Troublesome Topic: IMAGE BEARERS

Adam was made in the image of God (and therefore Eve was too because she was taken out of Adam). But when he and Eve sinned, the image of God in them was marred and they received the curse as well as a tendency toward sinning.

If you listen for it, you will notice that any time, I hope every time, a preacher says that we were born bearing the image of God, he quickly qualifies that by saying that God’s image in us has been marred or twisted; it is not the original image of God that Adam and Eve received.

The Bible does not express things in that way; it actually describes our situation in a very concise and precise way.

From the creation of man, God’s desire has been for us to reflect Him, to represent Him, to be His likeness in this world. We start out from a disadvantaged position because of the sin of Adam and Eve, but the atonement and redemption made possible through the death and resurrection of Jesus enable us to begin to reflect who God is once again – although we will do so in an imperfect way. God knows that it is a learning process; the closer we grow to Him, the better we will be able to reflect His character.

HEISER’S IDEAS ABOUT THE IMAGE OF GOD IN US

On page 43 Heiser says, “God alone created humankind to function as his administrators on earth. But he also created the other Elohim of the unseen realm. They are also like him. They carry out his will in that realm, acting as his representatives. They are his heavenly council in the unseen world. We are God’s council and administration in this realm.” 

Dr. Heiser uses the “image of God” issue almost exclusively to say that we were created in the same way that the Elohim of the council of gods were created – divine.

He strips away all the qualities and traits that might come with being made in God’s image and considers it only a status – i.e. divine. He thinks we are like God just on a smaller scale.

I see his point, and for the most part I agree with him when he says that preborn children do not possess, but some animals do share some of the qualities that many people have often attributed to the image of God. Where I disagree with him is in how strongly he rules out all possibility of any of those things being a part of the “image of God” status. Furthermore, as is always the case with Michael Heiser, what he doesn’t say is more important than what he does say. He fails to mention any moral characteristics that many people attribute to the image of God, such as a desire for what is right and true, or any of the higher qualities which animals do not share with us, such as love, patience, kindness, goodness, etc. He fails to include ideas such as a desire for purpose bigger than ourselves, a natural desire to know our creator, a sense of time gong on after our death, or any other big-picture things which animals do not possess. He paints with only one color, the color wants to end up on his painting, then claims his way of painting the picture is the only way it should ever be painted, and everyone is wrong for doing it differently.

Notice that on pages 40 and 41 Dr. Heiser is very clear about what the image of God is not, and what it does not look like. However, he does not do a good job of telling us what it does look like. When he says for his point #3 on page 41, “There is something about the image that makes humankind ‘like’ God in some way.” I agree, but what does that look like? On page 43 he reiterates, “We are God’s representatives on earth. To be human is to image God.” Once again, I ask, what does that look like? The only thing he indicates about the image of God is that man was created to be like the other Elohim of God’s council, we were created as divine beings – little gods. However, Heiser never tells us what it means to reflect God or to show others what God is like. He never brings morality, loving kindness or any such thing into the picture. It appears that he is only using the issue of the image of God as another prop in the scenario, or should I say, the house of cards, that he is so carefully building.

Dr Heiser knew Hebrew very well. Therefore, it alarms me that, on page 42, he would so freely twist the Hebrew preposition which means “in, with, and by” claiming that in the case of Genesis 1:26 it means “as”. There is another preposition which means “as, like, or according to”. I’m sure Dr. Heiser knew the difference, so he purposefully made it mean something different to suit his cause.

WHO ARE THE IMAGERS OF GOD?

Michael Heiser believes that everything that God created was, and still is, an imager by virtue of having been created by Him. I disagree. The Bible implies that there is something unique about mankind that reflects God’s image better than, or in a different way than the rest of creation. Nothing is said about God creating lesser gods, nor about them being God’s imagers. All of that is pure speculation on Heiser’s part.

On page 90 Heiser states clearly that after the fall into sin, the descendants of Adam and Eve were still imagers of God. Apparently, he has never read Genesis 5:3.

However, I take you back to the way I started this lesson. Seth was not born in the image of God, but in the image of his father Adam. Humans, by birth alone, are not God’s imagers; a transformation must take place first. Therefore, Michael Heiser is wrong to call us God’s imagers.

What’s more, if the Nephilim were indeed the products of disobedient angels (properly called demons) and human women, then they were born in the image of their parents – of which all the fathers were evil, rebellious, God-mockers, and most of the mothers were godless as well. But Heiser assumes they have always been imagers of God.

Heiser also said that they, the other gods of the council, which sometimes includes the Nephilim, “carry out his will (God’s will) in that realm” [the unseen realm] (p 43).  No, they don’t! They are demons acting as gods and they are always opposed to everything God is doing! They never follow His will! They are not His representatives nor his imagers!

GOD’S PURPOSE

Starting with creation week, God’s desire has been for us to reflect Him, to represent Him, to be His likeness in this world. We start out from a disadvantaged position because of the sin of Adam and Eve, but the atonement and redemption made possible through the death and resurrection of Jesus enable us to begin to reflect who God is once again – although we will do so imperfectly. God knows that it is a learning process; the closer we grow to Him, the better we will be able to reflect His character.

However, Michael Heiser cleverly eliminates that possibility by saying, “There is nothing in the text to suggest that the image has been or can be bestowed incrementally or partially. You’re either created as God’s image bearer, or you aren’t. One cannot speak of being partly or potentially bearing God’s image.” Even though he never addresses the idea of a marred or twisted image of God, he uses the above statement to set it aside. Christian theology does not say we received part of the image of God, rather it says that the image of God that Adam did receive was changed, marred, and twisted because of sin. This is another example of Heiser making an assumption which he turns into a rule and then applying the rule tenaciously.

Therefore Dr. Heiser is also wrong in his entire emphasis on imagers of God. He says humans, all the spirit being that God created, including demons, lesser gods, and angels, are all bearers of God’s image simply because He created them, (and he implies the Nephilim fall into the same category). But Genesis 5:3 clearly tells us that it is the marred version of God’s image, called the image of Adam, that is being passed down from generation to generation of humans.

God did not directly create Seth, Adam and Eve did and they passed on their messed-up image to him. God did not create the Nephilim (if you choose to believe they were more than humans), so they did not receive His image, but rather that of their evil “parents”. God did create the angels, but the Bible tells us they were created as “ministering spirits” (Heb 1:14), it does not say anything about them being image bearers. When some of them rebelled, they became demons. If man, who was originally made in the image of God, suffered serious changes when he sinned, would not the demons also have suffered serious changes? If they started out as imagers of God (which has no support but is only an assumption) they would have lost that or marred it when they fell. However, there appears to be no salvation offered to demons, so there is no hope of them regaining the ability to properly represent God (if they were ever considered His imagers in the first place, which is doubtful).

The next lesson is BIBLE PASSAGES ABOUT THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD