Doug Brents said:
Please show me where in Scripture it says that man "lost God's image". It is not there. Yes, man took on a nature of sin, and was cut off from God in spiritual death. But an olive branch does not cease to be an olive branch just because it was cut off from the olive tree. It is still an olive branch even though it now has the nature of death also.
First~ I will shew wherein the image of God, in which our first parents were made, consisted. Abstracting from the spirituality of their souls, and the erect and graceful posture of their bodies, peculiar to rational animals alone, which are but a faint shadow of the image of God, (if they can with any propriety be called a shadow of it at all), this image doth principally at least shine in the soul, and those glorious qualities wherewith man was endued, that is, both the man and the woman.
1. The image of God, after which man was created, consisted
in knowledge,
Colossians 1:10. He was created wise: Not that he knew all things, for that is proper to the omniscient Being alone; but he was ignorant of nothing that he was obliged to know; he had all the knowledge that was necessary for life and godliness. He had clear and distinct apprehensions of God, his nature and perfections, far superior to any knowledge of that kind that can now be acquired by the ‘most diligent and the most laboured researches of human industry. And we can hardly suppose that he was ignorant of the great mystery of the Godhead. This knowledge or wisdom of man appeared in his knowledge of the miraculous formation of Eve, whose nature and duty, as well as his own towards her, he declares; which he could not know but by the knowledge in which man was created with. The primitive pair had God’s law written on their hearts, Romans 2:15. even that same law which was afterwards written on tables of stone, and promulgated from mount Sinai. It was concreated with them; so that no sooner were they man and woman, than they were knowing and intelligent creatures, endued with
all the knowledge necessary for their upright state. Adam’s giving names to the beasts, and those such as were
expressive of their natures, Genesis 2:19. was a great evidence of his knowledge of nature. Thus his knowledge reached from the sun, that glorious fountain of light, to the meanest glowworm that shines in the hedge. And that God gave them dominion over the earth and all the inferior creatures, is an evidence that they were endued with the knowledge of managing civil affairs, which a wise man will manage with discretion. Far from being a idiot caveman, who looks more like a monster in a horror movie than a man just created from the hand of God. Adam and Eve were the two most beautiful flesh and blood man and woman that ever walked on this earth.
2. The image of God consisted
in righteousness,
Ephesians 4:24., There was a perfect conformity in his will to the will of God. He was endued with a disposition to every good thing, Ecclesiastes 7:29. ‘God made man upright.’
His will was straight with God’s will, not bending to the right or left hand, without any irregular bias or inclination. And he had full power and ability to fulfil the whole law of God. As, in respect of knowledge, he
perfectly knew the whole extent of his duty,
so he was created with sufficient powers for the due performance thereof.
3. It consisted, in
holiness,
Ephesians 4:24. Man’s affections were pure and holy, without being tinctured with any vitious appetite. They were regular and orderly,
free from all disorder and distemper.
They were set on lawful objects, and that in a right manner, loving what God loved, and hating what he hated; loving and delighting in God with all his heart, strength, soul, and mind. Yet all this happy disposition
was mutable, he was not confirmed therein, nor set beyond the reach of falling therefrom, as the event has mournfully shewed.
This is that image of God wherein man was created, consisting in original righteousness, where his reason was naturally subject to God, his will to his reason, and his affections to his will, and consequently all duly subordinated to God, and directed to him,
without any propensity or inclination to evil. A signal of this was, that both our first parents were naked, and yet were not ashamed, nor susceptive of shame.
That man was created in this condition, wise, altogether righteous, and holy, is not only clear from the above-cited scriptures, but is also agreeable to reason; which suggests, that nothing impure or imperfect, nothing having any vitious tendency or inclination, could proceed out of the hands of an holy God, who
cannot be the author of evil.
Man was created after the image of God; and in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, the scripture shews us, the image of God consists. Moreover, God made all very good, Genesis 1:31. Man’s goodness consists in these excellent qualities; and without these he would not have been fit for the end of his creation. How was it possible for him to have exercised the dominion he was invested with over the creatures, or served his Creator in the manner that became him without such endowments? Impossible.
So, you said, prove that man lost this image of God. I just did above~by quoting Paul that we should put on the
new man which after God is created within us......Adam lost this image, which is
now called in the scriptures
the old man, the first man who was indeed created after God's image, but was stolen from him by the devil, and taken captive by him and Adam took on the image of his new master.
Jesus Christ came in the likeness of sinful flesh, condemned sin in the flesh by his own faith and obedience~Jesus is indeed the image of the invisible God, and when one is born again, God creates a new man within him (after the image of Jesus Christ) and by the faith of this new man overcomes sin, the world and the devil.
