Doug McMasters: Genesis chapter one.
Doug McMasters: When we read Genesis chapter one, it's easy to pick up a rhythm that runs through this chapter.
Doug McMasters: God speaks, things are brought into existence.
Doug McMasters: And so God forms and fills, and then he blesses and he declares that it's good.
Doug McMasters: There's that rhythm, that pattern that repeats as he goes through the days.
Doug McMasters: And then when you get towards the end of chapter one, things start to slow down.
Doug McMasters: There's something important about to be said.
Doug McMasters: The rhythm breaks in order to bring an emphasis to what's about to happen.
Doug McMasters: And when you look at verse 26, he says, Let us make man in our image according to our likeness.
Doug McMasters: And then in verse 27, a repetition.
Doug McMasters: So God created man in his own image.
Doug McMasters: He created them male and female.
Doug McMasters: Now those words are not decorative words, but rather are the bedrock of our identity.
Doug McMasters: They tell us who we are and why we're here.
Doug McMasters: We're here made by God in order to think his thoughts after him, in order to love the things that he loves, in order to walk in his ways, in order to fulfill all of his purposes that he's given us in sweet fellowship with him, in harmony with him, in harmony with one another, and in harmony with all things created.
Doug McMasters: And this tells us something very important about who we are: that our dignity and our identity and our purpose are all rooted in God's creative activity of who we are, made in his image.
Doug McMasters: We don't have to earn our dignity, it's granted to us.
Doug McMasters: We don't have to sort of look for our identity.
Doug McMasters: It's already stated here.
Doug McMasters: Our purpose is provided for us, rooted in the God who made us.
Doug McMasters: But it doesn't take us very long when we look at our world and even look at our own hearts that something's a lot different with us and the world than what we read in this chapter.
Doug McMasters: We feel the ache of something's gone wrong in this world.
Doug McMasters: And all we have to do is turn over a page or two to Genesis chapter three, and we discover that we who were made as image bearers have come into a place of disobedience and brokenness.
Doug McMasters: In Genesis 3, those very image bearers are brought into a place of temptation and they sin against God, thinking that God's goodness and is not good enough, and that God's righteousness is not right enough.
Doug McMasters: And so they question God's goodness and they question God's love.
Doug McMasters: And the consequences are immediate and they are lasting and reverberating into our day.
Doug McMasters: When you read Genesis 3, you see shame enters in verse 7, fear in verse 10, blame in verse 12, division in verse 16, and death in verse 19.
Doug McMasters: Now those are words we're familiar with.
Doug McMasters: Sadly.
Doug McMasters: Fear, shame, blame, division, and death are all words we are all too familiar with.
Doug McMasters: And we feel the fracture of this still.
Doug McMasters: We feel the sense of both Genesis 1 and Genesis chapter 3.
Doug McMasters: We still sense the brilliance and the beauty of God's design in humanity.
Doug McMasters: And yet we also feel the confusion.
Doug McMasters: We see the division, the violence, the pride, the fear, and the longings of our hearts.
Doug McMasters: We see people searching for their identity in places where it could never provide them an identity.
Doug McMasters: Just as uh the prophets talk about broken cisterns that can hold no water, so those places they go to find identity can't give it to them.
Doug McMasters: There's no water in that well.
Doug McMasters: Or we'll see culture telling us, you know, just make your own way, reinvent yourself, define yourself, curate yourself, but can never tell us what we really were meant to be.
Doug McMasters: Because they don't have an answer to that question.
Doug McMasters: And if we're honest, we feel it still in ourselves.
Doug McMasters: We feel the sense of Genesis 1 and Genesis 3 tugging within us, a gap between how God designed us, what we are, what we should be.
Doug McMasters: We feel the fracture in our desires.
Doug McMasters: We sadly see it in our deepest and closest and most precious relationships.
Doug McMasters: We see it in our work and our worship.
Doug McMasters: There's longings within us for clarity and for wholeness.
Doug McMasters: The very things that the scriptures say even creation itself longs for.
Doug McMasters: Those longings are not accidental.
Doug McMasters: And so tonight, as we return to this series, we're going to come to the center of it all.
Doug McMasters: This is really the hinge point of it all.
Doug McMasters: Everything that we've talked about up to this point, and everything flowing out of tonight all really finds its hinge right here.
Doug McMasters: And as we go into this evening, the question we want to ask ourselves is this where do we look to see the image restored?
Doug McMasters: Where do we look to see what humanity was really meant to be?
Doug McMasters: And we're going to see that tonight because scripture gives us an answer.
Doug McMasters: And the answer is not in some philosophy, it's not in some religious system or practices of devotion.
Doug McMasters: It's found in a person.
Doug McMasters: Tonight we're going to lift our eyes to Jesus, who is the perfect image of God.
Doug McMasters: And like I said, everything flows toward this and out of this.
Doug McMasters: And as we behold him, we'll not only see who God is, but we'll also understand who we were meant to be, what we were created to be.
Doug McMasters: And also, as believers in Christ, what we will become.
Doug McMasters: And that's something to be very encouraged about.
Doug McMasters: So let's work through this.
Doug McMasters: First of all, I want us to see Christ as the perfect image of God.
Doug McMasters: Let's go to Colossians chapter 1.
Doug McMasters: And there in Colossians chapter 1, we're going to see the language that Paul uses because it's really foundational to what we're going to be looking at this evening.
Doug McMasters: In Colossians chapter 1, as you may can find your way there, I'd like you to look at verse 15.
Doug McMasters: Colossians 1:15 talks about Jesus Christ, and he says, He is the image of the invisible God.
Doug McMasters: Now that's not metaphorical language.
Doug McMasters: It's not saying that Jesus represents God like a prophet might represent God.
Doug McMasters: He is saying that the God that no one could see, the God that passed by Moses, and Moses had to hide himself and only capture just the glimpses of his glory.
Doug McMasters: The God who descended in fire and Mount Sinai in Exodus 19, in which the people quaked with fear as the mountain shook, is visible in Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: And when you read the Gospels with that in your mind, you feel the weight of what Paul is saying here.
Doug McMasters: Just think about it for a moment.
Doug McMasters: When Jesus touches a leper in Mark chapter 1, what you're watching is the embodiment of the compassion of God.
Doug McMasters: When he calms a storm in Mark chapter 4, you're seeing in human form the authority of God speaking.
Doug McMasters: When he forgives the paralytic in Mark II, you're watching the mercy of God in human form.
Doug McMasters: When he welcomes children in Matthew 19, you're seeing God's gentleness in full view.
Doug McMasters: And when he weeps at Lazarus' tomb in John 11, the heart of God is visible with tears, just like ours.
Doug McMasters: Paul strengthens this as we go forward.
Doug McMasters: Look a little further in this verse.
Doug McMasters: He says, He is the firstborn of all creation.
Doug McMasters: Now, that word comes with a modern understanding, which, if we hold to it, will not lead us into the fullness of what this is saying here.
Doug McMasters: I happen to be the first one born from my mother and father, and I have two sisters and my brother who passed away a few years back.
Doug McMasters: So there's a sequence to that.
Doug McMasters: Who's the first in your family?
Doug McMasters: Doug is.
Doug McMasters: Who's the greatest in your family?
Doug McMasters: Doug is.
Doug McMasters: Right?
Doug McMasters: You know, that's what I would tell them, but they never listened.
Doug McMasters: Especially my sister Sandy.
Doug McMasters: She's, of course, knows she's the best.
Doug McMasters: And we think of sequence as firstborn.
Doug McMasters: That's not what this is saying here.
Doug McMasters: This is not talking about sequence.
Doug McMasters: It's talking about status and rank and inheritance.
Doug McMasters: It's that kind of idea.
Doug McMasters: The firstborn in the in this world would have been the one who stands in the place of highest honor.
Doug McMasters: It would have been the one who receives the inheritance.
Doug McMasters: It would have been the one who represents the family, the one who exercises the authority.
Doug McMasters: That's the firstborn.
Doug McMasters: And so you see this pattern even in the Old Testament.
Doug McMasters: And I won't bring you there, but you can look at it later.
Doug McMasters: In Psalm 89, the psalmist speaks about David the king.
Doug McMasters: And in verse 27 says this I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings on the earth.
Doug McMasters: Now David wasn't the first king of the people of Israel, was he?
Doug McMasters: He wasn't even the first son born of his father.
Doug McMasters: He was the last son born of his father.
Doug McMasters: He was such a lowly young shepherd that when Samuel came to anoint one of Jesse's sons as king, he didn't even bring David out to put him on display.
Doug McMasters: So firstborn really wasn't even an idea there.
Doug McMasters: But here the psalmist says, I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.
Doug McMasters: So what is that?
Doug McMasters: God sets him in the highest place of rank and of authority and of inheritance.
Doug McMasters: That's the firstborn.
Doug McMasters: God gave David the throne, God gave David the covenant, God gave David the promise that his lineage would endure.
Doug McMasters: He's the firstborn, not sequence, supremacy.
Doug McMasters: So go back to Colossians 1:15 and just look at that again.
Doug McMasters: He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
Doug McMasters: So what he's saying here is not that Jesus is the first thing created, but rather he is supreme over all creation.
Doug McMasters: And Paul makes that perfectly clear in the next phrase in verse 16.
Doug McMasters: For everything was created by him in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, supremacy, not sequence.
Doug McMasters: And so Jesus here is identity and his authority are marked out for us.
Doug McMasters: He's the rightful heir of all things.
Doug McMasters: He's the one to whom all things have been made.
Doug McMasters: He is the sovereign Lord over it all.
Doug McMasters: We see glimpses of that authority in Jesus.
Doug McMasters: In John 6, when he multiplies bread, what are we seeing there?
Doug McMasters: We're seeing his creating abundance out of nothing, turning water into wine in John 2, exercising the same power as creation.
Doug McMasters: When he restores sight to the blind in John 9, he is bringing light and life where there was none.
Doug McMasters: And if you know anything about eyes and medicine, speak to a doctor.
Doug McMasters: It's a fascinating thing.
Doug McMasters: It's not just about saying there's light, there's a reordering into the brain in order for the brain to even perceive and to catalog and understand the things that are coming through the optical nerve.
Doug McMasters: It's a complete rewiring of that whole person.
Doug McMasters: This is Jesus.
Doug McMasters: And take a look at verse 17 as it continues.
Doug McMasters: He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Doug McMasters: The Jesus who sat at a table, and the Jesus who walked down dusty roads, is the same Jesus that holds the galaxies in their place, and in whose hand all history lies.
Doug McMasters: The one who healed the sick and welcomed the weary is the one who upholds the whole universe.
Doug McMasters: That is amazing.
Doug McMasters: And Hebrews 1 adds to it this in one three.
Doug McMasters: Radiance is a remarkable word.
Doug McMasters: And I think the best way to understand radiance is to think about something like seeing the sun.
Doug McMasters: None of us actually see the sun.
Doug McMasters: What we see is the radiance of the sun's intensity there.
Doug McMasters: And this is Jesus.
Doug McMasters: He is the exact image of God, and the radiance of God is seen by him in human form.
Doug McMasters: We get a little glimpse of that in like the trans transfiguration of Matthew 17, when his face shines like the sun.
Doug McMasters: But that's not like a spotlight from heaven.
Doug McMasters: You're just sort of kind of beaming down on him.
Doug McMasters: That's glory bursting forth from him.
Doug McMasters: And just think about that.
Doug McMasters: This God who sustains all things by his powerful word, heals the sick, welcomes the weary, weeps with the grieving.
Doug McMasters: He's the full, full likeness, the exact imprint, the undiminished, perfect revelation of God.
Doug McMasters: Now, this is more than just telling us something about God.
Doug McMasters: This is also telling us something about what humanity was meant to be.
Doug McMasters: And we'll get there.
Doug McMasters: But before we do, I want us to make a contrast and comparison between Christ and Adam.
Doug McMasters: And so we need to go to Romans chapter 5 for just a moment.
Doug McMasters: As we go to Romans chapter 5, we see Paul making a contrast comparison between two men, one Adam and one Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: And he puts them side by side.
Doug McMasters: We'll have a few questions to answer, see how your personalities might come out.
Doug McMasters: It's not just grabbing two people out of the crowd and saying, let's just compare and contrast these two.
Doug McMasters: What we're talking about is a comparison and contrast between two heads of humanity, between two representatives of humanity, between two people who split the human race into two different directions.
Doug McMasters: Let's begin with Adam here, just a little descriptor of him.
Doug McMasters: We know him.
Doug McMasters: He was created in God's image, Genesis 1.
Doug McMasters: He was placed in the garden that was overflowing with God's generosity.
Doug McMasters: And when he was there, he was entrusted with a calling that was both royal and relational.
Doug McMasters: He was to reflect God's character.
Doug McMasters: He was to rule and exercise dominion under God's authority.
Doug McMasters: He was to relate and walk with God in unbroken fellowship.
Doug McMasters: And he was to do so acting like God in righteousness, in godliness.
Doug McMasters: But when the serpent whispered a different story, a story of autonomy and self-rule, a story that really did question the goodness of God, Adam listened.
Doug McMasters: And in chapter 5 and verse 12, we get this word about it.
Doug McMasters: Just as sin entered the world through one man, that's Adam.
Doug McMasters: And death through sin.
Doug McMasters: In this way, death spread to all people.
Doug McMasters: That one act wasn't an isolated act, it was a representative act.
Doug McMasters: It shapes every heart that came after him, and it introduced a fracture that runs all the way into our day.
Doug McMasters: Like we said, Adam hid from God.
Doug McMasters: He blamed Eve.
Doug McMasters: His son Cain murdered his brother Abel.
Doug McMasters: And by the time we get to Genesis chapter 6, this statement, indictment, tragic lament of human humanity, the every imagination of the thought of his heart was only evil continually.
Doug McMasters: You can't get any deeper into the problem than that.
Doug McMasters: The image wasn't erased, it was distorted.
Doug McMasters: The mirror remained, but it was fractured and cracked.
Doug McMasters: We couldn't reflect the God who made us.
Doug McMasters: Now keep your eye on the text because we're going to see this contrast comparison in verses 15 to 19.
Doug McMasters: Paul holds up these two portraits before us, and he tells us essentially this just for time, I won't read it, but he says, through Adam, trespass.
Doug McMasters: By way condemnation came.
Doug McMasters: Through Christ, obedience, through whom justification came.
Doug McMasters: In Adam, many were made sinners.
Doug McMasters: In Christ, many are made righteous.
Doug McMasters: In Adam, the image is fractured.
Doug McMasters: In Christ, obedience brings, Christ's obedience brings restoration.
Doug McMasters: And so when we turn to First Corinthians fifteen, Paul makes a comment about Jesus.
Doug McMasters: And he isn't just another Adam.
Doug McMasters: He is, as he says in First Corinthians 15, 45, the last Adam.
Doug McMasters: So Adam stands as the father of humanity, and the last Adam stands as a father of a new humanity, of which there will never be another of another kind.
Doug McMasters: He is the last Adam.
Doug McMasters: One fell, one succeeds.
Doug McMasters: One brings the fall of humanity, and one brings the restoration of a new humanity.
Doug McMasters: And you see that very well in Matthew chapter four at the very beginning of Jesus' public ministry.
Doug McMasters: Just like Adam, he comes face to face with the tempter.
Doug McMasters: And the tempter speaks to him with the same kind of whispers that Adam heard.
Doug McMasters: Whispers of doubt, whispers of autonomy, whispers of a shortcut to glory.
Doug McMasters: All the exact temptations are given to Christ.
Doug McMasters: Not in a garden, not in the fullness of fellowship, not in the midst of harmony, but in a desert.
Doug McMasters: After being fasting for 40 days and 40 nights alone.
Doug McMasters: So take away all the possible benefits that Adam had in the garden, in the fellowship with his wife, in this glorious place where sin had never been, and strip all that away and put Jesus there and give him the same temptations.
Doug McMasters: What happens?
Doug McMasters: Adam says, Not your will, but mine.
Doug McMasters: And Jesus says, Not my will, but yours.
Doug McMasters: In the middle of it all, Jesus obeys.
Doug McMasters: And so Adam's disobedience brings death to us.
Doug McMasters: And Jesus' obedience leads him to the cross where he dies, so that we might live.
Doug McMasters: And where Adam's failure spreads death to all, Christ's triumph brings life to all who believe on him.
Doug McMasters: And this is why Paul says in Romans 5.19, and this one we'll look at, for as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.
Doug McMasters: Jesus is not just making a small correction to humanity.
Doug McMasters: Jesus isn't there just to simply give a little boost or a help of his mercy to get us back on the way that we were trying to get on anyway.
Doug McMasters: No.
Doug McMasters: This is a brand new beginning.
Doug McMasters: So brand new, you could call him the last Adam.
Doug McMasters: It's a new creation in him.
Doug McMasters: And this is where the passage settles.
Doug McMasters: Adam shows us what we lost, but Jesus shows us what will be restored in us.
Doug McMasters: The more clearly we see that contrast, the more deeply we will feel our hope.
Doug McMasters: Our story doesn't end with fracture, it doesn't end with longing.
Doug McMasters: It doesn't end with brokenness.
Doug McMasters: It ends in Christ with restoration.
Doug McMasters: And that brings us to our last point: Christ as the true human.
Doug McMasters: And this will be important for us next week and the week following as we come to understand it.
Doug McMasters: So let's go over to John chapter 1.
Doug McMasters: John chapter 1.
Doug McMasters: There in John chapter 1, we see how the apostle begins the gospel.
Doug McMasters: And he doesn't start with Bethlehem, he doesn't start with the shepherds, he doesn't start with the angels, he doesn't start with Mary, he doesn't start with Joseph.
Doug McMasters: He starts with in the beginning.
Doug McMasters: Huh?
Doug McMasters: Sounds like Genesis, doesn't it?
Doug McMasters: The last Adam.
Doug McMasters: In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.
Doug McMasters: And John reaches all the way back to Genesis chapter one, not just to echo the language of creation, but to show us the one who steps in the world who made creation, Jesus.
Doug McMasters: And in verse 14, we see this.
Doug McMasters: He brings the eternal glory of God right into our world.
Doug McMasters: The word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory.
Doug McMasters: This is not just a statement, though, about God coming near.
Doug McMasters: It's a statement about humanity being revealed.
Doug McMasters: Because when the eternal Son took on flesh, he didn't simply put on a human body like we put on a sweater or a jacket or whatever.
Doug McMasters: He took on human nature, fully God and fully man.
Doug McMasters: He entered into the full experience of human life, not with the brokenness of sin like we have, but the fullness of what humanity is meant to be.
Doug McMasters: And in Hebrews, I love this verse in 2.17.
Doug McMasters: He was made like his brothers in every respect.
Doug McMasters: He was human.
Doug McMasters: You know that carol we sing, no crying did he make?
Doug McMasters: That's just baloney.
Doug McMasters: That's just poetic nonsense.
Doug McMasters: I love singing Christmas carols, but sometimes their theology is a little suspect.
Doug McMasters: And that one just got it wrong.
Doug McMasters: Jesus cried.
Doug McMasters: He wasn't partially human, not symbolically human.
Doug McMasters: He was fully human.
Doug McMasters: And so when you watch Jesus moving through the Gospels, you're seeing something remarkable.
Doug McMasters: You're seeing human life as it was meant to be lived.
Doug McMasters: That's what we were to be.
Doug McMasters: And by the grace of God, that's what we're going to be.
Doug McMasters: You see a man in perfect fellowship with the Father, whose life is not distant from God, not distracted by the world, not divided by all the animosity in the world.
Doug McMasters: You see him in Mark 1:35, rising up early, and in communion with God, the Father.
Doug McMasters: You see him in John 5.19 saying, I do nothing apart from the Father.
Doug McMasters: You see him in Luke 10, rejoicing in the Spirit with unclouded joy.
Doug McMasters: He's in perfect harmony with the Father as a human.
Doug McMasters: You see him loving everyone, even the unlovely, stopping for a blind man in Luke 18, touching a leper in Mark 1, eating with tax collectors in Luke 5.
Doug McMasters: You see a man who tells the truth, and he does it without being cruel.
Doug McMasters: He speaks to a rich young ruler in Mark 10, who turns away from him, but he speaks to him with honesty and love.
Doug McMasters: In fact, it even says, Jesus loved him.
Doug McMasters: You see him confronting the Pharisees, yeah, sharp, clear words, but not with the bitter malice that often taints our tongue.
Doug McMasters: You see a man who serves without seeking applause, taking a basin and a towel to wash the disciples' feet without trumpeting anything to let everybody know just how wonderful he is to be a servant.
Doug McMasters: You see a man who obeys without hesitation, resisting Satan with the word of the Father.
Doug McMasters: You see a man who prays with dependence, with drawing in times of deep decision before he acts, seeking the Father's will.
Doug McMasters: You see a man who walks with purpose in Luke 9, setting his face toward Jerusalem like a flint, knowing it meant his death, but he was going to do the will of the Father.
Doug McMasters: You see a man who suffers without sin, silent before his accusers, absorbing injustice without retaliation or bitterness.
Doug McMasters: You see a man who entrusts himself to his father even when he's dying unjustly.
Doug McMasters: Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.
Doug McMasters: That is not just the perfect image of God, it's the perfect revelation of humanity.
Doug McMasters: This is what Adam was meant to be.
Doug McMasters: This is what Israel was called to be.
Doug McMasters: And this is what we were created to be.
Doug McMasters: And as we'll see next week, this is what God is restoring us to become.
Doug McMasters: To become.
Doug McMasters: But it's a doctrine to affirm, to see it as a window into the life that we were created for.
Doug McMasters: To see Jesus move to the broken with compassion and seeing what kind of compassion we should have.
Doug McMasters: To see him resist temptation in the wilderness and see the kind of strength humanity is meant to walk in.
Doug McMasters: To see him kneel with a towel and wash his feet, is to see the kind of humility that we're meant to embody.
Doug McMasters: And when you see him pray in Gethsemane, not my will but yours be done, you see the kind of trust that we're meant to live by.
Doug McMasters: What's wonderful is this Lord loves us, and he is doing a great work to redeem and to regenerate and to restore in us that very image.
Doug McMasters: And we'll see that next week.
Doug McMasters: He knows our frailty, he knows our limitations, he knows the weight of living in this world in which we groan, but he stands with us, and by his grace and mercy, he is going to make sure that his very image is stamped on us.
Doug McMasters: Because Romans chapter 8 says, and we all know verse 28, right?
Doug McMasters: But what does verse 29 say?
Doug McMasters: That we might be conformed to the image of his son.
Doug McMasters: This is what salvation is headed toward, so that everything you see Jesus to be is everything you will be.
Doug McMasters: Let's pray.
Doug McMasters: Father, we thank you that what we've seen tonight is Christ, the perfect image of God, the last Adam, and the true humanity.
Doug McMasters: And we thank you with great anticipation for that day in which we will be conformed to the image of Christ Himself.
Doug McMasters: To know that this restoration of the image is not something that was a good idea once, but never to return to human history, but that it is the very, very purpose of your deliverance, to bring us to the place where you made us to be, to be in the likeness of Christ, who is the image of God.
Doug McMasters: Father, we pray that our hearts might be comforted by this tonight.
Doug McMasters: And we pray that our hearts might grow with an anticipation to understand how that's going to happen within us as we discover more from your word next week.
Doug McMasters: And we pray this in Christ's name.
Doug McMasters: Amen.