By GFI board member, Mark Woita
Are you into sports? If so, you’re likely familiar with the term “NIL”, short for “Name, Image and Likeness”. NIL is a recent, huge change to amateur athletics (primarily collegiate), allowing amateur athletes to profit off the use of their NIL … in advertising, endorsements, etc. Some star athletes at big universities are said to be making over $1M/year via the use of their NIL. For these athletes, their Name, Image & Likeness is very valuable.
Did you know that EVERY human is made in the IMAGE and LIKENESS of God?!
In Genesis 1:26, God stated, “Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness …”!
Man, being created by God in His image and likeness, sets mankind apart from all of God’s other creation. Being made in God’s image and likeness has infinite worth to mankind! This is why every human, even those still in the womb, have infinite worth! This is one of the most important doctrines in Christianity. Well worth your studying in depth.
That’s the good news. Now for the bad news. The first humans, Adam and Eve, sinned against God, thereby marring the image and likeness of God in them. “But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God …” (Isaiah 59:2). All descendants of Adam and Eve, all humans, have subsequently been born with that marred image and likeness of God. We are born spiritually dead (Ephesians 2:1-3), and we are born with a propensity to sin. Hence every human since Adam and Eve has been born with a sinful nature (“In Adam”), and each has sinned himself/herself … making us guilty, without excuse, before God. And the punishment for that sin is physical and spiritual death, eternal separation from God (Romans 6:23).
Now for the “Good News”, which is what the word “gospel” literally means! It really is GREAT NEWS! Our loving heavenly Father has provided us with a way to rectify that marred image and likeness which we inherited from Adam and Eve! Yes, you and I (anyone!) can have His image and likeness restored in them! This, of course, is through the gospel … that God Himself came to Earth as a man (Jesus, the “second Adam” Romans 5:14), and suffered and died to pay the just penalty for our sins! And via faith in Jesus and his work on the cross on our behalf, we (any human) can have our sins forgiven (Romans 5:8), and be “born again” (John 3:1-21) … and have the image and likeness of God in us renewed! How great is that?! How great is the love of God?! At that point of faith, we become adopted sons and daughters of God! Children of God! “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God, and such we are.” (1 John 3:1)
Important point: while all mankind is created in the (now marred) image and likeness of God, it is only those who put their faith in Jesus and his work on the cross for their sin, that become adopted CHILDREN of God, and have their marred image and likeness of God restored.
Dr. Mark Christian and I are just two of the millions who are “objects of God’s grace”, people who have had the image and likeness of God in us restored. I pray you are, or will become, one as well.