Bacon: Self Portrait
Properly speaking, this is not potential to become something greater than what you are right now through aptitude, but rather being restored to what God intended you to be at creation solely through his sovereign grace and mercy. Calvin instructs us to keep in mind the telos (goal) of a human being. The goal is simply to display his glory by bearing his image. What are the implications of this? First, I think we should pray fervently that God might restore our distorted image by the blood of his Son and the power of His Spirit. Second, we must not look at people as they currently are…ever. But rather we must look at them as they could be as fully restored image bearers of God. This should work in us an enormous amount of patience and grace for sinners of all stripes (including ourselves!). Third, we must labor not to impede this divine movement from distorted image to restored image. To put some flesh on that, I think Calvin’s excerpt gives a theological, Gospel centered case against abortion. The argument is no longer centered on when the embryo becomes a human, but the argument is centered on the telos of the embryo, which is to bear the image of God. Furthermore, the embryo has a telos independet of the body it is nurtured in. No one has any claim to impede the embryo’s progression because God himself has laid claim to the telos of the embryo. Fourth and finally, I think we must imagine what cultures look like once they formed by image bearers. I don’t think they look much like the evangelical sub-culture, which seems rather to bear the image of the market economy. I think Acts 4.32-37 is a good snap shot of a culture being formed by image bearers and in some unfinished sense on its way towards being a restored creation. Note that the culture of the church as image bearers has economic, racial, and class implications (seen 1 and 2 Corinthians especially). Check out Calvin’s quote just below.
”Should any one object, that the divine image has been obliterated, the solution is easy; first, there yet exists some remnant of it, so that man is possessed of no small digniity; and secondly, the Celestial Creator himself, however corrupted man may be, still keeps in view the end of his original creation; and according to his example, ought to consider for what end he created man, and what excellence he has bestowed upon them above the rest of living things”
Calvin’s Commentary on Genesis ch. 9 vs. 7
