Cedarville Magazine, Spring 2017

Thomas White stands in Blacktail Canyon, part of the Grand Canyon. He joined Answers in Genesis and Canyon Ministries on their Christian Leaders Trip in summer 2016. (Photo by John Whitmore) 2 | Cedarville Magazine by Thomas White Perhaps no other verse in the Bible does more to establish the foundation of a biblical worldview than Genesis 1:27. Of course, the pinnacle of this worldview and the story of the Bible centers on the atoning work of Christ’s substitutionary death on the cross for our sake and in our place. But, the foundation of understanding a biblical worldview begins with creation. Think about the worldview implications of the fact that God created. Evolutionary theories and the religion of secular humanism that pervade secular higher education would have you believe, through a process of natural selection over billions of years, that we are cosmic accidents. Yet Genesis 1:27 states three times, with poetic elegance, that “God created.” One might imagine that an infinitely powerful God, who exists outside of time, omnisciently knew that His existence as the Creator would be challenged. To confront that challenge, God leaves no doubt with a repetitive refrain of “God created.” The fact that God created the heavens and the earth means that our very lives are a stewardship. We must one day stand before our Creator and give an account of how we have spent the gift of life we have been given. A worldview based on the Creator means that life has purpose and meaning beyond random chance. Psalm 139 tells us that God knew every one of our days before any of them existed. We must not live this life merely as the sum total of our existence, but rather involve ourselves in His majestic eternal plan. Ultimately, God created us for an eternal relationship with Him. This God who created us made us in His image, a fact repeated twice in Genesis 1:27. In the New Testament, these words come back to us when Jesus is approached about rendering taxes unto Caesar. He responds by asking whose image is on the coin and tells the audience to render unto Caesar the things that are his and unto God the things that are God’s (Mark 12:17). Jesus implies that image means ownership. A coin with Caesar’s image meant the coin belonged to Caesar. Man and woman created in the image of God implies that God has ownership over our lives and will one day justly pass eternal judgment upon us. Being created in the image of God also brings meaning to the entirety of life — from the moment of conception until natural death. As image bearers of the Creator, the physically or mentally challenged have value. Those that society may cast aside have eternal worth. Christ died for the autistic and the least fortunate just as much as He did for you and me. Knowing that we are created in God’s image, and considering the unfathomable depths of His love for us, we despise racism in any form, recognizing that one race flows from Adam’s andNoah’s veins, and through the blood of Jesus, believers are brothers and sisters in Christ nomatter our ethnicity. We recognize that our Savior Himself was, in the eyes of man, an unplanned pregnancy who was IN THE BEGINNING Genesis 1:27: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”