What This Church Teaches About Humanity

You are not an accident, an animal, or an autonomous self. You are an image bearer of God — and that changes everything about who you are, what your body is for, and what you are called to build.

The Crown of Creation — and What That Actually Means

The Bible's account of humanity begins not with psychology or sociology but with a declaration from God: 'Let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth.' ^[2] That is not merely a poetic introduction. It is a job description — the original, most fundamental account of what a human being *is* and what a human being is *for*. ^[1]

And here is what the church confesses on this ground: God created man, male and female, in his own image as the crown of creation and the object of his special care. ^[SF] Humanity is the high point of all creation — even as small and frail as we are. For all our dependency, God also makes us image bearers. He installs us as His representatives in creation. ^[10] Planet Earth in high definition with surround sound pales in comparison to the glory of humanity — male and female made in the Creator's image. Creation is a great display of God's majesty, and His gracious condescension is to commission mankind to become partakers and managers and stewards and image bearers of all that. ^[10]

This means there are no ordinary people. As one voice put it, there are no ordinary people — there are only people created in God's image, whom God has bequeathed various things that are not yours to take. ^[4] That single claim re-calibrates the ethics of almost everything.

Image Bearers — Derived, Not Original

There is a precision the church holds here that matters: we are *derivative* image bearers, not original ones. Jesus is the image of the invisible God — the original image — and we, mankind, male and female, are likeness. We're the derivative images. Our image bears a partial reflection of the full and perfect image Christ makes of God. ^[13] Which means to understand what a human being is, you have to look at Christ. He is the standard, the original, the full picture — and everything we say about humanity points toward him.

We see this at the very beginning when God determines to make man in his own image. He causes us, human beings, to be brought into a world that already existed to do one thing that the rest of the world is only doing incompletely — and that is, we are called to bear the image of God. We are displays, we are billboards. And you don't get a say in that. I don't get a say in that. That's just what you are. ^[9] All people remain God's image bearers, capable of fellowship with him and possessing intrinsic dignity and value at every stage of life from conception to death. ^[SF] The image is not something you earn, achieve, or lose by moral failure. It is what you *are*.

The Dominion Mandate — You Exist to Build a World

You exist for two things. You exist to bear the image of God. And you exist to build a world. ^[1] That second calling — to be a ruler and subduer, to take dominion, to be fruitful and multiply — is what theologians have called the dominion mandate, and it runs like a spine through the whole Bible. Verse 5 of Psalm 8 captures it in doxology: 'Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands.' ^[10] That is not flattery. That is God's actual design for the human creature.

You were not made to simply exist from weekend to weekend, from fun thing to fun thing. You're called to build — a little microcosm of the kingdom of God. ^[1] Each person has been given a particular little world to animate, decorate, and maximize for the glory of God. ^[1] The Sovereign One who sits enthroned above the heavens enthrones us with dominion as His vice-regents — *rule in my name.* ^[10] That calling does not shrink when life gets hard. It is the irreducible definition of what a human being is here to do.

Male and Female — Equal in Dignity, Distinct in Design

God created man in his own image — 'male and female, he created them.' ^[2] That binary is not cultural scaffolding; it is built into the creation account itself. The church confesses it plainly: men and women are both made in the image of God and equal before him in dignity and worth; gender, designated by God through our biological sex, is essential to our identity as male and female, and men and women reflect and represent God in distinct and complementary ways. ^[SF]

God's glorious plan was to create men and women in his image — giving them equal dignity and value in his sight, while appointing differing and complementary roles for them within the home and the church. And because these roles give different expressions to God's image and humanity, they should be valued and pursued in joy and faith. ^[3] This is not a hierarchy of worth — it is a design of complementarity. Two different kinds of image bearing, both necessary, both glorious.

There is something mysterious about the way a husband and wife's sexual intimacy mirrors the relational intimacy of the Godhead — not in a physical way, but in a spiritual and emotional way. ^[11] When God creates man in His image and likeness and then commands Adam and Eve to cleave to one another through one-flesh union, there is something being revealed about both humanity and about God. ^[11] The body is not incidental. It is theological.

The Body Is Designed — Not a Playground, a Temple

God does not look at the external. He looks at the soul, the heart — there is always this idea of the thing that's inside the thing. ^[8] And yet the body is not irrelevant. From the very beginning, the Bible's imagery — temple, glory, outer courts, inner courts, holy of holies — is always about a progression *inside*. ^[8] The body and soul belong together, and both are made for God.

Your body was actually designed to bring glory to God. That is the teleological purpose of your body. ^[7] When people use the body for what it was not designed for, it *kind of* works — just enough to produce enslavement — but the design has been cheated, not fulfilled. ^[7] Sex is good because God is good and because he designed it to be good — and the fact that it is so enjoyable is actually a massive testament to God's goodness. ^[11] Everything about the body, rightly ordered, declares something true about the God who made it.

This has stakes. It says volumes about the ethics of things like human cloning. It says volumes about the horrible evil of murder. There's something inherently, fundamentally wrong when a society gets more revved up about animals being put to death than humans. ^[10] The image of God is not a theological abstraction. It is the reason human life at every stage from conception to death is irreplaceable. ^[SF]

Fallen, But Not Abandoned — Restored in Christ

Augustine said that God has made us for Him and that our souls are restless until they find their rest in Him. ^[5] That restlessness is not dysfunction — it is the trace of an original design. You were made to walk in the cool of the day with the God who made you. You were made to wake up in the morning and say, good morning, Lord. You were made to relate to the God of the universe. ^[5] Of all the blessings humanity was given in the garden — safety, provision, human companionship — the greatest was divine companionship. ^[12]

Sin corrupts that design but does not erase the image. All people remain God's image bearers — and redemption in Christ progressively restores fallen men and women to their true humanity as they are conformed to the image of Christ. ^[SF] We are derivative images of the original image, and Christ — the image of the invisible God ^[13] — is what that original looks like. Sanctification is not self-improvement. It is the recovery of what God always intended you to be: an image bearer who actually, fully, reflects him.

And that relationship with God — that divine companionship that was lost — is only possible because Jesus Christ is alive. ^[5] The whole story of humanity runs from the image-bearing commission of Genesis 1 through the failure of the fall, through the redemptive work of Christ, toward the final conformity of his people to his image. The church does not teach a dim view of human beings. It teaches the most demanding and most glorious view imaginable — because it is the view that takes both the image and the fall with full seriousness, and points to the only One who can restore what was lost.

This page synthesizes what Chris Oswald has preached on anthropology at Providence Community Church. Every claim above traces to the cited sermons — follow any citation to read the full sermon, listen to the audio, and see the surrounding context. Minute marks are approximate, estimated from each sermon's transcript.