The Embodied Image with Joshua Sherman (Image Series, Part 3) - Episode 017

Carey Griffel: [00:00:00] Welcome to Genesis Marks, the spot where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and we are going to continue our discussion on the image of God. Today, I am bringing back the great Joshua Sherman, and we are going to talk about the image of God, the image of Christ and embodiment.

Remember how I said way back in my first episode that the image of God isn't that we are copies of God in a physical way? While I think that's true, but today we are going to give nuance to that because being physical and living out our lives is crucial to the image and its meaning and how it matters to us on a practical level.

So let's just get right to it. All right. Well, thank you Joshua, for coming back on [00:01:00] to talk to me about the image of God. We had a wide ranging conversation last time about the image of God and the image of Christ and how those are seen to intersect in scripture. And when they intersect, they are, of course, they're pulling all of humanity into the equation with them.

And there's a lot of directions we could go with that conversation from here. But today we're gonna talk a little bit more about the fact of the image being embodied and what a better weekend to be talking about that, because this weekend in the Western Church tradition, at least we're going to be celebrating the resurrection of Christ and everything that goes along with.

Obviously our lives are, are so intertwined with that event. And I, I think that what we're gonna be talking about tonight is going to touch on that a lot for starters. Joshua, do you wanna do you wanna say anything before we start?

Joshua Sherman: Hi, I'm [00:02:00] just just glad to be here again. Glad to be on one of my favorite podcasts with one of my favorite people, talking about one of my favorite topics.

So there's a whole lot of favorites going on here. It's good.

Carey Griffel: I appreciate your coming on, and, and I, I really enjoyed our last conversation and I think, , I've gotten a lot of feedback from people who also enjoyed it. So hopefully this will be kind of in the same vein, , but going down some different paths and hopefully it'll be really interesting and enlightening and helpful.

What would you say, Joshua, about our last conversation to bring that into a connection with this conversation?

Joshua Sherman: Wow. I'm, I'm thinking, you know, even through the whole series, like all the different ways that you, you've been talking about tying together the different ways people have understood the image of God, and it was really neat talking about that with you as we were preparing for that.

And then hearing that episode and then thinking about it since. And then because I, I feel like we're on a lot of parallel tracks in the ways that we've been thinking [00:03:00] about a lot of these things fitting together pretty well, if you really think about it. And then having the, that sense of, you know, but what's the core of this?

You know, what's the, what is the purpose of humanity? What's the identity that we have? What's the status that God has given us? , and, and then how do these other things feed and connect into that? Right? , so that was really neat. And then I know that we both had a bit of a moment there. Recently cuz you, you just got a copy of Carmen Imes new book, which is about the image of God being the image of God.

Right. , and, and we're messaging back and forth a little bit about that. And it was another one of those kind of moments of just, oh, not crazy like, you know, someone else is saying this. And, and it's not just someone else, it's, it's an Old Testament scholar that knows this stuff really well. And that's, you know, read very widely on the topic in, into New Testament scholarship as well.

Right. , yay. We're not crazy, you know? So that was really neat. I, I think for both of us to, to have some of that connectivity into. What she was thinking as well,

Carey Griffel: the fact [00:04:00] that she could, she could see this topic and see the connectivity that we're seeing throughout the entire Bible and the purpose of everything.

It's, it's really, really cool because, you know, you, you can read these things and you're just like, oh, well, the, the Old Testament only talks about the image of God in Genesis a couple of times. So let's just kind of forget about that while we're reading the rest of everything until we get to Christ. And, oh, he's the image of God.

Well now, hang on a second. How do we jump from there to here and now for us? How do we jump into what that means for our lives and how those, how the image of God and the image of Christ connect together?

Joshua Sherman: Absolutely. And it, it's, it's one of those things where, you know, I, I feel like we're so used to this idea of.

Let's really, really dig into what this, this originally meant in [00:05:00] context. And then eventually we wander around to application, right? And we can almost see those as two different things. But there's a sense with this particular topic, especially where like, the entire topic is about application. Cause it's like, this is who you are, you know?

And so like I, I just think it's, it's a really, it's a, it's a neat thing to dig into because it is so deep, because it is so it's so defines who we are as human beings and how we relate to God. In, in, in why he created us and then how we relate to each other. And a big part of that then becomes this idea of embodiment, right?

Not necessarily saying that, you know, God the father has a body, the way that some people see that, but, but recognizing that when God is creating humanity, one of the things that he's doing is he's creating embodied creatures that are meant to represent him, that are meant to live out what it means to be the God that are [00:06:00] meant to do things in the world, on his behalf.

And and that's very much what we then see in the incarnation with Christ, like getting it right and then enabling us to get it more right than we would've before. And hopefully that's a progressive process for us. And we're not constantly messing up, but we know how that goes. We're imperfect, right?

So we need Christ, we need the spirit, we need the, the work of God in our lives.

Carey Griffel: So the first place we see the image of God is obviously in Genesis one, and it's connected to several things, as I have pointed out a number of times. Well, well, recently I had that conversation with Jon Dillon from the Two Trees Podcast.

We were talking about fruitfulness and multiplication and what that means and how that's more than just having children in some sense, because the fruitfulness language frames that passage in Genesis one. It's got to connect in some way, right? Mm-hmm. We have to have [00:07:00] some sort of yeah, fruitfulness and multiplication as part of our imaging of, of what that means to be an image of.

Joshua Sherman: Yeah. I, I, I think so. I, I think that's really important and and, and I think we can, we can connect this in, in a similar way that we did looking at the image of God and the image of Christ, and give ourselves a bit of a framework end to end in scripture and then start to fill in the in-between. So I wanted to try to follow a kind of a similar path.

And it is always fun going and saying, oh, you, you talked with Jon Dillon, another one of my favorite people in one of my favorite podcasts and one of my favorite topics. You know, and it's just like, let's connect into that conversation. And it's one of the things that I really appreciate about, I feel like where we kind of are in this this ecosystem of podcasting and the, the circles we're running in now where we're just interacting enough that there, a lot of this is conversation and there's so much.

Dialogue that brings out things that, you know, you can sit and study in a room by yourself forever for, [00:08:00] and you will not come up with the thing mm-hmm. That pops out in conversation. So yeah, that's another kind of like embodiment and, and I think part of what, what being the image of God is, is is that sense of, of community and then what comes the creativity that comes out of community.

Right.

Carey Griffel: That's why I'm on social media. Like, I used to think, oh, I will never get on social media. That's just a breeding ground of terrible things. But, but I mean, really it is what you make of it. And if you, if we are not there in those places, then we're missing out on places that we can meet together. We are missing out on places where we can mm-hmm.

Where we can embody the church and we can be part of this conversation. And so whoever's listening, you know, I welcome you on to talk to me, to come and email me to have to, to be part of this discussion because it's more than just Joshua and me talking. It's anybody else who wants to be part of this conversation and because we love having this this back [00:09:00] and forth and the idea that we can have community in these conversations.

Joshua Sherman: Absolutely. And, and, and I think that's one of the things that is, is helpful to me, is to really, you know, ask the question. Especially as I'm on social media, especially as I'm interacting with people that maybe aren't super pleasant on social media. This idea of embodiment and recognizing that I have a choice in how I choose to act.

In that platform too. That's a, a choice about how I'm trying to embody who I've decided to be. And being a Christian, that's also part of how I'm choosing to represent God, how I'm choosing to embody God in that place. I can do that really badly, or I can, I can, you know, hopefully do that well. The times when I'm, I'm just kind of in my own place.

Those are the [00:10:00] times when I tend to do it really badly. Right? And so part of I think imaging God well is, is recognizing, you know, that, that we do need to be not just focused on ourselves. We need to be pressing into Christ. We need to be in prayer, we need to be in scripture, we need to be, all of these things can help to ground us and then enable us to.

Actually be receptive when the spirit is leading so that we can embody God and not embody this ideology or that idea or this feeling we have, or feeling like I need to defend myself against somebody that's attacking me in a chat room somewhere, when really I could honestly just be like, I'm sorry, you're so mad.

Like it's, you know, like trolls come from somewhere, right? And, and behind those trolls on the internet is, is someone that is made in the image of God that's choosing to embody something not so great [00:11:00] and, and how do we encourage them to actually. Start to try to embody good things, especially point them to how to actually be in relationship with and then embody God.

Carey Griffel: So we're, we're talking about this in terms of our purpose. We're talking about this in terms of practicality. We could go into a lot of specifics about that. But what's important is when we look at scripture, we actually see that practicality being lived out on a daily basis, especially in the New Testament with Paul's writings and how he's talking to people.

There's so much conversation there about, right, living about people, not the, displaying the right attitudes. And so, you know, we, we tend to think of, we might have this idea that the people of the New Testament were special. Like they had something that we don't have in the sense of being able [00:12:00] to act in certain ways.

Like, oh, now we have the modern world and now we have technology. And that's different. Well, it's not, it's not different. We're, we're all human. And so mm-hmm. In the sense of the, the embodiment of the actual embodiment of Christ in the world as being the church. Right. When, when I talk about the church, I like to talk more about the body of Christ than about the church.

Especially these days. We have this idea of church is what you do when you go to this building on Sunday. Right. And I think there's a lot of people who are coming out of those ideas and realizing that the church is much more than that. And I think that that connects into what the fruitfulness and multiplication language often is in the New Testament.

Joshua Sherman: Yeah. Yeah. And I, I, I think that's, that's really good. And. I, I guess maybe we can start a little bit in Genesis and just kind of ground that connectivity of like, [00:13:00] okay, image multiplication, what does that mean? Right. And we can start to tie this together a bit more, and then, then we can talk more as we go.

So we look at Genesis 1 26 and through 28. And this of course is like, you know, for this topic it's like, oh, you're going back there again. Yes, we are. Because apparently, you know, most of the time that, that people look at this kind of stuff, they think they know it and then they forget about it.

And that includes us, right? We have to constantly be reminded of this. And there are new things that we notice in going back into it and preparing for things like this that it pop out. And it's just like, so much of what we notice is framed by where our attention already is. And then it's like, oh, actually the thing I'm thinking about connection to what I'm looking at now too, right?

So it's just fun to see all the different angles, and that's part of where this con like having dialogue really helps with that. But I'll go ahead and read that. So that's then God said, let us make mankind or humankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky over the livestock and all the wild animals and over all the creatures that [00:14:00] move along the ground.

So you have, okay, image, likeness, and dominion are tied together. Okay, so let's keep going. So God created mankind, humankind, in his own image, in the image of God. He created them, male and female. He created them. God blessed them and said, be fruitful and multiply or be fruitful. Increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it.

So now you have the image, you have dominion, you have being fruitful and multiplying. Right. Roll over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground. So even just in these few verses, we already have these ideas around. The image and dominion and being fruitful and multiplying, all clustered together as like, hello, these are related.

Right. Pay attention. Right. So really, I, I think very helpful to, to start there and to think about the fact that dominion and glory are [00:15:00] also deeply connected and the image and glory are also deeply connected. And we talked about some of that last time as well. So that's kind of the, the initial starting point.

And then we can take it forward a little bit further and say, okay, like, is this, is this mandate still something that applies to us? Yes, yes it does. Right? So even after the flood in Genesis nine, we see that this is something that's repeated to Noah and his family. Right. So was, was this this purpose of God for humanity, something that was lost in the fall?

No. Right. Because now we have the flood. Was it lost in the flood? No. Right. All of these questions we can ask and we, we can start to get the same kind of answers, right? God bless Noah and his sons saying to them, be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. And then he goes on to talk a little bit more about dominion, about the image of God, about, you know, the fact that, you know, blood shouldn't be shed and all of those things.

But then he then comes back in [00:16:00] verse seven and says, as for you, right, be fruitful and increase in number, multiplying the earth and increase upon it right after he is talked about humankind being made in the image of God. So we have another connectivity into this idea of multiplying and the image of God connected together.

This is something we might want to pay attention to.

Carey Griffel: And it's this framework idea that we really need to, that we're not used to looking at when we're reading modern texts, right? We don't tend to have this chiastic structure that the Bible has over and over and over, but it's, I'm so excited every time I find a chiasm because it means that I have found something that I have not seen before because it will pinpoint a point that I have probably glossed over a million times before.

Joshua Sherman: Okay, so this just makes me laugh, but there's a moment back when I'm sitting here preparing feedback cuz you know I'm managing people now at work and one [00:17:00] of those things people like to do is they'll do that kind of sandwich things where it's like, here's something good, here's the thing I really want to talk about.

That's a challenge. Here's another thing that's really good, and I had that really sarcastic moment in my head of like, can you imagine being this modern person with those ideas, talking to someone with a Hebraic mindset that thinks in chiasm and they're like, the center is the one thing you wanna talk to me about and it's the bad thing.

Like, you know it just kind of jumped out at me and made me laugh. The, the like, these, this is almost as well an illustration of just how different our mindsets are. So, I mean, thinking about this, I, I, I think, you know, we can also kind of broaden this a little bit and, and start asking questions, right?

So this idea of being fruitful and multiplying, it's definitely connected to what it means to be the image of God, but it's also not something that defines or encircles it. And then that's pretty clear because God also talks about the animals being fruitful and multiplying and [00:18:00] what do you know?

We have direct experience with animals being fruitful and multiplying, and scripture doesn't put them in the same status. Doesn't say that they're in the image of God in the same way that humanity is, right? So that's one of those little e kind of easy boundary things I think to set is like, okay, so this is related, but it's, it's clearly not the core.

And, and again, I think that was one of the things that really just impressed me about the way that you were laying this out was that you were able to say like, Here are all the different things and they're, they relate in these ways and let's actually connect them into the core. Here's the core, here's how it fits together, that kind of a thing, as opposed to let's just have a fight over what the one definition of the image of God has to be.

This is so much more useful.

Carey Griffel: And it's funny how much scripture does that, like over and over you think, oh, well, this passage or this topic, or this subject, it only means one thing and here's the definition. Now we're done. Now we understand it. [00:19:00] That's not really how scripture works. So that's not how the truth is revealed.

And, and I mean, in reality is that how anything in your life even works, that that's the wrong way to look at things.

Joshua Sherman: Yeah. Well, and, and, and so, you know, we, we can ask the same kind of thing here. You know, are we in the image of God or are we in the image of Christ? Right. And we can do the same kind of dichotomy there and then tear things apart and, and be really silly.

But as we're talking about this idea of being fruitful and multiplying as we're connecting it into dominion, as we're connecting it into the image and the likeness of God and humanity, and who we're created to be in the status, we have, one of the things that we start to connect into very quickly, if we get into the New Testament, there's very similar language that's calling back to Genesis.

So in Acts 1224, you have this, you know, religious brief statement in the midst of them preaching the gospel, [00:20:00] right? So and, and the way that that's usually talked about in acts, that's talking about people wanting to hear the word of God, right? We, in our, in our, in our minds will usually think, oh, they want to go hear someone read the scriptures, right?

It's like, no, that's not what they're talking about. That may be part of the conversation, but what they're actually talking about is the proclamation of the gospel, which is the word of God, the proclaimed word of God about the living word of God, which is Christ. And then the scriptures are, lay out the broader story of God in humanity and creation.

And so they are the word of God in the, in the, in the sense that the scriptures point to the story of the wor, the living word of God and lay out the proclaimed word of God. And then when we get to act and we say, but the word of God continue to spread into flourish, you have to ask, what is that talking about?

Right. Is that the, the Bible continued to [00:21:00] spread and flourish? No. Right. Although that would be part of the result of this, this happening, right. Eventually is, is this talking about Jesus continuing to spread and flourish. Kind of is this talking about just the fact that people were, were preaching the gospel continuing to spread and flourish.

Sure. Right. But that is the means by which I think we see the word of God continuing to spread and flourish in the sense of the body of Christ. Right. The church beginning to spread and flourish, which is pointing back to Eden, pointing back to Genesis and saying, oh, by the way, what humanity was created for this idea that we need to spread and flourish in the right way.

That's what's happening now. That's what's happening in Acts, the gospel's being proclaimed the, the proclaimed word of God about the living word of God the incarnate living word of God. This is what's happening, right. I think that's the kind of connectivity [00:22:00] that we see as we start to look forward into the New Testament and connect the image of God, the image of Christ and the body of Christ, all together with the word of God.

Carey Griffel: Is the Bible, the word of God? Is that an accurate way to describe the text of the Bible?

Joshua Sherman: Yes. You, you, there there are lots of people that will ask that question. And, and one of the ways to, to answer that, you know, is, is gonna be the first proof text that will come to people's mind is Hebrew four 12.

Right? But the word of God is living in powerful, sharper than ever any two added sword able to divide between bo you know, bone and marrow, flesh and of flesh and spirit, right? You see that? And, and the first thing, like, I remember when I learned this, like I can actually kind of picture like what I was wearing in, you know, back in like the early nineties, right?

And it was probably in awanas before even, I'm thinking picturing, but I'm thinking more in my middle school and high school days, right? You know, you have, you know, the Bible and it's, it's the sword drill kind of thing, right? Where I can open it up really quick, right? Oh, I'm really good with the [00:23:00] word, right?

That's the way that a lot of people would think and talk. The problem with that is that's actually not what Hebrews four 12 is talking about. And it's not to say that the scriptures aren't connected into the word of God. That they aren't the word of God in some sense, but they are not the central, the they're not the core of the archetype of what the word of God is.

The archetype of the word of God is Christ, right? In the beginning it was the Word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. Like that is Christ. We see the word become incarnate, right? And the word become became flesh and dwell among them, right? So that is the archetype. That is the core around that.

Then we see the gospel is the proclaimed word of God about Jesus. But then we also see the scriptures being that, again, that kind of larger story around all of this, around God creating and in carting himself in creation first in a sense, through humanity. In a sense, not in total and having problems with it cuz we screwed things up and then eventually through Christ [00:24:00] actually coming and literally being the incarnated word of God and then enabling us to become part of his body and be becoming part of his, his incarnation in a sense, as well as we're part of the body of Christ.

So all of that connectivity is in there and when you look at Hebrews four 13, you have this, this talk about the fact that nothing is hidden from his eyes or his sight and you go pronoun his. Back to the Bible. That doesn't work. I wonder who that's talking about. Right? It's talking about Christ. So one of the proof texts that's often used to say the Bible is a word of God, doesn't actually talk about the Bible.

It's talking about Christ. And a lot of the ti the, the times that we see the word of God used in the New Testament, it's about Christ or it's about the gospel, not necessarily about the, what we think of when we think of the 66 books of the, of this particular cannon of, of, of the Bible. Right. So again, one of those things where kind of the way that you decide, or you talked about the core of the image of God and then the things that are connected into it.

I feel like it's a very similar conversation [00:25:00] here where it's, it's not that the Bible isn't the word of God, but it's not the word of God in the deepest sense because that is Christ.

Carey Griffel: Well, what is the point of a word. The, the point of a word is to communicate, right? It's, it's, it's to reveal something to somebody else who doesn't know that already in our modern day, we're surrounded by words.

We are surrounded by books. The ancient world was not surrounded by books. The, the ancient world. Not everyone was literate. So when they thought of a word, what, what would they even think about? They, you know, it's a very different picture than what we have today.

Joshua Sherman: Yeah. I mean, they're usually probably thinking about someone speaking it to them, right.

In an oral society. Right. That's what happens. Oh look, the gospel is the word of God. It's the proclaimed word. Yeah. Yes it is. Right. And then, you know, you also have the sense of like, if a word is meant to communicate and Christ is the word. And we're [00:26:00] talking about what it means to be made in the image of God, in Christ being the image, the express image of the Father.

Like the image of the perfect image of God. Like what is an image? It's also a representation. It's also a revealing of that which it depicts. Right? So these are, are, are connected very intimately in that way that they're both meant to reveal, to communicate

Carey Griffel: whenever the New Testament is talking about the word, it's talking about some sort of a transformation that is, is happening in the people around, like there's a reason they want the word, there's a reason the word comes, there's a reason this is happening.

Joshua Sherman: Yes. Absolutely. And I, I think we, we take that, that step back and we say, okay, like if this is about revealing. Right. What do we see in scripture that talks about this in the New Testament? Well, you have John, funny enough, John talking about the word and revealing cuz he does that a lot. Right? You know in John one 18, you have, no one has ever seen God, but [00:27:00] the one and only son who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known, what is the word?

What is the image? They make known that which they depict. That which they proclaim. So Christ being the Word of God is making the Father known. And that's the same kind of dynamic that we are supposed to have in the world around us and the relationships that we have around us in making God known to those whom, whom we are around.

We see that even carried further in the sense that Jesus says, you know, if you really know me, you will know my father as well. Right From now on you do know him and you have seen him. And Philip says, Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us. Right? And Jesus answer saying, don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you for such a long time, anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.

How can you say, show us the [00:28:00] Father? Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me? The words I say to you, I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father living in me who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I'm in the Father, and the Father is in me or at at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves.

So you have Jesus talking about the words and doing the work of the Father and believe the evidence of those works, right? This is embodiment language. He's making God known by embodying God. Quite literally in, in being God incarnate, like in a way that we can't even do. But we then are called to become part of the body of Christ through faith as we press into Christ.

So very much a connectivity in how we are supposed to live our lives as well.

Carey Griffel: The idea of evidence there, you know, in a, in apologetics fields or when we're trying to convince somebody of the gospel and the truth of [00:29:00] of God, we tend to talk about miracles. Yeah, we're talking about things that happen that are outside of normal circumstance, but we don't tend to talk about the evidence that actually exists in the body of Christ in the church as we are revealing God to other people.

But why don't you think like, why isn't this a larger conversation? Because when you think about how you came to faith or how I came to faith, how any of this came to faith. It was because of other people in some sense. Other people brought us some sort of truth. Yeah. Whether they handed us a Bible, whether they told us about Christ, whether they just were kind to us.

And we realized later, oh, that was a Christian who is kind. That's really the impact that, that change, that sways our minds, that sways our hearts, that makes us realize that God is active in the world. [00:30:00] Like we can talk all we want about miracles and how this great thing over here happened and that great thing over there happened, but most of the time those things don't happen to us.

They happen to somebody else, they happen outside of us. They're, they're not something internal to us. They're not something that was directly, I mean, and not to say that we don't have those experiences because many people do, and there are many levels of what this looks like, right? Just having a kind person say the right thing , that could be a miracle to you on the right day.

But if we're so focused on what the great and amazing things that seem to be not normal in life, then we're missing out on all of the normal things that are going on that are revealing God to us on a day-to-day basis.

Joshua Sherman: Absolutely. And remind, I'm reminded of, you know, listening to you, you talk there about Ephesians five or literal.

Paul says, follow God's example. Therefore, as dearly loved [00:31:00] children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. We've alluded to sacrifice and, and, and my whole study in kind of reframing some of that a bit I won't go into detail there, but this idea that, you know, when we're talking about a sacrifice, we tend to want to frame that a lot in terms of this animal dies and, and death and payment and sin and, and really kind of focus on that.

But there are a lot of sacrifices in scripture that don't really focus on that, right? They're actually like ones that pray, people partake of, right? And so we're talking about communion, we're talking about this, this idea of coming together. We're talking about hospitality, we're talking about offering gifts, right?

And if you look at like Cain and Abel in the Old Testament and, and you start asking yourself, I wonder what a sacrifice is, right? I wonder how that would've been translated when people were looking at it even before Jesus, and they're saying, we, we wanna translate this into Greek. How do they [00:32:00] render those two things?

They literally render Cain's offering as thysia, which is an offering that's meant to be put on a, thysia on, and an on an altar, right? This is like, the focus is on, I'm going to give this up, versus the way that Abel's is, is, is translated, is is a hodoron a gift. So Abel is bringing a gift because he cares about the relationship Cain is bringing.

He's like, well, I guess I need to give this up. I guess I'll do that. Right? And so you, you have this kind of difference in even the way that's framed. And you can see this even in the New Testament where Jesus says, you know, if you're coming to bring your, your gift and you realize that your brother has something against you, go and be, leave your gift at the altar and go and be reconciled.

What does he mean? Leave your gift at the altar? Leave the thing that you were looking to sacrifice and go, like, that's what he's talking about. So this idea of being a fragrant offering and a sacrifice to God, these are, are, are pleasing things that we can do by offering of [00:33:00] ourself because we care about our relationship with God and we care about other people and that, and that caring is interconnected.

And so we, we give of ourselves in, in order to do that. Well, you also mentioned the, the miracle of like how we have faith to begin with and it coming from other people and that is another way of being fruitful and multiplying. I think when we, when we look at Genesis and we look at, you know, Adam and Eve, even when we look at the animals and we say keep even fruitful and multiplying, and we think about the mandate only in that sense, then you can have these questions that come up.

Right? What about people that are single? What about people that are divorced? What about people that are widowed? What about people that don't like, they can't be fruitful and multiply. Does that mean they're less of a person? Does that mean they're made less in the image of God because they're not doing this thing that we are meant to do?

No. And part of the reason that we can especially say that now [00:34:00] in, in, in the church in the New Testament with the, the proclamation of the gospel is that the proclamation of the gospel is literally what brings about. this being fruitful and multiplying. And so making disciples is something anybody can do.

You probably want to be a little ways along the path yourself before you start trying to do that with other people. But you know that whatever circumstances you're in, whatever relationships you have or don't have, you are made in the image of God. You are called to this purpose. You have this status.

You have the value and identity that God has created you with. And this in proclaiming the gospel is a, is the. Is the way, maybe one of the ways, but right now it may be the way you can fulfill the edenic mandate and take part in what God has called you to do, regardless of what else may be going on in life.

Carey Griffel: When I, I remember when I was younger, and you know, you, you are talking, you, [00:35:00] you have classes where people talk about how you should be spreading the gospel, right? You should be sharing the good news and you should be bringing people to church and you should be doing all these things. And, and that felt like a big pressure to me.

Like, what does that mean? How do I do that? I'm not evangelizing all the time. I'm not talking about the things that I feel like maybe I'm supposed to be talking about. I'm not bringing all these people to Christ. What's wrong with me? Like, how do I do that? But when you're looking at mm-hmm. This whole concept of the image of God, In terms of being fruitful and multiplying in terms of making disciples, in terms of, of all of these things connecting.

Like it's less about you standing on the street corner with a sign shouting to people and much more about you actually representing God to other people because that's, that's just as much part [00:36:00] of bringing people to Christ and discipling people and having conversations about all of these things so that you know more about it so that other people know more about it, so that you can all be edified.

So you can all grow. It's not just a one-to-one. There's people out there who are evangelizing and I'm not doing that and I'm not a people person, so I guess I just can't do, that's not what everything is about.

Joshua Sherman: Well, and, and, and I think we can, we can start to really see that if we start thinking about.

Again, kind of the way that we often like to create dichotomies, right? So the moment that you say the words you just said, what some people will hear is you just want people to love people. Mm-hmm. And you don't want them to preach the gospel. Right? And it's kind of like, no, that's not what I said. Right.

But, but, but literally preaching the gospel is something that happens as we're in relationship, as we are loving on [00:37:00] people whether we're necessarily using particular terms or formulations for it or not, when we are treating them as valuable and we're, we are representing God well, that is preaching the gospel in a way that then enables them to be receptive when we are preaching the gospel in specific words and terms and ideas and propositions and all of that, you can't have one without the other.

Right. And Paul's very clear about that. He's, you know, like, you know, if, if I can, you know, speak in the tongues and men and of, and of angels and, you know, but I have not love. Mm-hmm. I am, you know, it's, I'm nothing like, and, and, and like I, I wanna say his, his things are basically like, you know, I'm, I, I am nothing and it profits me nothing.

And like no one will, basically, no one will hear what I have to say. Right. We have to have that, that speaking the truth, speaking the gospel and living the gospel together. And, and that is what actually makes it compelling. And so yes, you know, [00:38:00] you can go out and you can evangelize on the. You can also evangelize with the people that you know, it's just much more uncomfortable because if you do it wrong and you mess up, then you're like, well shoot, now I messed up this relationship.

And if they're family, then I still have to talk to them at least on holidays. And that's uncomfortable. Like we get in our heads about that kind of stuff. But I think we can do that partly because sometimes we go into those discussions more with an eye towards being right than we are with an eye towards revealing God to that person in however we're called to do that in that moment.

Carey Griffel: Right. And and I think that this is why we can connect the word and the image so carefully and that we need to connect those things together because no, it's not just about, oh, I'm just living my life as great as, and people will just see that I'm living my life. No, you have to interact with people for one thing.

And you, you do have to talk to people. And there's a reason that people were preaching the gospel in words. [00:39:00] Like you have to communicate. And, and I, I think, I don't know if it's a sign of the times right now, but we have such a hard time communicating with one another these days. We can text and we can send pictures and we can, maybe some of us kind of talk on the phone and sometimes we'll get together, but even then, the communication we do with one another is so spotty and sporadic and, well, I figure you already know what I mean, so I'm just not gonna say it.

No, you, you have to say words. Yeah. Words are very important. So, and, and I, I, even today, when we are surrounded by words, we're surrounded by images, we should be even more uh, aware of how important those are and how impactful they are.

Joshua Sherman: Yes. Well, and, and, and one of the other things that I think is, is really important to really ask ourselves as we're entering into conversation with somebody is again, kind of like that Cain and Abel thing is like, are we just doing this because [00:40:00] we feel like that's what's expected of us?

Or are we doing this because we really care about this person? And if we really care about that person, then part of what we're doing and interacting with is listening because we care about what they have to say. We care about the feelings they have, the ideas they have. The other side of that is we have to decide what we're going to embody, who we're going to embody in those situations.

Right. So you can talk about something like ideological, possess possession, right? And, and this is like something everybody knows you g you go to the, you know, to to Thanksgiving dinner with, with Uncle Jerry and Aunt Kathy. And they are, you know, very much fans of whatever politician you don't like.

So what happens? You have a lot of these like veiled, passive aggressive conversations about that particular ideology or political alignment or whatever, and that's more what you're actually embodying in that conversation than you are actually embodying and representing [00:41:00] God, right? It's not to say there's no place for those things, right?

Because politics are important. It's how we shape policy that impacts people, people matter. Like all of that is there. But again, we have to start thinking more and more about what is the primary reason we're here. As people, what are the, what's the primary thing we're here for in this relationship and situation?

And if that thing isn't, I'm here to represent God well and to help people come to know him, then our priorities are a little bit skewed as Christians, because that's literally what we were made for. And when you talk about people that are, you know, are, are part of the covenant, you know, that have, have taken up the name and, and Right.

And have had the law written on their hearts by the spirit bearing God's name, like, that's like a reinforcement of like, no, really, this is what you're here for. You know?

Carey Griffel: Yeah. [00:42:00] And for those who who haven't yet ordered Carmen Imes book being God's image, here's the good place to plug that in. She's very practical in the things she says.

People tend to think of biblical theology as this, you know, thing that people do over there. And it's not, it doesn't relate so much to application. Like, if you're doing good, solid biblical theology, it ought to feed directly into application and what that means and how we can view ourselves in relationship to God and in relationship to one another, all of that.

And, and how is that not the most important thing that we could be focused on right now?

Joshua Sherman: Absolutely. Well, it reminds me of this like di dichotomy that I think people draw. And it's weird. Like I, I don't understand why they do it, because I look at it and I'm like, but they're connected, you know? And it's like, okay, are the prophets primarily, you know, [00:43:00] worrying about idolatry or are they worrying about social justice?

And I'm just like, Both. Right. But you know, we also then get into this weird thing sometimes where I feel like if we're too focused on where we are in this moment in history, in our culture, in our context, we can forget things that are scriptural, that are actually very important in what they really mean.

So social justice is one of those things. It's been defined by people that have particular aims to use that terminology. And, and I think part of the reason for doing that is if you push back against social justice, like it's like, Do you really want to do that? You're a bad person if you don't like social justice.

So we can use a term and then define whatever we want into that box of that term, and then you don't want to oppose that. Right? And, and that's kind of where we're at politically with that [00:44:00] terminology, but it's much broader in scripture than our current context. And, and the Bible is very, very clearly in involved in, in caring about justice for the oppressed, for the widow, for the orphan, for, for all of these people that are taken advantage of, right?

For all these ways that people actually misused dominion, right? Tying back into Genesis and what we're called to do, right? How are we supposed to do that? And Jesus is pretty clear that lording it over each other is something the Gentiles do. That's not actually how you're supposed to do this thing, right?

That the way that you're supposed to actually exercise dominion is. First of all, I mean, obviously being well ordered and bringing order where you are, like that's part of, you know, actually , you know, doing things well. But, but part of that is just is, is, is love. It's service. It's it's self-giving and, and [00:45:00] reflecting who God is and who God was revealed to be, especially as we see him revealed in Christ and going, oh, if that's the image of God, and I'm supposed to imitate that, that has implications.

Yes, it does.

Carey Griffel: It's Easter. So right now we're thinking a lot about how Christ died and what that meant, what his death meant, what his, his, his whole work meant. Right. So we, we tend to think in terms of this, and, and I mean, honestly for a lot of Christians, that's what their. Christian Outlook is really focused on, and you know, that's absolutely where we should be looking is, is Christ and what he has done, but there's a reason that we are in the image of Christ.

And a lot of that connects into these ideas of sacrifice, these ideas of, of what does dominion mean? Does it mean that we're [00:46:00] just in charge? Well, how did Christ live his life? How did he live out the ideal of dominion in his actual human life?

Joshua Sherman: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And, and, and I think we see that over and over and over again as people you know, ask him for mercy for themselves and for other people.

They're like, Hey, you know, son of David, be merciful. My friend is. Like infested with demons. My friend is paralyzed. I am blind. Like people are asking for this. And, and, and Jesus gives of himself in order to do that. He's setting things right. He's actually acting justly by doing that, by reordering things in the proper way in that person's life, restoring the relationships that they have to, to their body and to creation in ways that enable them to then be in the world, in, in, in a way that they weren't before.

So there's very much that, that sense. And, and you, you also have that other side, side of justice where it's like, okay, what happened at the cross? Like he [00:47:00] disarmed the powers and principalities, right? They are standing in the way and he's like, you know, your, your little time here is done right, like this, this time that you've, you've had.

You no longer have any of that authority. Right? And so you definitely have kind of both of those dynamics going on. And, you know, I think what we see is we start to reflect on Christ and the cross. This, we're actually recording this on Thursday night, right before Good Friday. So very apropo to be talking about this.

And you know, you look at, at Christ on the cross, it's like this is the, the revelation of who God is, that God demonstrates his own love for us in this, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Right. And like what kind of embodiment, what kind of representation of God is that? That's amazing.

Carey Griffel: It is amazing.

And [00:48:00] you know, we, we tend to think, oh, we're supposed to be nice to people. We're supposed love means to be kind, right? Well, yes, love certainly means that we're going to be kind and we're going to be loving and we're going to be thoughtful to other people. But it's, it's also this idea of servanthood, you know, Christ said over and over to and indicated to his followers, if you want to be a leader, you have to be a servant.

If you want to be great, you have to be less. And that's, that's part of what Christ is showing us on the cross. You know, you have those, those silly atheists who say, oh, Christ's death on the cross is divine child sacrifice, or whatever. They have no concept of what Christ. Like his goal is what he is there for, that he is being self-sacrificial, that he is giving of himself for all of us, for the [00:49:00] entire world, for all of creation even.

Mm-hmm. And if, if we're not thinking in terms of how that impacts our lives and how we need to be also self-sacrificial to other people, then like where, where is our, where are our minds really?

Joshua Sherman: Yeah. And I'm reminded of you know, with us an idea of embodiment and talking about, you know, Christ on the cross and revealing who God is, revealing his love and the fact that we're called to do that too, right.

And looking at Athenasius' book on the incarnation, like literally, like the whole first half of that tiny little book is, is basically an introduction and, and context and, and all of this wonderful stuff from, from John Bayer who's, you know, this very, very very British and you know, he talks about this and, and he says the scope of what Athenian means by incarnation is thus far broader than is often assumed.

It has a scope that is not limited to the past, the body [00:50:00] fashioned from the virgin in which the word of God dwells as seen in the light of his passion. Cannot be separated from the body of Christ. That is those who, by faith in the cross, are no longer subject to the corruption of death. And I just love that because it really gets you thinking more and more about what it means to be made in the image of God.

What it means to be part of the body of Christ. What it means to say, you know, why did God create in the first place? Right? Why did, why did he create physical matter? Like why, right? Why, right? This can be a huge question, but if you look at it through the lens of the incarnation and you look at it through the whole story of scripture and where things are going, I think the answer you get to is God created to incarnate himself in creation.

And that that is a, a, a relational move because it then [00:51:00] enables God to be in relationship with those who are outside of himself. And yet are connected with him in very intimate ways as we are through faith in the work of the spirit in Christ. That's just beautiful and I think it helps to really frame who we are as human beings in a very meaningful way when we, when we say, you know, why did God create, you know, what does the incarnation mean?

What does it mean to be part of the body of Christ? These are all things that connect us into the image of God and who we are in very meaningful ways. So I think one of the other things we can talk about then, if we're talking about the church being the body of Christ, if we're talking about people needing to embody and represent God well, and we're talking about the fact that Jesus did that and we're supposed to follow his example, you start to get some pretty clear ideas about what that looks like.[00:52:00]

If we take this into this moment that we have as, as kind of the central part of, of our, our worship as Christians into the Lord Supper, communion, the Eucharist, these different names we have for this, what you're talking about at its core, putting all of the, the debates that people have about what exactly what it, you know, what it means and what it symbolizes and , you know, all, all those ideas, right?

What you have at its core, the common ground is that Christ is giving of himself for us, and that is what we see on the cross, and that is what we see in him providing this spiritual food for us that we can then be nourished by and that we can then, through that somehow be brought together as a group of individual people.

Especially in our individualistic society that [00:53:00] are so fragmented and spread out, we can come together and somehow as we're doing this, we are being brought together corporately as the body of Christ. And then you, you have to ask the question, what is that for? Like, are we just being brought together so that we can be like, yes.

What a great body this is. I'm like, Arnold Schwarzenegger, but Jesus like, right. You know, like, it's just not, that's, that's not the, that's not the thing. Right. We're, we're not, we're not there to look in the mirror. Right. When, when scripture talks about a mirror in James, it's very much like, look in, look in the, in the mirror.

See what you look like, and then act accordingly. Right. It's, it's a call to action. It's a call to, to repentance. Right. And not a call to just love or the, the image of ourselves. But you know, we're, we're not brought together as the body of Christ for our own sake. We're brought together as the body of Christ, particularly so that we can then turn around and give of [00:54:00] ourselves for the people around us.

And in doing that, that it, that love, right? And in the early church we saw that, we see this even to the point of, of martyrdom being one of those things that helps the word of God to spread. And to multiply this is, is the gospel, living it out, proclaiming it. This is what people, when, when people see Christians crucified, when they see that kind of self-giving love in us, that may be the clearest picture they have of Christ.

It may be the clearest picture they have of God. And so part of our job is to, to be that image clearly and not distorted. That's hard.

Carey Griffel: Well, and it, it makes me think of all of the people out there who think, well, I'm not a people person. I don't enjoy being around people. I don't have a church that [00:55:00] I can find that I am comfortable in.

What do I do? Well, the body of Christ is so much bigger than you going to a building on a Sunday. It can be part of that. That should be hopefully part of that because our interaction with real human beings really makes an impact on us on, and we make an impact on other people, but we can see it as broader than that.

We, we can see that every time that we are interacting in our lives in a way to represent God that is fulfilling what we are supposed to be doing here. And, and there's so many shades in so many directions of this. And I mean, we had people in the early centuries who were, who wanted to be martyrs because they're like, this is how passionate I am about the gospel.

This is what I want to do. Mm-hmm. This is how I want to live my life or end my life because I am so passionate about that [00:56:00] we don't all have to be martyrs. But we can all have that passion. We can all have that understanding that Christ mm-hmm came for us. That he came for the entire world, that his spirit dwells in us.

And that is going to impact what we do. We, we don't need to have some like master plan written out on, on paper. Okay, this week I'm going to this corner with my sign here, and this week I'm going to that corner. I mean, if that's where you're led, then by all means go for it. But we're all led in different ways and we don't need to ignore the fact that we're led.

Right. We sometimes it doesn't feel like we're being led, but we don't know what's going on. Like,

Joshua Sherman: well, and you know, I think about this question of embodiment, right? And we can read verses in the New Testament that talk about our bodies being a temple of the Holy Spirit and. [00:57:00] Some of those verses are singular.

Like they're talking to individuals and they're like, you know, hey, like you with your body honor God. Right? But a lot of those really come out better in the y'all version. Right. You actually read it in, in, you know, whether you have an interlinear or you know, the original language, or you use something like the y'all version that calls out the, the singular and the plural.

You, you, all right? It's, you know, you all right? Are being knit together into the, into the body of Christ. There's a, there's a corporate element to that and what better way to embody a God that is himself existing in the community of three persons. Then by being a body that's made up of multiple persons that is in harmony and community with each other.

Right. That's part of the reason This can't just be an individualistic thing. We are meant to be in community [00:58:00] because that's what it means to embody a, a God who is living community.

Carey Griffel: Or one of the ideas of being God's image is that maybe that means that we are relational beings. All of those things that I brought out in my first episode, each individual piece cannot be the whole thing, but each individual piece Yeah.

Plays some sort of role in what's going on here. You can't make this kind of stuff up, like it's, it's too layered and beautiful . Like this is real reality, right? It's, it's not some, some movie or something that somebody just made up sometime

Joshua Sherman: just to take us back again to that moment at the table, right?

We can focus so much on the terms that we use for it as like identifiers, right? What's that code for? Oh, you use Eucharist, you must be high church. You know, you use communion. You must be somewhere in the middle. You use Lord Supper. You're probably like, King James only. Or [00:59:00] something like, you know, like we have these ideas about how that sorts people out, and then you start thinking about it and you're like, okay, well why do we call it the Lord Supper?

Right. It's like, because Jesus provided this for us. Okay, well that makes sense. Like that it would make sense why someone would want, would wanna call it that. Why do we call it communion? Right. I feel like that word has so much cultural christianese, meaning that it almost like blows away any of the rest of the meaning that word could possibly have for people and we forget what it means.

You're talking about coming together in fellowship in a meal with other people and with God. That's communion, right? And that being something that draws you into closer relationship, that's communion, right? And you start saying, okay, Eucharist, like, what is that? You know, if, if like this is to give thanks, of course we want [01:00:00] to do that when we're receiving this gift from God, right?

Of course, we give thanks for Christ giving of himself. And part of how we do that is giving of ourselves for others, right? So again, all of these ideas can be very much, you know, just sides on a cultural war within Christianity. But, but all of them connect back into scripture. All of them connect into a facet of what it means to talk about this moment that we have as we, as we choose to worship.

And as we do that, then we have this invitation to live out what it means to be part of the body of Christ, to live out what it means to image a God who chose. In his love to endure even the cross. Right? And, and then we'll get a little bit of ahead of ourselves. We talk about resurrection and resurrection is embodied and resurrection involves glory, and resurrection is like another layer of what it [01:01:00] means to be the image of, of God, of Christ.

Like all of this gets kind of caught up in that too. That I, I think for right now, for us in this place that we're in, in, in holy week for the Western Church, that focus on being people that our, that live in the self-giving love of Christ and seeing him on the cross, recognizing that love that God has for us, recognizing the way that reveals who God is.

I think that's a really beautiful moment and a way for us to reflect on what it means to be imagers of God.

Carey Griffel: Thank you Joshua. I think we're going to end there because that is a beautiful reminder of something I hope we can consider right now and really always, I hope that those of you listening have enjoyed the conversation.

The more I think about the image and the person of Christ, the more in love with creation I am, the more in love with the Bible. I [01:02:00] am, the more in love with God. I am this world. It's tough, and our God came into it with us. I can't think of anything better than that.

So thank you as always. To my listeners and to those who choose to share and rate this podcast blessings to all of you now and throughout time.