Queenie - I don't want to speak for Mark, but I thought I'd post an idea about this for you to chew over and see what you think about it.

How I know it's all about relationship between God and man is threefold.

First, God said "in our image" only about Man(kind). You only have relationships with someone who is "cognitively aware" and capable of having a relationship.

Second, God taught Adam about relationships by allowing him to interact with all the creatures that God had created, including naming all of them. Not one of them was suitable for a "relationship," and THEN God made Eve FOR Adam as a suitable "helpmeet" with which he could have a real relationship.

Third, SIN broke the "perfect" relationship between God and Man, and it got so bad that God was sorrowed that He had even made Man. God cannot have a relationship with sin, but Man can, and that exchanges the intended relationship with God to one with something else that replaces God. The Flood was the result, with a "do over" with the 8 people who survived the Flood. Sadly, not even the first hand knowledge of the Flood was "enough" and it still hasn't been enough through the ages, up to and including today.



The short answer is "No" to both questions. Try Joshua on for size with this one. "Choose ye this day who you will serve, but as for me and my house we will SERVE the LORD." Either we CHOOSE to serve the LORD or we don't.

Hi Forever,

I am on my way out to a AA meeting. I need to concentrate on what you wrote. I really appreciate what you wrote by the way. I just want to look at it when I can concentrate and not be in a hurry to walk to my meeting.

See you after awhile.

Q

Has the thread died or is everyone out walking?

LOL, I was waiting for someone else.

I hope this thread doesn't die, but I also get lost because there is so much on in my head that I get unfocused.

So, given that we were made to have a relationship with G-d, for someone who is just really learning how to do that.

I truly want to have my relationship with G-d be his will running in my life, but how does one have that or know that you are in his will?

So, as in the email this morning from Charlene that Cares, I have felt the need to go back to the beginning and look with new eyes as this is the road map to my life that G-d wanted me to live.

I'm not sure where this journey is going to take me, but as I read that G-d made man in his image and likeness it dawned on me that I really don't know what that is.

Is it that G-d made us perfect just the way we are and that we don't need to look at what's on the outside and therefore judged by others and even myself?

Any thoughts?

Yes, I have many thoughts on this subject. The "trick" will be trying to address what YOU want to talk about and ponder as it may or may not apply to your life.

So, to that end, let me just comment on three of your questions as perhaps a starting point, or a continuation of previous "trains of thought."




It begins with know what God has revealed to us in Scripture. Why were we created in the first place? What purpose is there for human life? Once the "Fall" occurred, how CAN we "get back to a relationship with one to whom ANY sin is anathema? Do WE "choose God" or does God "choose us, whomever HE chooses?"




No, God made us perfect the way we WERE, before the "Fall." The Fall corrupted not only Mankind, it corrupted everything. The "judgment" is the comparision of the holiness of God with sin. "Be God," or "be LIKE God," that is the question that was first posed to Eve and continues to be posed to this day.

HOW do we even KNOW what sin is if there is no objective standard to compare actions, thoughts, and choices to? IS there such a thing as an "authoritative standard" that applies to everyone, regardless of their personal opinion? If so, then that also results in an "absolute moral standard" of what IS "Good" and what is "Evil." Sin, as a concept, does not exist independent of a Holy reference point, does it?



Try this one for size and see how it fits with your thinking. God is HOLY and sinless, that is His image.
God is "us," as in let "us" make man in "our" image. God, being a "jealous God," will NOT create humans in the image of Angels. For just one "proof" the "big difference" between angels and humans, God created mankind with the ability to reproduce, to "create" after their own "image." NO angel is CAPABLE of procreation. Therefore, the "us" and "our" cannot refer to God speaking to angels. If He was NOT speaking to angels, to whom was He speaking? "I will create man in MY image," or "We(us) will create man in OUR image?"

Think about this aspect of the "image of God." God created Man (Adam) to be a relational person, but there was no creature on earth with which Adam COULD have a relationship. The direct implication of the statement of God is that God has a relationship with someone who He is "comfortable with" including in "our (His own) image." So God was "in a relationship" from all eternity. Now God has taught the man that he does not have an "equal" on earth with which to have a true "God-like" relationship, and it became time to complete the creative process by making woman to BE that relational partner. Yet God did NOT "create" woman from the dust of the earth, He formed her from Adam, an inseparable part of him, so that Adam could not say that she was "different" or of some other "essence." She was different in personality, in really being a "separate but equal" person, but was "bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh," so that there was no difference in essence.

I have to look up what anathema means first, then go back and read it with a better understanding.

I'll be back on this one.

I certainly don't think I can be G-d, but that hasn't always been the case. Who I was before this journey was someone who tried to control EVERYTHING and all that accomplished was the destruction of my M and a family that I cherished. So, I never was and never will be G-d. I would accept that I want to be like G-d, but those are qualities that will come as I look to G-d for his purpose in my life. I'm here for a reason as is everyone else. My life, my qualities, my person has a gift to bring to this world, and I am in search of that purpose for G-d. It could be my capacity to love people no matter what, even as my heart breaks. Who knows, I certainly don't today.

I guess I would have to look at this in reference to living in G-ds world or not. If you choose to live in G-ds world and we all have free choice to or not, then I would accept Torah and Talmud as laws of life that will help me to live a life that had an "authoratative standard". Therefore in G-d's world, sin does not exist independent of a Holy reference point, and I would imagine you are suggesting which I accept that the bible is the holy reference point? We just might have different versions?

I need to give this some more research and thought. I look at this from a different perspective than you and honestly have not thought about it enough to be confident with what I believe. So let's table this for a future time, ok?

Forever, I really appreciate the way you stretch my thinking, but I would ask that you understand I am just a beginner at this and sometimes need a little time to figure out for myself what is in my heart and/or through what my religion teaches. Not to defend but come to a place of acceptance of everyone's beliefs. Fair enough?

I was going to reply this morning, but I see FH beat me to it.

I I think maybe we can see more about what it means to be created in God's image by moving forward a bit. We still are only hinting at chapter 3 in all of this discussion. We can continue to talk about the word "us" and the word "our" for years and keep dancing around it the whole time.

Genesis 2:18-25 (New International Version)
New International Version (NIV)



Of interest in this passage:

All the creatures of the earth, including the man, were made from the "dust of the earth." That is, each and every creature including Adam, was made from the same basic components as all the rest. The difference was that Adam (et-adam or mankind) was different in that God said that Man would be made in the image of God. As FH has pointed out, the word "us" cannot be referring to the angels, since the angels are not said to be made in God's image. They also have no male and female functions like we do and therefore cannot create after their own kind as we can.

When Seth was born, it is said that Adam begot a son after his own image and likeness. This is something the angels do not have the ability to do, since they are not male and female and do not have creative power to create after their own kind.

But of all the creatures, only Woman came not from the dust of the ground, but from a piece of Man. She was created so that Man might have a relationship with an equal, just as God has if we consider the "us" again. (But I want to move past that word for now)

It has been said that Woman came from Man's side so that she might be equal to him. Not from his head to be above him nor from his foot to be below him.

She was taken from Man so that without her, he is incomplete and since she was made to be his helper, it is in Man that Woman finds her purpose. That is, it is the relationship with her husband that fulfills the purposes of God in a woman's life. Not that she is meaningless without her husband, simply that it was for this reason she was made in the first place.

And without his wife, the man is incomplete, since she was taken out of him. By having a relationship with his wife, Man too fulfills the purposes of the one who made him.

In verse 24 we see that it is so that Man and Woman can have the kind of relationship God intended that other relationships must end or be modified in order for it to happen. The passage says that for this reason, that is, to become the primary relationship in a man and a woman's life, the man must leave his father and mother, those who have raised him to that point and nurtured and cared for him and be united to his wife so that the two can become as one. It does not say that man will rule over her or that she has no purpose but procreation or any of those silly things so many have tried to make the scriptures say over the years.

It pretty clearly, from my view, says that the reason a woman exists is to have relationship with her husband. And likewise, since she was created solely for the reason that man might have a relationship with her, it points to that as well. But there is another important part of this passage that has been discussed for many years that we also need to address at this point, I think.

Verse 25 says that they were naked and felt no shame.

Now over the course of history, there have been those who have said this has to do with sex and how having sex is only permissible when in a marriage ordained by God etc...

Many have said that since they were innocent, they had not yet learned to be ashamed of their nakedness and so they felt no shame.

Some have attempted to go a step further and make it mean that there is nothing in being naked that we need to be ashamed of when standing before our spouse or even that nakedness is our natural state and so we need to glory in that state and run around naked all the time. Some say it means that shame is a response to something that is man-made and it is only whether or not we feel shame for our actions that matters, since we then can be unashamed if our society permits our actions or at least accepts them. If you twist this concept far enough you come up with moral relativism and all it implies and the rest of this book goes right out the window, for if what is right and wrong is not God's decision but our own, the very next chapter is meaningless.

But what this verse really states is that both the man and the woman stood before God naked, unashamed and with nothing to hide and no reason to need to cover anything up. They were after all, created in His image and therefore could stand before Him based solely on their own merit and condition, which was blameless in His sight. That is, they were sinless before God and could stand before Him of their own accord.

And this once more points to a relationship between God and Man...

Let's go to chapter 3...

Take all time you want, it's okay with me. When you want to return to the question about what "image" means, we can pick up on it again.



Hey, slow me down anytime you want to. It takes time to wrestle with these thoughts and to ponder potential answers to questions.

Here's a key difference that you may need to know about me. I accept people as all being created in God's image. I do not accept everyone's religious beliefs, though I do try to practice tolerance of the choices that others make.



What you may call the Jewish Scripture is what I would call the Old Testament. They are, except for the ordering (sequence) of the books and the naming of some books, identical. Obviously, the Scripture that I use also contains the New Testament that is not a part of the Jewish Scriptures. For now, however, we are confining our discussion to the Old Testament and may, at some point, need to talk a little about the New Testament as it pertains to the Old Testament promises and prophecies of Messiah.

Mark,

If you are around.... I could use a little scripture to focus me on G-d.

Queenie,

I have a board meeting at church tonight. I'll try to catch up with you later.

Mark

Thanks for the scripture on my thread. It really helps when your wisdom is around. And your choice of scripture.

I hope life is treating you well.