this morning i had an excellent conversation with a good friend of mine, John Black. John’s a brilliant student. we began talking about the image of God (imago dei) and how it has been affected by the Fall (Gen 3). to root up this answer, we must first ask, "what is the imago dei? what does it ‘include’?"

no one can answer this sufficiently. in fact, i’m not even going to attempt it. i would suggest an article by another friend of mine, Eric Montgomery.

our early morning conversation turned to the question of how the sanctification process affects the effect of the Fall. does sanctification restore the imago dei? that would assume it was lost. was it lost? historic Christianity would say "no," that it was "defaced but not erased." that is, it was really messed up, but it’s still there. if it’s not lost, but only damaged, then is it damaged like spray paint on the Mona Lisa, or like corrosion on the Titanic? does sanctification remove layers of grime, or actually begin rebuilding something that was broken?

back in the mid-70’s, Crosby Stills Nash & Young released a stunning album, So Far, which commented on current events. one particular song, Woodstock, proclaimed their understanding of utopia:

we are stardust
we are golden
we are billion year old carbon
and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden

the dream is to go back. back in time. backwards, actually. i couldn’t disagree more passionately with that dream. i have a different dream.

i don’t want to go back. there’s no such thing as "the good ol’ days." i’m looking forward to the end of days with the Ancient of Days. i want to live in the freedom of the imago dei that is yet to come, the one where sin is not even a possibility. i look forward to the time when the grime is gone and the corrosion not merely reversed. i do not want merely to be resuscitated after death, i want to be resurrected.