godlyPOV

The lesson library / Lesson 11

Humanity

Explain the image of God, embodied human dignity, moral responsibility, and the need for restoration in Christ.

Humanity, sin, law, and covenant

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Genesis 1:20-31 · Psalms 139:1-24 · Genesis 3:1-24 · Colossians 3:1-17

Human worth is often measured by usefulness, independence, intelligence, or popularity. Those measures become rather uncomfortable when the person being evaluated is weak, disabled, unborn, elderly, or simply inconvenient. Scripture grounds human dignity somewhere more durable. Human beings are made in God's image. That claim has consequences long before a discussion reaches whatever issue happens to be fashionable.

Read Genesis 1:26-31

26 God said, “Let’s make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
27 God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them. God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
29 God said, “Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree, which bears fruit yielding seed. It will be your food.
30 To every animal of the earth, and to every bird of the sky, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food;” and it was so.
31 God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. There was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.

The image is given, not earned. The text does not reserve it for unusually capable people or for those who resemble the speaker. Male and female share this created dignity. That doesn't make every human choice good, but it establishes the worth of the person whose choices may need correction. If dignity depends entirely on usefulness, the person doing the measuring eventually becomes the person being measured. Scripture provides a firmer basis than hoping the next evaluator will be generous.

Read Psalms 139:1-18

1 LORD, you have searched me, and you know me.
2 You know my sitting down and my rising up. You perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, LORD, you know it altogether.
5 You hem me in behind and before. You laid your hand on me.
6 This knowledge is beyond me. It’s lofty. I can’t attain it.
7 Where could I go from your Spirit? Or where could I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend up into heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there!
9 If I take the wings of the dawn, and settle in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there your hand will lead me, and your right hand will hold me.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me. The light around me will be night,”
12 even the darkness doesn’t hide from you, but the night shines as the day. The darkness is like light to you.
13 For you formed my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. My soul knows that very well.
15 My frame wasn’t hidden from you, when I was made in secret, woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my body. In your book they were all written, the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there were none of them.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is their sum!
18 If I would count them, they are more in number than the sand. When I wake up, I am still with you.

The psalm speaks personally about God's knowledge, including life hidden from public view. It is poetry, not a laboratory description, and there is no need to turn it into one. Its theological force is clear: a person is known by God before other people recognize his abilities or achievements. Notice the ending as well. The same person who celebrates being wonderfully made asks God to search and correct him. Created dignity and moral accountability belong together.

Imagine a person who can no longer speak clearly or perform work he once did easily. A usefulness-based account of dignity will gradually reduce him to a collection of needs. The biblical account does not. His dependence may change what assistance is appropriate, but it does not remove his personhood. This also reaches the way people are discussed when they are absent. It is possible to defend human dignity publicly and then speak of a difficult relative as though inconvenience had canceled it. The image of God is not a slogan reserved for debates. It governs the ordinary treatment of people who cannot make themselves useful in return.

Read Genesis 3:1-15

1 Now the serpent was more subtle than any animal of the field which the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Has God really said, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees of the garden,
3 but not the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden. God has said, ‘You shall not eat of it. You shall not touch it, lest you die.’ ”
4 The serpent said to the woman, “You won’t really die,
5 for God knows that in the day you eat it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took some of its fruit, and ate. Then she gave some to her husband with her, and he ate it, too.
7 Their eyes were opened, and they both knew that they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together, and made coverings for themselves.
8 They heard the LORD God’s voice walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
9 The LORD God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?”
10 The man said, “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; so I hid myself.”
11 God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
13 The LORD God said to the woman, “What have you done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
14 The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, you are cursed above all livestock, and above every animal of the field. You shall go on your belly and you shall eat dust all the days of your life.
15 I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.”

The temptation questions God's word and then God's goodness. After disobedience, the explanations arrive quickly. The man points to the woman, and indirectly to the God who gave her. The woman points to the serpent. The pattern is familiar without needing much modernization. Circumstances and influences matter, but they do not turn personal rebellion into innocence. The account also prevents a shallow view of salvation. Humanity needs more than better information; its relationship with God and its own moral condition require restoration.

Read Colossians 3:1-17

1 If then you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God.
2 Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth.
3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
4 When Christ, our life, is revealed, then you will also be revealed with him in glory.
5 Put to death therefore your members which are on the earth: sexual immorality, uncleanness, depraved passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
6 For these things’ sake the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience.
7 You also once walked in those, when you lived in them,
8 but now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and shameful speaking out of your mouth.
9 Don’t lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old man with his doings,
10 and have put on the new man, who is being renewed in knowledge after the image of his Creator,
11 where there can’t be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondservant, or free person; but Christ is all, and in all.
12 Put on therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, humility, and perseverance;
13 bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, if any man has a complaint against any; even as Christ forgave you, so you also do.
14 Above all these things, walk in love, which is the bond of perfection.
15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body, and be thankful.
16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your heart to the Lord.
17 Whatever you do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Paul brings the teaching down to anger, lying, forgiveness, and the treatment of other people. Renewal is not a vague improvement in self-image. It is a life being conformed to Christ. Old divisions no longer determine who belongs to the redeemed community. That doesn't erase every cultural distinction; it removes the right to treat those distinctions as measures of spiritual worth. A person who claims to honor the image of God should be particularly careful about what comes out of his mouth toward another image-bearer.

Think of someone whose limitations make him easy to overlook. The image of God is not suspended while he needs assistance. Treat him as a person, listen carefully, and refuse to reduce his worth to what he can produce. Christian teaching about humanity becomes visible in the treatment of actual human beings.

Consider your perspective

Being made in God's image gives human dignity a foundation deeper than productivity, independence, intelligence, or social approval. That conviction changes how we see people whose needs make them easy to overlook.

Put it into practice

Notice someone you are tempted to assess mainly by usefulness. Offer respect, patient attention, or practical help that recognizes the person rather than merely a role or a need.

Reflect and respond

  • Which people are most easily valued by usefulness alone?
  • Where do you shift responsibility instead of confessing sin?
  • What would renewed speech look like in one strained relationship?

Passages and further study

Scripture quotations are from the public-domain World English Bible (WEB). Historical confessions are study aids, subordinate to Scripture. This independent lesson is not an official denominational statement.