Gospel Prism

“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:26-27 NASB)

To understand sin then, one must refer back to the time of Adam and Eve, a time when sin first entered the world. The image of God and its shattered visage in humanity is an important link in the identification of the sin of homosexuality. This image is what truly separates mankind from the animal kingdom. Externally, our bodies can closely resemble certain animals. Whether it is the ability to communicate, or the containing of similar genetic code, it can be noted that the human body is similar to other animals, like many primate species. But there is something that does separate humanity from other animals, including primates, and it is the uniqueness of being image-bearers of God Himself. Charles Hodge comments:

In making man after His own image, therefore, God endowed him with those attributes which belong to His own nature as a Spirit. Man thereby distinguished from all other inhabitants of this world and raised immeasurably above them. He belongs to the same order of being as God Himself…” (Hodge, 262)

God has granted human beings a special place and any attempt to undermine this truth undermines God Himself who is the Giver of such truth.

John Calvin adds:

While it would be of little benefit to understand our creation unless we recognized in this sad ruin what our nature in its corruption and deformity is like, we shall nevertheless be content for the moment with the description of our originally upright nature. And to be sure, before we come to the miserable condition of man to which he is now subjected, it is worthwhile to know what he was like when he was created. (Institutes, I.15.1)

Following sin, the image of God had gone through a devastating disfigurement. Before the Fall humanity was encased with the sheer image and likeness of God (The two terms, “likeness” and “image” are synonymous and not two separate entities. See Hoekema, 13f.). But sin has invaded all of humanity and the net result has been the perversion of the once glorious image of God. John Calvin depicted the imago dei as one that was twisted and barely recognizable, but was not lost completely.

This insight, particularly in light of Karl Barth’s interpretation of the imago dei, is critical to the theological relationship between the imago dei and human value. Though both see the imago dei ominously in light of the seriousness of sin, Barth argues that the image was completely lost at the Fall, while Calvin believed it to be frightfully deformed, but not completely lost.

In Barth’s rendering of the imago dei he finds that the male/female language of Genesis 1:27 can only refer to that relationship. That is, the male/female aspect of the imago dei is crucial to the interpretation of the text. He writes:

In Genesis 1 we were told that God created man in His image, i.e., as man and woman. In Genesis 2 we were told how He fashioned this image. And now in the final statement we are told that it was without blemish, that, as male and female he was right in the sight of God and therefore in his own sight, because it was God’s will that he should not be alone, because in the woman God had created and brought him helpmeet.

But what have we been actually told? If we try to read the passage in its violation, we can only conclude that what we are offered is an account of the divine basis of love and marriage as the fulfillment of the relationship between man and wife. (Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics III/1, (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1960), 311.)

The image of God, according to Barth is rooted in the sexuality of the man and woman. The image of God is not a part of the human sexual process; rather, the nature of humanity is in conjunction with the relationship between men and women. Barth adds:

Man can and will always be man before God and among his fellows only as he is man in relationship to woman and woman in relationship to man…The fact that he was created man and woman will be the great paradigm of everything that is to take place between him and his fellows. The fact that he was created and exists as male and female will also prove to be not only a copy and imitation of his Creator as such, but at the same time a type of history of the covenant and salvation which will take place between him and his Creator. In all His future utterances and action God will acknowledge that He has created man male and female, and in this way in His own image and likeness. [Italics mine] (Barth, 186-187)

He has created man and woman to represent the image of God. Thus, same-sex sexual relationships do not reflect the image of God that God had always in male-female relationships. When Adam and Eve first sinned before God, there would be an eternal effect upon the imago dei. Calvin’s representation of a perverted image, rather than one completely destroyed, appears to be the accurate interpretation. Anthony Hoekema argues against Barth’s total loss of the imago dei saying:

We must, however, criticize Barth’s view of the image as being an inadequate reproduction of the biblical data. In Barth’s view the image is purely relational, and therefore purely formal: the capacity for confrontation and encounter. But the image of God is surely more than mere capacity. (Hoekema, 52)

Indeed, Barth has limited the power of the image of God and forgets to emphasize Christ’s redemptive work on the cross as that which renews the image of God in the process of sanctification.

But what Karl Barth does add is quite valuable to the discussion on this subject. There is an important aspect of the image of God that defines the sinfulness of homosexuality. The lost image is buttressed by a sinful and depraved heart that does nothing to repair the image of God. Instead, it continues to pervert that image and widen the gap between God and humankind. If Karl Barth’s epistemological basis of the image of God is coordinated to the relationship of man and woman, then the ramifications of a same-gender sexual relationship would not only impede the image of God, but continue to disfigure that image ad infinitum. Genesis 1:26-28 confirms for the reader that the male-female relationship is embedded in the image of God. Barth’s error, however, seems to be an overemphasis on one aspect of the image of God, albeit an important one. A good interpretation of the image could be an integration of Calvin’s and Barth’s perspective. Hoekema agrees with Barth, commenting:

“The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him’” (v. 18). The Hebrew expression rendered a “Helper suitable for him” is ‘ezer k(e)negdo. Neged (the word translated as “suitable”) means “corresponding to” or “answering to.” Literally, therefore, the expression means “a help answering to him.” The words imply that woman complements man, supplements him, completes him, is strong where he may be weak, supplies his deficiencies and fills his needs. Man is therefore incomplete without woman. This holds for the woman as well as for the man. Woman, too, is incomplete without the man; man supplements woman, complements her, fills her needs, is strong where she is weak. (Hoekema, 77)

For Hoekema, Barth’s appraisal of the ontological state of the imago dei is correct, but as stated earlier, Barth’s view would seem to sell short the redemptive, atoning work of Christ. Hoekema finally summarizes his view of Barth’s imago dei:

Man and woman together as the image of God…Man’s existence as male and female means that man as a masculine being has been created for partnership with another being who is essentially like him but yet mysteriously unlike him. It means that woman is the completion of man’s own humanity, and that man is wholly himself only in his relationship with woman. (Hoekema, 97)

To these theologians there is no denying the duality of God’s image. When God first created “man,” He created them man and woman alike (Genesis 1:27). Homosexuality contradicts the essence of the text. It shatters the intention of God’s divine image in humanity, to reflect His glory in the God-ordained relationship between man and woman. Man and woman are to complement one another, to be His image together.

Henri Blocher criticizes homosexuality along the same lines. He also finds that homosexuality is sinful because it detracts from the God-given sanction for a man and a woman to represent the image of God together. The “being-with” as he points out, is an integral part of that relationship between man and God. He writes:

We have seen that the being-with of the man and his neighbor reflects (and should serve) the being-with of man and God. If the fundamental being-with is face-to-face partnership with the other sex in diversity, then our proposition is confirmed and sharpened. The face-to-face relationship with the Lord signifies for mankind respect for otherness in supreme and transcendent form and for the primary distinction—that between Creator and creature. Immediately we can understand why the apostle Paul makes a close association between idolatry and homosexuality (Rom. 1:22-27). This sexual perversion as a rejection of the other corresponds to idolatry in its relationship to God, the rejection of the Other; it is the divinization of the same, the creature. (Henri Blocher, In the Beginning, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1984): 102-3)

There is enough biblical warrant against homosexuality that we could stop here. The gay and lesbian relationship is one that continues in sin, repeatedly rejecting and distorting the image of God, without any pursuit for repentance and forgiveness. It goes against the standards of ethics and morality set in the Word of God. It undermines the very ontological and functional being of God. God is a God of three persons. The Trinity is the perfect relationship and when God made man in His own image, He created the interconnectedness that would reflect the image of the communion of the Trinity. To break that connection is to shatter that visage, and that is what sin is, the active aggression and opposition to the will of God. However, current homosexual theologians who advocate homosexuality are dependent on arguments against certain biblical passages that seem to clearly condemn homosexuality which will be explored in the next section.