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I have been thinking about the worth of souls.
What has prompted this train of thought is the sadness I feel for the
way people talk to each other these days. Lynn Truss, that doughty defender
of English language and punctuation, wrote an excellent book on manners,
Talk to the Hand, in which she laments the utter rudeness of every day
life today. People don't even pretend to be polite anymore and I wonder
who they think they are talking to (or as Lynn Truss might say, "To
whom they think they are speaking).
As Christians we need to be careful about how we speak to people because
our conversation and conduct are supposed to reflect the character of
the God who saved us. But even as Christians we can be thoughtless in
the way we speak to others. We so easily dismiss people of whom we don't
approve, get impatient with people because they don't think or believe
as we do. I wonder do we stop and think about who we are talking to.
Genesis 1&2: When God made the world everything he made was 'good'
but he declared what he had made as 'very good' when he had made man.
Then God said, "Let us make man in our
image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and
the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over
all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created man
in his own image…God saw all that he had made, and it was very good
(Gen1:26-31)
Man was made in the image of God. Made to rule 'over all the earth'
and every living thing. Nothing in creation reflects God's image as
does man.
Genesis 6: When man fell into sin and his sin was so great that
'every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the
time':
The LORD was grieved that he had made
man on the earth and his heart was filled with pain (Gen.6:5-6)
Such is the love of God for the man he made in his own image, to rule
over all the earth, that man's sin filled God's heart with pain. Nothing
in creation can grieve God, filling his heart with pain, as does man.
John 3: Despite his fall into sin, man continues to have worth
to God as the pinnacle of his creation and the reflection of his image:
For God so loved the world that he gave
his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish
but have eternal life (John.3:16)
The object of his love is undiminished as God sends his one and only,
or 'Only Begotten' Son to atone for sin and bring man back to God.
Ephesians 2: This is all to a purpose, which is:
In order that in the coming ages he might
show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness
to us in Christ Jesus (Eph.2:7)
Of course, it might seem reasonable to question whether God could ever
possibly be glorified through men and women like us, but you see:
We are God's workmanship, created in
Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us
to do (Eph.2:10)
The Greek here apparently carries the meaning of 'a work of art'; i.e.
we are God's work of art. In God's purposes man is to be a masterpiece
created in Christ to reflect God's mercy and glory.
1 John 3: The final end of salvation is clearly summed up here:
How great the love the Father has lavished
on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we
are…Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has
not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears we shall
be like him, for we shall see him as he is (1 John 3:1-2)
Just as the purpose in creating man originally was that he should be
made in God's image, reflect God's glory and rule over God's creation,
so this 'new creation' finds us finally made in God's image, reflecting
God's glory and ruling over God's creation.
The text this week sees God's dwelling place is with man, and he will
live with them.
Perhaps we should reflect on God's purpose in man, man's place as the
pinnacle of creation, God's enormous sense of grief at man's fall and
his determination to show his love by giving the best that heaven had,
his only Son, to win us back. Given God's purpose in making a work of
art of those who believe, to reflect his glory and image, given all
this we might reflect on who it is we are speaking to when we speak
to people. Someone who bears the image (albeit broken by sin) of the
living God. Someone over whom God grieves for their fallen nature and
someone for whom God was prepared to make great sacrifice to reverse
that fall and restore that image. Someone who may well be the raw materials
from which God will one day make a masterpiece and who may one day,
by God's mercy, once again 'be like him' through faith in Jesus Christ.
Tread carefully this week for you tread where even angels fear to go.
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