In a message dated 3/3/98 5:21:22 PM, you wrote:
<<I like the "relation" idea that has been suggested (as I mentioned in an
earlier
post), provided we understand that "image" is not equivalent to relation, but
that
the relations we have--to God, to Creation, to each other--are made _possible_
because we possess that image.>>
I agree with you that the "relations we have..." do not comprise the image
itself but are the results or the outcomes of the image, as you say, what the
image makes possible.
<<3. Genesis 1 and 2 and pre-Adamic image bearers. If Christ restores the
broken image (Paul) and, also according to Paul, Christ restores what Adam
broke, then what happens to the theory that there were pre-Adamic image
bearers? >>
As I read Paul's epistles nowhere to I find the idea that Christ "restores the
broken image" or that Christ "restores what Adam broke." The word image
occurs only 6 times in Paul's epistles. In none of these passages do I find
that the image of God is restored. Rather the idea seems to be that the image
is brought to a new and higher level in Christ. In I Cor. 15:49, Paul writes,
"Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the
image of the man of heaven." We are "conformed to the image of his Son" in
Rom. 8:29.
What Adam of Gen. 2 had was a new, intimate, personal, covenantal relation to
God. The covenantal relation originated with Adam, not the image of God,
although Adam and Eve both possessed that image. God held conversations with
Adam, brought him animals to name (the beginning of scientific activity), made
a helper (Eve) for him, made skins for them to wear. Yet, the offspring of
Eve was to crush the serpent's head. None of pre-Adamic humans had this
covenantal relationship. These things, spoken of Adam and Eve, are what were
destroyed by their rebellion against God and later restored in Christ.
Bob
If I may say so, I think that the idea of the image of God originating with
Adam, and being broken by Adam, and being restored by Christ are not supported
by Scriptures.
Bob