Part 1 - The Sullied Image of God

This Article is part of a multi-part Study Series called A New Moral Consciousness for Man.

The Bible reveals that God is not some ethereal creature that we cannot at all relate to. Actually, God is a living being who, like us, has emotions and desires. He also is innately righteous, as the consistent lover of others. Out of His desire He flows outward with righteous love, life, and light to others.

Psalm 36:9 For with thee (God) is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light.

Revelation 21:6 … I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.

Being made in the image of God and possessing the initial “breath of life” given by God, Adam was created having both desire and also with the capacity for loving others. Genesis 1:26 God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…

Yet, we see that man today bears little resemblance to God’s genuine love toward others. Something grossly changed in mankind between the times of the creation of man as we see him today. We need to examine what it means to be made “in the image” of God.

Just as a photograph is only the empty image of the real thing, man is similarly the image of God. In each case the image is not the real thing. The image is an empty representation of the real thing, just as a shadow is not the real thing. Yet, man was created as something more; he was made as the perfect, living, but empty vessel, shaped by God’s hand to correspond to the Lord’s Spirit. Man has the organ of called "the spirit of man:" (Zech 12:1) that enables him to receive God’s very life that is available to all men today as “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:2a).

Then also, man has his own soul organ with the faculties of mind, emotion, and will, thus, enabling man to express God’s life and nature after that man receives Christ’s "Spirit of life" into him. Only then can a man become as Christ is. 1 John 4:17b …because as he (Christ) is, so are we (the believers) in this world.

Thus, man’s whole being is but a living vessel into which God could one day deposit the resurrected “Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” to be expressed through willing men.

Being humanly made alive but yet empty of a guiding righteous nature, the first man, Adam, was confronted with his first choice on behalf of all humanity. He chose wrongly and the result of that choice was passed to all men. Romans 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man (Adam) sin entered into the world (of humanity), and death by sin; so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: Thus, all men today posses the Sin nature that dwells in the physical members of their flesh body.

Romans 7:17-18 Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.

Romans 8:3 ...God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned Sin In The Flesh:

Adam’s one rebellious wrong choice of eating of the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” propelled all mankind into gaining an active moral consciousness, which he had not had previously. We call this the "conscience." The moment Adam made his wrong choice of believing the Serpent and go against God, he also gained a fallen nature of the Serpent that the Bible calls “Sin.” It's the working of the Sin nature in man’s flesh works to prevent man from living in accord with his active moral consciousness that he gained from eating of the Tree of Knowledge. You see, it was by Adam’s act of rebellion "Sin" entered the world of mankind. All Adam’s seed, the offspring of his lineage, possess the same fallen Sin nature as a genetically transmitted  spirit infection. Thus Paul wrote;

Ephes. 2:3bwe … were by nature the children of wrathwith the sinful, “spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2b)

What is desire?

Desire actually is as a fire that burns in both God and man, moving them in accord with their nature. Hebrews 12:29 our God is a consuming fire. God, as love, burns as fire with desire to give – to outflow. And even after Adam’s fall, man is still fundamentally made in God’s image, in that man has the fire of desire still burns within him. Unknowingly to man, his inbuilt desire is to have his empty vessel and his whole being filled, to have his thirst for satisfaction quenched. What man does not immediately know is that only intimate relationship God, by receiving Christ, can fulfill that desire of man.

Psalm 145:16 Thou (God) openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing.

Man was made in the image of God and man has the capacity of his human spirit organ that is able to receive Christ’s life and nature. Man can be quenched when He turns to God to receive the love and life of the Lord that is available in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul tells us that our completion comes by literally receiving Christ’s Spirit into our spirit.

Col. 2:10 And ye are complete in him (Christ), which is the head of all principality and power:

Col. 1:27b Christ in you, the hope of glory:

1 Corinthians 6:17 But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit (with the Lord).

Rom 8:9b …Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

Even while lost men dwell in the darkness of their destitute fallen soul, God’s desire is to fulfill and satisfy man’s deepest desire for satisfaction and real fulfillment. God poured out the very life of Jesus Christ at the cross in order to save and fulfill God's desire to flow His life into man, to satisfy, enlighten, and guide trusting believers. Jesus is the manifestation of Gods life and light for man to receive.

John 1:4 In him (Jesus) was life; and the life was the light of men.

Isaiah 58:10 if you (Lord) pour out that with which you sustain your own life for the hungry and satisfy the need of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in darkness, and your obscurity and gloom become like the noonday.

Isaiah 58:11 The LORD Shall Guide Thee Continually, And Satisfy Thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.