in heaven and on earth in an orderly fashion. Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 14 that orderly worship is what our Maker desires, for "God is not a God of confusion but of peace," and thus "all things should be done decently and in order" (vv. 33, 40). Jesus did the very thing God does, namely, bringing order to chaos, providing yet more evidence of His deity.

The account of the Gerasene demoniac is likewise notable for how it shows us the goals and motives of Satan. All evil that takes place on our planet can be tied directly or indirectly to the devil, for every act of sin is possible only because he introduced wickedness into creation by rebelling against our Creator. However, demonic possession is a particularly direct and severe work of Satan and his minions. In the case of the Gerasene demoniac, the possession resulted in the man's not being in his right mind and even in his attempting to harm himself (Mark 5:1–5). The demons were waging an all-out war against this man, but if we pay attention to our biblical theology, we see that this was for a very specific reason. Men and women are made in the image of God (Gen. 1:27), so we are more like the Creator than anything else in creation is. Satan, of course, cannot bring God down, but He still seethes with hatred toward the Almighty. By attacking and possessing human beings, Satan is attempting to deface the Lord's image and thereby to strike a blow, albeit indirectly, against God Himself.

Like the books of Ecclesiastes and Esther, the Song of Solomon never uses the covenant name for God, Yahweh. This fact has led to some questions regarding the placement of this book in the biblical canon. Its presentation of sex and sensuality has also confounded some commentators, with the result that throughout history, the book has often been read as an allegory of the relationship between God and Israel, between Christ and His church. As we will see, there are appropriate ways of discerning such allusions in the Song of Solomon. The book points beyond itself to our need for the Lord. Yet to understand this piece of wisdom literature rightly, we must begin with its literal sense, and this work clearly celebrates marriage, love, and sex. This should not concern us in the least. After all, God Himself created humanity as male and female, each to delight the other. He gave His benediction to the sexual relationship between husband and wife when He commanded them to be fruitful and multiply (Gen. 1:27–28; 2:18–25).

Seeing the sensual and sexual imagery in the Song of Solomon has led some teachers in recent years to present this work as almost a "how to" book regarding lovemaking for husbands and wives. This should give us pause as well. The book does refer to human sexuality, but the fact that it uses complex imagery shows the desire of the author, who is traditionally identified as Solomon (Song 1:1), to be discreet.

Many of the images in the Song of Solomon seem foreign to us, but they were quite meaningful to the original audience. In today's passage, for example, the bride compares her husband to a "gazelle" or a "young stag" leaping over mountains and hills (Song 2:8–9). The ancient Israelites would have been familiar with such a sight, and these animals were associated with masculine virility in that culture. The woman praises the strength and sensuality of her husband, especially as he will stop at nothing to be with her. Like a gazelle or stag that will not allow mountains and hills to stand in its way, the man overcomes every obstacle to cultivate intimacy with his wife.

Song of Solomon 2:16–17 describes the husband and wife as they come together sexually and enjoy one another. What is particularly notable is that the woman declares that she belongs to her husband and that the man belongs to his wife. Having come together as one flesh, each has surrendered to the other (1 Cor. 7:1–5).

Generally speaking, we are commanded to never put the Lord to a test. So, it is a remarkable thing indeed when God Himself makes an exception to this principle and calls us to test Him. This is exactly what our Creator does in today's passage. Speaking to the ancient Israelites, who had forgotten their duty to be good stewards of their resources and bring tithes into His house, God exhorted His people to return to their vocation of stewardship, promising to bless them far beyond what they could ever hope or dream if they were to obey (Mal. 3:8–12).

If we were quick to test the Lord through faithful tithing and stewardship, we could sit in judgment over the ancient covenant community. Yet we do not test God as He has called us to do when it comes to stewarding His resources. Church leaders know all too well the truth of surveys that tell us that less than 10 percent of professing evangelicals tithe regularly. This reflects the degree to which we struggle with sin and with making the Lord's priorities our own. Our Father prizes His worship and the education of His people in His Word (Lev. 10:3; Deut. 6:6–7), but pastors and teachers are among the lowest-paid professionals in the United States.

Even the Israelites, however, were not the first people God called to exercise wise stewardship. Ever since our first parents were called to exercise dominion over His world, the Lord has tasked all people with managing their resources for kingdom purposes (Gen. 1:27–28). It is easy to understand why impenitent people do not recognize this responsibility, but even we tend to think of our funds, time, and energy as our own. But if the fullness of the earth belongs to the Lord (Ps. 24:1), everything we have is temporarily "on loan" from God.

Being pleasing to God requires us to exercise wise stewardship. A dollar spent here is a dollar that cannot be spent there, and we sin if we do not use our time and priorities according to the Lord's standards. We must not waste our resources like the prodigal son (Luke 15:11–13) but use them in the service of His kingdom.

Bringing the tithe to God's storehouse was not abrogated with the old covenant. Our treasures and our hearts are always in the same place (Matt. 6:21). That we might grow in grace, let us consider what our checkbooks say about our hearts.

Anyone with even a passing interest in American culture would undoubtedly agree that our society is driven in large measure by competition. Although there are always forces in power that want to eliminate competition and merit-based economic achievement, academic success, and so forth, the fact remains that competition has been a net positive for our country. The greater the competition, the harder companies work to produce well-crafted goods and services. The stronger the opponent on the playing field, the greater the achievement when one’s favorite team wins the game.

But competition is evident not only in America, it is present in every society and culture. The setting of goals and striving for quality seem to be inherently human endeavors. We might even say the pursuit of excellence is evidence we are created in God’s image (Gen. 1:27). Being made to reflect what is excellent, we develop a passion for noble ends. In fact, this passion — this hunger — is so vital that we see those who lack passion as not living up to their human potential.

Today’s passage is one of many places where Scripture speaks positively of hungering after something. Hungering and thirsting after righteousness is specifically commended (Matt. 5:6). Jesus chooses His words carefully. Hunger and thirst are powerful physical impulses. They drive us to attain that which is necessary for our survival, namely, food and drink. Christ wants us to understand that righteousness is likewise necessary for our ultimate survival. Without the passionate pursuit of righteousness before God, we cannot hope to inherit eternal life. But when we pursue it rightly, Jesus tells us that we will be satisfied.

Hunger and thirst for righteousness result in two things. First, in striving after righteousness, we see how far short of the mark we fall and despair of our ability to be pleasing in God’s sight. As the elect, we then rest in Christ’s perfect righteousness alone for salvation (Gal. 2:15–16; 2 Cor. 5:21). Yet having been justified by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, we are also given the desire to follow God’s law. With our new love for Jesus, we begin to follow His commandments and seek to put our sin to death (John 14:15; Rom. 8:13).

We rightly lament the world’s attempts to undermine parental authority and replace mothers and fathers with secular government in the name of “children’s rights.” Still, the idea that children have rights, properly defined, is actually biblical. No less than their parents, children are human beings made in the image of God (Gen. 1:27), and parents dare not cross certain boundaries of discipline. In correcting their children, mothers and fathers are prohibited from inflicting serious physical injury even if they must use the rod wisely when appropriate (Ex. 21:20, 26–27; Prov. 22:15). Parents are also forbidden to embarrass, curse, or otherwise verbally, mentally, or emotionally abuse their kids (James 3:8–10). And of course, sexual exploitation has no place in the home (Lev. 18; Deut. 5:18).

That most of us likely think that the above principles are undeniable testifies conclusively to the Bible’s influence on Western culture. In the ancient world, almost no limits were placed on fathers. They could abandon their children to exposure as infants and even beat them to death with little fear of punishment. Paul’s words in Ephesians 6:4 against fathers provoking their children to anger limited the Roman impulse toward parental tyranny and gave children a far better home than they could have hoped for outside the church.

Parents who are not obviously abusive can also provoke their children to anger. A legalistic spirit that emphasizes rules over relationships, making sons and daughters fear for the security of their places in the family, can incite rebellion. Arbitrary disciplinary standards as well as expectations that kids can never hope to meet can also lead to anger against parents and against God — the One whom parents, especially fathers, image to their children. Mothers and fathers who are not overtly abusive nonetheless fail miserably if they wrongly anger their kids in these ways.

Proper child rearing that images God’s care for His people, providing children no true impetus to rebel, is the alternative. This is nothing less than raising kids “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). As one commentator has said, Christian fathers are to be “gentle, patient educators of their children, whose chief ‘weapon’ is Christian instruction focused on loyalty to Christ as Lord.”

Today we resume our study of Colossians. Having described in 3:12–17 some characteristics of the new humanity in Christ — humanity as it should be — Paul in verses 18–21 depicts what this means for family relationships. This progression conveys two fundamental truths: First, living as new people starts at home; our families should be the first to see our new life in Christ, even if it can be harder to be Christlike toward them than others. Second, Jesus’ disciples are not concerned merely with “otherworldly” realities, for He calls us to die to self in all our relationships.

Paul addresses wives, husbands, and children in today’s passage. His words are strange to our culture, for the notion of a wife’s submission to her husband is rejected as passé, and some days it seems that obeying one’s parents is also now optional. Modern scholars uncomfortable with verse 18 range from evangelicals who say it is a temporary rule adopted to make Christianity palatable to first-century Romans to liberal theologians who call the text oppressive and deny its divine authority.

In addressing these issues, Christian men especially must recognize that female oppression has for too long been among us. Women have not always been treated like the divine image-bearers they are (Gen. 1:27). Napoleon Bonaparte’s comment that “women are nothing but machines for producing children” reflects past sentiments of many Westerners, including, sadly, many in the church. Still, female oppression and the misuse of Scripture to justify it does not mean Paul’s rules were temporary. Similarities exist between Colossians 3:18–21 and first-century cultural norms, but the apostle’s guide for families has Christian ideas (love, pleasing the Lord, not discouraging children) woven throughout. It is hard to keep these ideas and discard the unpopular injunctions. Paul’s confrontation with paganism also makes it unlikely at best that he shaped his ethics to make Christianity more acceptable to non-Christians.

The triune God defines equality differently than our culture, and His Word judges us, not vice versa (1 Cor. 1:18–25). He shows us that equality and submission are not mutually exclusive. The Father and the Son are coequal in deity and dignity, but the Son submits Himself to the Father (John 1:1–4; 5:19–20). Similarly, husbands and wives are of equal value, though wives submit themselves to their own husbands.

After reading Philemon in its entirety, it is clear that Paul regarded Philemon as a true brother in Christ and as one who exercised a profound ministry in the church at Colossae. We saw in verse 5 that Philemon had a great love for “all the saints.” In today’s passage, the apostle expands upon this thought, referring to Philemon as one who “refreshed” the hearts of all the saints in the Colossian church. This expression indicates that Philemon’s love was not merely superficial but deep and long lasting, refreshing to other believers at the most significant levels, perhaps through encouragement, discipleship, financial support, and prayer.

Reading such descriptions, however, forces us to deal with the fact that Philemon owned slaves, which may seem to deny the good things Paul says about his friend in this letter. Honestly, reconciling Philemon’s godly character with his slave ownership is not easy, and that Paul elsewhere calls Christians to treat their slaves humanely but not to manumit them complicates the matter (Eph. 6:5–9; Col. 4:1). It is a significant issue for Christian apologetics, especially as society grows more intolerant of those who believe homosexual acts violate God’s moral order. How, an unbelieving culture asks, can Christians say that the slavery not condemned in Scripture is outmoded but affirm Scripture’s equally time-bound prohibitions of homosexuality? For an example from America’s highest office, the current president, who professes Christianity, questions whether the Bible should influence public policy since it does not outlaw slavery. The implication is that Scripture is untrustworthy in modern political matters because it does not abolish what modern people believe to be wrong.

Addressing the issue will take time, but first note that the slavery described in Scripture is not the same type of slavery practiced in America’s Antebellum Era. Slavery in ancient Israel and first-century Rome often resulted when debtors could not repay a loan. Unlike the ethnocentric slavery once practiced in the United States, the slavery Scripture knows of was not based, at least primarily, on biblically abhorrent ideas such as racial inferiority and kidnapping (Gen. 1:27; Ex. 21:16). God’s condemnation of these foundational principles of American slavery renders that system wholly ungodly; thus, the attempt to justify the system biblically in days past was gross Scripture-twisting.

Near the beginning of his outline of love’s characteristics in 1 Corinthians 13, Paul tells us that “love does not envy or boast” (v. 4). This is an interesting comment to make, but several considerations show us why the apostle can make this statement.

Jonathan Edwards once defined envy as “a spirit of dissatisfaction and/or opposition to the prosperity and happiness of others.” Therefore, an envious heart plainly violates Scripture’s instruction on love. It reveals covetousness, that ungodly dissatisfaction with our estate and lust for that which belongs to others (Ex. 20:17). Envious people are unable to rejoice with those who rejoice (Rom. 12:15). When we are envious of others’ blessings, we cannot take joy in their abundance, and we cannot truly love them or what our Father is doing in their lives.

Because our culture encourages and rewards envy, an untoward love for whatever is not rightfully ours clearly violates the rule that we not be conformed to this world (Rom. 12:2). Politicians, celebrities, and advertisers exhort us implicitly and explicitly to be jealous of those who seem to have more in the way of status, possessions, or power. Love that does not envy refuses to be jealous of others who are blessed in ways that we are not. It is content with the Lord’s provision in any circumstance.

Love also does not boast (1 Cor. 13:4). It is easy to become a cause for another person’s stumbling when we are prideful and ostentatious, for such behavior can provoke others to envy. Creating stumbling blocks is not an act of love (Rom. 14). Those who manifest godly love do not make their own achievements into idols, and they do not build up their self-esteem at the expense of service to others.

Of course, having a negative self-image and manifesting godly love are not the same thing. We are made in God’s image (Gen. 1:27), and we must love our neighbors as we love ourselves (Matt. 19:19). Caring for ourselves or realizing that we have dignity is not sinful. Actually, as God’s image-bearers, we may view ourselves highly if we do not view ourselves more highly than is deserved (Rom. 12:3). Viewing ourselves accurately, Paul also says in Romans 12:3, requires a sober analysis of ourselves. Having a love that does not boast demands honesty about our weaknesses, respect for others, and reverent awe as we live before the face of Him whose image we bear.