WEBVTT 00:00:37.040 --> 00:00:39.520 Welcome to the Stone Choir Podcast. 00:00:39.520 --> 00:00:40.720 I am Corey J. 00:00:40.720 --> 00:00:41.680 Mahler. 00:00:41.680 --> 00:00:44.320 And I'm still Woe. 00:00:44.320 --> 00:00:47.760 On today's Stone Choir, we're going to begin what will probably be 00:00:47.760 --> 00:00:51.680 a two, possibly three-part series on the image of God. 00:00:51.840 --> 00:00:55.600 Before we get into the subject, just a few minutes of housekeeping. 00:00:55.600 --> 00:00:58.000 If you're listening to this later on, you can skip ahead probably 00:00:58.000 --> 00:00:58.960 five or eight minutes. 00:00:58.960 --> 00:01:01.040 Just want to catch up for a minute on some things that 00:01:01.040 --> 00:01:02.960 are unrelated to the subject. 00:01:02.960 --> 00:01:05.840 First apologize for the last couple weeks of not being able to 00:01:05.840 --> 00:01:07.600 deliver an episode on time. 00:01:07.600 --> 00:01:09.200 Turned out that I had COVID. 00:01:09.360 --> 00:01:13.360 I didn't get tests, I've never been tested, but the last time 00:01:13.360 --> 00:01:17.280 we were gonna try to record that morning, my eggs didn't taste 00:01:17.280 --> 00:01:18.320 like anything. 00:01:18.320 --> 00:01:21.840 And that's when I re finally realized that the preceding two weeks 00:01:21.840 --> 00:01:27.280 of completely random symptoms that would be TMI were basically amounted to 00:01:27.280 --> 00:01:29.760 what was probably some sort of low-grade COVID affection. 00:01:29.760 --> 00:01:31.360 Like I was never particularly sick. 00:01:31.360 --> 00:01:32.720 I was just miserable. 00:01:32.720 --> 00:01:36.560 But for a podcast, on the days that we intended to record, 00:01:36.560 --> 00:01:38.400 I couldn't sit still for three hours. 00:01:38.400 --> 00:01:40.000 I couldn't think and I couldn't speak. 00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:42.000 I lost my voice on one of the days. 00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:44.480 And podcasting is not a difficult thing to do, but you have 00:01:44.480 --> 00:01:46.720 to be able to do all three of those things at the 00:01:46.720 --> 00:01:47.600 same time. 00:01:47.600 --> 00:01:50.960 So today is the first day in three weeks that that's actually 00:01:50.960 --> 00:01:51.920 been possible. 00:01:51.920 --> 00:01:55.200 So I'm very sorry that we didn't have those episodes out. 00:01:55.200 --> 00:01:58.560 We try to do it every week and you know, we'll probably 00:01:58.560 --> 00:02:01.280 take a few weeks off in December, I think, again, like we 00:02:01.280 --> 00:02:02.080 did last year. 00:02:02.080 --> 00:02:05.040 That was a nice break, but it wasn't a break. 00:02:05.040 --> 00:02:08.080 I was stressed out the entire time of failing to deliver. 00:02:08.080 --> 00:02:11.120 Part of that is that this kinda is our job in a 00:02:11.120 --> 00:02:14.480 sense. Yeah, there are a lot of people who have donated some 00:02:14.480 --> 00:02:16.080 on an ongoing basis. 00:02:16.080 --> 00:02:17.520 And that means a great deal. 00:02:17.520 --> 00:02:20.080 And it also means that I want to make sure I'm not 00:02:20.080 --> 00:02:21.040 ripping you off. 00:02:21.040 --> 00:02:24.000 I want to make sure that we deliver consistently and so I 00:02:24.000 --> 00:02:26.560 apologize for failing because I I feel bad about it. 00:02:26.560 --> 00:02:28.160 So I keep talking about it. 00:02:28.160 --> 00:02:31.040 But at the same time, had we tried to record, it would 00:02:31.040 --> 00:02:34.000 have been awful and it wouldn't deserve to be in the library. 00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:37.520 So given the choice between doing something poorly and not doing it 00:02:37.520 --> 00:02:38.960 at all, we're not gonna do it at all. 00:02:38.960 --> 00:02:40.240 I thank you for your patience. 00:02:40.240 --> 00:02:42.640 There's plenty of episodes in the back catalog. 00:02:42.640 --> 00:02:45.520 I think this is about episode eighty-five roughly. 00:02:45.520 --> 00:02:48.880 And incidentally, this weekend will be the two year anniversary of Stone 00:02:48.880 --> 00:02:53.120 Choir. So there's a lot of episodes in the library if you 00:02:53.200 --> 00:02:55.440 can go back to listen to in a week where we're not 00:02:55.440 --> 00:02:56.720 able to deliver. 00:02:56.720 --> 00:02:59.680 On the subject of donations, the reason I wanted to actually mention 00:02:59.680 --> 00:03:03.840 that is not about Is not about us, but about North Carolina 00:03:03.840 --> 00:03:07.360 and Florida and the areas that were damaged by the storm, eastern 00:03:07.360 --> 00:03:09.520 Tennessee as well. 00:03:09.520 --> 00:03:16.080 Those areas are particularly in the Appalachians, are places that are pretty 00:03:16.080 --> 00:03:20.240 well despised by everybody in the country, including our churches. 00:03:20.240 --> 00:03:23.680 There are very few church bodies that pay any attention to those 00:03:23.680 --> 00:03:25.680 people when things are good. 00:03:25.680 --> 00:03:30.640 And the Western North Carolina thing in particular meant something to me 00:03:30.720 --> 00:03:32.720 because that's where my mom's family's from. 00:03:32.720 --> 00:03:35.920 Going back over 300 years, when I went on a road trip 00:03:36.000 --> 00:03:38.160 before I moved to where I am now, I actually went and 00:03:38.160 --> 00:03:41.840 visited the family plot in Ash County, just north of where all 00:03:41.840 --> 00:03:43.040 that stuff happened. 00:03:43.040 --> 00:03:46.080 So like that's where my family's from for centuries. 00:03:46.080 --> 00:03:48.560 And so it makes it personal in a way that wouldn't be 00:03:48.560 --> 00:03:50.960 personal to most of you because your family's not from there. 00:03:50.960 --> 00:03:52.080 And that's natural. 00:03:52.080 --> 00:03:55.360 So I mentioned that not to say you should care more about 00:03:55.360 --> 00:03:56.400 my thing than your thing. 00:03:56.400 --> 00:03:59.600 And we have quite a few listeners in Florida who've been hammered 00:03:59.600 --> 00:04:00.320 by the storms. 00:04:00.320 --> 00:04:04.080 And the one difference, not necessarily in terms of suffering, but in 00:04:04.080 --> 00:04:07.280 terms of surprise, is that people in Florida along the coast are 00:04:07.280 --> 00:04:09.200 used to getting inundated. 00:04:09.200 --> 00:04:11.760 That's kind of one of the things that happens on the Gulf 00:04:11.760 --> 00:04:17.040 Coast. Where this happened in the Appalachians, they don't get floods like 00:04:17.040 --> 00:04:20.000 that. The last flood was a hundred years ago in the flood 00:04:20.400 --> 00:04:24.160 markers for this one were like I think six feet higher. 00:04:24.160 --> 00:04:26.960 There was a deluge and we still don't know the body count. 00:04:26.960 --> 00:04:28.560 I'd think it's easily thousands. 00:04:28.720 --> 00:04:31.120 It's probably the worst natural disaster in US history. 00:04:31.120 --> 00:04:33.760 I don't know if we'll ever get the final tally because so 00:04:33.760 --> 00:04:36.880 many of those people were so poor before that happened that you 00:04:36.880 --> 00:04:38.640 know, who even cares? 00:04:38.640 --> 00:04:41.840 And the reason I'm mentioning it in the terms of donations is 00:04:41.840 --> 00:04:44.960 that I've seen a number of church bodies and particularly our own, 00:04:44.960 --> 00:04:51.360 the LCMS, very actively soliciting donations for storm relief. 00:04:51.520 --> 00:04:54.400 So I was curious how do they account for that? 00:04:54.400 --> 00:04:57.760 And when I did I just clicked on the donate link that 00:04:57.760 --> 00:05:01.040 they've been spamming pretty much daily since the storms began. 00:05:01.040 --> 00:05:04.880 And I found the the donations are going to a seven point 00:05:04.880 --> 00:05:10.240 seven million dollar mission budget that has thirty-four full-time employees. 00:05:10.240 --> 00:05:14.480 So probably at least half of that budget that they have allocated 00:05:14.640 --> 00:05:18.000 in you know donations that are coming in is being consumed by 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:19.360 people sitting in offices in St. 00:05:19.360 --> 00:05:23.920 Louis. Your church body, your NGO that you're sending your your tithes 00:05:23.920 --> 00:05:26.080 to, probably pretty similar. 00:05:26.080 --> 00:05:30.480 So I would implore anyone who wants to help with flood relief, 00:05:30.480 --> 00:05:34.240 A, please continue to pray for those people and please continue to 00:05:34.240 --> 00:05:38.160 donate and support support, almost none of those people in the Appalachians 00:05:38.160 --> 00:05:40.720 will have had any flood insurance because why would they? 00:05:41.040 --> 00:05:44.720 they were above flood floodplains, which means they didn't have much to 00:05:44.720 --> 00:05:48.480 begin with and they've lost literally everything except in some cases the 00:05:48.480 --> 00:05:52.560 clothes on their back and some of their lives, those who survived. 00:05:52.560 --> 00:05:56.080 Do not, please, do not give to an NGO. 00:05:56.080 --> 00:06:00.000 Please give to an organization that was actually boots on the ground, 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:02.400 helping the individuals who needed help. 00:06:02.400 --> 00:06:05.760 Now there's some churches that have been donating directly to congregations in 00:06:05.760 --> 00:06:06.720 the area. 00:06:06.720 --> 00:06:07.600 God bless them. 00:06:07.600 --> 00:06:08.480 That's perfect. 00:06:08.480 --> 00:06:12.880 If your church body has church congregations on the ground, they're going 00:06:12.880 --> 00:06:14.000 to be helping their neighbors. 00:06:14.000 --> 00:06:15.920 They're going to be helping their kids and they're going to be 00:06:15.920 --> 00:06:18.480 supporting the people that need the help the most. 00:06:18.480 --> 00:06:22.080 Don't give your money to anything centralized because there's no guarantee it's 00:06:22.000 --> 00:06:24.320 going to get to the people that you're trying to help. 00:06:24.320 --> 00:06:28.000 So if you do want to help with a donation, please don't 00:06:27.920 --> 00:06:32.720 just assuage your conscience by writing a check to some national organization 00:06:32.880 --> 00:06:34.960 because you trust their reputation. 00:06:34.960 --> 00:06:38.400 Give it to somebody who's on the ground actually helping people. 00:06:38.400 --> 00:06:41.200 In the show notes, we'll put a couple links, uh one's to 00:06:41.200 --> 00:06:46.480 the AP Hill Foundation, others to the Cajun Navy, Samaritan's Purses, another's 00:06:46.480 --> 00:06:47.360 been on the ground. 00:06:47.360 --> 00:06:50.000 I'm sure there are flaws someone could find with each of those 00:06:50.000 --> 00:06:52.640 organizations. What I can tell you from guys who are on the 00:06:52.640 --> 00:06:56.880 ground who are friends of mine, all three of these were directly 00:06:56.880 --> 00:06:59.440 helping people in their moment of need. 00:06:59.440 --> 00:07:02.320 They're putting their butts in the way, in harm's way. 00:07:02.320 --> 00:07:03.920 They were giving their own money. 00:07:03.920 --> 00:07:06.320 You know, in a number of these cases, the guys were paying 00:07:06.320 --> 00:07:09.760 out of pocket and then asking for donations to cover tens of 00:07:09.760 --> 00:07:12.160 thousands of dollars that they had already given. 00:07:12.160 --> 00:07:16.240 And so if you wish to give, please give to someone like 00:07:16.240 --> 00:07:20.480 that. These are just ideas, but they're examples of find somebody who's 00:07:20.480 --> 00:07:22.640 actually there who's actually impacted. 00:07:22.640 --> 00:07:25.520 And this should be the case wherever there's anything for relief. 00:07:25.520 --> 00:07:27.360 Don't give money to the Red Cross. 00:07:27.360 --> 00:07:28.880 Don't give it to the United Way. 00:07:28.880 --> 00:07:30.640 Those places are evil. 00:07:30.640 --> 00:07:32.880 They exist to do evil. 00:07:32.880 --> 00:07:36.800 These NGOs exist to take our money and not give it to 00:07:36.800 --> 00:07:38.320 the people who need it the most. 00:07:38.560 --> 00:07:44.400 Everyone's been complaining about FEMA, but the big organizations fail almost as 00:07:44.400 --> 00:07:49.520 hard. On the subject of that relief, please consider when your churches 00:07:49.520 --> 00:07:54.080 are considering sending money overseas for missions or whatever. 00:07:54.080 --> 00:07:55.920 How much are you doing for your neighbor? 00:07:55.920 --> 00:08:00.480 Are you gonna send thousands to some other country when your own 00:08:00.480 --> 00:08:04.240 countrymen, in some cases, maybe not very far away from where you 00:08:04.240 --> 00:08:08.880 are, are in far worse conditions of suffering and loss than even 00:08:08.880 --> 00:08:10.240 people who live in the third world? 00:08:10.240 --> 00:08:14.160 Like Like Western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee are very much the 00:08:14.160 --> 00:08:15.440 third world right now. 00:08:15.440 --> 00:08:17.360 They're still places that have no food. 00:08:17.360 --> 00:08:20.240 As of a couple days ago, they were still contacting people who 00:08:20.240 --> 00:08:23.440 hadn't been contacted since Hurricane Helene hit. 00:08:23.440 --> 00:08:25.920 That's how out of touch those people are. 00:08:25.920 --> 00:08:27.760 That's how little they're cared for. 00:08:27.760 --> 00:08:31.280 And the rescue operations were suspended a week ago, except for these 00:08:31.280 --> 00:08:33.040 guys who are on the ground. 00:08:33.040 --> 00:08:36.240 So, you know, we talk a lot about neighbors and about love 00:08:36.240 --> 00:08:40.640 and about properly ordered affection This is where the rubber meets the 00:08:40.640 --> 00:08:43.600 road. Whom do you love the most? 00:08:43.600 --> 00:08:44.640 Is it your neighbor? 00:08:44.640 --> 00:08:45.440 Is it your kin? 00:08:45.440 --> 00:08:46.400 Is it those nearby? 00:08:46.400 --> 00:08:48.160 Or is it those who are further away? 00:08:48.160 --> 00:08:50.880 We've all, if least you're on social media many times, you've seen 00:08:50.880 --> 00:08:51.840 that heat map. 00:08:51.840 --> 00:08:52.720 This is the heat map. 00:08:53.760 --> 00:08:57.040 You may not have North Carolina, the western part of it, as 00:08:57.040 --> 00:08:59.680 close to your heart as me because they're not related to you, 00:08:59.680 --> 00:09:00.640 and that's fine. 00:09:00.800 --> 00:09:02.640 I'm not binding anyone's conscience here. 00:09:02.640 --> 00:09:03.120 I'm just saying 00:09:04.160 --> 00:09:09.200 however little you think of the Appalachians, they should be closer to 00:09:09.200 --> 00:09:11.840 you than someone six thousand miles away. 00:09:11.840 --> 00:09:14.720 And if that's not the case for you, for your church and 00:09:14.720 --> 00:09:17.440 for your church body, figure out why it is and maybe do 00:09:17.520 --> 00:09:18.720 something about that. 00:09:18.720 --> 00:09:20.560 And do it sooner than later. 00:09:20.560 --> 00:09:24.400 Because the people who actually need help are people who, you know, 00:09:24.400 --> 00:09:26.000 they need shelter, they need food. 00:09:26.160 --> 00:09:28.000 Winter is a real thing in the hills. 00:09:28.160 --> 00:09:30.400 It gets cold up there, people are gonna freeze soon. 00:09:30.400 --> 00:09:32.480 Like heat is a major concern. 00:09:32.480 --> 00:09:36.320 They're gonna need ongoing support, which is why mentioning donations, even though 00:09:36.320 --> 00:09:38.960 the storm was a couple weeks ago. 00:09:38.960 --> 00:09:41.120 So that's my status update. 00:09:41.120 --> 00:09:45.360 That's the catch up with recent news. 00:09:45.360 --> 00:09:49.680 The reason that we talk about these various subjects in the hypothetical 00:09:49.840 --> 00:09:53.200 is that when these moments occur, you shouldn't have to think about 00:09:53.200 --> 00:09:54.720 it. It should just be obvious. 00:09:54.720 --> 00:09:57.680 I'm going to take care of someone in America before I take 00:09:57.680 --> 00:09:59.200 care of someone far away. 00:09:59.200 --> 00:10:01.120 That should be natural. 00:10:01.120 --> 00:10:03.840 And it shouldn't upset anyone to hear that. 00:10:03.840 --> 00:10:08.720 But when the moment comes, you have to realize that that's actually 00:10:08.720 --> 00:10:09.440 the case. 00:10:09.440 --> 00:10:12.560 Don't send your money far away while there are people nearby who 00:10:12.560 --> 00:10:13.120 need help. 00:10:13.120 --> 00:10:16.320 And maybe there's someone closer to you than the areas that are 00:10:16.320 --> 00:10:17.680 afflicted by floods. 00:10:17.680 --> 00:10:18.880 Help them first. 00:10:18.880 --> 00:10:19.920 God bless you. 00:10:19.920 --> 00:10:20.880 Do that. 00:10:21.200 --> 00:10:22.400 Think about it. 00:10:22.400 --> 00:10:26.400 Don't just assuage your guilt by writing a check to an NGO 00:10:26.400 --> 00:10:27.920 saying I've done my part. 00:10:27.920 --> 00:10:30.400 That money's going to be embezzled in most cases. 00:10:30.400 --> 00:10:32.640 It's going to be wasted even when it's not stolen. 00:10:32.640 --> 00:10:34.960 It rarely is going to get where it needs to go. 00:10:34.960 --> 00:10:37.920 So if you actually want to help people, we'll put a couple 00:10:38.000 --> 00:10:41.520 links. Do you run research, find others, find anyone who's actually been 00:10:41.520 --> 00:10:45.280 on the ground helping those people because that's what we should do. 00:10:45.280 --> 00:10:47.280 We should take care of each other when we're in need. 00:10:47.280 --> 00:10:48.720 Whoever's in need. 00:10:48.720 --> 00:10:51.360 You will someday be in need and you're going to pray to 00:10:51.360 --> 00:10:54.480 God that somebody shows up to help you and hope that someone 00:10:54.480 --> 00:10:58.400 would speak on your behalf when you're not able to. 00:10:58.400 --> 00:11:01.440 I guess that's not a direct segue into this week's episode, but 00:11:01.440 --> 00:11:04.880 in next week when we're talking about the image of God as 00:11:04.880 --> 00:11:08.320 it relates to the sanctified life, that will be on point. 00:11:08.320 --> 00:11:11.280 But even for today's episode, as we're talking about what is the 00:11:11.280 --> 00:11:15.120 image of God, we're gonna lay out some definitional stuff. 00:11:15.120 --> 00:11:18.720 Some of this is gonna be pretty heavily philosophical. 00:11:18.720 --> 00:11:20.960 Corey's gonna take the lead on that, and I'm gonna try to 00:11:20.960 --> 00:11:23.360 dumb it down for people so that in the end we can 00:11:23.360 --> 00:11:24.960 all understand it. 00:11:24.960 --> 00:11:26.960 But the principal goal is that 00:11:27.840 --> 00:11:32.000 the discussion of the image of God, which has become so predominant 00:11:32.000 --> 00:11:37.680 in twenty-first century discourse, is not the way the church is historically 00:11:37.680 --> 00:11:40.000 taught. We'll talk about I think that more next week. 00:11:40.080 --> 00:11:42.640 Today we're gonna lay the groundwork for what is is, and then 00:11:42.640 --> 00:11:45.360 we'll talk about some of the practical applications later. 00:11:45.360 --> 00:11:49.120 But absolutely, one of the practical applications is that it is true. 00:11:49.120 --> 00:11:53.600 Every person suffering from the hurricane, anyone suffering anywhere, they were created 00:11:53.600 --> 00:11:56.160 in the image of God, and that should matter to us. 00:11:56.160 --> 00:11:57.760 That's not a leftist talking point. 00:11:57.760 --> 00:11:59.680 That is in fact Christian. 00:11:59.680 --> 00:12:03.760 The discussion for next week is to what extent is that emphasis 00:12:04.880 --> 00:12:08.560 actually being made anti-Christian by what they're excluding. 00:12:08.560 --> 00:12:11.520 So after we lay the groundwork for what it is, we can 00:12:11.520 --> 00:12:14.800 talk about what it isn't, because the reason we're talking about the 00:12:14.800 --> 00:12:17.440 image of God is that when most people talk about it, They're 00:12:17.440 --> 00:12:20.800 actually mounting an assault on the image of God, as is always 00:12:20.800 --> 00:12:21.360 the case. 00:12:21.360 --> 00:12:24.720 They're wearing something Christian as a skin suit and using it to 00:12:24.720 --> 00:12:29.120 maneuver freely within Christian spaces so that they can do damage. 00:12:29.120 --> 00:12:31.680 But if we don't even know what it means, we're just going 00:12:31.680 --> 00:12:34.080 to adopt their frame and assume, yes, this all sounds great. 00:12:34.240 --> 00:12:36.640 Imago Dei, that sounds super Christian. 00:12:36.640 --> 00:12:39.040 You're saying something in Latin, that's gotta be really old. 00:12:39.040 --> 00:12:40.480 I gotta agree with you. 00:12:40.480 --> 00:12:43.280 Once we get through with this episode this week, it's gonna be 00:12:43.280 --> 00:12:47.040 clear that yeah, what they're talking about is not really what's in 00:12:47.040 --> 00:12:50.800 scripture. It's not really what is meant by God's words. 00:12:50.800 --> 00:12:53.840 And when we look at the specific passages where God does talk 00:12:53.840 --> 00:12:56.960 about the image of God, it's all stuff that they hate. 00:12:56.960 --> 00:12:59.680 It's stuff about man versus woman. 00:12:59.680 --> 00:13:01.680 It's stuff about the death penalty. 00:13:01.680 --> 00:13:05.680 All the things that the people screaming Imago Dei deny is where 00:13:05.680 --> 00:13:08.640 God actually focuses his attention. 00:13:08.640 --> 00:13:12.400 So this couple weeks is gonna hopefully give you the tools to 00:13:12.400 --> 00:13:16.160 understand it is an important concept, if not important the way those 00:13:16.160 --> 00:13:19.280 who are portraying it are actually making it out to 00:13:19.280 --> 00:13:20.400 be. So 00:13:20.480 --> 00:13:23.200 to start off this episode, we have to go over a number 00:13:23.200 --> 00:13:28.480 of definitions because when you're dealing with something like this, it is 00:13:28.800 --> 00:13:35.520 vitally important to understand the terms that are involved and the senses, 00:13:35.520 --> 00:13:39.280 or sense perhaps in some of these cases, in which those terms 00:13:39.280 --> 00:13:41.760 are being used. 00:13:41.760 --> 00:13:45.840 This is one of those areas that is particularly dangerous because 00:13:46.720 --> 00:13:51.440 those who employ the term Imago Dei as well was saying typically 00:13:51.600 --> 00:13:55.840 in modern times are using it to deceive you or mislead you. 00:13:55.840 --> 00:13:59.200 And they're going to do this, one of the primary ways they're 00:13:59.200 --> 00:14:01.520 going to do this, is by conflating things 00:14:02.560 --> 00:14:07.040 that are not supposed to be conflated, things that are in fact 00:14:07.280 --> 00:14:09.520 distinct and should remain so. 00:14:09.520 --> 00:14:14.720 And so it's again vitally important to understand what terms are being 00:14:15.360 --> 00:14:18.480 used and how they are being used. 00:14:18.480 --> 00:14:23.280 And that is with regard both to scripture and to theology or 00:14:23.280 --> 00:14:28.160 philosophy. Because as Wo said, there is philosophy in this that is 00:14:28.160 --> 00:14:33.040 involved in this discussion, and it's involved in this discussion not just 00:14:33.040 --> 00:14:37.120 because men have taken the things of God and subjected them to 00:14:37.120 --> 00:14:41.120 human wisdom and human reason, but because philosophy is also a part 00:14:41.120 --> 00:14:47.920 of Scripture, this is something perhaps that some modern Christians forget. 00:14:47.920 --> 00:14:51.760 Some of the books in Scripture are called wisdom literature. 00:14:51.760 --> 00:14:55.280 There is philosophy in the Word of God. 00:14:55.280 --> 00:15:00.640 Philosophy is not some pagan or just human pursuit. 00:15:00.640 --> 00:15:04.240 Philosophy is the love of wisdom, and the pursuit of wisdom is 00:15:04.240 --> 00:15:08.080 something that God commends, something that God blesses. 00:15:09.280 --> 00:15:14.000 And so the terms we will be using, some of the primary 00:15:14.000 --> 00:15:19.760 terms here, are image, icon, idol, and symbol. 00:15:19.760 --> 00:15:23.920 It is important to know what these terms mean and how they 00:15:23.920 --> 00:15:26.080 are distinct one from another. 00:15:26.080 --> 00:15:30.240 Now, to start off, I want to note that image and icon 00:15:30.400 --> 00:15:32.880 as we are using them here, and in fact as they are 00:15:32.880 --> 00:15:36.400 used in scripture, I'll come back to that in a minute, are 00:15:36.400 --> 00:15:38.480 the same. 00:15:38.480 --> 00:15:42.640 In modern English and in some other languages as well, obviously, we 00:15:42.640 --> 00:15:44.720 can distinguish an image and an icon. 00:15:44.720 --> 00:15:48.800 They are not necessarily the exact same thing as we use the 00:15:48.800 --> 00:15:52.960 terms. But as they are used in scripture, and as we are 00:15:52.960 --> 00:15:57.120 using them in this episode, they are the same. 00:15:57.120 --> 00:16:00.720 And part of how you can see that with regard to scripture 00:16:00.800 --> 00:16:04.080 is that they're actually the same word in Greek. 00:16:04.080 --> 00:16:05.600 They're both icon. 00:16:05.600 --> 00:16:10.640 Conveniently. Icon, it's the same word as English, spelled differently, but pronounced 00:16:10.960 --> 00:16:12.640 essentially the same. 00:16:12.640 --> 00:16:15.840 So that one's fairly easy to remember. 00:16:15.840 --> 00:16:21.600 Now what an icon is what icon means will start there. 00:16:21.600 --> 00:16:27.360 It comes from the Proto-Indo-European root, which means to be like. 00:16:27.360 --> 00:16:32.560 So an icon or an image, and we can use those interchangeably, 00:16:32.560 --> 00:16:36.400 are things that are like some other thing. 00:16:36.800 --> 00:16:41.840 They're not the thing itself, but they are like that thing. 00:16:41.840 --> 00:16:44.720 And so this is one of the ways in which man is 00:16:44.720 --> 00:16:48.240 an image of God, because in certain ways, we will get into 00:16:48.240 --> 00:16:53.280 in this episode and Episode and following ones, man is like God. 00:16:53.280 --> 00:16:56.960 And so man is an image of God in that he is 00:16:56.960 --> 00:16:59.360 like God. 00:16:59.360 --> 00:17:02.720 An idol is something fundamentally different. 00:17:02.720 --> 00:17:06.400 And the word in Greek is idolon, which quite frankly is close 00:17:06.400 --> 00:17:11.600 enough to idol that probably easy to remember as well. 00:17:11.600 --> 00:17:18.160 An idol unlike an image, particularly with regard to scripture and particularly 00:17:18.160 --> 00:17:22.640 Christian philosophy and theology certainly, is a false god. 00:17:22.640 --> 00:17:26.320 It is something that is set up in the place of God, 00:17:26.320 --> 00:17:29.440 in the place of the rightful worship of God. 00:17:29.440 --> 00:17:33.440 It is something that is elevated to a status above where it 00:17:33.440 --> 00:17:35.600 should be. 00:17:35.840 --> 00:17:40.640 There's some irony here that we miss when we simply read these 00:17:40.640 --> 00:17:45.040 words and don't understand the etymology, what they mean historically. 00:17:45.040 --> 00:17:49.280 And so for this one, the pi root, the etymology of this, 00:17:49.280 --> 00:17:51.680 comes from to see. 00:17:51.680 --> 00:17:55.680 Now it may not be immediately obvious how there is a little 00:17:55.680 --> 00:18:00.160 bit of polemic there in how Scripture treats idols. 00:18:00.160 --> 00:18:04.720 But if you think about it, one of the refrains in Scripture 00:18:05.040 --> 00:18:10.880 about idols is They have eyes but cannot see, ears but cannot 00:18:10.880 --> 00:18:12.080 hear, etc. 00:18:12.080 --> 00:18:15.440 We all know those verses, those sections of scripture. 00:18:15.440 --> 00:18:20.880 And so calling something an idol, and having that root of to 00:18:20.880 --> 00:18:21.200 see 00:18:22.080 --> 00:18:27.760 There's a polemic there, because idol ultimately is something that cannot see. 00:18:27.760 --> 00:18:29.280 It does not see. 00:18:29.280 --> 00:18:31.280 It is deaf and mute. 00:18:31.280 --> 00:18:33.280 It is not a real thing. 00:18:33.280 --> 00:18:35.600 It is false. 00:18:35.600 --> 00:18:36.400 And so you have 00:18:37.280 --> 00:18:42.480 that built-in insult with regard to what an idol is and what 00:18:42.480 --> 00:18:45.840 it more importantly perhaps is not. 00:18:45.840 --> 00:18:51.120 And so again, an idol, unlike an image, is related to that 00:18:51.120 --> 00:18:55.840 false worship, related to false religion, related to false gods. 00:18:55.840 --> 00:18:58.880 And we will get into that with regard to the commandments as 00:18:58.880 --> 00:19:02.240 well, because it's vitally important to pay attention to which words are 00:19:02.720 --> 00:19:04.800 actually there in Scripture. 00:19:04.800 --> 00:19:08.720 And that means which words are there in the Greek. 00:19:08.960 --> 00:19:13.040 Yes, a faithful English translation is going to have the correct words 00:19:13.040 --> 00:19:17.600 in English as well, because for instance, we have the word image, 00:19:17.600 --> 00:19:20.720 and we also have the word icon in English, and so if 00:19:20.720 --> 00:19:25.360 you consistently translate icon in the Greek into image in English, that's 00:19:25.360 --> 00:19:27.280 completely fine. 00:19:27.360 --> 00:19:30.720 You are going to understand the meaning and you're going to understand 00:19:30.720 --> 00:19:34.640 how it's used in the various parts of scripture where it appears, 00:19:34.640 --> 00:19:38.480 as long as the English translation is consistent in that. 00:19:38.480 --> 00:19:42.480 And quite frankly, most of them are, thankfully, the ESV at least, 00:19:42.480 --> 00:19:45.360 which was the one I was primarily using when looking at these 00:19:45.360 --> 00:19:52.560 verses. The third most important term in this area is, of course, 00:19:52.880 --> 00:19:57.760 symbol. Unlike the other term, symbol is going to be where we 00:19:57.760 --> 00:20:02.640 get into a little bit more philosophy, just sort of necessarily because 00:20:03.920 --> 00:20:07.600 symbols inherently are philosophical. 00:20:07.600 --> 00:20:12.960 You can't understand them without an appeal to really psychology and metaphysics 00:20:13.040 --> 00:20:17.280 and a handful other things, but certainly philosophy. 00:20:17.280 --> 00:20:18.400 Because you have to explain what 00:20:19.280 --> 00:20:22.480 a symbol is and what a symbol does, and why it does 00:20:22.480 --> 00:20:27.600 that. We are not going to delve deeply into semiotics, the study 00:20:27.600 --> 00:20:28.080 of symbols. 00:20:28.080 --> 00:20:31.040 That's not the point of the episode, it's not the point of 00:20:31.040 --> 00:20:31.520 the podcast. 00:20:31.520 --> 00:20:33.920 We're not a philosophy podcast. 00:20:33.920 --> 00:20:39.760 And neither Woe nor I thinks that particular field is really that 00:20:39.760 --> 00:20:44.000 interesting, because it could probably be summed up in a single seminar. 00:20:44.800 --> 00:20:50.720 But the information that would be in that seminar is vitally important. 00:20:50.720 --> 00:20:55.360 There are some things about symbols that you have to understand 00:20:56.320 --> 00:21:00.560 in order to recognize when they are being used, how they are 00:21:00.560 --> 00:21:06.640 being used, what you should take away from that use. 00:21:06.720 --> 00:21:08.080 One of the core 00:21:10.080 --> 00:21:15.360 concepts you have to understand about symbols is that what a symbol 00:21:15.360 --> 00:21:18.400 does, and this is going to seem 00:21:19.360 --> 00:21:22.320 almost like a sin to English speakers that I'm going to word 00:21:22.320 --> 00:21:24.640 this, but I will go ahead and explain it after I word 00:21:24.640 --> 00:21:27.760 it. A symbol symbolizes something. 00:21:27.760 --> 00:21:31.840 I know English we don't like to repeat the same word or 00:21:31.840 --> 00:21:35.200 the same word family a number of times in a sentence, which 00:21:35.200 --> 00:21:40.160 is something we should try to tamp down because Scripture does that 00:21:40.160 --> 00:21:44.160 frequently, and this is sort of a tangent, it's an aside, but 00:21:44.800 --> 00:21:50.000 English translations of Scripture will sometimes use a bunch of different words 00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:54.080 that roughly mean the same thing, a bunch of synonyms, where the 00:21:54.080 --> 00:21:57.840 underlying Greek uses the same word. 00:21:57.840 --> 00:21:59.680 Because that's something you can do in Greek, you can do it 00:21:59.920 --> 00:22:02.720 in many other languages as well, you can do it in German. 00:22:02.720 --> 00:22:06.000 But English we like to have that variety. 00:22:06.000 --> 00:22:10.080 Sometimes it's helpful to use the same word because it emphasizes what 00:22:10.080 --> 00:22:12.080 is being said. 00:22:12.080 --> 00:22:14.240 If you have if you have a verb and a noun and 00:22:14.240 --> 00:22:17.520 an adjective that are all the same word, just different forms of 00:22:17.520 --> 00:22:21.440 it, it's emphasis, which is something you miss if you use a 00:22:21.440 --> 00:22:23.760 bunch of different words. 00:22:23.760 --> 00:22:28.240 But what I mean by a symbol symbolizing something is that it 00:22:28.240 --> 00:22:29.920 stands for that other thing. 00:22:29.920 --> 00:22:35.600 It refers to it in an abstract way, which is another aspect 00:22:35.600 --> 00:22:36.640 of this that's important. 00:22:36.640 --> 00:22:41.440 We're basically dealing with sort of an increasing level of abstractness when 00:22:41.440 --> 00:22:44.720 going from image to idol to symbol. 00:22:44.720 --> 00:22:48.240 Symbol is the most abstract. 00:22:48.240 --> 00:22:52.320 We can look at this in sort of a concrete fashion, helpfully, 00:22:52.320 --> 00:22:52.960 with regard to 00:22:54.080 --> 00:22:58.640 what we all widely recognize as an image in the colloquial use 00:22:58.640 --> 00:23:01.120 of the term, the most common use of the term in English. 00:23:01.120 --> 00:23:03.040 An image is a picture. 00:23:03.040 --> 00:23:08.000 It's not the thing itself, but it is a representation of the 00:23:08.000 --> 00:23:10.160 thing that is not abstract. 00:23:10.160 --> 00:23:11.600 It's concrete. 00:23:11.600 --> 00:23:15.200 If I take a picture of a glass, it's a picture of 00:23:15.200 --> 00:23:16.080 a glass. 00:23:16.080 --> 00:23:20.080 There's no abstraction there, there's no symbolism there. 00:23:20.080 --> 00:23:23.440 You don't have to really think through any number of steps to 00:23:23.440 --> 00:23:26.880 come to the conclusion of what the thing is, because it simply 00:23:26.880 --> 00:23:28.080 is what it is. 00:23:28.080 --> 00:23:31.600 The picture is not a glass, but it is of a glass, 00:23:31.600 --> 00:23:34.080 it is an image of a glass. 00:23:34.080 --> 00:23:38.480 With a symbol, you're not dealing with something that simple. 00:23:38.480 --> 00:23:44.560 And so, for instance, to give a straightforward example, the cross is 00:23:44.560 --> 00:23:45.120 a symbol. 00:23:46.000 --> 00:23:50.240 It is a symbol of the Christian faith. 00:23:50.240 --> 00:23:53.760 But you have to know that. 00:23:53.760 --> 00:23:56.720 Which is an important point I'll return to in a minute here 00:23:57.200 --> 00:23:59.520 more than a minute, but soon. 00:23:59.520 --> 00:24:03.280 A cross represents the Christian faith. 00:24:03.280 --> 00:24:05.360 It symbolizes the Christian faith. 00:24:05.360 --> 00:24:08.880 But only if you know that is what a cross does. 00:24:08.880 --> 00:24:11.840 Only if you know it's a Christian cross. 00:24:12.080 --> 00:24:16.960 Because if you just saw a cross and had no background in 00:24:17.200 --> 00:24:22.240 Christianity or any of this other information, you would not know what 00:24:22.240 --> 00:24:23.600 is being symbolized. 00:24:23.840 --> 00:24:29.280 You would just know okay there are two sticks that are crossed. 00:24:29.280 --> 00:24:32.720 You would have and even in English, cross, we have the term 00:24:32.720 --> 00:24:37.600 there in the symbol itself, you're not going to understand it because 00:24:37.600 --> 00:24:43.120 you have to have some external information to explain the thing, which 00:24:43.120 --> 00:24:46.560 is part of what it means for it to be a symbol. 00:24:46.560 --> 00:24:51.280 The meaning of the symbol is not inherent in the symbol, necessarily. 00:24:51.280 --> 00:24:53.360 Sometimes a little bit of it can be, but it is not 00:24:53.360 --> 00:24:55.360 necessarily so. 00:24:55.600 --> 00:25:00.480 The interpretation, the meaning, comes from external information. 00:25:00.480 --> 00:25:03.040 In this case, the Christian religion. 00:25:03.040 --> 00:25:07.200 If you know the Christian religion, you know that Christ was crucified, 00:25:07.200 --> 00:25:11.280 you know why the cross is a symbol of Christianity. 00:25:11.280 --> 00:25:15.520 It represents Christianity in an abstract way, not an accommodation in a 00:25:15.520 --> 00:25:20.240 concrete way, because the symbol itself, the thing, the picture, the image, 00:25:20.240 --> 00:25:24.000 in the sense of just being a picture, does not in and 00:25:24.000 --> 00:25:28.800 of itself necessarily represent the thing that is symbolized. 00:25:28.800 --> 00:25:32.240 There is that level of abstraction. 00:25:32.240 --> 00:25:36.800 And again, not the case with something that is an image. 00:25:36.800 --> 00:25:41.520 It is going to be the case in a slightly more abstract 00:25:41.520 --> 00:25:44.720 fashion than the image, with an idol. 00:25:44.720 --> 00:25:50.000 Because of course an idol is going to represent some false deity. 00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:53.760 But it's probably going to represent it in a fairly concrete fashion 00:25:54.320 --> 00:25:58.800 A statue of Zeus is an idol, but it's a statue of 00:25:58.800 --> 00:26:02.400 Zeus. You can look at it and know what it is. 00:26:02.400 --> 00:26:06.480 It is not as abstract as the cross, or any of a 00:26:06.480 --> 00:26:10.640 number of other symbols, because we use symbols all the time. 00:26:10.640 --> 00:26:14.320 Letters are symbols, for instance. 00:26:14.320 --> 00:26:19.200 Letters don't have meaning in and of themselves. 00:26:19.200 --> 00:26:20.240 You have to know the meaning 00:26:21.200 --> 00:26:25.440 of the letter to know what the symbol symbolizes. 00:26:25.440 --> 00:26:27.040 Words are symbols. 00:26:27.280 --> 00:26:31.920 You have to know the meaning of that particular ordering of letters 00:26:32.160 --> 00:26:33.760 to understand the meaning 00:26:34.800 --> 00:26:36.800 of the word. 00:26:36.800 --> 00:26:41.040 It is that external information that gives the actual meaning of the 00:26:41.040 --> 00:26:42.800 thing, not the thing itself. 00:26:42.800 --> 00:26:45.760 It's not inherent in it. 00:26:45.760 --> 00:26:49.840 And so you have the thing that is signified, and you have 00:26:49.840 --> 00:26:52.880 the signifier to use the terms that are most often used in 00:26:52.880 --> 00:26:56.880 semiotics. The signifier is the symbol. 00:26:56.880 --> 00:27:02.160 The signified is the thing that it symbolizes, the thing that it 00:27:02.160 --> 00:27:06.080 signifies. You can use those terms roughly interchangeably. 00:27:06.080 --> 00:27:11.280 So that gives us in essence the core three or four, if 00:27:11.120 --> 00:27:14.800 you want to distinguish between image and icon, terms that we are 00:27:14.800 --> 00:27:19.120 going to use in these episodes and with regard to the image 00:27:19.120 --> 00:27:22.000 of God any time we're really discussing it. 00:27:22.000 --> 00:27:23.440 But an additional aspect 00:27:25.840 --> 00:27:26.160 of 00:27:27.040 --> 00:27:33.760 symbolism, and this is important to recognize, particularly historically, but also in 00:27:33.760 --> 00:27:39.440 the modern world, there is sort of a division between how symbols 00:27:39.440 --> 00:27:41.200 are used. 00:27:41.200 --> 00:27:46.240 In the modern world symbols are most often used very publicly. 00:27:46.240 --> 00:27:47.280 Not always. 00:27:47.280 --> 00:27:53.600 There are still symbols that are used by secret societies and in-groups, 00:27:53.600 --> 00:27:56.800 things like that, where the symbol has meaning for a particular group 00:27:56.800 --> 00:28:01.040 of people, but is not widely known. 00:28:01.040 --> 00:28:05.680 You can use this, for instance, to hide symbols or hide information 00:28:05.920 --> 00:28:10.480 in plain sight, because only members of the in group will recognize 00:28:10.480 --> 00:28:13.520 what is actually being said, because they know the meaning of the 00:28:13.520 --> 00:28:16.240 symbol, but most others do not. 00:28:16.240 --> 00:28:21.040 Historically, that private use of symbols predominated. 00:28:21.040 --> 00:28:23.360 It was more common than the public use. 00:28:23.360 --> 00:28:25.360 There are many reasons for that. 00:28:25.360 --> 00:28:28.240 They're not really germane to the topic today, so we'll leave them 00:28:28.240 --> 00:28:29.040 aside. 00:28:30.080 --> 00:28:34.160 But historically, that private use of symbols was more common. 00:28:34.160 --> 00:28:39.200 Today it's really the public use, because we use symbols all over 00:28:39.200 --> 00:28:40.080 the place for things. 00:28:40.080 --> 00:28:44.000 We have symbols that mean a hospital or a police station or 00:28:44.000 --> 00:28:48.160 a fire station or emergency services or any of a number of 00:28:48.160 --> 00:28:49.760 other things. 00:28:49.760 --> 00:28:53.200 Corporate logos are symbols. 00:28:53.200 --> 00:28:57.120 The apple with a bite out of it is the symbol of 00:28:57.120 --> 00:28:58.960 the Apple Corporation. 00:28:58.960 --> 00:29:00.400 We all know it. 00:29:00.400 --> 00:29:01.840 It is a symbol we all know. 00:29:01.840 --> 00:29:03.360 It's not secret. 00:29:03.360 --> 00:29:06.800 It's not like symbols would have been used in the ancient world 00:29:07.040 --> 00:29:10.000 more secretive. 00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:14.480 And there is one final aspect of symbols that is 00:29:15.440 --> 00:29:20.320 noteworthy, not necessarily important for the episode for the subject matter we're 00:29:20.320 --> 00:29:22.960 discussing, but certainly worth knowing 00:29:24.240 --> 00:29:27.280 historically the term for 00:29:28.240 --> 00:29:34.880 symbolism and the term we're dealing with here symbolon, the underlying Greek, 00:29:34.880 --> 00:29:39.200 what that would have meant coming from pie again is to throw 00:29:39.200 --> 00:29:43.920 together. And don't focus too much on throw because it's just the 00:29:43.920 --> 00:29:47.440 verb that was used for this, but think of to piece together 00:29:47.440 --> 00:29:50.960 or to put back together because one of the ways that you 00:29:50.960 --> 00:29:55.280 could verify something in the ancient world, because bear in mind they 00:29:55.280 --> 00:29:56.800 didn't have sort of the 00:29:57.760 --> 00:30:01.840 information networks and things that we have today to verify identity and 00:30:01.840 --> 00:30:02.720 various things like that. 00:30:02.720 --> 00:30:04.960 They didn't have identification cards. 00:30:04.960 --> 00:30:07.840 They weren't carrying around passports. 00:30:07.840 --> 00:30:11.760 But one of the ways that you could identify a person positively 00:30:11.760 --> 00:30:16.160 was by was by taking something and breaking it in half. 00:30:16.160 --> 00:30:20.960 And then one party keeps one half and the other party takes 00:30:20.960 --> 00:30:22.480 the other half. 00:30:22.480 --> 00:30:26.800 Well if you meet again or you pass this half of Half 00:30:26.800 --> 00:30:30.960 of a thing to a third party, you can verify the other 00:30:30.960 --> 00:30:31.280 person 00:30:32.480 --> 00:30:34.640 by piecing it back together. 00:30:34.640 --> 00:30:38.000 And so you could do this with this was done with dice, 00:30:38.000 --> 00:30:44.320 which were historically actually made from a small part of a footbone. 00:30:44.320 --> 00:30:47.120 Or you could do this with a clay tablet, a number of 00:30:47.120 --> 00:30:51.040 other things, but you would break this thing in half, and then 00:30:51.120 --> 00:30:56.480 And then when you met this person again or a third party 00:30:56.480 --> 00:30:59.680 in possession of this thing appeared and said, I have the other 00:30:59.680 --> 00:31:02.560 half of this, well you could verify it very easily because you 00:31:02.560 --> 00:31:06.480 put it back together, if it fit, you had identified the person. 00:31:06.480 --> 00:31:10.000 It would be very difficult to forge this sort of thing, particularly 00:31:10.240 --> 00:31:12.640 without access to the other half. 00:31:12.640 --> 00:31:16.560 And so this is one way that you could verify identity or 00:31:16.560 --> 00:31:19.920 ownership, or any of a number of other things. 00:31:19.920 --> 00:31:23.520 And so that is one of the historical uses. 00:31:23.520 --> 00:31:30.480 That's where we get this term symbolism and symbol from this historical 00:31:30.480 --> 00:31:34.640 usage in order to identify positively a person. 00:31:34.640 --> 00:31:39.840 And we see some of that usage carrying over into even early 00:31:39.840 --> 00:31:44.720 Christianity. One of the symbols for early Christians was drawing half of 00:31:44.720 --> 00:31:45.920 a fish. 00:31:45.920 --> 00:31:49.200 And then if the other person drew the other half, he was 00:31:49.200 --> 00:31:51.200 saying I'm a Christian as well. 00:31:51.200 --> 00:31:55.200 It was one of the ways to identify other Christians using a 00:31:55.200 --> 00:31:59.600 symbol and avoid some of the persecution that was ongoing at the 00:31:59.600 --> 00:32:04.640 time. That is akin to the ancient usage of symbols, which again 00:32:04.800 --> 00:32:10.240 was more secretive, more for in-groups, but it grew into the modern 00:32:10.560 --> 00:32:14.000 usage in which the fish and the cross and all these things 00:32:14.000 --> 00:32:18.720 are publicly known as symbols that represent Christianity. 00:32:18.720 --> 00:32:22.160 Just an interesting bit of the history of how symbols have been 00:32:22.640 --> 00:32:25.360 used and how the term came to be. 00:32:25.360 --> 00:32:29.600 But those are the core terms that we will be using for 00:32:29.760 --> 00:32:31.440 this series of episodes. 00:32:31.440 --> 00:32:35.040 And so just bear in mind that essentially you have that increased 00:32:35.040 --> 00:32:41.680 Increasing level of abstraction, where certainly a symbol is abstractly related to 00:32:41.680 --> 00:32:46.960 the thing, and an image is concretely related to the thing. 00:32:46.960 --> 00:32:50.560 And then you have the idol, of course, in the middle, which 00:32:50.560 --> 00:32:50.880 is 00:32:52.000 --> 00:32:53.200 between the two. 00:32:53.200 --> 00:32:56.880 It's not entirely abstract, it's not entirely concrete. 00:32:56.880 --> 00:32:59.280 They don't really necessarily overlap. 00:32:59.280 --> 00:33:01.840 Yes, there's a little bit of a gray area at the edges, 00:33:01.840 --> 00:33:06.400 but these are distinct concepts that you have to keep clear. 00:33:06.400 --> 00:33:12.320 Because Scripture uses these concepts, scripture uses these terms, and if you 00:33:12.320 --> 00:33:15.520 don't know what they mean, you aren't going to understand what scripture 00:33:16.240 --> 00:33:17.440 is telling you. 00:33:17.440 --> 00:33:21.920 So you have to understand the differences between an among an image 00:33:21.920 --> 00:33:25.760 or icon, an idol, and a symbol. 00:33:26.560 --> 00:33:28.880 For me, I think that the most apt comparison 00:33:29.920 --> 00:33:32.480 that some of you will be familiar with, I'll give a few 00:33:32.480 --> 00:33:40.400 different examples from different disciplines for how an image works. 00:33:40.400 --> 00:33:44.160 Is that it's functionally a pass-through, as Corey was describing. 00:33:44.160 --> 00:33:46.880 So I'd give you the examples I have in mind. 00:33:46.880 --> 00:33:51.120 If you're familiar with a wormhole in physics, it's a hypothetical construct 00:33:51.120 --> 00:33:54.640 where you have two different points in space, and the theory is 00:33:54.640 --> 00:33:59.520 that if space-time itself is folded, those two points that are separate 00:33:59.520 --> 00:34:02.160 can actually be folded so they're the same place. 00:34:02.160 --> 00:34:05.600 Such that when you pass through one of those points in the 00:34:05.600 --> 00:34:08.800 wormhole pair, and you emerge from the other point, you haven't gone 00:34:09.200 --> 00:34:14.080 anywhere because you've moved across space and time, but you were doing 00:34:14.080 --> 00:34:15.680 it through the hole. 00:34:15.680 --> 00:34:21.200 The action of your motion were relative to the wormhole seems instantaneous 00:34:21.280 --> 00:34:22.080 because it was the same thing. 00:34:22.720 --> 00:34:26.720 The disparate points far flung in space were actually the same point 00:34:26.720 --> 00:34:28.000 because they were folded over. 00:34:28.000 --> 00:34:30.560 And so the action one is the action on the other. 00:34:30.560 --> 00:34:34.640 Another example also kind of in physics is spooky action at a 00:34:34.640 --> 00:34:36.880 distance or quantum entanglement. 00:34:36.880 --> 00:34:39.520 This is something that's actually being used in the real world now 00:34:39.520 --> 00:34:40.800 for computers. 00:34:40.800 --> 00:34:43.520 If you're interested in that in stuff and keeping up with it, 00:34:43.520 --> 00:34:49.040 they can actually quantum entangle an electron in one place with an 00:34:49.040 --> 00:34:53.600 electron in another place, such that when they impart different attributes to 00:34:53.600 --> 00:34:59.040 the spin of the one electron, electron A, electron B experiences the 00:34:59.040 --> 00:35:00.240 same changes. 00:35:00.640 --> 00:35:03.920 And they're able to exploit this for computation. 00:35:03.920 --> 00:35:07.120 So when I was a kid and I was reading about cryptography, 00:35:07.120 --> 00:35:09.600 quantum computers were the sci fi future. 00:35:09.600 --> 00:35:11.280 It was barely imaginable. 00:35:11.280 --> 00:35:12.960 It was certainly never going to happen. 00:35:12.960 --> 00:35:15.840 And now IBM is selling them as commercial products. 00:35:15.840 --> 00:35:19.120 D Wave and a number of other companies are selling these things 00:35:19.440 --> 00:35:24.720 where it's fundamentally you act on one object and the other object 00:35:24.720 --> 00:35:27.680 at a distance experiences the action. 00:35:27.680 --> 00:35:32.640 So the image relationship is that functionally they kinda behave the same. 00:35:32.640 --> 00:35:35.200 What you do to one affects the other. 00:35:35.200 --> 00:35:37.760 And the third example is kind of the most mundane, at least 00:35:37.840 --> 00:35:40.560 if you know anything about Unix, be the Unix pipe. 00:35:40.560 --> 00:35:44.000 You can have one command and then the pipe and then another 00:35:44.000 --> 00:35:47.840 command. And anything that the first command outputs, you pipe it through 00:35:47.840 --> 00:35:51.440 the pipe, again, to use a sort of tautology that Corey was 00:35:51.440 --> 00:35:55.520 describing with symbol symbolizing, when you pipe something through a pipe, it 00:35:55.520 --> 00:35:58.960 comes out the other side and the second command can just deal 00:35:58.960 --> 00:36:01.360 with it as though it was its input. 00:36:01.360 --> 00:36:06.080 So when we're talking about an image, we're talking about the action 00:36:06.080 --> 00:36:10.480 on one or the presence or the no the notion of one, 00:36:10.480 --> 00:36:14.560 the properties of one being manifest in the other place. 00:36:14.880 --> 00:36:17.760 This is something that's come up in church history with the name 00:36:17.760 --> 00:36:20.720 Icon, which is Corey said image and icon is the exact same 00:36:20.720 --> 00:36:24.080 thing, and the iconoclastic blow up. 00:36:24.560 --> 00:36:26.560 The East and the West split. 00:36:26.560 --> 00:36:29.680 One of the reasons was over icons. 00:36:29.680 --> 00:36:34.800 And when you hear someone who's Eastern Orthodox talk about their veneration 00:36:34.800 --> 00:36:38.640 of icons, they will very clearly make the argument that Corey made 00:36:38.640 --> 00:36:40.240 about icons and images 00:36:41.120 --> 00:36:45.200 not merely being a symbol, but being a pass-through so that when 00:36:45.200 --> 00:36:50.240 they venerate, when they kiss the painting of Saint whomever of the 00:36:50.240 --> 00:36:54.240 desert, as they almost always are, they're not kissing a painting. 00:36:54.240 --> 00:36:58.720 They're not committing idolatry because they're not treating the painting as an 00:36:58.720 --> 00:37:03.120 idol. They're treating the painting as Saint Whatever of the Desert. 00:37:03.120 --> 00:37:06.800 And so they're kissing Saint Whatever of the Desert through the wormhole, 00:37:06.800 --> 00:37:12.080 through the quantum entanglement, through the pipe, through the image of the 00:37:12.080 --> 00:37:16.400 painting. But their veneration is not directed at the physical object, it's 00:37:16.400 --> 00:37:18.640 directed at the saint in heaven. 00:37:18.640 --> 00:37:23.760 The problem with this as Christians is that that is itself worship 00:37:23.840 --> 00:37:25.600 and it is idolatry. 00:37:25.600 --> 00:37:27.360 This episode isn't about that. 00:37:27.360 --> 00:37:30.240 This was part of the reason for discussing although it this is 00:37:30.240 --> 00:37:33.680 secondary to our purpose here is that this was a division with 00:37:33.680 --> 00:37:34.640 the East. 00:37:34.640 --> 00:37:38.640 It's now a division with Roman Catholicism for similar reasons. 00:37:38.640 --> 00:37:42.720 It's also a division among some of the reformed and the rest 00:37:42.720 --> 00:37:45.920 of the Western Christian Church who go even further in what they 00:37:45.920 --> 00:37:48.400 consider to be prohibited images? 00:37:48.400 --> 00:37:51.840 The one proof text I'm gonna give here, in view of everything 00:37:51.840 --> 00:37:56.720 we've ever said about proof texting being dangerous, when you read Revelation 00:37:56.800 --> 00:38:02.480 1910, John in heaven after the angel, and this was not uh 00:38:02.640 --> 00:38:05.840 this was not Christ, this was an an actual angel, angel who 00:38:05.840 --> 00:38:08.480 testifies to such, in this verse. 00:38:08.480 --> 00:38:12.320 The angel had shown John these visions, shown these things, and John 00:38:12.320 --> 00:38:17.280 responded thus, then I fell down at his feet to worship him, 00:38:17.280 --> 00:38:20.240 but he said to me, You must not do that, I am 00:38:20.240 --> 00:38:23.280 a fellow servant with you and your brothers, who hold to the 00:38:23.280 --> 00:38:25.920 testimony of Jesus, worship God. 00:38:25.920 --> 00:38:29.360 For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. 00:38:29.360 --> 00:38:32.960 And the word there for worship is venerate. 00:38:32.960 --> 00:38:34.400 It's obeisance. 00:38:34.400 --> 00:38:38.400 It's the lowest level of what both the Orthodox and the Romanists 00:38:38.400 --> 00:38:40.400 speak about when they talk about veneration. 00:38:40.400 --> 00:38:42.640 Like when we're not worshiping like we worship God. 00:38:42.640 --> 00:38:45.600 We're doing the much lower level where it's just we're passing through 00:38:45.600 --> 00:38:49.360 to this other guy, you know, saying whatever the desert. 00:38:49.360 --> 00:38:54.000 Mary. We're kissing, we're venerating, we're loving, but it's not worship. 00:38:55.120 --> 00:38:59.440 When you read the plain text of Revelation 1910, go look it 00:38:59.440 --> 00:39:02.160 in Greek, the English translations are spot on. 00:39:02.160 --> 00:39:03.360 They're not playing any games. 00:39:03.360 --> 00:39:08.160 When they say worship, they're talking about the lowest form and calling 00:39:08.160 --> 00:39:13.360 that idolatry, saying don't worship me, I'm a creature like you. 00:39:13.360 --> 00:39:16.160 When you read that in view of all the other prohibitions of 00:39:16.160 --> 00:39:18.000 idolatry, it's clear that that's a problem. 00:39:18.000 --> 00:39:23.920 The The discussion in scripture prohibiting idolatry is prohibiting worshiping the creature 00:39:23.920 --> 00:39:26.160 rather than creator, whatever the creature is. 00:39:26.160 --> 00:39:28.720 The thing that is created must not be worshipped. 00:39:28.720 --> 00:39:32.000 You don't worship a man, you don't worship a plant, you don't 00:39:31.920 --> 00:39:35.920 worship a painting, you worship God alone. 00:39:35.920 --> 00:39:40.480 And that's important when we're talking about images because if you think 00:39:40.480 --> 00:39:43.280 of an image as a pass through then which it is, in 00:39:43.280 --> 00:39:46.320 all the context we'll discuss here, when we're talking about an image, 00:39:46.240 --> 00:39:47.920 it is a pass through the other thing. 00:39:47.920 --> 00:39:49.520 That doesn't get you off the hook. 00:39:49.520 --> 00:39:53.280 Because if you're worshiping the thing on the other side, it'd better 00:39:53.280 --> 00:39:53.920 be God. 00:39:53.920 --> 00:39:57.120 And you don't need an image to worship God. 00:39:57.120 --> 00:40:00.160 You know, when we think image, we think JPEG. 00:40:00.160 --> 00:40:01.760 You know, we think, oh, it's a picture. 00:40:01.760 --> 00:40:03.840 Well, that's that's not really what's going on. 00:40:03.840 --> 00:40:07.760 Corey talked about a little bit, but image fundamentally is about that 00:40:07.760 --> 00:40:09.120 pass-through nature. 00:40:09.120 --> 00:40:12.880 It's about the action on the image is an action on the 00:40:12.880 --> 00:40:14.080 thing itself. 00:40:14.080 --> 00:40:16.880 And so just keep in mind as we go throughout this episode 00:40:17.120 --> 00:40:19.440 that that is what we're talking about. 00:40:19.440 --> 00:40:24.720 It's not JPEGs, it's not pictures or icons in the colloquial sense, 00:40:24.720 --> 00:40:28.880 it is the representation of the reality of the thing. 00:40:29.280 --> 00:40:32.320 To add a note of nuance as it were, as much as 00:40:32.320 --> 00:40:36.560 we are loath to do that sometimes, I want to be very 00:40:36.560 --> 00:40:39.200 careful about what Wo just said. 00:40:39.200 --> 00:40:42.160 I of course agree with what he said, but I know that 00:40:42.160 --> 00:40:45.200 there are going to be those who will object and say, Will 00:40:45.200 --> 00:40:47.600 you have crucifixes in your church? 00:40:47.600 --> 00:40:49.280 Will you have artwork in your church? 00:40:49.280 --> 00:40:51.680 Will you have paintings in your church? 00:40:51.680 --> 00:40:56.240 Aren't you doing the same thing with those that the Eastern Orthodox 00:40:56.320 --> 00:40:58.240 are doing with icons? 00:40:58.240 --> 00:41:00.080 And the answer is no. 00:41:00.080 --> 00:41:04.640 And the reason for that, this is vitally important, this goes back 00:41:04.640 --> 00:41:09.840 to what I explained already with the terms we are using. 00:41:09.840 --> 00:41:14.160 Those things are being used in the Western tradition, for those in 00:41:14.160 --> 00:41:18.800 the Western tradition who actually still use these things, as symbols. 00:41:18.800 --> 00:41:21.120 Again, the cross is a symbol. 00:41:21.120 --> 00:41:23.120 I have a crucifix 00:41:24.080 --> 00:41:26.640 above where I say my daily prayers. 00:41:26.640 --> 00:41:29.920 And I do look at that some of the time when I'm 00:41:29.920 --> 00:41:36.080 praying. I'm not worshiping it, I'm not venerating it, I'm not directing 00:41:36.080 --> 00:41:40.480 my worship through the crucifix to God. 00:41:40.480 --> 00:41:44.000 That is a symbol of the Christian faith. 00:41:44.000 --> 00:41:46.960 It is a symbol of Christ's sacrifice. 00:41:46.960 --> 00:41:51.920 Incidentally, it is also to some more limited degree an image of 00:41:51.920 --> 00:41:55.600 it, but it is not an idol, and it is not an 00:41:55.600 --> 00:41:59.440 icon in the sense that the Eastern Orthodox use the term, which 00:41:59.440 --> 00:42:04.080 is why I said in the beginning, we are not distinguishing image 00:42:04.080 --> 00:42:04.800 and icon. 00:42:04.800 --> 00:42:06.640 That's part of the reason. 00:42:06.720 --> 00:42:09.200 because we are not getting into that morass. 00:42:09.200 --> 00:42:13.680 We're not getting into the mire that is Eastern Orthodox theology. 00:42:13.680 --> 00:42:15.600 We already dealt with that in an episode. 00:42:15.600 --> 00:42:18.960 And so we're not going to distinguish image and icon in the 00:42:18.960 --> 00:42:20.320 way they attempt to do it. 00:42:20.320 --> 00:42:25.280 Which again, there's some irony there being that the Eastern Orthodox are 00:42:25.520 --> 00:42:28.480 historically the Greek speaking part of the church. 00:42:28.480 --> 00:42:32.160 One would think they would recognize that there is no distinction there, 00:42:32.160 --> 00:42:35.600 because again Greek uses only the term icon for both of those 00:42:35.600 --> 00:42:39.680 things. One way you can think about this 00:42:41.200 --> 00:42:44.080 is with regard to flags. 00:42:44.080 --> 00:42:47.840 Many of us grew up saying the Pledge of Allegiance. 00:42:47.840 --> 00:42:51.840 Undoubtedly, that's true for many of you in the audience. 00:42:51.840 --> 00:42:56.960 When you are using a flag in that way, the flag is 00:42:56.960 --> 00:43:00.640 symbolizing the thing, the ultimate thing. 00:43:00.640 --> 00:43:01.680 It is a symbol. 00:43:01.680 --> 00:43:03.840 It is not the thing itself. 00:43:03.840 --> 00:43:06.480 Yes, in the case of the Pledge of Alleance, there's that weird 00:43:06.480 --> 00:43:11.200 bit about pledging allegiance to the flag seemingly itself, but that's a 00:43:11.200 --> 00:43:13.040 tangential issue. 00:43:13.040 --> 00:43:18.480 What is actually being done is the flag is used to symbolize 00:43:18.480 --> 00:43:19.680 the country. 00:43:19.680 --> 00:43:23.360 It is used as a symbol of patriotism, of love for your 00:43:24.080 --> 00:43:31.200 nation, you are not directing loyalty or worship or honor or whatever 00:43:31.200 --> 00:43:32.320 to the flag itself. 00:43:32.320 --> 00:43:36.400 Yes, there are codes related to how you treat flags because it 00:43:36.400 --> 00:43:38.240 is a symbol of the nation. 00:43:38.240 --> 00:43:42.960 And so how you treat it is symbolic of how you view 00:43:42.960 --> 00:43:43.920 your nation. 00:43:43.920 --> 00:43:48.160 The same thing is true with regard to items that are used 00:43:48.160 --> 00:43:49.520 in worship. 00:43:49.520 --> 00:43:50.560 You would never abuse 00:43:51.600 --> 00:43:59.280 the chalice or the unconsecrated host, the unconsecrated bread, or a crucifix 00:43:59.360 --> 00:44:05.840 or anything like that, not because the thing itself is holy, but 00:44:05.840 --> 00:44:07.680 because it is a symbol 00:44:08.640 --> 00:44:10.320 of the Christian faith. 00:44:10.320 --> 00:44:12.320 It is a symbol of God. 00:44:12.320 --> 00:44:14.720 It is a symbol of the things that matter. 00:44:14.720 --> 00:44:19.760 And so what you do to the symbol, in effect you are 00:44:19.760 --> 00:44:24.080 doing to God, to the Christian faith, in the case of the 00:44:24.080 --> 00:44:26.160 flag, to your nation. 00:44:26.160 --> 00:44:28.320 That's why it matters. 00:44:28.320 --> 00:44:32.720 Again, if you have a crucifix in your church or paintings or 00:44:32.720 --> 00:44:36.640 statues or any of those things, and you are in the Protestant 00:44:36.640 --> 00:44:42.400 tradition, there are some distinctions here obviously for the Roman Catholics. 00:44:42.640 --> 00:44:47.040 You are not worshiping or venerating the thing. 00:44:47.040 --> 00:44:52.000 You are using it as a symbol to draw the mind to 00:44:52.000 --> 00:44:54.480 the thing that is symbolized. 00:44:54.480 --> 00:44:58.000 So the worship is not directed at the crucifix. 00:44:58.000 --> 00:45:01.920 It should never be anyway, that should not enter your mind. 00:45:01.920 --> 00:45:07.440 The worship is directed at Christ, at God, with the crucifix used 00:45:07.440 --> 00:45:10.160 as a symbol to remind you of that. 00:45:10.160 --> 00:45:14.080 Because part of the reason, and this is something that is again 00:45:14.240 --> 00:45:18.560 very important to recognize, human beings are physical. 00:45:18.560 --> 00:45:21.680 This is one of those things that just constantly comes up in 00:45:21.680 --> 00:45:25.600 modern Christian discourse because we have a bit of creeping Gnosticism around 00:45:25.600 --> 00:45:30.160 the edges, as we went over in the episode on Gnosticism. 00:45:30.160 --> 00:45:35.280 If you deny the reality and the importance of physical things, you 00:45:35.280 --> 00:45:38.800 wind up in all sorts of crazy places and you wind up 00:45:38.800 --> 00:45:41.600 believing all sorts of heresies. 00:45:41.600 --> 00:45:46.400 Human beings are not just a soul. 00:45:46.400 --> 00:45:48.640 And this is one of those times where I'm not going to 00:45:48.640 --> 00:45:53.040 just dismiss dealing with the tripartite nature of humanity. 00:45:53.040 --> 00:45:56.400 Human beings are body, mind, and soul. 00:45:56.400 --> 00:45:58.240 We are a trinity. 00:45:58.240 --> 00:46:00.160 God made us in his image. 00:46:00.160 --> 00:46:04.080 It shouldn't be surprising that we are in fact Trinity. 00:46:04.080 --> 00:46:07.360 Not in the same way as God, because of course we aren't 00:46:07.360 --> 00:46:08.080 three persons. 00:46:08.080 --> 00:46:10.720 We're one person that is tripartite. 00:46:10.720 --> 00:46:16.800 And unlike God, we are tripartite we have parts. 00:46:16.800 --> 00:46:20.160 Because, of course, the soul can be separated from the body. 00:46:20.160 --> 00:46:21.520 That's what death is. 00:46:21.520 --> 00:46:26.720 It's unnatural, it's terrible, it's a horrible state and we will be 00:46:26.720 --> 00:46:31.600 rescued from it at the resurrection, of course, but it is possible 00:46:31.600 --> 00:46:33.760 for us. 00:46:33.760 --> 00:46:35.760 God is not composed of parts. 00:46:35.760 --> 00:46:39.840 You can't take one of the persons out of the Trinity. 00:46:39.840 --> 00:46:42.560 And I don't even want to go any further into that, because 00:46:42.560 --> 00:46:46.240 it is usually not profitable to start delving into the Trinity in 00:46:46.240 --> 00:46:46.960 that way. 00:46:46.960 --> 00:46:50.560 It's not something the human mind can comprehend and grasp in a 00:46:50.560 --> 00:46:53.760 way that is going to be profitable because usually you're going to 00:46:53.760 --> 00:46:56.080 fall into heresy. 00:46:56.080 --> 00:47:01.040 But the tripartite nature of mankind is important when speaking of the 00:47:01.040 --> 00:47:05.200 image because each part of man is in the image of God 00:47:05.280 --> 00:47:06.480 in a different way. 00:47:06.480 --> 00:47:11.760 There's overlap here, they're related, but there are distinctions as well. 00:47:11.760 --> 00:47:15.120 But the point that I'm making here specifically, because we'll get into 00:47:15.120 --> 00:47:18.240 that more either in the rest of this episode or perhaps in 00:47:18.240 --> 00:47:21.040 the next episode. 00:47:21.040 --> 00:47:26.640 The reason that's important is because that physical nature, the body, is 00:47:26.640 --> 00:47:28.000 part of this. 00:47:28.000 --> 00:47:30.720 And part of that is going to be the appreciation 00:47:31.840 --> 00:47:36.640 of beauty and the use of symbols. 00:47:36.640 --> 00:47:40.000 God Himself uses symbols. 00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:42.160 He uses them throughout Scripture. 00:47:42.160 --> 00:47:45.440 The sacraments themselves are symbolic. 00:47:45.440 --> 00:47:50.480 Baptism symbolizes your burial and resurrection. 00:47:50.480 --> 00:47:52.800 It's a symbol. 00:47:52.800 --> 00:47:57.360 The sacrament of the altar is symbolic, it's not merely symbolic, of 00:47:57.600 --> 00:48:00.160 course, neither of us would ever say that. 00:48:00.160 --> 00:48:04.080 We went over that in the episode on the sacrament. 00:48:04.080 --> 00:48:11.040 But it is symbolic as well as real to contrast those two. 00:48:11.040 --> 00:48:16.080 God uses symbols, and so we also use symbols because part of 00:48:16.080 --> 00:48:18.880 being in the image of God is of course imitating God in 00:48:18.880 --> 00:48:20.160 some ways. 00:48:20.160 --> 00:48:23.280 We are doing some of the things of God after he has 00:48:23.280 --> 00:48:24.480 done them. 00:48:24.480 --> 00:48:27.920 And so we use symbols in our worship. 00:48:27.920 --> 00:48:32.480 We use these things to remind ourselves of aspects of the Christian 00:48:32.480 --> 00:48:37.600 religion, of certain parts of the Christian faith, of just the Christian 00:48:37.600 --> 00:48:41.840 faith itself, of Christ's sacrifice, of all of these different things, these 00:48:41.840 --> 00:48:45.120 are tools that we use. 00:48:45.120 --> 00:48:47.680 If you want to deny the use of all of those things, 00:48:47.680 --> 00:48:52.720 really what you're ultimately doing is denying the reality of the physical, 00:48:52.720 --> 00:48:55.600 you are denying the reality of the flesh. 00:48:55.600 --> 00:48:57.440 You are shoving aside 00:48:58.800 --> 00:49:03.920 the corporeal nature, the bodily nature of man, in order to focus 00:49:03.920 --> 00:49:09.200 exclusively which you should not do on the spiritual nature of man. 00:49:09.200 --> 00:49:13.280 You cannot do that because again, man is a gestalt Stalt. 00:49:13.280 --> 00:49:16.480 We are a sum of these things that is greater than any 00:49:16.480 --> 00:49:21.920 of them, and greater than all of them simply combined. 00:49:21.920 --> 00:49:23.920 All of them are important. 00:49:23.920 --> 00:49:26.720 And they will be important as we discuss the image of God 00:49:26.800 --> 00:49:30.960 because the image relates to each of those and relates to them 00:49:30.960 --> 00:49:32.400 in different ways. 00:49:32.400 --> 00:49:37.280 In some ways that become particularly salient with regard to the fall 00:49:37.680 --> 00:49:38.560 and with regard to 00:49:39.520 --> 00:49:45.280 justification and sanctification, because the image of God in man was not 00:49:45.280 --> 00:49:50.400 destroyed in the fall, it's important to note that, but was certainly 00:49:50.400 --> 00:49:53.600 defaced, as it were, degenerated. 00:49:53.600 --> 00:49:55.840 It was harmed. 00:49:55.840 --> 00:49:59.680 It was affected by the fall. 00:49:59.680 --> 00:50:05.360 And it is restored in justification and through sanctification. 00:50:05.360 --> 00:50:09.440 It's not that you get everything back immediately when you're justified. 00:50:09.440 --> 00:50:13.920 That's not how this aspect of Christianity works. 00:50:13.920 --> 00:50:18.560 Now, justification, again, just to make sure that I am absolutely clear, 00:50:18.560 --> 00:50:20.320 we've been clear in other episodes, but I'll do it here as 00:50:20.320 --> 00:50:23.920 well. That is a one time thing. 00:50:23.920 --> 00:50:26.480 You are justified, it's done. 00:50:26.480 --> 00:50:28.480 It's not an ongoing process. 00:50:28.480 --> 00:50:31.120 Sanctification is the ongoing process. 00:50:31.120 --> 00:50:33.280 You are becoming more Christ-like. 00:50:33.280 --> 00:50:35.680 And do note what scripture says about that. 00:50:35.680 --> 00:50:37.680 You are being conformed to his image. 00:50:37.680 --> 00:50:39.920 You are being conformed to Christ. 00:50:39.920 --> 00:50:44.640 Because of course Christ is the perfect image of God. 00:50:45.200 --> 00:50:48.560 That's not to say that man is an imperfect image of God, 00:50:48.560 --> 00:50:52.880 although in our fallen state of course we certainly are. 00:50:52.880 --> 00:50:57.920 Another aside, but an important one, because it's necessary When using some 00:50:57.920 --> 00:51:03.760 of these terms, perfect has a number of different senses. 00:51:03.760 --> 00:51:09.200 And it is important to recognize which one is being used and 00:51:09.360 --> 00:51:13.200 often which one is deliberately not being used. 00:51:13.200 --> 00:51:16.240 And so when I say that Christ is 00:51:17.200 --> 00:51:22.000 the perfect image of God, which of course he is, because in 00:51:22.000 --> 00:51:26.560 Christ the fullness of deity dwells bodily. 00:51:26.560 --> 00:51:29.920 Make sure to mark that adverb, it's very important. 00:51:29.920 --> 00:51:35.440 But Christ being the perfect image of God is an absolute statement. 00:51:35.600 --> 00:51:38.080 And this is how you should think about the different senses of 00:51:38.080 --> 00:51:42.480 perfect. There is a relative form of perfection, and there is an 00:51:42.480 --> 00:51:44.560 absolute form of perfection. 00:51:44.560 --> 00:51:49.440 Christ is absolutely perfect in every way, but for what we're discussing 00:51:49.440 --> 00:51:53.520 here with regard to the image of God, to give a more 00:51:53.520 --> 00:52:00.640 concrete example, to speak of intelligence or knowledge, God is 00:52:00.640 --> 00:52:04.480 omniscient. God knows all things. 00:52:04.480 --> 00:52:06.160 He has all knowledge. 00:52:06.160 --> 00:52:11.120 He is infinitely intelligent. 00:52:11.120 --> 00:52:12.880 Man is not. 00:52:12.880 --> 00:52:14.240 And so in an absolute 00:52:15.280 --> 00:52:20.720 sense, man is not perfect with regard to knowledge or intelligence, because 00:52:20.720 --> 00:52:25.920 to be perfect in an absolute sense with regard to those would 00:52:25.920 --> 00:52:29.600 be to be omniscient would be would be to be God. 00:52:29.600 --> 00:52:31.920 And man is not God. 00:52:31.920 --> 00:52:36.640 Take instead, say, a dog and a human being. 00:52:36.640 --> 00:52:40.880 The man, hopefully at least, is going to be more intelligent and 00:52:40.880 --> 00:52:43.440 more knowledgeable than the dog. 00:52:43.440 --> 00:52:49.600 And so in an absolute sense, the man is more perfect with 00:52:49.600 --> 00:52:52.960 regard to those attributes than the dog. 00:52:52.960 --> 00:52:53.680 But in a relative 00:52:54.640 --> 00:53:00.880 sense, that's not true, because in a relative sense, the perfection of 00:53:00.880 --> 00:53:04.640 the dog is with regard to it being a dog, and the 00:53:04.640 --> 00:53:08.160 perfection of the man is with regard to him being a man. 00:53:09.280 --> 00:53:12.800 And so you don't want to think of these things in terms 00:53:12.800 --> 00:53:16.480 of saying, well, I'm imperfect because I'm not the absolute. 00:53:16.480 --> 00:53:18.480 You can't be the absolute. 00:53:18.640 --> 00:53:21.280 Because if you were the absolute, she would be God. 00:53:21.280 --> 00:53:25.280 And so just bear in mind they're two very different senses of 00:53:25.280 --> 00:53:31.680 perfect. And so if someone speaks of perfection, you need to know 00:53:31.680 --> 00:53:33.360 which sense of perfection he means. 00:53:33.360 --> 00:53:36.320 Hopefully he knows which one he intends to use, but often the 00:53:36.320 --> 00:53:37.760 speaker does not. 00:53:37.760 --> 00:53:44.400 There is that difference between absolute perfection and relative perfection. 00:53:44.400 --> 00:53:49.680 Because of course Part of sanctification and certainly the restoration at the 00:53:49.680 --> 00:53:56.320 resurrection is a restoration to perfection, but it is relative perfection because 00:53:56.320 --> 00:53:58.480 it is the perfection for you. 00:53:58.480 --> 00:54:01.840 You are being restored to what God wants you to be, what 00:54:01.840 --> 00:54:05.840 God wanted you to be, without the effects, the now cumulative effects 00:54:05.920 --> 00:54:07.280 of the fall. 00:54:07.760 --> 00:54:12.000 It's not that God is going to make dogs as smart as 00:54:12.000 --> 00:54:14.640 men, or men as smart as God. 00:54:14.640 --> 00:54:16.160 That's not how that works. 00:54:16.160 --> 00:54:20.960 You are going to be restored to the perfection that is your 00:54:21.120 --> 00:54:24.320 perfection. It is the relative perfection. 00:54:24.320 --> 00:54:27.520 So just bear in mind those two different senses of that term, 00:54:27.520 --> 00:54:32.240 because if you conflate those two things, you wander off into the 00:54:32.240 --> 00:54:34.560 weeds and you get lost. 00:54:34.560 --> 00:54:39.600 Because saying that well, man is imperfect, well what do you mean? 00:54:39.600 --> 00:54:41.600 Which sense of perfect? 00:54:41.600 --> 00:54:44.720 They're different things. 00:54:44.800 --> 00:54:49.360 One last thing on images or depictions, because I know it's a 00:54:49.360 --> 00:54:53.200 major concern, especially for some of our reformed friends. 00:54:53.200 --> 00:54:55.680 And I do share this concern. 00:54:55.680 --> 00:55:01.760 Particularly with the advent of AI generation of images, it's basically possible 00:55:01.760 --> 00:55:05.440 to provide a prompt that will have Jesus doing anything you can 00:55:05.440 --> 00:55:09.680 imagine. And incidentally the same root for imagine is image. 00:55:09.680 --> 00:55:14.000 So even just imagining something in your head is imaging the thing. 00:55:14.000 --> 00:55:17.520 Whether or not you spit out a JPEG to imagine it is 00:55:17.520 --> 00:55:20.560 to visualize inside your mind that thing. 00:55:20.560 --> 00:55:25.360 I completely agree with some of the reform to in good conscience 00:55:25.520 --> 00:55:31.520 believe that there's an absolute prohibition against all symbols of Christ visually. 00:55:31.520 --> 00:55:35.520 Obviously we disagree with that fundamentally, but that doesn't mean it's a 00:55:35.520 --> 00:55:36.640 free for all. 00:55:36.640 --> 00:55:41.520 I don't think that depictions of Jesus in ways that are inconsistent 00:55:41.520 --> 00:55:45.520 with scripture I don't know where to draw the line morally. 00:55:45.520 --> 00:55:47.280 I don't know where to say this is a sin and that's 00:55:47.280 --> 00:55:50.880 not a sin, but I absolutely agree that it makes me uncomfortable. 00:55:50.880 --> 00:55:54.800 I would prefer not to act, not to create images, not to 00:55:54.800 --> 00:55:57.440 even imagine things that I wouldn't even describe here. 00:55:57.600 --> 00:56:01.360 Not anything gross, but just like something that Jesus wouldn't have done 00:56:01.360 --> 00:56:05.360 in the Bible or something Jesus won't do in the future. 00:56:05.360 --> 00:56:10.640 I personally have a problem with visualizing that, with imagining that. 00:56:10.640 --> 00:56:13.840 So So I think some people don't care at all. 00:56:13.840 --> 00:56:15.520 They think, Well, I can think about it and so I can 00:56:15.520 --> 00:56:18.640 have this machine spit out, Jesus doing whatever I want. 00:56:18.640 --> 00:56:20.080 There's a line there. 00:56:20.080 --> 00:56:22.240 And it's particular to Christ. 00:56:22.240 --> 00:56:26.320 It's got nothing to do with the Islamic prohibition that nothing no 00:56:26.480 --> 00:56:30.480 actual representation of any creature can be made and so all the 00:56:30.800 --> 00:56:31.760 heart is abstract. 00:56:31.760 --> 00:56:33.200 Not remotely the thing. 00:56:33.520 --> 00:56:37.920 Just singling out God as maybe we don't go there, I totally 00:56:37.920 --> 00:56:40.080 agree that that is a good sensibility. 00:56:40.080 --> 00:56:44.320 I don't agree that it is from scripture in terms of being 00:56:44.320 --> 00:56:45.600 from the Ten Commandments. 00:56:45.600 --> 00:56:49.040 We don't actually agree about what those commandments are, but 00:56:50.080 --> 00:56:54.480 it it's absolutely a valid concern and I rather than beating up 00:56:54.480 --> 00:56:57.280 on those guys even though I disagree with where they draw the 00:56:57.280 --> 00:57:01.920 line, I would admonish the rest of us to have a little 00:57:01.920 --> 00:57:05.600 bit more concern for maybe not just being flippant about how we 00:57:05.600 --> 00:57:06.800 represent God. 00:57:06.800 --> 00:57:09.680 Because as Corey was saying earlier, it does matter. 00:57:09.680 --> 00:57:14.800 The thing that you do to that which is symbolized flows through. 00:57:14.800 --> 00:57:19.040 As we'll see here a minute in scripture, that's precisely the prohibition 00:57:19.040 --> 00:57:22.480 against us doing certain things to man. 00:57:22.480 --> 00:57:26.880 God says directly, because man is made in his image, therefore we 00:57:26.880 --> 00:57:27.680 don't do that. 00:57:27.680 --> 00:57:31.520 And it's specifically because that pass through nature that I mentioned earlier 00:57:31.600 --> 00:57:32.800 for the image. 00:57:32.800 --> 00:57:37.200 If I act upon you in a way that harms you, in 00:57:37.200 --> 00:57:41.440 a sense, I have done that to God, not in some weird 00:57:41.440 --> 00:57:45.600 Eastern religion we're all God thing, but man is the image of 00:57:45.600 --> 00:57:48.720 God. How I might treat a dog is going to fall under 00:57:48.720 --> 00:57:49.920 a different set of rules. 00:57:50.080 --> 00:57:52.480 Again, none of these things are ever free for all. 00:57:52.480 --> 00:57:57.920 But there's a very specific line drawn around God and a specific 00:57:57.920 --> 00:57:59.920 line drawn around man. 00:57:59.920 --> 00:58:03.680 And the origin of that is right in the beginning of creation. 00:58:03.680 --> 00:58:05.280 In Genesis 1. 00:58:05.280 --> 00:58:09.440 I'm gonna read the longer passage because the context is crucial for 00:58:09.760 --> 00:58:13.360 the understanding of what we talk about when we need the specific 00:58:13.360 --> 00:58:15.360 image of God. 00:58:15.360 --> 00:58:19.600 And God said, Let us make man according to our image and 00:58:19.600 --> 00:58:23.360 likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, 00:58:23.360 --> 00:58:26.160 and over the flying creatures of heaven, and over the cattle and 00:58:26.160 --> 00:58:28.800 all the earth, and over all the reptiles that creep on the 00:58:28.800 --> 00:58:32.560 earth, and God made man, according to the image of God he 00:58:32.560 --> 00:58:35.840 made him, male and female he made them. 00:58:35.840 --> 00:58:39.200 And God blessed them, saying, Increase and multiply and fill the earth 00:58:39.280 --> 00:58:42.480 and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the seas 00:58:42.640 --> 00:58:45.520 and flying creatures of heaven, and all the cattle, and all the 00:58:45.520 --> 00:58:50.080 earth, and all the reptiles that creep on the earth. 00:58:50.080 --> 00:58:52.960 I think most of the time when we think about this passage, 00:58:52.960 --> 00:58:55.920 we think of a couple unrelated things happening. 00:58:55.920 --> 00:59:00.480 We have God making man and his image, and then totally unrelated, 00:59:00.480 --> 00:59:03.760 God is giving man dominion over the earth. 00:59:03.760 --> 00:59:07.120 One of the principal things that we hope you'll take from this 00:59:07.120 --> 00:59:10.160 episode is that it's the same thing. 00:59:10.160 --> 00:59:15.600 When God made Adam in God's image, and God gave Adam dominion 00:59:15.600 --> 00:59:19.200 over the earth, God is saying to Adam, You are my icon 00:59:19.360 --> 00:59:23.680 on the earth, you rule over this place in my stead, such 00:59:23.680 --> 00:59:27.360 that Adam's hand was God's hand in creation. 00:59:27.360 --> 00:59:29.120 That is how we were created. 00:59:29.120 --> 00:59:31.440 That was the purpose of man. 00:59:31.440 --> 00:59:33.600 And we're not really going to get into it too much in 00:59:33.600 --> 00:59:37.920 this episode because in the earlier episode we did last year on 00:59:38.400 --> 00:59:43.040 scripture and ontology related to women, we specifically dealt with the clear 00:59:43.040 --> 00:59:48.480 distinctions the scripture make between man being created in God's image and 00:59:48.480 --> 00:59:50.880 woman being created in man's image. 00:59:50.880 --> 00:59:54.800 And that that is not a diminution of women by any stretch. 00:59:54.800 --> 00:59:58.960 But it is saying that two different things are happening and one 00:59:58.960 --> 01:00:00.880 does not degrade the other in the context. 01:00:01.840 --> 01:00:03.280 So we treat it more fully there. 01:00:03.280 --> 01:00:06.080 We'll probably talk about a little bit here, but just know that 01:00:06.080 --> 01:00:10.000 the wording is always focused on the man. 01:00:10.000 --> 01:00:11.440 And this shouldn't concern us. 01:00:11.440 --> 01:00:14.560 The only reason anyone would even get nervous about this is having 01:00:14.560 --> 01:00:17.120 false egalitarian priors. 01:00:17.120 --> 01:00:21.920 When God says Adam is to have dominion over the earth, that 01:00:21.920 --> 01:00:23.280 is headship. 01:00:23.280 --> 01:00:25.680 What else does Adam have headship over? 01:00:25.680 --> 01:00:31.760 Eve. In creation, in perfection, before the fall, Adam has dominion over 01:00:31.760 --> 01:00:34.640 Eve as part of his own body, just as he has dominion 01:00:34.640 --> 01:00:35.520 over his hand. 01:00:35.520 --> 01:00:39.520 That is not adversarial, that is not hate, that is pure love, 01:00:39.520 --> 01:00:43.360 and it is a part of himself, but Adam is the head. 01:00:43.360 --> 01:00:47.040 And the reason that all of creation fell is that Adam fell, 01:00:47.040 --> 01:00:50.960 and the head took the rest with it. 01:00:50.960 --> 01:00:56.400 The headship and the dominion of man over the earth is inextricable 01:00:56.400 --> 01:00:59.520 from man having been created in the image of God. 01:00:59.520 --> 01:01:02.080 So again, when you read that passage, when you hear it read 01:01:02.080 --> 01:01:04.320 to you, it's not two different things happening. 01:01:04.320 --> 01:01:07.680 It's not creation and then dominion destroying being dispensed, and I guess 01:01:07.680 --> 01:01:11.280 the man gets it instead of some other creature. 01:01:11.280 --> 01:01:16.880 God specifically made man as his icon in creation to have dominion 01:01:16.880 --> 01:01:17.520 over it. 01:01:17.520 --> 01:01:19.040 It's the same thing. 01:01:19.040 --> 01:01:24.640 Had we not suffered the fall, all of mankind would be acting 01:01:24.640 --> 01:01:28.000 as God's hand, as God's icon in creation. 01:01:28.000 --> 01:01:29.680 And there would still be hierarchy. 01:01:29.680 --> 01:01:32.800 Just as Adam was over Eve, he would be immortal. 01:01:32.800 --> 01:01:35.360 He would be the king of all man because he was the 01:01:35.360 --> 01:01:37.680 first. That makes him the most important. 01:01:37.680 --> 01:01:41.360 The one that comes first is more important than the later ones. 01:01:41.360 --> 01:01:46.080 Every family has multiple children, goes through some aspect of this stress. 01:01:46.080 --> 01:01:48.400 The first one is prime. 01:01:48.400 --> 01:01:51.920 And at different times and places, when we in the episode that 01:01:51.920 --> 01:01:55.600 we did on inheritance, we talked about different paths of inheritance to 01:01:55.600 --> 01:01:58.240 deal with the fact that you have the firstborn, does he get 01:01:58.240 --> 01:01:58.880 the lion's share? 01:01:58.880 --> 01:02:00.160 Does he get half? 01:02:00.160 --> 01:02:01.920 You know, it's how you handle that. 01:02:01.920 --> 01:02:06.160 There are different cultural treatments because there is an inherent primacy to 01:02:06.160 --> 01:02:07.440 whoever comes first. 01:02:07.440 --> 01:02:11.680 Adam came first, as the head of the world, as God's icon 01:02:11.680 --> 01:02:14.240 in the world, and all of us would have been made in 01:02:14.240 --> 01:02:15.360 Adam's image. 01:02:15.360 --> 01:02:17.200 You know, that wasn't just Eve. 01:02:17.200 --> 01:02:20.240 It wasn't just the woman was made in the image of man. 01:02:20.240 --> 01:02:23.040 We would have been made in the perfect image of Adam. 01:02:23.040 --> 01:02:24.960 We are still made in the image of Adam. 01:02:24.960 --> 01:02:28.640 Unfortunately, it's the fallen image, which is as Corey was talking a 01:02:28.640 --> 01:02:32.000 little bit earlier, and we'll get into principally in next week's episode. 01:02:32.000 --> 01:02:35.360 The fallen image is a different thing and it's a different problem. 01:02:35.360 --> 01:02:40.720 But first and foremost, it's crucial to remember that by God creating 01:02:40.720 --> 01:02:45.280 man in his image, something very particular has happened with mankind that 01:02:45.280 --> 01:02:47.200 doesn't apply to any other creature. 01:02:47.200 --> 01:02:52.880 That's why this there's the distinction that's sometimes drawn correctly between man 01:02:52.880 --> 01:02:54.400 and animal. 01:02:54.960 --> 01:02:57.920 I don't care how you slice it as long as you acknowledge 01:02:57.920 --> 01:03:00.800 that man is made in the image of God and everything else 01:03:00.800 --> 01:03:02.320 is subordinate to that. 01:03:02.320 --> 01:03:04.800 I don't personally have a problem with saying that man is an 01:03:04.800 --> 01:03:08.480 animal, but I'm also doing that in the context of, you know, 01:03:08.480 --> 01:03:12.080 Adam having been created thousands of years ago, no evolution. 01:03:12.080 --> 01:03:15.680 So it doesn't confuse anything internally for me to think of man 01:03:15.680 --> 01:03:16.480 as an animal. 01:03:16.480 --> 01:03:20.960 We're all creatures and those are usually used as synonyms. 01:03:20.960 --> 01:03:24.080 It is important, however, when you're dealing with people who think about 01:03:24.080 --> 01:03:28.240 evolution not to acknowledge that man is is evolved as an animal 01:03:28.320 --> 01:03:32.720 like anything else because that would tacitly deny the man is created 01:03:32.720 --> 01:03:33.600 in the image of God. 01:03:33.600 --> 01:03:36.320 And that is the seminal question here. 01:03:36.320 --> 01:03:40.320 And it's not something we're really going to get into, but when 01:03:40.320 --> 01:03:43.920 you think about man being made in the image of God and 01:03:43.920 --> 01:03:48.240 Jesus being the perfect image of God, as an exercise to the 01:03:48.240 --> 01:03:52.080 listener, think about what happens when you get into trannyism and these 01:03:52.080 --> 01:03:56.240 other things of redefinition of self When we are made in one 01:03:56.240 --> 01:03:59.760 way and we say I despise this, there's one race, the human 01:03:59.760 --> 01:04:01.280 race. I'm transracial now. 01:04:01.280 --> 01:04:02.560 I feel black today. 01:04:02.560 --> 01:04:04.080 I'm not going to be what God made me. 01:04:04.080 --> 01:04:05.280 I'm going to be this other thing. 01:04:05.280 --> 01:04:06.800 Uh call me Loretta. 01:04:06.800 --> 01:04:08.400 I don't feel like I'm a man today. 01:04:08.400 --> 01:04:09.840 You can't do that. 01:04:09.840 --> 01:04:13.360 Not only because it's false, not only because it's demonstrably opposed to 01:04:13.360 --> 01:04:18.240 creation, but because it's secondarily an attack on the image in which 01:04:18.240 --> 01:04:22.080 we were created, even the fallen image of God, there's still something 01:04:22.080 --> 01:04:23.840 there that is being attacked. 01:04:23.840 --> 01:04:27.840 And all these attacks on the image of God through attacking the 01:04:27.840 --> 01:04:31.680 image of man, that's the portal that is acting on A is 01:04:31.680 --> 01:04:32.720 acting on B. 01:04:32.720 --> 01:04:36.800 And that's the reason for the satanic attack of tranneism and these 01:04:36.800 --> 01:04:37.760 related things. 01:04:37.760 --> 01:04:41.120 It is an attack on the image of God, indirectly through man. 01:04:41.120 --> 01:04:43.920 Part of the reason that some of these things get so complicated 01:04:44.080 --> 01:04:46.400 is that the attacks are this complicated. 01:04:46.400 --> 01:04:50.960 Look at how many different directions Satan is attacking from simultaneously. 01:04:50.960 --> 01:04:54.160 And once you realize the damage it's being done, how much damage 01:04:54.160 --> 01:04:55.520 is actually being done? 01:04:55.600 --> 01:05:00.720 Neutraneism is not just about forty one percent suicide rates and fertility 01:05:00.720 --> 01:05:02.880 and like the horror of it. 01:05:02.880 --> 01:05:03.840 It's more than that. 01:05:04.080 --> 01:05:06.400 it's spiritual in multiple ways too. 01:05:06.400 --> 01:05:10.240 And arguably the worst of them is that it is an attack 01:05:10.240 --> 01:05:13.840 on the creator by attacking a creature that was actually made in 01:05:13.840 --> 01:05:15.520 the image of that creator. 01:05:15.520 --> 01:05:18.000 Your dog was not made in the image of God. 01:05:18.000 --> 01:05:18.800 You were. 01:05:18.800 --> 01:05:20.800 And even in your fallen state, there's something there. 01:05:20.800 --> 01:05:25.520 And for you to despise self or to despise another man, as 01:05:25.520 --> 01:05:29.200 scripture talks about and we'll get to later on, is a sin 01:05:29.200 --> 01:05:32.640 because of that, because it is an attack on God to do 01:05:32.640 --> 01:05:37.440 that. So this image stuff, it's not just a fiddly philosophical construct. 01:05:37.440 --> 01:05:41.280 There's actually something happening here that scripture makes clear. 01:05:41.280 --> 01:05:44.960 And if we don't remember and we don't take it seriously, it's 01:05:44.960 --> 01:05:47.600 easy to get lost in the weeds on some of these other 01:05:47.600 --> 01:05:51.600 discussions. You know, the argument against tranneism, you know, there are arguments 01:05:51.600 --> 01:05:55.280 that are biological, there are arguments that are genetic, but the principal 01:05:55.280 --> 01:05:58.160 argument needs to be man is made in the image of God 01:05:58.320 --> 01:06:00.240 and woman is made in the image of man. 01:06:00.240 --> 01:06:03.920 And any attack on that is an attack on God. 01:06:03.920 --> 01:06:06.000 And that's the first fight that we fight. 01:06:06.000 --> 01:06:08.720 And all all the other fights are downstream from that. 01:06:08.960 --> 01:06:09.200 When 01:06:09.200 --> 01:06:13.520 Wo says that women are not diminished by the fact that they 01:06:13.520 --> 01:06:18.640 are transitively, as it were, in the image of God, because woman 01:06:18.640 --> 01:06:22.640 is the glory of man, man is the glory, the image and 01:06:22.640 --> 01:06:24.000 glory of God. 01:06:24.000 --> 01:06:27.520 To quote first Corinthians. 01:06:27.520 --> 01:06:30.480 That is part of what I was saying when I was speaking 01:06:31.120 --> 01:06:33.920 about the different kinds of perfection, it was one of the points 01:06:33.920 --> 01:06:36.160 I was attempting to convey, and I just want to make that 01:06:36.160 --> 01:06:38.880 a little more clear. 01:06:38.880 --> 01:06:44.640 The fact that woman is transitively, which is to say, through man 01:06:44.720 --> 01:06:48.080 after a fashion, in the image of God, because of course all 01:06:48.080 --> 01:06:51.680 of mankind is in the image of God, just not in exactly 01:06:51.680 --> 01:06:54.400 the same way as between the sexes. 01:06:54.400 --> 01:06:58.480 That is not to diminish woman in any way. 01:06:58.480 --> 01:07:04.320 A woman is no less perfect with regard to her perfection because 01:07:04.480 --> 01:07:07.120 she is under the headship of man. 01:07:07.120 --> 01:07:12.000 That's why I was speaking about the difference between my dog and 01:07:12.000 --> 01:07:16.400 me, between any animal and man. 01:07:16.400 --> 01:07:21.200 The animal is not lesser with regard to its own perfection, simply 01:07:21.200 --> 01:07:26.960 because the man is greater, because God made the man greater in 01:07:26.960 --> 01:07:31.120 certain ways, in many ways with regard to animals certainly. 01:07:31.120 --> 01:07:34.880 But also man is greater than woman in certain ways. 01:07:34.880 --> 01:07:36.480 Man is stronger. 01:07:36.480 --> 01:07:38.800 That's one of the most obvious ones. 01:07:38.800 --> 01:07:42.720 Man is spoken of as the image and glory of God, and 01:07:42.720 --> 01:07:46.320 woman is spoken of as the glory of man. 01:07:46.320 --> 01:07:49.680 Again, that doesn't diminish woman because because 01:07:50.640 --> 01:07:55.600 we're not talking about sort of that absolute scale because you can't 01:07:55.600 --> 01:07:59.280 have an absolute perfection because again that would make you God. 01:07:59.280 --> 01:08:03.520 And so to be the perfect version of the thing that you 01:08:03.520 --> 01:08:07.280 are is what God intends for you. 01:08:07.280 --> 01:08:10.000 That is what you should desire to be. 01:08:10.000 --> 01:08:14.240 It's not to desire to be something greater or other than what 01:08:14.240 --> 01:08:16.000 God made you. 01:08:16.000 --> 01:08:20.320 God made you to be what you are, simply a perfect version 01:08:20.320 --> 01:08:25.680 of it, instead of the fallen version that we all are today. 01:08:25.680 --> 01:08:30.080 But to look at this verse from Genesis a little more closely 01:08:30.160 --> 01:08:37.200 just briefly, when it says so God created man in his 01:08:37.280 --> 01:08:41.360 own image, that first instance there of man 01:08:42.320 --> 01:08:42.640 is 01:08:43.920 --> 01:08:44.560 both 01:08:45.840 --> 01:08:52.880 the specific one, male, man, and the general one, which 01:08:52.880 --> 01:08:56.640 we which we also do use in English, of course, it's anthropos 01:08:56.720 --> 01:08:58.880 in Greek here. 01:08:58.880 --> 01:09:03.600 It's not necessarily only exclusively man. 01:09:03.600 --> 01:09:06.880 But the reason that we can see even here without resorting to 01:09:06.880 --> 01:09:10.240 other parts of scripture, which we should always do of course, but 01:09:10.240 --> 01:09:13.120 we don't need to do it here, even though I've already mentioned 01:09:13.120 --> 01:09:17.600 one, you then see that singular in the second part of really 01:09:17.680 --> 01:09:21.360 this is sort of three lines of poetry here, in the image 01:09:21.360 --> 01:09:24.160 of God he created him. 01:09:24.160 --> 01:09:31.200 That is, of course, third person, accusative, masculine, singular, in the Greek, 01:09:31.200 --> 01:09:33.040 and also in the English. 01:09:33.040 --> 01:09:35.920 But then it says male and female he created them. 01:09:35.920 --> 01:09:36.880 You really have 01:09:38.000 --> 01:09:42.880 just what we were explaining with regard to the difference of the 01:09:42.880 --> 01:09:47.920 image of God as between the sexes, you have that contained right 01:09:47.920 --> 01:09:48.880 here in this verse. 01:09:48.880 --> 01:09:53.360 It's of course, as I've already said, elsewhere in Scripture as well, 01:09:53.360 --> 01:09:54.560 but you have it here. 01:09:54.560 --> 01:09:57.520 This is a beautiful part of Scripture and as as is so 01:09:57.520 --> 01:10:00.480 often true of scripture, it has many layers to it, has a 01:10:00.480 --> 01:10:02.000 depth to it. 01:10:02.000 --> 01:10:06.880 You have God speaking of the creation of mankind in his own 01:10:06.880 --> 01:10:11.440 image. Because do bear in mind when God created Adam, he created 01:10:12.160 --> 01:10:14.160 all of mankind. 01:10:14.160 --> 01:10:18.640 That is essentially what he did, because Adam is the federal head 01:10:18.640 --> 01:10:20.160 of mankind. 01:10:20.160 --> 01:10:24.080 All of man descends from Adam. 01:10:24.080 --> 01:10:27.120 Each and every one of us is a son or daughter of 01:10:27.120 --> 01:10:33.200 Adam. And after a fashion, that includes Eve, because Eve was created 01:10:33.200 --> 01:10:34.720 from Adam. 01:10:34.720 --> 01:10:38.160 Adam is the father of the entire human race. 01:10:38.160 --> 01:10:42.320 And that's what you have here, the creation of mankind in God's 01:10:42.320 --> 01:10:46.320 image. And you have that creation in the singular man, because that's 01:10:46.320 --> 01:10:51.760 singular there, of Adam, who is created the second line in the 01:10:51.760 --> 01:10:56.720 image of God, which again has many different senses to it, and 01:10:56.720 --> 01:11:02.800 they are all important, despite the fact that modern exegetes usually again 01:11:02.800 --> 01:11:08.400 intending to mislead focus specifically laser like on certain subsets of what 01:11:08.400 --> 01:11:12.640 the image is, ignoring the other parts. 01:11:12.640 --> 01:11:15.600 But here you have the creation of this individual man who is 01:11:16.000 --> 01:11:19.920 the federal head of all of mankind in the image of God. 01:11:19.920 --> 01:11:22.880 And then you have the third line to make sure the point 01:11:22.880 --> 01:11:23.840 is clear. 01:11:23.840 --> 01:11:26.960 Male and female he created them. 01:11:26.960 --> 01:11:32.240 Mankind Mankind is both sexes, male and female. 01:11:32.240 --> 01:11:35.440 You can't have more human beings without both. 01:11:35.440 --> 01:11:39.600 Hopefully that is something that goes without explanation. 01:11:39.600 --> 01:11:44.000 And so man and woman are both in the image of God, 01:11:44.000 --> 01:11:46.720 just not in exactly the same way. 01:11:46.720 --> 01:11:51.680 That shouldn't make anyone uncomfortable, it shouldn't make anyone feel lesser or 01:11:52.160 --> 01:11:55.920 particularly, it shouldn't puff you up with pride if you're a man. 01:11:55.920 --> 01:12:00.080 It is just that God made man and woman different from one 01:12:00.080 --> 01:12:03.520 another, because woman is a helper fit for man. 01:12:03.520 --> 01:12:06.800 She's not a replacement for man, she's not a competitor to man. 01:12:07.120 --> 01:12:09.520 She is a helper fit for him. 01:12:09.520 --> 01:12:12.400 But do bear in mind again that God also says it is 01:12:12.400 --> 01:12:14.480 not good for man to be alone. 01:12:14.480 --> 01:12:19.120 So not only is woman a helper fit for man, really she's 01:12:19.120 --> 01:12:20.640 a necessary part. 01:12:20.640 --> 01:12:25.120 It's not that man is incomplete or that God made man imperfect 01:12:25.120 --> 01:12:27.680 in some absolute sense. 01:12:27.680 --> 01:12:31.200 Rather is that you have something that is greater than the sum 01:12:31.200 --> 01:12:32.000 of the parts. 01:12:32.000 --> 01:12:33.520 This is again a gestalt. 01:12:33.520 --> 01:12:38.240 That's why you see the creation of the one flesh union. 01:12:38.240 --> 01:12:43.040 So don't let anyone rob you of any of the depth 01:12:44.160 --> 01:12:49.840 of this verse, of this doctrine, of this theology, don't flatten things, 01:12:49.840 --> 01:12:54.080 conflate them in ways that are impermissible and that destroy what God 01:12:54.080 --> 01:12:56.320 has created. 01:12:56.320 --> 01:12:58.240 There is a hierarchy here. 01:12:58.240 --> 01:13:02.240 We aren't denying that or trying to paper over it with however 01:13:02.240 --> 01:13:04.720 many words we can summon. 01:13:04.720 --> 01:13:09.520 Man is the head, and that places man above woman. 01:13:09.520 --> 01:13:11.040 That is simply the reality of it. 01:13:11.360 --> 01:13:14.080 That is how God designed things. 01:13:14.080 --> 01:13:19.600 Any attempt to flatten that, any attempt to achieve egalitarianism, to institute 01:13:19.600 --> 01:13:24.240 feminism, whatever it happens to be, is a direct assault on God's 01:13:24.320 --> 01:13:28.240 On God's created order, and it is a direct assault on the 01:13:28.240 --> 01:13:32.320 image of God in man, because it is a denial of how 01:13:32.320 --> 01:13:34.640 that works. 01:13:34.640 --> 01:13:38.160 Those who attempt to say that men and women are perfectly equal, 01:13:38.160 --> 01:13:41.040 there are no distinctions, interchangeable. 01:13:41.040 --> 01:13:43.280 In fact you can even change your sex if you don't like 01:13:43.280 --> 01:13:45.280 the one you woke up as that day. 01:13:45.760 --> 01:13:49.360 Those who attempt to do that are seeking to do the will 01:13:49.360 --> 01:13:53.040 of their father below and destroy the image of God in man 01:13:53.920 --> 01:13:56.640 in so far as that is possible. 01:13:56.640 --> 01:13:59.760 Because Satan hates God. 01:13:59.760 --> 01:14:03.840 Only thing he hates more than you is God and so he 01:14:03.840 --> 01:14:06.640 wants to destroy anything in creation 01:14:07.600 --> 01:14:11.520 that looks like God, that is related to God. 01:14:11.520 --> 01:14:16.480 And that is particularly the case for the images of God. 01:14:17.440 --> 01:14:21.600 And it is a destruction of the image of God if women 01:14:21.600 --> 01:14:24.240 attempt to be men or men attempt to be women. 01:14:24.240 --> 01:14:27.840 There's a reason that even wearing the clothing of the other sex 01:14:28.000 --> 01:14:32.160 is condemned in the harshest of terms in Scripture These are all 01:14:32.160 --> 01:14:35.760 things that are assaults on the image of God, and again, remember 01:14:35.760 --> 01:14:38.800 what an assault on the image or the symbol is. 01:14:38.800 --> 01:14:42.400 It is an assault on the thing that is imaged or symbolized. 01:14:42.400 --> 01:14:45.120 Thankfully, we can do that with both of those words in English. 01:14:45.360 --> 01:14:49.520 Not always the case in English, but it works here. 01:14:49.520 --> 01:14:52.720 When you assault the reality 01:14:53.680 --> 01:15:00.080 of the differences between the sexes, of the hierarchy created, of headship. 01:15:00.080 --> 01:15:04.000 Ultimately what you are seeking to do is to take God off 01:15:04.000 --> 01:15:05.040 his throne. 01:15:05.040 --> 01:15:08.160 You can't do it, you won't succeed, but it is But it 01:15:08.160 --> 01:15:13.920 is certainly extreme wickedness and depravity, even to mount the attempt. 01:15:13.920 --> 01:15:17.040 And that is exactly what Satan is attempting to do. 01:15:17.040 --> 01:15:22.000 And unfortunately we see the very same thing flowing from many supposedly 01:15:22.000 --> 01:15:26.800 Christian pastors and teachers these days, because they will use the image 01:15:26.800 --> 01:15:30.480 of God, and usually they'll resort to Latin in order to make 01:15:30.480 --> 01:15:33.280 you think that they really know what they're talking about because they 01:15:33.280 --> 01:15:34.160 can use Latin. 01:15:34.160 --> 01:15:37.600 So they'll say Imago Dei. 01:15:37.600 --> 01:15:42.640 But they'll use it to attempt to undermine the reality of creation, 01:15:42.640 --> 01:15:46.560 to undermine the hierarchy that God has created, to deny that there 01:15:46.560 --> 01:15:48.880 are differences between and among, say, the races 01:15:50.080 --> 01:15:51.120 of men. 01:15:51.120 --> 01:15:53.600 They'll say, oh, we're all in the image of God, and so 01:15:54.160 --> 01:15:58.800 Africans and Europeans are exactly the same, interchangeable. 01:15:59.120 --> 01:16:03.200 Do not ever let any pastor or teacher do that. 01:16:03.200 --> 01:16:05.920 Do not let them mislead you. 01:16:05.920 --> 01:16:09.840 Because what they are doing is undermining what Scripture says about the 01:16:09.840 --> 01:16:11.200 image of God. 01:16:11.200 --> 01:16:14.560 It is a frontal assault on God. 01:16:15.040 --> 01:16:17.520 That is heresy of the highest order. 01:16:17.520 --> 01:16:18.800 It's blasphemy. 01:16:18.800 --> 01:16:22.160 It is a horrible thing for anyone even to utter or think, 01:16:22.160 --> 01:16:26.320 let alone to stand up and publicly preach or teach, and yet 01:16:26.480 --> 01:16:29.440 we see it everywhere these days. 01:16:29.440 --> 01:16:33.600 Because if you get these things wrong, if you don't even understand 01:16:33.680 --> 01:16:37.680 in the first place what it means to be in the image 01:16:37.680 --> 01:16:42.240 of God, what it means to be male or female, what headship 01:16:42.240 --> 01:16:46.560 is, all of these issues that are interrelated, which is a point 01:16:46.560 --> 01:16:50.000 that we continue to make, these are not things that are isolated. 01:16:50.000 --> 01:16:54.320 Yes, we do them as discrete episodes because we have to sleep 01:16:54.400 --> 01:16:56.560 and eat and read and do other things. 01:16:56.560 --> 01:17:00.800 We can't just do eight hundred hours straight covering all of these. 01:17:00.800 --> 01:17:02.480 But they're all connected. 01:17:02.480 --> 01:17:06.000 These are not things where you can just take out a chunk, 01:17:06.000 --> 01:17:08.080 and analyze it in isolation. 01:17:08.080 --> 01:17:11.360 These things are all interrelated. 01:17:11.360 --> 01:17:15.120 Being in the image of God is related to hierarchy, is related 01:17:15.120 --> 01:17:19.120 to the sexes, is related to the reality of human race. 01:17:21.200 --> 01:17:24.960 Everything in God's creation is interconnected. 01:17:24.960 --> 01:17:30.320 You can see that just from looking at the physical creation itself. 01:17:30.320 --> 01:17:35.520 The plants, in the animals, the insects, everything is interrelated with everything 01:17:35.520 --> 01:17:41.120 else. Incidentally sort of verging into environmentalism there, but that's a discussion 01:17:41.120 --> 01:17:41.840 for another day. 01:17:41.840 --> 01:17:44.720 We will eventually get around to discussing that, I'm certain. 01:17:46.640 --> 01:17:49.920 But you can't get any of these things wrong. 01:17:49.920 --> 01:17:53.920 You can't just listen to a false teacher and go, yeah, it 01:17:53.920 --> 01:17:55.760 sounds right, it sounds kind of Christian. 01:17:55.760 --> 01:17:59.200 You have to think about what Scripture actually says. 01:17:59.360 --> 01:18:03.440 Not what feels good, not what agrees with the modern world, but 01:18:03.440 --> 01:18:06.320 what does scripture actually say? 01:18:06.320 --> 01:18:09.040 And so just this verse is a great example. 01:18:09.040 --> 01:18:11.520 Slow down and actually read the verse. 01:18:11.520 --> 01:18:12.800 Read it carefully. 01:18:12.800 --> 01:18:17.760 Pay attention to how God organized it, the words that he chose. 01:18:17.760 --> 01:18:21.760 God does not willy nilly choose his diction. 01:18:21.760 --> 01:18:24.880 He doesn't decide he's just going to use well singular sounds better 01:18:24.880 --> 01:18:27.280 here, so I'll go there and this can be plural and God 01:18:27.280 --> 01:18:30.800 does the things that he does for a reason. 01:18:30.800 --> 01:18:36.000 God does nothing according to arbitrariness or caprice because he is God 01:18:36.000 --> 01:18:38.160 and He is perfect. 01:18:38.160 --> 01:18:44.160 Everything He has done will do all of it already occurred. 01:18:44.160 --> 01:18:47.600 From God's perspective there is no such thing as time. 01:18:47.600 --> 01:18:49.920 What God has done is what He has always done is what 01:18:49.920 --> 01:18:54.240 He will always do, and so there's no randomness with God. 01:18:54.240 --> 01:18:57.760 Again, there's no arbitrariness or caprice with God. 01:18:57.760 --> 01:19:01.520 What his word says is what he wants it to say, and 01:19:01.520 --> 01:19:05.680 it says it specifically in that way, because that is what he 01:19:05.680 --> 01:19:07.760 wants you to understand about it. 01:19:07.760 --> 01:19:10.160 So read his word carefully. 01:19:10.160 --> 01:19:13.920 Even if you wind up reading less of it per day, per 01:19:13.920 --> 01:19:16.240 week, per month, fine. 01:19:16.400 --> 01:19:18.960 Read it more carefully, that's more important. 01:19:18.960 --> 01:19:23.680 Pay attention to the actual words of what God said. 01:19:24.800 --> 01:19:25.040 I 01:19:25.040 --> 01:19:29.040 came across a particular example of this just last week that is 01:19:29.040 --> 01:19:34.960 hilarious. and apt and really kind of a microcosm of Stone Choir. 01:19:34.960 --> 01:19:37.920 Corey was talking a minute ago and it pops up in Genesis, 01:19:37.920 --> 01:19:42.000 it pops up everywhere, according to their kind. 01:19:42.000 --> 01:19:44.560 We don't really give much thought to what a kind is, but 01:19:44.960 --> 01:19:46.880 if you look at it if you look at the word in 01:19:46.880 --> 01:19:49.840 English, and this is this is borne out in the original Greek 01:19:49.840 --> 01:19:56.080 as well, the root of kind is kin in the Proto-Indo-European root 01:19:56.080 --> 01:19:58.480 of kin is gene. 01:19:58.480 --> 01:20:02.000 According to their kind is exactly what kin means. 01:20:02.000 --> 01:20:05.600 And if you go back to old English, kin means family, it 01:20:05.600 --> 01:20:07.440 means race. 01:20:07.440 --> 01:20:13.520 So kind you could translate that race and be exactly spot on. 01:20:13.520 --> 01:20:18.080 Not only is it kind, but kindness, that's what it's talking about. 01:20:18.080 --> 01:20:20.880 Kindness is specifically racial. 01:20:20.880 --> 01:20:22.960 It's literally a racial term. 01:20:22.960 --> 01:20:26.880 So when someone calls on you to be more kind, they're saying 01:20:26.880 --> 01:20:31.280 you should be acting more like the person you're dealing with is 01:20:31.280 --> 01:20:34.320 the same race as you is the same type as you, is 01:20:34.320 --> 01:20:36.080 according to your kind. 01:20:36.080 --> 01:20:39.680 And that's the message that God has when he's dealing with things 01:20:39.680 --> 01:20:43.760 like the Good Samaritan, the passage where a man who was not 01:20:43.760 --> 01:20:48.080 of their kind sees them the when the Samaritan passes by, sees 01:20:48.080 --> 01:20:51.520 the man who's beaten and bruised, he's not according to his kind, 01:20:51.520 --> 01:20:53.040 but he is a neighbor. 01:20:53.040 --> 01:20:56.000 And the adjacency in that moment says, I'm gonna take care of 01:20:56.000 --> 01:20:56.560 this guy. 01:20:56.560 --> 01:20:58.800 He's not according to my kind, but he's right in front of 01:20:58.800 --> 01:21:00.320 me. I'm gonna help him. 01:21:00.320 --> 01:21:04.720 The reason that that was necessary was because well one, the Jews, 01:21:04.720 --> 01:21:07.520 the Pharisees were despicable. 01:21:07.520 --> 01:21:09.920 They didn't care about anyone but themselves. 01:21:09.920 --> 01:21:12.720 They would happily walk past a man who wasn't like them. 01:21:12.720 --> 01:21:14.160 And so they had to be condemned. 01:21:14.160 --> 01:21:16.720 No, you have to actually help someone who's bleeding to death. 01:21:16.720 --> 01:21:18.960 It doesn't matter if they're like you or not. 01:21:18.960 --> 01:21:21.040 And we would never say anything different. 01:21:21.040 --> 01:21:23.600 That's the whole point of why I was saying at the beginning 01:21:23.680 --> 01:21:27.040 about we need to help our own kind in North Carolina. 01:21:27.040 --> 01:21:31.120 Now, those are neighbors, they're kin to me in particular, but they're 01:21:31.120 --> 01:21:34.880 Americans. A few of them in Western North Carolina are black. 01:21:34.880 --> 01:21:35.760 Do I care? 01:21:35.760 --> 01:21:38.880 No. Help the black people, help the white people, help everybody. 01:21:38.880 --> 01:21:40.080 They're all affected. 01:21:40.080 --> 01:21:43.520 Now something I did point out online and a lot of people 01:21:43.520 --> 01:21:47.520 didn't really appreciate it was that North Carolina is twenty-two percent black. 01:21:47.520 --> 01:21:50.000 There were virtually no black people showing up to help. 01:21:50.240 --> 01:21:53.440 I watched close to half a dozen hours of recovery efforts and 01:21:53.440 --> 01:21:55.200 saw hundreds of pictures. 01:21:55.200 --> 01:21:59.040 I personally didn't see a single black face helping anyone. 01:21:59.040 --> 01:22:01.680 Some people say they saw some guys, I'm sure that's true. 01:22:01.680 --> 01:22:04.720 Someone reported to me that he was on the ground doing volunteer 01:22:04.720 --> 01:22:08.240 stuff with three thousand volunteers and he said there were about five 01:22:08.240 --> 01:22:10.400 or six black people there, probably who live there. 01:22:10.400 --> 01:22:11.520 And good for them. 01:22:11.520 --> 01:22:12.160 Like 01:22:13.120 --> 01:22:17.840 according to your kind, for them means not mine, don't care. 01:22:17.840 --> 01:22:20.000 I don't know if they would show up for their own either, 01:22:20.000 --> 01:22:22.000 but they certainly won't show up for us. 01:22:22.000 --> 01:22:25.840 So everyone else understands what kindness means. 01:22:25.840 --> 01:22:28.560 And that's not an out for white people to be jerks. 01:22:28.560 --> 01:22:31.200 It's not an out for us to say, well, I don't care 01:22:31.200 --> 01:22:35.760 about anybody else, but so many people who want to avoid the 01:22:35.760 --> 01:22:37.600 fact that race is intrinsic. 01:22:37.600 --> 01:22:40.320 You can't read scripture and get away from race. 01:22:40.320 --> 01:22:43.360 When you read according to their kind, whether it's about plants or 01:22:43.760 --> 01:22:47.600 animals or people, it's always referencing genes. 01:22:47.600 --> 01:22:49.040 How are we produced? 01:22:49.040 --> 01:22:51.920 It is a genetic lineage going back to Adam. 01:22:51.920 --> 01:22:54.080 Every plant on the planet 01:22:54.960 --> 01:22:56.720 I'm sure those words are related as well. 01:22:56.720 --> 01:23:02.560 I haven't actually looked but probably every animal, every plant, every creature 01:23:02.880 --> 01:23:06.320 traces its origins back to the genes in the garden. 01:23:06.320 --> 01:23:08.240 That's where God made everything. 01:23:08.240 --> 01:23:12.240 And the propagation of the species according to their kinds, it's reproduction. 01:23:12.240 --> 01:23:14.240 That's the system that God created. 01:23:14.240 --> 01:23:18.320 And so again, just the word kind, kindness, like you can't get 01:23:18.320 --> 01:23:19.120 away from it. 01:23:19.120 --> 01:23:20.400 And what has Satan done? 01:23:20.400 --> 01:23:21.200 He's made it impossible. 01:23:21.760 --> 01:23:24.640 He's made it so that every time we say the word race, 01:23:24.640 --> 01:23:25.760 somebody gets annoyed. 01:23:25.760 --> 01:23:26.800 Somebody probably shut off. 01:23:26.800 --> 01:23:28.880 I can't believe they're talking about race again in this episode. 01:23:28.880 --> 01:23:31.120 Of all the episodes, you're talking about the image of God and 01:23:31.120 --> 01:23:32.240 you're gonna talk about race. 01:23:32.240 --> 01:23:36.720 Well, when we're talking about man being created according to kinds, yeah, 01:23:36.720 --> 01:23:37.760 I am. 01:23:37.760 --> 01:23:41.680 Every race of man is in the image of God. 01:23:41.680 --> 01:23:43.680 That's the way God made it. 01:23:43.680 --> 01:23:45.120 We don't get a vote. 01:23:45.120 --> 01:23:49.280 Yeah, in the race episode on genetics, we talked about the fact 01:23:49.280 --> 01:23:55.680 that genetic reproduction is necessarily lossy in terms of information. 01:23:55.680 --> 01:24:00.800 So although every japite on the planet came from Japhetite, we can't 01:24:00.800 --> 01:24:05.600 reverse engineer Japheth from some amalgamation of his great, great, great, great, 01:24:05.600 --> 01:24:06.720 great grandsons. 01:24:06.880 --> 01:24:09.600 Information was lost, some of it irretrievably. 01:24:09.600 --> 01:24:11.360 It's a one-way trip. 01:24:11.360 --> 01:24:15.040 But that speciation that God has permitted among all the various races 01:24:15.040 --> 01:24:18.480 all around the world was according to his good design. 01:24:18.480 --> 01:24:22.080 And as faithful Christians who don't scream and shout when we read 01:24:22.080 --> 01:24:25.120 scripture and see things that are well, I guess this is about 01:24:25.120 --> 01:24:25.760 race too. 01:24:25.840 --> 01:24:26.640 like okay. 01:24:26.640 --> 01:24:28.720 That's it's no surprise to us. 01:24:28.960 --> 01:24:30.800 I just laugh at this point when I look up the you 01:24:30.800 --> 01:24:34.800 know the etymology of some word like, yeah, there's another one. 01:24:34.800 --> 01:24:37.520 And it's not we have a one track mind about any of 01:24:37.520 --> 01:24:42.080 this stuff, but when we talk about creation, it's unavoidable. 01:24:42.080 --> 01:24:44.240 And that's why Satan's attacking it. 01:24:44.240 --> 01:24:50.000 Satan's attacking race, he's attacking genetics, because it's how God propagates creation, 01:24:50.000 --> 01:24:50.960 God's creation. 01:24:50.960 --> 01:24:52.160 Satan hates it. 01:24:52.160 --> 01:24:53.280 Satan can't reproduce. 01:24:53.760 --> 01:24:55.440 He can't propagate anything. 01:24:55.440 --> 01:24:56.960 All he can do is destroy. 01:24:56.960 --> 01:25:00.880 And so we see his actions in opposition to creation, and the 01:25:00.880 --> 01:25:05.200 Christian action should be in support, in celebration, in defense of the 01:25:05.200 --> 01:25:07.840 truth of creation, whatever it is. 01:25:07.840 --> 01:25:10.960 And if the truth is that there are multiple races, that's how 01:25:10.960 --> 01:25:11.680 it is. 01:25:11.680 --> 01:25:13.280 We don't get a vote. 01:25:13.280 --> 01:25:15.760 The only decision that we have to make is are we gonna 01:25:15.760 --> 01:25:18.000 lie or are we gonna tell the truth? 01:25:18.000 --> 01:25:21.520 And Christians have only one choice on that menu. 01:25:21.520 --> 01:25:25.280 As Corey said, the words that God chooses matter, and these are 01:25:25.280 --> 01:25:26.640 very easy words to gloss over. 01:25:26.640 --> 01:25:29.760 How many times have you read kind in especially the Old Testament, 01:25:29.760 --> 01:25:31.280 not thought anything of it? 01:25:31.280 --> 01:25:34.320 Go dig into the root words that are used in the original 01:25:34.320 --> 01:25:38.080 Greek, you're going to find that this happens over and over again. 01:25:38.080 --> 01:25:40.160 That's what God does. 01:25:40.160 --> 01:25:43.760 And if we're going to draw conclusions from the text the text, 01:25:43.760 --> 01:25:46.560 sometimes these are the conclusions we need to draw. 01:25:46.560 --> 01:25:47.920 This is not eisegesis. 01:25:47.920 --> 01:25:49.280 We're not reading anything into it. 01:25:49.280 --> 01:25:54.560 You're saying, oh, kindness is actually it's it is in part racial. 01:25:54.560 --> 01:25:55.760 And it's not exclusive. 01:25:55.760 --> 01:25:58.960 It's say I should treat you as well as I treat my 01:25:58.960 --> 01:25:59.840 own family. 01:25:59.840 --> 01:26:02.160 And first of all, I should treat my family well. 01:26:02.160 --> 01:26:06.240 If I'm not treating my own family well, I'm a horrible person. 01:26:06.240 --> 01:26:08.400 And so that's not an excuse to treat you poorly. 01:26:08.400 --> 01:26:10.720 I should treat my family well and then treat you as though 01:26:10.720 --> 01:26:11.440 you're family. 01:26:11.440 --> 01:26:13.040 We call that hospitality. 01:26:13.040 --> 01:26:18.400 But there's still those concentric circles that radiate outwards from the self 01:26:18.400 --> 01:26:19.600 to the distant. 01:26:19.600 --> 01:26:20.640 And we're finite. 01:26:20.640 --> 01:26:22.720 We're gonna run out of resources. 01:26:22.720 --> 01:26:25.600 You only have so much money you can donate to people in 01:26:25.600 --> 01:26:26.480 other places. 01:26:26.480 --> 01:26:28.960 You need some for yourself and for your family. 01:26:28.960 --> 01:26:30.240 We're finite. 01:26:30.240 --> 01:26:34.000 And the lie that Satan tells us all now is well, you 01:26:34.000 --> 01:26:35.680 don't have to worry about being finite. 01:26:35.680 --> 01:26:36.960 You can you can do everything. 01:26:36.960 --> 01:26:40.080 And those people way over there that you can't really do anything 01:26:40.080 --> 01:26:41.840 for, that's the most important. 01:26:41.840 --> 01:26:43.040 Those are your kind. 01:26:43.040 --> 01:26:46.000 That's not what scripture says. 01:26:46.000 --> 01:26:49.600 The fact that all these things are rooted in us being made 01:26:49.600 --> 01:26:53.280 as man in the image of God is part of why our 01:26:53.280 --> 01:26:55.120 actions are consequential. 01:26:55.120 --> 01:26:58.960 Our hands are God's hands in the world, as Christians. 01:26:58.960 --> 01:27:02.480 When we are not Christians, those who are not, their hands are 01:27:02.480 --> 01:27:04.160 functionally Satan's hands. 01:27:04.160 --> 01:27:07.120 Even when they're doing good things, he can twist it. 01:27:07.120 --> 01:27:11.760 And to whatever extent God influences them, it's not the same as 01:27:11.760 --> 01:27:14.800 those who have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. 01:27:14.800 --> 01:27:20.080 And that's particularly why the sanctified Christian life with the indwelling of 01:27:20.080 --> 01:27:24.720 the Holy Spirit makes our sins that much more egregious because we're 01:27:24.720 --> 01:27:28.880 sinning against self, we're sinning against those around us, and we're doing 01:27:28.880 --> 01:27:30.240 that with God inside us. 01:27:30.240 --> 01:27:32.160 That's why God can be driven out. 01:27:32.160 --> 01:27:34.640 You can drive out the Holy Spirit with sin. 01:27:34.640 --> 01:27:36.960 That's why those admonitions are given. 01:27:36.960 --> 01:27:38.560 Apostasy is real. 01:27:38.560 --> 01:27:41.360 The next verse that I wanna touch on just briefly because it's 01:27:41.360 --> 01:27:44.240 one of the only places in scripture that the image of God 01:27:44.240 --> 01:27:47.200 is directly tied to a command is one I said at the 01:27:47.200 --> 01:27:48.880 beginning, nobody likes. 01:27:48.880 --> 01:27:52.800 The people who shout Imago Dei, they don't believe this next verse. 01:27:52.880 --> 01:27:57.200 I'm going to read from the Breton's translation of the Septuagint here. 01:27:57.200 --> 01:28:00.080 For your blood of your lives will I require at the hand 01:28:00.080 --> 01:28:03.200 of all wild beasts, and I will require the life of man 01:28:03.200 --> 01:28:04.720 at the hand of his brother man. 01:28:04.720 --> 01:28:08.560 He that sheds man's blood, instead of that blood shall his own 01:28:08.560 --> 01:28:14.240 blood be shed, for in the image of God I made man. 01:28:14.240 --> 01:28:18.560 This is the one passage in Scripture that explicitly has a command 01:28:18.560 --> 01:28:22.240 related to the image of God, and it is for capital punishment, 01:28:22.240 --> 01:28:25.440 saying it's not optional, it's not a policy choice. 01:28:25.440 --> 01:28:30.720 If any man or any beast takes another man's life unjustly, that 01:28:30.720 --> 01:28:33.840 man's blood shall be shed by man. 01:28:33.840 --> 01:28:36.640 Man must kill man, and it is not murder when he does 01:28:36.640 --> 01:28:40.400 so, if the first man has committed murder. 01:28:40.400 --> 01:28:43.520 The guys who shout Imago Dei, they don't believe that. 01:28:43.520 --> 01:28:46.720 In fact, they will actually use one of the principal arguments. 01:28:46.800 --> 01:28:49.040 I think the Pope might have actually done this last week. 01:28:49.040 --> 01:28:52.080 I hardly pay attention to the guy for obvious reasons. 01:28:52.080 --> 01:28:56.160 But anytime I think this did happen in the last couple weeks, 01:28:56.160 --> 01:28:58.240 some mass murdering piece of crap 01:28:59.120 --> 01:29:01.680 was justly executed by the state. 01:29:01.680 --> 01:29:06.000 And people were saying, false Christians were saying, you can't execute a 01:29:06.000 --> 01:29:08.000 man, he's made in the image of God. 01:29:08.000 --> 01:29:11.120 It's literally verbatim the opposite of what scripture says. 01:29:11.120 --> 01:29:14.160 says Genesis 9, 5, and 6. 01:29:14.160 --> 01:29:17.760 If a man kills another man, if he murders another man, man 01:29:17.760 --> 01:29:19.280 must kill him. 01:29:19.280 --> 01:29:20.800 You want to talk about the image of God? 01:29:20.800 --> 01:29:24.080 Do you want to take it seriously as a doctrinal precept? 01:29:24.080 --> 01:29:27.600 If you want that to be a part of the discussion, okay. 01:29:27.600 --> 01:29:32.000 Rule number one, every murderer must be executed, period. 01:29:32.000 --> 01:29:34.240 Is that gonna have desperate impact racially? 01:29:34.240 --> 01:29:35.280 You betcha. 01:29:35.280 --> 01:29:36.400 Those people hate that. 01:29:36.400 --> 01:29:37.840 That's when they say, well, they're not black. 01:29:37.840 --> 01:29:38.880 They're made in the image of God. 01:29:38.880 --> 01:29:42.480 Well, they're murdering people 120 times more frequently than white men. 01:29:42.480 --> 01:29:43.760 Do we care? 01:29:43.760 --> 01:29:45.600 Why do we talk about this stuff? 01:29:45.600 --> 01:29:49.760 Because the very attacks on scripture are attacks on creation. 01:29:50.080 --> 01:29:53.680 I agree with what Scripture says about the image of God. 01:29:53.680 --> 01:29:56.800 I agree that when a man murders a man, his blood must 01:29:56.800 --> 01:29:58.240 be shed by the hand of man. 01:29:58.240 --> 01:29:59.360 Doesn't mean I do it. 01:29:59.360 --> 01:30:01.520 I don't have the vocation of executioner. 01:30:01.520 --> 01:30:02.960 Not really my thing. 01:30:02.960 --> 01:30:06.240 But not squeamish about the fact that it has to be done. 01:30:06.240 --> 01:30:11.440 And I would absolutely never speak against it because God commands it. 01:30:11.440 --> 01:30:16.960 So just note when you see some somebody else, somebody on social 01:30:16.960 --> 01:30:21.680 media talking about the image of God, I guarantee you ninety five, 01:30:21.680 --> 01:30:24.880 ninety eight percent of them are going to be rapidly against the 01:30:24.880 --> 01:30:26.080 death penalty. 01:30:26.080 --> 01:30:26.880 Challenge 'em. 01:30:26.880 --> 01:30:27.680 Calm out on that. 01:30:27.680 --> 01:30:29.200 Genesis nine six. 01:30:29.200 --> 01:30:32.560 Ask them to go deal with that, the one passage that explicitly 01:30:32.560 --> 01:30:34.480 ties a command to the image of God. 01:30:34.480 --> 01:30:35.920 Ask them to deal with that. 01:30:35.920 --> 01:30:37.360 They just hate scripture. 01:30:37.360 --> 01:30:38.640 They hate God. 01:30:38.640 --> 01:30:41.360 The image of God is in scripture in several places as a 01:30:41.360 --> 01:30:43.600 command. This is the most predominant. 01:30:43.600 --> 01:30:47.520 There's another passage in James that's tied to speech. 01:30:47.520 --> 01:30:49.760 But what we have to deal with is that when God talks 01:30:49.760 --> 01:30:53.680 about it, he says something that we don't hear people talking about. 01:30:53.680 --> 01:30:56.400 I think we'll put the image in the show notes of the 01:30:56.400 --> 01:30:58.720 frequency with which those terms are used. 01:30:58.720 --> 01:31:01.680 When you look at how often image of God or Imago Dei 01:31:01.840 --> 01:31:05.520 is used in the corpus of literature, it basically blows up in 01:31:05.520 --> 01:31:06.480 this century. 01:31:06.480 --> 01:31:08.160 It was barely used previously. 01:31:08.160 --> 01:31:12.640 So those Jesusy sounding Latin words, these these technical terms that everybody 01:31:12.640 --> 01:31:15.920 throws around and everyone else nods sagely, Yes, this is very this 01:31:15.920 --> 01:31:17.120 is very important. 01:31:17.120 --> 01:31:19.520 A they don't believe what Scripture says. 01:31:19.520 --> 01:31:23.520 They don't believe Genesis nine six and B Christians have not talked 01:31:23.520 --> 01:31:25.920 about these things in the past the way they are. 01:31:25.920 --> 01:31:28.800 They have talked about the image of God as nothing new, but 01:31:28.800 --> 01:31:31.840 the emphasis is anti Christian. 01:31:31.840 --> 01:31:35.200 The emphasis as they emphasize it is satanic. 01:31:35.200 --> 01:31:37.360 That's the reason we're doing a couple episodes on this. 01:31:37.360 --> 01:31:41.520 There is vital Christian doctrine to emphasize, but it's actually the exact 01:31:41.520 --> 01:31:43.920 opposite of what these people are saying. 01:31:44.480 --> 01:31:49.280 Genesis nine six is probably one of the best examples to highlight 01:31:49.280 --> 01:31:52.800 just how cynical and hypocritical 01:31:53.760 --> 01:31:58.640 virtually all of those appealing to the image of God are in 01:31:58.640 --> 01:32:01.040 our day and age. 01:32:01.040 --> 01:32:05.840 Because as I've said before, as Woe was just saying, most of 01:32:05.840 --> 01:32:11.280 those using the term, and particularly the Latin Imago Dei, are using 01:32:11.280 --> 01:32:12.880 it to deceive you. 01:32:12.880 --> 01:32:15.600 They are cynically attempting to manipulate you. 01:32:15.600 --> 01:32:17.920 It's the meme, basically. 01:32:17.920 --> 01:32:20.240 Well, of course I don't believe it, but 01:32:21.120 --> 01:32:24.560 you, I can get you to do something because I can manipulate 01:32:24.560 --> 01:32:28.640 you into doing it because you're a Christian, and so Christ would 01:32:28.640 --> 01:32:33.360 never, Christ would, if you were a real Christian, you would. 01:32:33.360 --> 01:32:37.600 Those words almost always issue from the mouth of someone who is 01:32:37.600 --> 01:32:39.120 particularly wicked. 01:32:39.120 --> 01:32:42.800 It's someone who doesn't believe a single word of scripture, but is 01:32:42.800 --> 01:32:46.720 willing to find bits and pieces here and there to attempt to 01:32:46.720 --> 01:32:50.880 manipulate you to do what he wants you to do. 01:32:50.880 --> 01:32:53.840 And you can very easily discern 01:32:55.040 --> 01:32:58.960 whether you're dealing with someone who is genuine or not with Genesis 01:32:58.960 --> 01:33:00.000 nine six 01:33:01.760 --> 01:33:08.320 because an actual Christian will affirm the death penalty period. 01:33:08.320 --> 01:33:11.200 You're going to have some people who try to make all sorts 01:33:11.200 --> 01:33:17.920 of excuses of well, it has a disparate racial impact, or you 01:33:17.920 --> 01:33:19.840 have juries that are biased. 01:33:19.840 --> 01:33:21.440 You have judges that are biased. 01:33:21.440 --> 01:33:24.320 It's been used historically in this, that, or the other. 01:33:24.320 --> 01:33:30.480 Leaving aside the fact that those arguments are all crap. 01:33:30.480 --> 01:33:34.400 Not one of them is sound when you actually analyze the data. 01:33:34.400 --> 01:33:41.920 But leaving that aside, someone who cannot simply affirm the death penalty 01:33:42.400 --> 01:33:43.920 is no Christian 01:33:44.880 --> 01:33:48.720 because this is a direct command from God. 01:33:48.720 --> 01:33:55.360 If you reject this direct command from God, you are rejecting God. 01:33:55.360 --> 01:33:58.640 And that is exactly what is being done by those who oppose 01:33:58.640 --> 01:34:03.360 capital punishment, particularly when they do it on the basis of the 01:34:03.360 --> 01:34:05.680 image of God. 01:34:05.680 --> 01:34:09.120 They're not really attacking capital punishment. 01:34:09.120 --> 01:34:11.360 They're attacking God. 01:34:11.360 --> 01:34:14.240 And they're attacking God in two ways. 01:34:14.240 --> 01:34:18.240 One, I've already highlighted, they're attacking God by saying his word isn't 01:34:18.240 --> 01:34:20.480 true and isn't binding. 01:34:20.480 --> 01:34:23.760 And two, they're accusing God of sin. 01:34:24.640 --> 01:34:28.160 Because when you say you cannot kill that which is made in 01:34:28.160 --> 01:34:33.840 the image of God, obviously, bear in mind I'm saying kill, that 01:34:33.840 --> 01:34:38.080 has a specific meaning that is distinct from murder. 01:34:38.080 --> 01:34:44.960 Because of course Genesis 9:6 commands us to kill those who murder. 01:34:44.960 --> 01:34:48.240 But when you say that you cannot kill, that which is made 01:34:48.640 --> 01:34:53.120 in the image of God, you are accusing God of sin. 01:34:53.120 --> 01:34:58.800 Because no one has killed more people than God. 01:34:58.800 --> 01:35:00.560 No one ever will. 01:35:00.560 --> 01:35:02.320 No one will even come close. 01:35:03.040 --> 01:35:08.480 And not only that, God is going to kill most human beings 01:35:08.720 --> 01:35:13.200 eternally. Because hell is eternal death. 01:35:13.360 --> 01:35:17.600 It's not just eternal suffering, it is eternal death. 01:35:17.600 --> 01:35:20.240 And so if you say that you cannot kill that which is 01:35:20.240 --> 01:35:24.160 made in the image of God, because it's wrong and it's sinful 01:35:24.240 --> 01:35:29.360 and it's not something that's permissible and blah blah blah. 01:35:29.360 --> 01:35:34.720 You're saying that what God did with the antideluvians, when he destroyed 01:35:34.720 --> 01:35:37.440 them in the flood, you're saying that was sin. 01:35:37.440 --> 01:35:41.360 You're saying it was sin when God killed all of the faithless 01:35:41.360 --> 01:35:43.680 Israelites in the desert. 01:35:43.680 --> 01:35:47.520 You're saying it's sin when God used the earth to swallow up 01:35:47.520 --> 01:35:53.280 Abraham. All of these instances where God killed men, you're saying what 01:35:53.280 --> 01:35:57.200 he did was wrong, and I'm so much more moral than God. 01:35:57.200 --> 01:35:59.680 I know that this is wrong and he shouldn't have killed them 01:35:59.760 --> 01:36:01.520 because they're made. 01:36:01.520 --> 01:36:04.240 You can see the problem with the logic here. 01:36:04.240 --> 01:36:07.280 They're made in his image, and you're saying what he did is 01:36:07.280 --> 01:36:13.360 wrong. And so you have that twofold, that two front attack led 01:36:13.360 --> 01:36:17.600 by Satan, of course, because it always is on God. 01:36:17.600 --> 01:36:22.160 That is almost always what is being done when someone uses Imago 01:36:22.320 --> 01:36:23.680 Dei in modern discourse. 01:36:23.680 --> 01:36:29.280 It's one of the reasons we're doing this series of episodes. 01:36:29.280 --> 01:36:33.760 Because there are very few Christians speaking on this issue in a 01:36:33.760 --> 01:36:39.680 truthful manner, let alone in a coherent manner that is also truthful. 01:36:39.680 --> 01:36:46.240 This is one of those things in Scripture, it's an important topic, 01:36:46.240 --> 01:36:50.080 but I don't know that we'd necessarily say it's a central one 01:36:50.080 --> 01:36:52.000 to scripture. 01:36:52.000 --> 01:36:56.640 It is centrally important in terms of its position because it is 01:36:56.640 --> 01:37:01.280 foundational with regard to what man is, and with regard to man's 01:37:01.280 --> 01:37:05.360 relationship to God, to other men, to creation. 01:37:05.360 --> 01:37:11.040 But certainly historically it was not something that was really in contention. 01:37:11.040 --> 01:37:14.400 You have church fathers and others who wrote about it, and they 01:37:14.400 --> 01:37:18.720 attempted to discern sort of the nuances and the contours and the 01:37:18.720 --> 01:37:24.160 specifics. But it wasn't something over which Christians fought. 01:37:24.160 --> 01:37:29.040 There wasn't much in the way of contention with regard to the 01:37:29.040 --> 01:37:32.720 image of God, because everyone agreed all of mankind is made in 01:37:32.720 --> 01:37:34.720 the image of God. 01:37:34.720 --> 01:37:36.560 Scripture clearly says that. 01:37:36.560 --> 01:37:41.120 You have to execute murderers because God says you have to do 01:37:41.120 --> 01:37:43.920 that because man is made in the image of God. 01:37:43.920 --> 01:37:48.560 But beyond that, you didn't have people using the term to mislead. 01:37:48.560 --> 01:37:53.120 You didn't have them using the words of God to attempt to 01:37:53.120 --> 01:37:55.760 undermine the words of God. 01:37:55.760 --> 01:38:00.560 And that should certainly sound similar to you because that's something that 01:38:00.560 --> 01:38:02.160 Satan does all the time. 01:38:02.160 --> 01:38:05.280 That's one of his favorite avenues of attack. 01:38:05.280 --> 01:38:10.720 If Satan can use some part of Scripture to get you to 01:38:10.720 --> 01:38:15.360 deny some other part of Scripture, that's a great victory for him, 01:38:15.360 --> 01:38:20.080 because what he's done is he's got you to deny scripture twice. 01:38:20.080 --> 01:38:24.800 He's managed to get you so turned around and confused that you 01:38:24.800 --> 01:38:28.000 get multiple sections, probably many sections of scripture 01:38:29.040 --> 01:38:33.440 wrong. His goal is to undermine your faith, his goal is to 01:38:33.600 --> 01:38:37.920 drag God's word into question in your mind, so that you begin 01:38:37.920 --> 01:38:40.480 to doubt and will fall away. 01:38:40.480 --> 01:38:42.640 Don't play that game. 01:38:42.640 --> 01:38:46.720 You don't pit one part of Scripture against another part of Scripture. 01:38:46.720 --> 01:38:48.720 All of it hangs together. 01:38:48.720 --> 01:38:51.120 All of it is coherent. 01:38:51.120 --> 01:38:55.760 Every single word of it is important to believe for the Christian. 01:38:55.760 --> 01:38:58.400 It's not to say they're all equal, because as we've said many 01:38:58.400 --> 01:39:02.880 times before, some parts of Scripture are more important than others. 01:39:02.880 --> 01:39:07.280 The specific parts that tell us exactly what the gospel is are 01:39:07.280 --> 01:39:11.920 more important than the various lists of men in the Old Testament. 01:39:11.920 --> 01:39:15.280 I'm not saying the genealogy specifically here, although it's more important than 01:39:15.280 --> 01:39:16.080 those as well. 01:39:16.080 --> 01:39:19.680 I'm saying it's more important than the military muster. 01:39:19.680 --> 01:39:22.240 Those verses are not as important as the gospel. 01:39:22.240 --> 01:39:24.400 It's fine to say that as a Christian. 01:39:24.400 --> 01:39:28.160 It's fine to say that certain books of the Bible are weightier 01:39:28.160 --> 01:39:31.200 than others in various ways. 01:39:31.200 --> 01:39:34.080 Because again, with regard to the gospel, some of them lay it 01:39:34.080 --> 01:39:35.920 out very clearly. 01:39:35.920 --> 01:39:38.880 Those books are of more value to the church. 01:39:38.880 --> 01:39:42.000 It's not to say that any part of God's word is worthless. 01:39:42.000 --> 01:39:45.200 It is to recognize the reality of what He wrote, how He 01:39:45.200 --> 01:39:48.560 wrote it and how he uses it. 01:39:48.560 --> 01:39:52.800 You cannot pit any part of Scripture against other parts that is 01:39:52.800 --> 01:39:54.960 worth repeating. 01:39:54.960 --> 01:39:58.400 Because everything God has said is coherent. 01:39:58.400 --> 01:40:02.240 Everything God has said agrees with everything else God has said, because 01:40:02.240 --> 01:40:04.320 God is unchanging. 01:40:04.320 --> 01:40:09.680 To attribute contradiction or incoherence to God is to deny the nature 01:40:09.680 --> 01:40:11.840 of God is to deny God. 01:40:11.840 --> 01:40:16.000 And so those who would pit the image of God, which is 01:40:16.000 --> 01:40:21.120 clearly in Scripture, against this command of God, which is based explicitly 01:40:21.120 --> 01:40:26.960 on the image of God, they want you to misunderstand what it 01:40:26.960 --> 01:40:30.000 means to be in the image of God, and they want you 01:40:30.000 --> 01:40:34.160 to deny the clear word of God. 01:40:34.160 --> 01:40:36.800 Because this is one of those verses. 01:40:37.840 --> 01:40:40.160 That is entirely clear. 01:40:40.160 --> 01:40:42.480 There is no interpretation here. 01:40:42.480 --> 01:40:44.560 There is no confusion here. 01:40:44.560 --> 01:40:46.960 There isn't even nuance here. 01:40:47.280 --> 01:40:49.360 This is incredibly straightforward. 01:40:49.360 --> 01:40:51.760 This is blunt. 01:40:52.000 --> 01:40:56.640 If you commit murder, you must die. 01:40:56.640 --> 01:41:01.440 That is a direct command from God in unambiguous terms. 01:41:01.440 --> 01:41:04.000 And again, as Christians, we cannot deny it. 01:41:04.000 --> 01:41:07.840 We cannot be against the death penalty. 01:41:07.840 --> 01:41:10.880 And if you want to ask someone this question he keeps trying 01:41:10.880 --> 01:41:16.320 to prevaricate or attempting to get around it or explain it away 01:41:16.800 --> 01:41:19.280 or just drown you in words. 01:41:19.280 --> 01:41:22.480 Just ask the straightforward blunt question 01:41:23.360 --> 01:41:29.280 in a vacuum before a perfect judge, would you support the application 01:41:29.280 --> 01:41:34.560 of the death penalty for someone guilty of first degree murder. 01:41:34.560 --> 01:41:37.600 That's the clearest example you can possibly give. 01:41:37.600 --> 01:41:44.640 Every Christian must say yes, with no equivocation, no 01:41:44.640 --> 01:41:49.600 explanation necessary, simply, yes, I support it because God commands it. 01:41:49.600 --> 01:41:51.120 Because morality commands it. 01:41:51.120 --> 01:41:53.920 Because of course morality flows from God. 01:41:53.920 --> 01:41:59.280 You cannot say no to that without denying the word of God. 01:41:59.280 --> 01:42:03.360 And God grounds this command in the concept of the image of 01:42:03.360 --> 01:42:07.440 God. He grounds it in the fact that man is made in 01:42:07.440 --> 01:42:09.280 the image of God. 01:42:09.280 --> 01:42:13.520 Not only is man the pinnacle of creation, which of course he 01:42:13.520 --> 01:42:18.400 is, but he is also the very image of God in creation. 01:42:18.400 --> 01:42:21.360 We represent God in creation. 01:42:21.360 --> 01:42:24.800 We are his icon in creation. 01:42:24.800 --> 01:42:28.880 That is the ultimate role of man. 01:42:28.880 --> 01:42:34.800 We are given dominion over everything because we image God in creation 01:42:35.040 --> 01:42:42.000 Creation. And so this is the foundation of discussing the image of 01:42:42.000 --> 01:42:45.360 God. We'll get into more of the specifics next week when we 01:42:45.360 --> 01:42:47.040 discuss sanctification. 01:42:47.120 --> 01:42:49.840 And some related matters. 01:42:49.840 --> 01:42:56.080 But foundationally and fundamentally, we have to recognize the nature of an 01:42:56.080 --> 01:42:59.120 image, of an idol, of a symbol. 01:42:59.120 --> 01:43:03.040 We have to recognize what it means for man to be an 01:43:03.040 --> 01:43:05.280 image of God. 01:43:05.280 --> 01:43:09.040 You can't recognize what it means to be an image of God 01:43:09.040 --> 01:43:11.680 if you don't know what an image is. 01:43:11.680 --> 01:43:16.480 You can't understand the condemnations in Scripture of idolatry if you don't 01:43:16.400 --> 01:43:18.400 know what an idol is. 01:43:18.400 --> 01:43:22.880 You can't understand the symbolism and the use of symbols in Scripture 01:43:23.040 --> 01:43:25.680 if you don't even know what a symbol is. 01:43:25.680 --> 01:43:29.840 That is the reason we spent an entire episode explaining these concepts 01:43:29.840 --> 01:43:33.600 and going into it relatively in depth. 01:43:33.600 --> 01:43:39.040 These are fundamentally important things for the Christian faith, not just for 01:43:39.040 --> 01:43:43.840 the Christian to understand them, but also to recognize when Satan and 01:43:43.840 --> 01:43:47.760 his minions are attacking them, because often they'll attack these in ways 01:43:47.760 --> 01:43:52.000 that are relatively subtle, and if you do not understand the underlying 01:43:52.000 --> 01:43:57.760 concepts If you do not understand how these parts hold together, if 01:43:57.760 --> 01:44:00.800 you don't understand the machinery of what is being done in the 01:44:00.800 --> 01:44:05.760 Word of God, how these concepts hang together, what God is actually 01:44:05.760 --> 01:44:09.760 saying when He uses these words, then you will not know how 01:44:09.760 --> 01:44:14.080 to refute the arguments of Satan and his sons. 01:44:14.080 --> 01:44:16.800 You won't even recognize them. 01:44:16.800 --> 01:44:20.720 That's one of the reasons that Satan has been so successful in 01:44:20.720 --> 01:44:22.880 the past century or so. 01:44:22.880 --> 01:44:28.560 Christians have not so much failed to refute his arguments as failed 01:44:28.560 --> 01:44:32.720 even to recognize that he is making them, failed failed to recognize 01:44:32.720 --> 01:44:38.960 that he is subverting everything in society by slowly but surely, in 01:44:38.960 --> 01:44:43.680 a creeping fashion, like the snake that he is, inch by inch, 01:44:43.680 --> 01:44:49.360 taking over different parts of society, different parts of our culture, different 01:44:49.360 --> 01:44:50.880 parts of civilization. 01:44:50.880 --> 01:44:58.000 He's eroding here, changing there, amending here, but slowly but surely he 01:44:58.000 --> 01:44:59.360 is making headway. 01:44:59.600 --> 01:45:03.520 And if we don't recognize what he is attacking, because we don't 01:45:03.440 --> 01:45:08.480 even recognize the reality of the subject matter, we don't even understand 01:45:08.800 --> 01:45:13.200 what God has said about the matters, then we cannot refute what 01:45:13.200 --> 01:45:17.600 he is doing because we cannot even recognize that he is doing 01:45:17.600 --> 01:45:21.920 it. This is one of the reasons we see so many Christian 01:45:21.920 --> 01:45:27.520 pastors and teachers are utterly useless in the fight that is currently 01:45:27.520 --> 01:45:32.480 happening. Because they're off somewhere else defending something that Satan is not 01:45:32.480 --> 01:45:37.440 attacking. And then when it comes to addressing the area, the subject 01:45:37.440 --> 01:45:42.720 matter, the topic that Satan actually is attacking, they don't understand it. 01:45:42.720 --> 01:45:47.120 And in failing to understand it, they fail to recognize that what 01:45:47.120 --> 01:45:50.480 Satan is doing is slowly but surely making 01:45:51.360 --> 01:45:56.880 headway. And then they attack those men who stand up and actually 01:45:56.880 --> 01:45:58.880 say what God is saying. 01:45:58.880 --> 01:46:03.040 Because ultimately, what we're doing on this podcast, what every faithful teacher 01:46:03.040 --> 01:46:07.040 should do, is echo the words of God after him. 01:46:07.040 --> 01:46:11.040 And that's why we tell you, compare whatever we say to the 01:46:11.040 --> 01:46:12.480 Word of God. 01:46:12.480 --> 01:46:15.520 Do not just believe us because we've said it. 01:46:15.520 --> 01:46:19.760 Now, of course, there is some sort of trust that you develop 01:46:19.760 --> 01:46:23.760 with a faithful teacher, with someone who has proven true over a 01:46:23.760 --> 01:46:26.080 course of many hours or years. 01:46:26.080 --> 01:46:29.600 It's now been years for this podcast. 01:46:29.600 --> 01:46:34.480 There is some trust that develops, but as we have said in 01:46:34.480 --> 01:46:40.720 other episodes, even faithful teachers can fall into error or can start 01:46:40.720 --> 01:46:46.000 to teach falsely where once they taught truthfully. 01:46:46.000 --> 01:46:50.320 And so compare what any teacher says to the Word of God. 01:46:50.320 --> 01:46:52.240 That includes us. 01:46:52.240 --> 01:46:57.280 Whatever we have said will be consonant with the Word of God 01:46:57.280 --> 01:46:59.440 and with reality. 01:46:59.440 --> 01:47:02.960 We always endeavor to make certain that that is the case. 01:47:02.960 --> 01:47:06.160 We subject our own arguments to the Word of God, and we 01:47:06.160 --> 01:47:10.240 invite you to do the same, and certainly we encourage you to 01:47:10.240 --> 01:47:12.880 do the same with any other teacher. 01:47:12.880 --> 01:47:17.680 It isn't that we are correct because we are who we are. 01:47:17.680 --> 01:47:22.960 We are correct because what we are saying is true. 01:47:22.960 --> 01:47:25.040 That is why these things matter. 01:47:25.040 --> 01:47:27.920 That is why it matters how we approach them. 01:47:27.920 --> 01:47:32.320 That is why we approach them in the way that we do. 01:47:32.480 --> 01:47:36.880 All of these things are interconnected, all of them hang together, and 01:47:36.880 --> 01:47:40.480 that's why we keep saying you cannot get any part of this 01:47:40.480 --> 01:47:46.240 wrong, because anywhere you submit to error, that is where Satan enters 01:47:46.240 --> 01:47:49.040 in. That's his entry point. 01:47:49.040 --> 01:47:52.480 That is where he is going to stick his little snake head 01:47:52.480 --> 01:47:55.360 in, and the rest of the body will follow. 01:47:55.360 --> 01:47:58.080 So you have to get these matters right. 01:47:58.080 --> 01:48:01.840 That is why we took the time to lay the foundation. 01:48:01.840 --> 01:48:05.200 You may have noticed that we didn't speak at any great length 01:48:05.200 --> 01:48:09.120 in this episode about some of the specifics we might call them 01:48:09.280 --> 01:48:11.520 of the nature of the image of God. 01:48:11.520 --> 01:48:14.720 And that is because we had to lay the foundation. 01:48:14.720 --> 01:48:18.960 Any structure that is going to withstand the test of time, the 01:48:18.960 --> 01:48:24.720 elements, whatever it happens to be, has to have a solid foundation. 01:48:24.720 --> 01:48:28.960 You should be thinking of a certain parable in scripture right now. 01:48:28.960 --> 01:48:31.200 And so we've laid the foundation. 01:48:31.200 --> 01:48:34.240 In the next episode we will go into more of the specifics 01:48:34.480 --> 01:48:38.880 and how the image of God relates to the various parts of 01:48:38.880 --> 01:48:43.280 man and by parts I mean that tripartite nature, body, mind and 01:48:43.280 --> 01:48:47.760 soul, because each of those is made in the image of God, 01:48:47.760 --> 01:48:50.560 but not in the same way because they are not the same 01:48:50.560 --> 01:48:53.760 thing. They are distinct one from another. 01:48:53.760 --> 01:48:58.080 Yes, man is the Gestalt, the greater than the sum of the 01:48:58.080 --> 01:49:01.840 parts. But man is still each of those. 01:49:01.840 --> 01:49:05.920 You are your body, you are your mind, you are your soul, 01:49:05.920 --> 01:49:09.840 and each of those is made in the image of God. 01:49:09.840 --> 01:49:15.280 And that is true of every single man and every single woman 01:49:15.440 --> 01:49:21.120 ever born, now living, ever to be born. 01:49:21.120 --> 01:49:26.160 And part of being an image of God, is in fact imaging 01:49:26.160 --> 01:49:31.200 God in creation, which is what we should endeavor to do. 01:49:31.200 --> 01:49:33.840 And part of the way that we do that, one of the 01:49:33.840 --> 01:49:38.080 most fundamental ways in which we do that, is believing the truth 01:49:38.240 --> 01:49:45.280 and speaking the truth, and refusing absolutely to yield to lies, particularly 01:49:45.280 --> 01:49:48.080 when they are about the things of God.