The Imago Dei Revealed Through The Book of Genesis, Part 4 - The Effect of the Fall

God’s final and ultimate act of creation was to create “’Ishah” (the Hebrew word for ‘woman’). She could reflect GOD in ways that A’dam could not. She was given the gift reproducing imago Dei life! Angels could not do this. No animal could do this. She could exhibit a quality that only GOD Himself had. Little wonder then that at the moment she was created envy and pride arose in the heart of one of the high heavenly beings. When GOD created the “Ishah” for A’dam, the man broke out into poetry. These are the first recorded words of Adam. Perhaps as he walked and talked the Lord each day in the cool of the day, he learned from his Maker to speak poetically. Today, it is no accident that Christian worship still echoes that original impulse to worship GOD poetically. GOD created the ‘Ishah as an “ezer“ (an ally, in the military sense) and together the man and the woman would be a unit of covenant intimacy for worshiping GOD in their ordinary and mundane activities - yet now, nothing would be truly mundane, because everything they did —- walking, talking, gathering, washing, eating, cleaning—- would be an act of worship to the One who had made them. Throughout this mini-series of theological sermons and lectures I will demonstrate how it is enlarged beyond the ninth chapter Genesis and is finally presented in the closing chapters of Genesis Christologically. In this episode we examine whether the Fall from Innocence effected the imago Dei of humankind and show why it did not destroy, deform, or mar it. However, it did create a gulf in the relationship that our Progenitors were created to enjoy. Jesus the Christ, who is the Ultimate Imago Dei (2 Cor. 4:4) has now come to atone for the sins of humankind and by His resurrection He has defeated death and assured the redeemed of our future resurrection into imperishable and immortal bodies. In the meantime, we are each called to be renewed into the image of God through our growing knowledge of Christ.