I'd written earlier as part of a post: "So it doesn't take a genius to see that God doesn't like empires".
Enshrined quite early in the biblical narrative, we read this (Genesis 1.26-27):
Also enshrined within the biblical narrative is a Christological definition of "the image of God".
These texts both make a radical anti-imperial claim: Consider images in the ancient world. Whose images
were made and why? In the Old Testament, images were made of "gods" like
Pharaoh or the Babylonian kings. In the New Testament images were made
of "sons of god" like the Caesars. Common people didn't have their
images made. They didn't see their images on coins or in public
statuary. Being "the image of god" was something only rulers, kings,
Caesars and emperors could claim.
Into this cultural milieu, Genesis and Paul speak a subversive word. All human beings -- men and women -- are images of this invisible God, fashioned according to Jesus himself. What's more, these same images "rule" in the same way that Jesus is "before all things, holding all things together". (Think how Paul weaves this together into a call for humans to live in service to the whole world.)
This is a universalizing and democraticizing of "the image of God". One can imagine the affront created when ruling elites hear it -- the blasphemy, really -- and what lifting up and stirring the downtrodden may hear. Think, for example, of Jesus' response to the query about taxes in Matthew 17.24-27 and later in Matthew 22.17-22.
God, it seems, isn't willing that any image be made or worshiped -- or our alliegiance given to any image -- because God alone is ruler over all the earth. Maybe that's why he sits and laughs at the kings of the earth. They're pathetic jokes in comparison to God.
Enshrined quite early in the biblical narrative, we read this (Genesis 1.26-27):
Then God said, "Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."There's been a great deal of ink spilt in theological literature over what this "image of God" might be. I want to offer a political theological reading.
So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
Also enshrined within the biblical narrative is a Christological definition of "the image of God".
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation -- if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant (Colossians 1.15-23).
Into this cultural milieu, Genesis and Paul speak a subversive word. All human beings -- men and women -- are images of this invisible God, fashioned according to Jesus himself. What's more, these same images "rule" in the same way that Jesus is "before all things, holding all things together". (Think how Paul weaves this together into a call for humans to live in service to the whole world.)
This is a universalizing and democraticizing of "the image of God". One can imagine the affront created when ruling elites hear it -- the blasphemy, really -- and what lifting up and stirring the downtrodden may hear. Think, for example, of Jesus' response to the query about taxes in Matthew 17.24-27 and later in Matthew 22.17-22.
God, it seems, isn't willing that any image be made or worshiped -- or our alliegiance given to any image -- because God alone is ruler over all the earth. Maybe that's why he sits and laughs at the kings of the earth. They're pathetic jokes in comparison to God.