The importance of human identity is constantly in the news. We are supposedly defined by our race, our gender, our sexual preference, our past, our abilities and our opportunities instead of by “the content of our character” (Martin Luther King Jr.). We are being taught to revise our views of history to designate victims and oppressors, the good and the evil according to our present knowledge of justice and the progress we have made to right the wrongs of our ancestors. We are instructed to acknowledge the guilt of our prejudices, to repent of our sins and to compensate those who have been disadvantaged by promoting their advancement in society. The sins of our fathers are obvious in hindsight and are visited on their children and grandchildren. We are all the victims or beneficiaries of history that is not of our making. What to do about it? How should we understand ourselves and our responsibilities? Why are we who we are?
As I reflect upon myself I see that my identity is many-layered. I am, first of all a male human, born of a mother and a father, and grew up with a sister in one place until I left home for my university education. I am, therefore, one of the universal human family living on Earth, differing from other species. For the first thirty years I was culturally British, educated in the traditions, literature and history of that western European nation. This I shared with other races who were born and raised in the same environment. Race was not as important as culture. My classmates included Maoris, Ugandans, and Pakistanis. I have been an American citizen for forty-one years and have absorbed a national culture that is diverse and dynamic. It is challenging to have to appreciate the differences that exist among us and to be humble enough to acknowledge the achievements and the failures of our history. We are an imperfect union but so is every nation. As a student of history I am aware that every nation is flawed, for every human being is a sinner. Critical self-awareness is essential to an understanding of who we are. Lack of it leads to hubris, and self-conceit. “There is no one righteous, not even one…All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:10,23).
Self-image is how you see yourself. It affects your self-esteem and confidence. It includes what you think you look like, how you see your personality, what kind of person you think you are, what you believe others think of you, how much you like yourself or think others like you. Poor self-image may be the result of accumulated criticisms that you collected as a child which have led to damaging your own view of yourself. A destructive self-image can lead to depression, addiction, hatred, violent behavior and suicide. This is not how God made us.
God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground’ (Genesis 1:27-28).
God created us with a divine image, likeness and vocation. We are both matter and spirit. We possess a conscience and can reason. If we can appropriate that understanding of ourselves as created and saved by faith in Christ, we can become what a truly healthy and flourishing human being is born to be. As we age we are prone to dwell on our limitations, our shortcomings, our regrets and our disadvantages. We need to be reminded of our divine identity.
The question of the origin of humans – are we made in the image of God, or thrown up on the sea of the possible permutations of matter without any ultimate significance? – is of major importance for our concept of our human identity; and it is therefore not surprising that ferocious efforts are being made to minimize the difference between humans and animals on the one hand, and the difference between humans and machines on the other. Such efforts are driven, at least in part, by the secular conviction that naturalism must in the end triumph over theism by its reductionist arguments in removing the last vestige of God from his creation. Human beings must in the end be proved to be nothing but physics and chemistry. (John C. Lennox, Seven Days that Divide the World, p.86)
While we are part of the animal kingdom, homo sapiens, humans as a species, are unique. At a point in time God created us in his image. Michelangelo in his famous painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508-12), artistically captures the moment when the hominid, called Adam, received the creative power of the divine image and likeness, which transformed our ancestors into the likeness of God. This is the high point of creation. God creates in his image human beings whose special identity is the ability to have a personal relationship with him. We are sufficiently like God that we can have an interactive relationship with him. God walks in the garden with Adam and Eve, and he speaks to them in a different way than to the rest of creation. He speaks personally, while they understand and respond.
Christianity maintains that the real meaning of the Universe is not to be found in an impersonal cosmic force, nor in a mathematical theory of everything, but in a personal God who wants to be in relationship with human beings. To be human is to be made for relationship, to love and to be loved by the God who created us. This means that relationship is at the heart of the Universe. (David Wilkinson, The Message of Creation, p.36)
We are not autonomous or self-sufficient. We need God and one another. To live into the understanding of being made in the image of God requires us to consciously relate to God. The person who does not consciously relate to God is creatively dysfunctional. He or she reverts to the pre-human condition. It is no wonder that lack of a divine image and vocation leads to destructive behavior.
The benchmark for being made in the image of God is Jesus. Jesus is the decisive norm for divinity and humanity. “He is the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15). His life is characterized by his conscious, intimate, interactive relationship with the Father. If we want to appropriate this self-image we will welcome Jesus into our lives and follow him. Every day we will put on “the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator” (Col 3:10).
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