Loving God’s Image in Our Neighbors
April 17th, 2007
(By Phil Johnson)
When some Pharisees put Jesus to the test concerning the greatest of all God’s commandments, He answered with a quotation from Deuteronomy 6:5: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”
“This is the first and great commandment,” He told them. “And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22:38-39).
What did He mean when He said the two commandments are alike? Well, obviously, they both deal with love. The first calls for wholehearted love toward God—a love that consumes every human faculty. The second calls for charitable love toward one’s neighbor—a humble, sacrificial, serving love. Jesus said all the law and the prophets hang on those two commandments, so the whole law is summed up in the principle of love. “Love is the fulfillment of the law” (Romans 13:10). Both commandments make that point.
But there’s another sense in which the second great commandment is just like the first. Loving one’s neighbor is simply the natural and necessary extension of true, wholehearted love for God, because your neighbor is made in the image of God.
Made in the image of God
God’s image in every person is the moral and ethical foundation for every commandment that governs how we ought to treat our fellow humans. Scripture repeatedly makes this clear. Why is murder deemed such an especially heinous sin? Because killing a fellow human being is the ultimate desecration of God’s image (Genesis 9:6).
In the New Testament, James points to the image of God in men and women as an argument for allowing even our speech to be seasoned with grace and kindness. It is utterly irrational, he says, to bless God while cursing people who are made in God’s own likeness (James 3:9-12).
That same principle is an effective argument against every kind of disrespect or unkindness one person might show to another. For example, to ignore the needs of suffering people is to treat the image of God in them with outright contempt. Proverbs 17:5 says, “He who mocks the poor reproaches his Maker.” Neglecting the needs of a person who is “hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison” is tantamount to scorning the Lord Himself. That’s exactly what Jesus said in Matthew 25:44-45: “Inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.”
Neighbor? Who’s that?
Who is our neighbor? That’s the question a lawyer asked Jesus when He affirmed the priority of the first and second commandments (Luke 10:29). In response, Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan, poignantly making the point that anyone and everyone who crosses our path is our neighbor—and truly loving them as ourselves means seeking to meet whatever needs they might have.
One of Jesus’ main points in that parable was this: we’re not to love our own brethren and fellow believers to the exclusion of strangers and unbelievers. God’s image was placed in humanity at creation, not redemption. Although the image of God was seriously marred by Adam’s fall, it was not utterly obliterated. The divine likeness is still part of fallen humanity; in fact, it is essential to the very definition of humanity. Therefore every human being, whether a derelict in the gutter or a deacon in the church, ought to be treated with dignity and compassionate love, out of respect for the image of God in him.
The image restored
The restoration of God’s image in fallen humanity is one of the ultimate goals of redemption, of course. God’s paramount purpose for every Christian involves perfect Christlikeness (Romans 8:29; 1 John 3:2). That will consummate the complete restoration and utter perfection of God’s image in all believers, because Christ himself is the supreme flesh-and-blood image of God (Colossians 1:15).
But if you’re a believer, your conformation to Christ’s likeness is gradually being accomplished even now by the process of your sanctification (2 Corinthians 3:18). In the meantime, Jesus taught that one of the best ways to be like God is to love even your enemies. Not only do they bear God’s image, but (more to Jesus’ point), loving them is the best way for us to be like God, because God Himself loves even those who hate Him.
Loving even our enemies
Of course, the prevailing rabbinical tradition in Jesus’ day claimed that “enemies” are not really “neighbors.” In effect, that nullified the second great commandment. It was like saying you don’t really have to love anyone whom you hate. All kinds of disrespect and unkindness became impervious to the law’s correction.
Jesus confronted the error head on:
You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
Your enemy is made in God’s image and therefore deserving of your respect and kindness. More important, Jesus said, if you want to be more like God—if you want the image of God to shine more visibly in your life and behavior—here’s the way to do it: love even your enemies.
Remember, “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16). Such love—expressed even toward our enemies—is the mark of the true Christian, because it is the most vivid expression of God’s image in His own people. “As He is, so are we in this world” (v. 17).
I think we ALL fail at loving our enemies…….
Awesome article! Thank you for the eloquent words filled with the passion of truth. It truly has opened the eyes of my heart on that subject which was elusive before.
“Who is our neighbor? That’s the question a lawyer asked Jesus when He affirmed the priority of the first and second commandments (Luke 10:29). In response, Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan, poignantly making the point that anyone and everyone who crosses our path is our neighbor—and truly loving them as ourselves means seeking to meet whatever needs they might have.
One of Jesus’ main points in that parable was this: we’re not to love our own brethren and fellow believers to the exclusion of strangers and unbelievers. God’s image was placed in humanity at creation, not redemption. Although the image of God was seriously marred by Adam’s fall, it was not utterly obliterated. The divine likeness is still part of fallen humanity; in fact, it is essential to the very definition of humanity. Therefore every human being, whether a derelict in the gutter or a deacon in the church, ought to be treated with dignity and compassionate love, out of respect for the image of God in him.”
A man went down from Jerusalem. He was a Jew. Two Jews passed him and a third, called a Samaritan tended to the Jewish man in need. The Samaritan was a Jew, a brother ostracized by own. The Samaritan was willing to do for a fellow Jew being an outcast what the Law keepers were not. It really pays not to repeat traditions, Phil. There were no strangers pictured hear, only brothers. The second great commandment is taken from passages that refer expressly to the children of Israel and those accepted strangers who had submitted themselves to the ordinances of the Law. There was another group of “strangers” that are talked about sometimes known as soujourners, and then there were those who were not in covenant and were dwellers in the land. The Law makes a clear distinction about how the members of the covenant community were to deal with their brothers and the “accepted” members of Israel. And, they had another set of standards for dealing with “strangers in the land.”
The image of God is so effaced in humanity as to be none existent. Calvin would say that if you think that the image is just marred you have not yet come to know the depth of your depravity.
Got to go, but let it be known that in fallen man the only part of the image of God that is left in tact in fallen man is that same image that remains in Satan! “Get thee behind me Satan, for the things of God are not in your heart.” Though we treat our neighbors as men, we must never forget, that as Jesus said they are of their father the devil.
Thomas,
How do you interpret this verse?
“For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God”. 1 Cor. 11:7
This was a fine study, and needed exhortation.
“Your enemy is made in God’s image and therefore deserving of your respect and kindness.”
And yet our love calls us to preach the gospel, doesn’t it. In fact, this is the greatest love we could ever show to our enemies, whether they receive god’s mercy or not. And that’s something that is entirely between them and God.
Is 1 Corintians 11:7 spoken to the brethren, believers, according to verses that preceed? Or to general mankind? Do we also consider the following verses?
2 Corinthians 4:4
Colossians 1:15
Romans 8:29
Did Adam and those that follow by physical and spiritual birth(actually death) in Adam…lose the image of God? And is that what those born of God regain? Does an unregenerate individual have a “spark” of God’s image or are they totally depraved, the natural man, with a genuine void? In Adam, in sin, in the flesh, children of the night, children of Satan, in bondage, etc.
OR
in Christ, in God’s righteousness, in the Spirit, children of the day, children of God, free in Christ, etc.?
OR
an unbeliever with a touch of what is given a saint in Christ? Image marred or removed and locked in total depravation? Aspects of image(conscience, for example) intact and marred yet spirit image totally removed and thereby all other aspects that remain are in total bondage and not “able” concerning anything(seeing, considering, understanding, acting, glorifying God, etc.) of the Spirit of God?
So desire to yield to the mind of Christ on this;
I’d like to see this teaching go deeper(even if in another post). Am so very grateful for the Pulpit Magazine. God has been working mightily in me through this place.
:-)
It’s utterly amazing how a post on loving people could degenerate into a debate on the image of God.
James 3:9
With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness.
Let’s not split hairs but love people as Jesus commanded. Thanks for this exhortation.
Degenerate into a debate? Do you mean my post, Scott? That idea and splitting hairs was and is the farthest thing in my mind; desiring to understand a portion of an article(and in relation to personal Bible study at the moment) posted is more on target. So sorry it came across differently. I’d truly hoped someone would graciously add food for thought to help me reason this out a bit better. In reality, I’m recovering from surgery which has me sitting and reading and thinking and well…unfortunately am not doing so well with conversing in print here.
Have a lovely day, all.
Mrs. Burrows,
I’m sorry that my post came across sharply. My point is not that the image of God is unimportant but that this post quickly got off the main subject. Your questions are valid. I hope you recover quickly and completely. I commend you for using your recovery time so redemptively.
I appreciate your kindness very much, Scott; God is good! Your care and reasoning concerning the matter here is well taken, too, yet God’s image in a neighbor and the topic of the image restored is a significant portion of the article that isn’t typically addressed in many “circles”. Well, unless we want to speak pagan faith and the “spark of the Divine”; it usually is up there fairly high on the list in that faith venue. Where I fellowshipped in another state, “being created in the image of God” was just thrown out there as a fact(attempts to question or discuss it in relation to “in Christ” and “in Adam” and “marred or removed” were marked as not wanting to get into a treatise on the matter). God is and will work me through it ~ I know.
Take care and do have a most joy-filled and lovely day that the Lord hath made each today.
Mrs. Burrows,
I’ll confess that prior to attending seminary, the depth of the meaning of the image of God was not on my radar. It is definitely worth differentiating from the “Divine spark.”
Scott and Mrs. Burrows,
Yes, man is totally depraved, but yet scriptures teach that he has a knowledge of God. Look at the recent events at Virginia Tech. How many people(I imagine unsaved) are now talking about God and prayer. Even the media is begging for your prayers. I believe that if we show love to the unbelievers it gives God’s spirit the chance to work in that person’s life. Maybe this is how the Father draws them to repentance? Our human actions with God’s love can carry a very strong force in the drawing of men to Christ. I believe it is the spirit that starts to work in that person’s being and starts to touch that innate knowledge of God and open their eyes to a spiritual understanding. I believe there is something in man, but it is dead. It may be our love and the Holy Spirit that perform the Spiritual CPR that is needed.
Thanks for your words,
John Z.