Having an Imago Dei Identity (Imago Dei #2)

This past week I finished an audiobook — a memoir written by a woman who was born into a cult and grew up inside it, eventually escaping in her twenties. I am not going to tell you the title or the author, for a couple of reasons.

It was a horrific book. There were funny moments and touching moments, but mostly it was revolting, because it was primarily a story of abuse. Some of the abuse is what you would expect from a cult — the emotional abuse, the spiritual abuse. But part of why I cannot recommend it is that she goes into great detail about the sexual abuse she endured, which began when she was four years old, all of it done under the guise of love.

Most of us hear that and think, no wonder she left. If I had been part of something like that, I would want out too. But what we do not immediately grasp is that this was all she knew. She was born into it and taught that it was normal. And yet her body was reacting. Her mind was reacting. Her emotions were reacting. Slowly she began to catch on that this was not right, not healthy.

In her twenties she finally made it to college — the cult strongly discouraged education — and she began learning things that let her look back and evaluate her past. About two-thirds of the way through the book the narrative shifts. Instead of just telling the story, she begins reflecting on it, on what she has learned, on where she is now. And as she works toward the close, you can feel her moving into wanting to inspire her readers.

The very last three words of her book are these: “I own me.”

When you hear her story, you understand why she landed there. For so much of her life she had no control. She was told where to go, what to do, what to believe, who to be with. It was grotesque. So of course, reaching for some semblance of health and autonomy, she arrived at I own me. And because she read the audiobook herself, you can hear that she fully believes it and wants her readers to hold to it too.

I can imagine those words are enormously encouraging to a lot of people. If you have been emotionally manipulated, sexually abused, raped, denied control over your own decisions and your own body, you might desperately want to arrive at I own me.

Now you can sense I am setting this up in order to topple it, and you are correct. But I do not topple it in order to scoff at it or make fun of it. I recognize that for the people to whom this means everything, it usually means everything because they have come through enormous trauma. That trauma matters. It is important. It is awful. It is evil. It needs to be dealt with, and there needs to be healing.

I just do not think I own me is the way to find that healing. Because what it actually does is shift you from one set of people controlling you to something else controlling you.

What I hope you hear today is that you do not own you. God owns you.

Now, precisely because of things like what that woman experienced — because of spiritual and religious abuse — hearing a man in a position of authority say “God owns you” sounds like the setup for exactly that kind of control, dressed up as God says so. That is much of what she lived through. But what I hope you will see from the Scriptures today is that God’s ownership of you, and finding your identity in that truth, actually leads to more freedom than you could ever imagine.

That is what I long for you. I do not want to see you enslaved to anything in this world. I want you to find freedom in Christ. And I think that kind of freedom, joy, and peace comes from understanding the imago Dei.

Where We Were Last Week

Last week we saw that God created humans, male and female, and placed his image and likeness in them. That image — the imago Dei — is what separates humans from the rest of creation. It is also what makes humans so extraordinarily valuable.

We asked: how valuable? They were worth the life of Jesus. God the Son left his throne in heaven and came to this earth, took on human flesh, and lived a sinless life. The penalty for sin is death, so Jesus did not deserve to die. And yet he died on a cross in our place. We are the sinful ones. We are the ones who deserve the punishment. He did it for us. Why? Because you are of incalculable worth to him. You are worth it all.

Last week I focused mostly on seeing the imago Dei in others, because if we are going to live like Jesus lived and love like Jesus loved, we have to see people the way God sees them. When you see them as carrying that worth, it changes how you interact with them. You stop arranging people on a hierarchy. You stop pushing people beneath you to feel better about yourself. You start recognizing that these are loved people, people to serve, people you can build bridges toward even when they are nothing like you.

This week I want to turn it back around. The imago Dei makes us valuable — but what does it do to the way I see myself? My hope is that you will come away seeing that you do not own you. God owns you. And that leads to the greatest freedom you ever thought possible.

The Setting: A Church in a Mess

Turn with me to 1 Corinthians 7.

Paul planted the church in Corinth many years before writing this letter, and word had gotten back to him that the church was struggling badly. Part of the reason was the culture surrounding it. Corinth sat on an isthmus in Greece, so nearly all foot traffic moving between the northern and southern portions passed through it, and ships offloaded people and cargo on both sides because it was simply easier. It was a crossroads, and it brought enormous numbers of people into the city.

Those people brought their ideas, their religions, and their practices with them. And some of that began seeping into this young church. Many of the Corinthian believers had come out of those other religions and cults. They had left certain ideas and practices behind — and now those things were all around them again, and they began giving in, or simply absorbing them as the accepted wisdom of the age.

Paul hears about it and thinks: no, no, that is not healthy for you, that is not what God wants for you. So he writes this letter to pull them back to the life-changing gospel of Jesus.

We studied 1 Corinthians here as a church starting in our very first year, back in the fall of 2014, and made it all the way through chapter 13. Maybe someday we will go back for 14 through 16. I broke it into a set of mini series, and the one I remember most covered chapters 5, 6, and 7. I gave it a title I thought was clever and later discovered not everyone loved. Chapter 6 has a great deal of conversation about sex, there were serious divisions and conflicts happening in the church, and there was teaching on healthy relationships in marriage and in the church family — so the title tried to capture all three.

Today I want to drop into the middle of chapter 7. After a long conversation about sex and marriage, Paul suddenly pivots to circumcision and slavery. That sounds like a wild jump — but there is a single theme running through all of it, and you can follow his logic.

The Text: 1 Corinthians 7:17–24

“Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches. Was anyone at the time of his call already circumcised? Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision. Was anyone at the time of his call uncircumcised? Let him not seek circumcision. For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God. Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called.”

First, marriage

In the verses just before this, Paul is dealing with marriage — and with an idea that, surprisingly, still exists today: that if you are married, you are somehow better.

If you are single, you know the pressure. So, do you have a boyfriend? A girlfriend? When are you two getting married? And I will just warn you: the moment you get married, the next question becomes when are you having kids. People are always pushing you to the next thing, and underneath it runs this assumption that married is better.

I do not know whether that existed as strongly in Paul’s day, but I suspect it did, based on what he writes in verses 1 through 16. He essentially says: if you came to understand the gospel while married, stay married. You do not need to divorce in order to devote yourself fully to God. Stay married even if your spouse does not follow Jesus, because perhaps they will come to understand the gospel through the way you live in that home. But if you are single, you do not have to go get married. Your standing with God does not improve. Stay single — because as a single person you can be fully devoted to God without dividing yourself among the cares of this world.

Neither one is better. Both can glorify God.

Then, circumcision

That theme is what carries him into circumcision. I do not know about you, but I have never once gotten into a debate about whether circumcision should happen. It simply is not something we discuss. And if you do not know what circumcision is, you are probably under a certain age, so ask your mom and dad at home.

Circumcision was what God used with the ancient Jews as a covenant marking. Back in Abraham’s time, God had adult men circumcised. It sounds horrible — and it was — but think about what it accomplished: a permanent, unavoidable, daily reminder that you belong to God.

It became so central to Jewish identity that any male converting to Judaism was expected to be circumcised. So when Jesus came, died on the cross, and the gospel began to spread, many people assumed that because Jesus was the Jewish Messiah, believing in him meant converting to Judaism — which meant circumcision.

Paul recognizes the problem immediately: that turns it into a work. Our salvation is found only in the work of Jesus, never in anything you or I do. Yes, we do things to honor God, and we do things because of what Jesus has done for us. But we do not do them in order to be saved. That happens entirely through Jesus.

So Paul says: if you were circumcised when you found Jesus, do not try to undo it. It is no big deal. And if you were uncircumcised, that is fine too. Your standing before God is not improved by the presence or absence of a bit of skin.

Just like marriage. It is not better to be married or better to be single. Just like circumcision. Your standing before God is the same. Which is why verse 20 says, “Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called.”

Now do not abuse that verse. If in a drunken stupor you suddenly recognized the depravity of your sin and the love of God and gave your life to Christ, it does not mean you must now stay perpetually drunk. If you were convicted of your sin while cheating on your spouse, and that is the moment you understood the gospel, it does not mean you continue being unfaithful. This is not a call to keep sinning or keep harming yourself. It is a call to give yourself fully to Jesus, right where you are.

Then Paul Turns to Slavery

Now it gets genuinely uncomfortable. There are people who reject the Bible entirely because they say it condones slavery, and they can point to verses that seem to support that reading.

Today you are going to see that the Bible does not condone slavery — and in fact, the verses we are about to read would topple the entire concept of slavery. And it comes down to the imago Dei.

“Were you a bondservant when called? Do not be concerned about it. But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity. For he who was called in the Lord as a bondservant is a freedman of the Lord. Likewise he who was free when called is a bondservant of Christ. You were bought with a price; do not become bondservants of men. So, brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God.”

A word on translation: I am reading the English Standard Version, which originally used the word slave here and later changed it to bondservant. The Greek word is doulos, which can mean either servant or slave.

Most slavery in biblical times was more of a willing arrangement — not that anyone thought it would be fun, but it was usually a means of paying off a debt. You had outstanding debts, so you went and worked them off. Rather than receiving a salary and buying your own food and housing, your labor went to a master who provided those things, and once the debt was worked off, you went free. It was not the chattel slavery of America’s embarrassing history. It was different.

Some people even loved their master so much they wanted to remain. There was a whole ceremony for it, involving piercing the ear so the servant wore an earring declaring, I belong to this master, because I love him and I want him to thrive.

Still — even when it was willing, it was slavery. So whether your translation says slave or bondservant, it is the same word.

Is Paul pro-slavery?

Some people read verse 21 — were you a slave when called? Don’t worry about it — and conclude that Paul is endorsing the institution. But if you have heard me preach even once or twice, you have heard me talk about context. You cannot rip out half a verse. Look at the rest of verse 21: “But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity.”

Clearly he is not pro-slavery. He is saying that if you have any opportunity to get out, take it.

Then people say he is contradicting himself — first it is no big deal, then get out. Which is it?

The answer is in verse 23: “You were bought with a price; do not become bondservants of men.”

A Detour Through Hosea

To understand what is driving that line, I want to take you to the Old Testament prophet Hosea.

Much of Hosea reads like the other minor prophets — a series of pronouncements from God to the people of that day. But woven through them is a story. In chapter 1, God tells Hosea to take a wife. Her name was Gomer, which is an unfortunate name for a girl. But more unfortunate than her name was her profession: she was a prostitute.

In our day, prostitution has slowly lost some of its stigma; people are often called sex workers, and in some corners of the culture it is treated as a legitimate career. But Hosea lived in ancient Judaism, where prostitutes sat at the very bottom of society. The only friends a prostitute had were other prostitutes — even the men who came to them did not actually respect or like them. So for Hosea, a prophet of God, to marry one was humiliating.

But because he was a faithful man, he married her, and they had three children together, two boys and a girl. If you want to see how sad it gets, go read the names God had him give them in chapter 1.

Then in chapter 3 something remarkable happens. Hosea 3:1–2: “And the Lord said to me, ‘Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.’ So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and a homer and a lethech of barley.”

We do not know why Gomer left. We do not know if she went back to prostitution, though that seems to be the case. Maybe she went to live with another man. Maybe raising three children with those names was simply too much. Maybe she had somehow been trapped in sex slavery and was being sold on an auction block. We do not know.

All we know is that God says, go get your wife — and to get her, Hosea has to buy her. He pays silver, and then a quantity of barley that amounts to essentially an entire harvest. It was an enormous amount, probably everything he could get his hands on.

And this is his own wife. Why would a man have to purchase his own wife? She already belongs to him.

God is using Hosea to show his own love, because the people of Israel in that day were chasing after other gods — they were spiritual adulterers. He wanted them to see, visibly, that he was still faithful and still loved them. Because in that culture, no man would want to marry a prostitute in the first place, and certainly no man would take her back after she left and returned to that life.

But in his infinite wisdom, God embedded the gospel inside that story. Because this is not only God’s love for Israel. This is God’s story for all of humanity. God created humans in his image. Humans walked away and rebelled and became spiritual adulterers. And yet God loved them so much that he came — and he did not purchase them with barley. He purchased them with his life.

You Are Doubly God’s

That is what Paul is reaching for in 1 Corinthians 7:23: “You were bought with a price; do not become bondservants of men.”

Underneath his thinking is the gospel of the imago Dei. God created humans and placed his image in them. That gives them tremendous value — and it functions like a brand. Just as a cattle rancher brands his animals so that anyone who sees them knows who they belong to, God put his brand on you to say, that one is mine.

Sin came in and tried to scratch it out. Sin came in and stole us away from God. But God still recognizes his brand. He knows we are his. And because he loves us so much, he does what Hosea did: he comes, and he pays an exorbitant cost.

So God’s image on you shows you belong to him. That is why Paul can say, do not become bondservants of men. He does not support slavery, because the only one we should ever be in submission to is God. But for Paul that is not even argument enough. He adds: you have also been purchased. Jesus Christ came and bought you.

Do you see what that means? You are doubly God’s. He created you and he purchased you. He put his image in you and he redeemed you.

That clarifies two things.

First, it explains why Paul tells enslaved believers not to be concerned. Because in God’s eyes they are no longer slaves. Verse 22: “He who was called in the Lord as a bondservant is a freedman of the Lord.” Even if you were enslaved when you understood the gospel and gave your life to Christ, it does not matter — in his sight, you are free. Galatians 5:1 says it is for freedom that Christ has set you free. God is not trying to convert you to Christianity so he can pile rules on top of you. He is inviting you into relationship with him, because he knows that is where you will find your true freedom.

So it does not matter if you are a slave on this earth — because you belong to God, you should not belong to any man. If you have the opportunity to get out, take it. And if you cannot, you are not a lower-class citizen in the eyes of God.

Second, notice what he says to the free: “He who was free when called is a bondservant of Christ.” When you give your life to Jesus, you are saying, God, you are in control. Your image is on me. I belong to you. And I will do whatever you call me to, because I trust you, I know you, and I love you — because I have seen your love for me.

Every Category Erased

Paul unpacks this further in Galatians 3:26–28: “For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Ladies, do not be thrown by “sons” in verse 26 — your translation may say children, and that is fine. But here is what you need to see. Right before these words Paul talks about Abraham, and right after them he talks about Abraham again. In Abraham’s day, when the patriarch of a family died, it was the sons who inherited. We can say that was not fair, and it was not, but that is how it worked. Paul is saying there is no longer male or female in Christ, so you are all sons — meaning you will all inherit from God. You receive his blessing, his goodness, his presence. All that is his is now yours.

And that is why he goes on: in the eyes of God there is no more status. No Jew or Greek. No slave or free. No male or female. No one better. No married or single. No circumcised or uncircumcised. Every category is erased and thrown away, because the important thing is that you were made by God and purchased by God, and therefore you should find your identity in God.

Which means you are not your own. You were bought with a price.

But We Still Want to Own Ourselves

Let us be honest. Deep down there is still a part of us that wants to say I own me. Because if I own me, I can eat what I want, drink what I want, watch what I want, say what I want, listen to what I want, sleep with whom I want. I can do whatever I want.

You have heard the phrase, where there’s a will, there’s a way. Well, when your mantra is I own me, it means I have my will, so I want my way.

And God says: no. I own you. I created you, and if you follow Jesus, I purchased you. You are mine. But not to put you under some oppressive servitude — to free you. Because when you give yourself over to those other things in the name of owning yourself, you are actually entering a different kind of slavery. That is exactly what God wants to free you from.

This Week’s Question: Of What Am I a Slave?

Each week in this series I have wanted to give you something concrete. Last week we hosted a local mentoring organization that works in our schools, inviting you to spend thirty minutes a week with an elementary-age child. What better way to tell a kid you have value, you matter than to sit and play a game with them?

This week I do not have a guest. This week I have a question, and I want you to sit with it honestly and seriously: Of what, or of whom, am I a slave?

We do not live in a community where I am worried about your legal status. I am fairly confident I am speaking to a room full of free people. Though you should know that slavery still exists in America — it is simply illegal now, so it is underground and hidden. There are studies suggesting there are more slaves in the world today than there were in the late 1800s when it was still legal here. It is happening all around the world, and it is horrifying. That is why I care about organizations like International Justice Mission that work to combat it globally.

But you may be saying, I am not a slave to anything. Actually, you and I probably are. Because if we are not finding our identity first and foremost in the imago Dei, the odds are we have allowed something else to become our identity — and that thing has become our master.

For some of you, your job is your master. You are enslaved to your career.

For some of you it is an addiction — a substance, or pornography — and it consumes your time and dictates your life.

For some it is food. For some, certain relationships. For some, materialism. For some, social media. For some, the news. It could be anything.

Some of these things are good and fine on their own. But when good things become ultimate things, they become bad things. You become enslaved. It consumes your time, directs your thoughts, tells you how to live — and you are trapped. God wants you free from that.

But finding freedom requires a shift in your thinking and a shift in your identity. Because the reason you become enslaved to your job is that your job title has become the way you see yourself — it is the first thing that comes to mind when you introduce yourself. Some of you are trapped in an addiction because your identity is bound up in something that happened in your past that you cannot get away from; you keep returning to it in your thoughts, and to find relief you keep giving in. Some of you have located your identity inside politics — that letter next to a candidate’s name is the most important thing to you, and it is how you filter the whole world — and now you are trapped in it.

God wants you free, because as long as you are trapped there, you cannot go and live like Jesus lived and love like Jesus loved. Your identity is not in the imago Dei.

How the Shift Happens

So ask yourself honestly: of what am I a slave? And if something comes to mind, ask God for help.

It will take transformed thinking. Romans 12:2 tells us we are transformed by the renewing of our mind. For many of you that means getting into the Scriptures — reading what God has already given us and letting it reshape your mind.

For some of you it means getting into relationships where people will help you. We live in a deafening culture. It speaks to us constantly — through commercials, through social media, through the conversation at the lunch table. We need people who can help us hear what God might be saying. So get into a growth group, or find an accountability partner — someone you meet before work or over a lunch break, maybe another believer at your job or at your school — and pray for each other, so your identity does not get tangled up in these things.

But ultimately you can read the Bible constantly and surround yourself with all the right people, and if you do not want this, all of it stays exterior. It comes down to you and your heart.

So the best thing I can tell you is to pray. Submit yourself. Make Christ the center of your life. Because as you begin to realize that the imago Dei in you means you belong to God — and that Christ went to the cross to purchase you even though sin tried to steal you away — you find your identity there. And that is where you discover the freedom the Scriptures talk about, and the joy, and the peace we all long for. Suddenly you are not entrapped by your job. You do not want the addiction in the same way. You can handle that relationship in a healthier way. All because your identity is in Christ, which comes from knowing you belong to God.

Let Us Pray

Father, minister to us now. I have said a lot of words, but honestly, what I have said does not matter. What matters is what you want for us. Help your people seek you, humble themselves before you, and realize that you have given them everything — you made them, and you purchased them. Let them find their fullness in Christ.

For anyone here or joining online who has not surrendered to you, may today be their day — the day you help them see that you are real, that you sent your Son, that Jesus lived a perfect life and died a sinner’s death, and that today they give their life to you and begin to have that Christ-centered, imago Dei identity formed in them.

We also confess that we so often do not trust you. We act like Adam and Eve, who in the garden believed you were withholding something good from them, so they ate the fruit — living out the I own me mantra. And it led them into slavery to sin and a broken relationship with you.

But you loved humans so much that you came for us and invited us into relationship. So as you invite us, we come. Work in these next few moments. Let us confess and surrender, and continue the process of helping us see who we are in Christ — because it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. In Jesus’ name, amen.