1.6 – Our Image and Ministry Responsibilities (17 min video)

Transcript

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So far we’ve considered six reasons for why we should study biology. We have six more to go. In this last section, we’ll deal with those. The first three of them have to do with a concept that is taught in Scripture that we as human beings are not just created to be creation priests, not just created to be rulers over the creation, but we’re created as image. In fact, in those very first verses that talk about human beings in Genesis 1, 26 and following, even before the mention is made of dominion, we’re talking about the purpose of humans. God says, “Let us make man.” It says, “Let us make man after our likeness and in our image.” So not only are we created to be rulers, we’re the image of God. What is this? First of all, the usual use of the word “image” in the Old Testament and even in the English translation is, it’s something that looks like something else. But we don’t look like God, Because as I’ve said before, God is Spirit. God can’t be seen. So we cannot look like God. Also, we can’t really have God’s attributes either because God is infinite. So if he has the attribute of love, he has the attribute of infinite love. His attributes cannot be… We can’t have his attributes because we’re finite beings. So it’s neither because we look like God, or we even act like God. Rather, it seems it’s because He declares us to be His representatives, His image. An analogy might help here. Let’s say we’re back in biblical times, and we’re walking on a road into Egypt. And as we walk along, we get to a point where we cross perhaps a line that’s drawn in the road. And on either side of the road as we enter, there’s a big statue. The statue in each case seems to be a statue of the King of Egypt. Under these circumstances, what does it mean? As you walk along, you saw that. What would you think? What are these? What do these represent? I think the kind of the analogy in our world today is driving into a town, and it says, “Welcome to the town of New York City,” or “Welcome to the town of Denver, Colorado,” or something like that. This is a welcome into Egypt. But it’s more than that, of course. It’s indicating that you’re crossing, when you cross that line, you’re crossing into the dominion, the kingdom of this particular king. And so those statues represent the king of Egypt. Now, they aren’t the king of Egypt. That isn’t the actual ruler. They just represent the king. Now to continue our analogy here, let’s say you crossed over and you just had this feeling like you wanted to do something really bad. And you looked around, saw no one around, took out a hammer, went over to one of those statues, and knocked off the nose of the statue.

Now, do you think that’s a good idea? I think you probably think that’s probably not a great idea. Well, why isn’t that a great idea? It’s just a bunch of stone. No big deal. Well, the problem is that it’s not just stone. It represents the Pharaoh of Egypt, the King of Egypt. And in that particular case, we’re talking about probably the most powerful person in the world. And although it didn’t directly hurt the king of Egypt, it’s sort of an insult against him. It’s effectively saying, “I don’t respect you as a ruler, and I can just destroy the image at will. In fact, if you did that, and somebody saw you and reported you, you’d probably be dead. I mean, that’s because you’ve destroyed not the Pharaoh of Egypt, but the representation of the Pharaoh of Egypt. Given that, imagine what it means to be called the image of God. So let’s say a person named Carl has the image of God. If he’s got the image of God, then what happens if I take a hammer and knock off his nose? I mean, obviously Carl ain’t going to like that too much, and that’s not a good idea for other reasons. But if he’s truly the image of God, then there’s an additional problem with knocking off Carl’s nose. And that is, I’ve just insulted the God that he’s the image of. And if I get in trouble for destroying the image of Pharaoh, who’s a God of this much power, how much trouble am I in if I destroy an image of the Almighty God? Of the God who is the God of all gods? The God who is the God of the universe? I’m in a whole lot bigger trouble. For us to be image of God means that we are representatives of God. We must be respected as representatives of God. This is why the Bible says you aren’t supposed to kill another person because another person is the image of God. If you killed, destroyed an image of God, you’re in big trouble with the great King of Kings. Because you destroyed one of his images. In fact, even if you… James tells us that we’re not supposed to curse another human being because they’ve been made in the similitude, or the similarity, they’ve been made in the image of God. We aren’t even supposed to swear at another person. Because swearing at another person, who’s the image of God, would be like swearing at God himself. You’re not supposed to curse God. You’re not supposed to curse another human being. You’re not supposed to hit him. You’re not supposed to kick him. You’re not supposed to spit at him. You’re not supposed to do anything of that nature against any human being, because every human being is the image of God. That’s an amazing thing. We are image, and among other things, that means we’re God’s representatives. That has huge consequences on how we treat others, how others are supposed to treat us, and even how we are to treat our own bodies.

We are images. And again, it’s like that issue of being a king or being a priest. We are priests of the creation, whether we like it or not. We are kings, whether we like it or not. We are image, whether we like it or not. It would be best if we were good images, one way or another, with the image of God. It would be best if we were good at that imaging. And so through biology, I believe we can do a better job of imaging God and taking care of the image of God. Scripture, for example, tells us that believers, those who believe in God, God Himself resides in us. If a person accepts Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, the Holy Spirit lives within him. God lives within him. That makes the body of a human being the temple of God. And so we need to take care of the temple of God. We need to take care of our bodies. We need to take care of the bodies of others because they’re temples of God himself. And the more we learn about our bodies, the more we learn about biology that studies our bodies, the better we’re going to be able to take care of our bodies and the bodies of others. So through biology, we can better care for our bodies and thus be better images of God himself. We can also make better ethical decisions. This image of God is supposed to behave like God. It’s supposed to make good decisions. It’s supposed to do what is right. In fact, from Leviticus to 1 Peter, we have a command in Scripture. God says, “Be ye holy as I am holy.” We’re supposed to make right decisions. Part of the reason for that is others see us as being a representative of God. We should do the right thing because it’s a good representation of God. But in that regard, how do we know what is right? We’re commanded to be right. We’re commanded to make the right decisions. But in biology, there’s a whole bunch of questions out there, very common in our society, where a lot of people don’t know what is right. For example, is it right to use birth control even in marriage? That’s a question. What’s the answer to that? The Bible doesn’t tell us anything about the birth control methods. So how do you know what’s right and what’s wrong about birth control? Well, I would suggest the more you learn about biology and what birth control actually does, the better you can answer that question. If you don’t understand what these things do, you will not be able to make the right decision. We’ve got issues in our society. It’s amazing what medical machinery can do. We can help people breathe who are having trouble breathing. We can help people’s hearts beat who are having trouble beating their hearts. But then it often sets in, or sometimes creates a situation where you’ve got somebody who’s being kept alive by machines. When is it right? Is it ever right to turn off the machines and let the person die? What’s the answer to that? Again, the Bible doesn’t have any specific direct answer to that question. I would suggest the more we understand about the nature of our bodies and what death involves and what these machines are doing, the better we can answer that question.

There’s all sorts of other questions. Is transplanting organs from one individual to another the right thing to do? Is it ever wrong? Is it in fact wrong to have a heart transplant that in the process of taking the heart out of one person, you have to kill that person before you move the heart to the second?

Is it ever right to do a heart transplant? When is it right? When is it wrong? In vitro fertilization. Some of these things you might have heard of. What about cloning? What about genetic engineering? Global warming, pollution, ozone, overpopulation, species extinctions, things go on and on. There’s all sorts of things in biology going on where people don’t know what is right and wrong. Right or wrong. Unbelievers might have one answer to this. What are the right answers? In most cases, we don’t know what the right answers are until we understand the creation better. Studying biology helps us to make the right decisions about many issues that otherwise we wouldn’t know the right answer to. We can also learn to better understand others. If we can take better care of our bodies by learning more about biology, then we can also use that information to help other people.

Make other people healthier. Help other people maintain their bodies. And also, I have found from experience that there’s a lot of believers who… I don’t know any other way to say it, but they’re scared of science. A scientist says, “The earth is millions of years old.” Or a scientist says, “These things evolved in this particular fashion.” Or a scientist said, “Resurrection is impossible.” Or, “The Flood didn’t happen.” Scientists have said all sorts of things down through the years that have challenged claims of Scripture. And some believers have believed those people, and they have been afraid of what those people say, and they turn away from the claims of Scripture.

I would suggest the more we learn about science, the more we learn about biology, the less inclined we are to accept human opinions over the Bible.

I said already that science only comes up with tentative, possible theories to explain the world. It doesn’t even know if it’s true. How can you take those kind of claims, which are only tentative truths, and put them superior to or greater than the claims of the Bible?

Where God, the God of truth, makes claims that are certainly true. We shouldn’t even enter our brains that we can do that. God’s word comes over human words, comes over science all the time. The more you learn about science, I think the more comfortable people are in accepting the word of God as having priority. We’re to fear and worship God. We’re to fear and worship only the Creator, not anything created, including human beings. We are not to follow human words over divine words. I believe the more we learn about biology, at least learning about it in the right way, the more we will respect God’s word over human words. The last category of reasons for studying biology is that we are called upon to minister to other people. We are supposed to meet the physical needs of other people. The more we learn about their physical needs, what are the physical needs of people, the better position we are to meet their physical needs.

We’re called upon to meet the spiritual needs of others. I believe the more we learn about biology, it even helps here. Because if in fact, the creation has been made to illustrate God’s nature, then not only can we study the creation to learn more about God, but we can use the creation to teach others about God.

We can introduce people to God through the creation. The more you know about the biological creation, the better position you’re going to be in to be able to reach out to the spiritual needs of the people around you. And finally, There’s a need for Christians to be everywhere spreading the gospel. That means there’s even a place. Now, I know this is not going to be for all of you. It’s only going to be for maybe just a few of you. But some of you, God has called into the field of science to become biologists, to become physicists, or to become chemists. And this is a great thing, because we need biologists in the field of biology to bring God into the field of biology, because there aren’t very many believers in the fields of science. We need to be a light in that dark world of science. And so for those of you who are called to be scientists, you need to study biology. You need to study the sciences so that you can go into those fields, give the gospel to those fields, Give light, become salt, put seasoning into those particular fields that otherwise have too little of God.

So what we have now is we have looked at twelve interrelated reasons why I think Christians ought to study biology. And in fact, not just in a class like this, but I think for the rest of your life, you should be interested in God’s organisms. Learn more about them to better care for them, to better rule over them, to be better priests, to be better images of God, and a better minister to the people around you.