Our image of God reveals not only God’s character, but our own.
Who is Jesus? Is Jesus more immanent (human) or transcendent (divine)? Because we are created in the image of God and Jesus is divine, the church struggles to define Jesus. This impulse can be a genuine attempt to know God better or it can be an insidious attempt to create God in our own image. This struggle is often tinged with a bit of both.
The Letter to the Church at Thessalonica was likely the first book written in the New Testament. In a literary sense, the implication is that the Apostle Paul is the father of the New Testament. Paul only knew the Risen Christ and, for him, the divinity of Christ was obvious. By contrast, the Gospels that record the humanity of Christ were written almost a generation later. Thus, the transcendence problem facing postmodern people that fixates on the humanity of Christ is relatively new.
My recent book, Image and Illumination (2023), asked the question—What does it mean to be created in the image of God?— focused on Christian anthropology. Embedded in this question is the metaphysical question: Who is God? The New Testament addresses this question with three pictures of God: The person of Jesus, Jesus' teaching about God the Father in the parables, and the founding of the church on Pentecost by the Holy Spirit. In this book, I focus on the Image of God in the Person of Jesus.
Hear the Words; Walk the Steps; Experience the Joy!