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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)
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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.”