The Word in the Wings
The Word in the Wings > From the study: Humanity’s high and humble calling in the image of God
From the Study: Humanity's high and humble calling in the image of God
By: KAYA PRASAD
As Virginia, Sandra and other characters in Label: Beauty consider what it might mean to find their identity in Christ, they might be asking: What is the identity God offers me when I choose to follow Jesus? Hannah suggested in her interview last week that Gloria’s character views a relationship with God as limiting or distracting from her self-proclaimed purpose. How does God’s purpose for human life compare with the purpose someone might choose for themselves without reference to God’s design?
In Psalm 8, the psalmist meditates on their identity and purpose relative to God. The structure of the poem describes humanity’s vocation as its central focus, and it frames this description with recognition of God’s majesty. Parallels between the ways Psalm 8 and Genesis 1 each describe humanity in relation to God and to other creatures help to develop the psalmist’s sense of awe at how God elevates the humble human creature.
Psalm 8:2 Yahweh our sovereign,
so majestic is your name in all the land
that you tell your splendor over the heavens.
3 From babies’ and infants’ mouths you have established strength
because of your enemies
to silence foe and avenger.
Psalm 8 opens with a word of praise to Yahweh, proclaiming God’s sovereign rule over the whole of creation, encompassed by the mention of both “land” and “heavens.”
4 When I behold your heavens, the work of your fingers–
the moon and stars which you have instantiated–
5 What is humanity, that you remember us?
Or an earth-creature, that you attend to us?
The psalmist marvels at the lights God has placed in the heavens and expresses consternation that the God who formed such grand and intricate handiwork could also attend to humanity. The psalmist’s questioning attitude suggests a contrast between “moon and stars” and “humanity,” and the designation “earth-creature” highlights the spatial contrast between the heights of heavenly lights and the lowliness of humanity.
To understand why the psalmist’s comparison between heavenly lights and humanity is warranted, it is helpful to examine some parallels in Genesis 1. The first three days of creation (Genesis 1:1-13) establish a pattern as the narrator describes God’s creative activities of speaking, separating, and naming to form different spaces within the created world. The fourth day evinces a variation in the pattern.
Genesis 1:14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the sky-vault
to separate the day from the night,
and they will be for signs and seasons
and for days and years.
15 And they’ll become lights in the sky-vault
to illumine over the land,”
and so it was.
God still speaks of God’s intent to form luminaries in the sky-vault (Genesis 1:14), so the fourth day begins with the first motif in the pattern. The second motif of separation also occurs, but rather than God separating elements that have just formed, the luminaries themselves are formed “to separate the day from the night” (Genesis 1:14). Day and night are names for the light and darkness which God has already separated (Genesis 1:4-5), yet God delegates the ongoing task of separating day and night to the luminaries as viceroys.
16 And God made the two luminaries–
the great light to govern the day
and the small light to govern the night
and the stars.
17 And God placed them in the sky-vault
to illumine over the earth
18 and to govern in the day and in the night
and to separate the light from the darkness.
19 And it was evening, and it was morning: the fourth day.
God is the agent of making the luminaries, but the luminaries have an active purpose, “to govern” the day and the night (Genesis 1:16). Just as God separates light from dark to make day and night, the luminaries God forms have the purpose of separating day from night (Genesis 1:18), reinforcing the separation God has established between light and dark. In effect, the luminaries steward daily and seasonal rhythms of time that God has established.
Another variation occurs when God forms humanity on the sixth day.
26 And God said, “Let’s make an earth-creature in our image,
as our likeness,
so they may reign over the sea-fish and the sky-fliers and the beasts and all the land
and over all the crawlers that crawl over the land.”
God’s speech regarding the creation of the earth-creature echoes the form of God’s speech regarding the creation of the luminaries. Both constitute a variation on the three-verb pattern–a variation which refers to the thing God intends to make and the purpose for which God is making it. The parallel continues as God specifies that the earth-creature’s particular purpose is “to reign” over the creatures God has just formed on days five and six. Just as God delegates the governance of night and day to the luminaries (Genesis 1:14, 16, 18), God now delegates governance over living beings to the earth-creature. The parallels between the fourth and sixth days suggest a comparison between the function of the luminaries to govern temporal order and the function of the humans to govern spatial order.
This is the comparison made in Psalm 8 as the psalmist wonders how God could designate lowly, earthy humanity for regal task like the lofty lights in the heavens. The psalmist also considers humanity’s status with respect to God:
Psalm 8:6 And you diminished them a little from God,
but you crowned them with glory and honor.
7 You’ve let them reign over your handiworks;
you’ve put all of it under their feet.
The psalmist again recognizes Yahweh’s ultimate sovereignty by pointing out that God is greater than humanity. The conjunction between the two lines of verse 6 delineates a contrast: despite being formed from the dust of the ground, God has treated humanity like royalty, elevating them to the task of stewardship over all God’s creatures. In fact, a comparison is implied between Yahweh’s sovereignty in “all the land” and humanity’s reign over “all” God’s handiworks (Alter p. 149).
Genesis 1 likewise lingers over the likeness between humanity and God:
Genesis 1:26 And God said, “Let’s make an earth-creature in our image,
as our likeness,
so they may reign over the sea-fish and the sky-fliers and the beasts and all the land
and over all the crawlers that crawl over the land.”
27 And God created the earth-creature in his image;
in God’s image he created it–
male and female he created them.
The two main clauses of Genesis 1:26 are linked with a subordinating conjunction indicating purpose (Wenham p. 4). Specifically, God’s statement of intent regarding the earth-creature links the earth-creature’s form (“in our image, as our likeness”) to its purpose (“so they may reign”). The earth-creature’s capacity to reign over the living beings depends on its being formed in the image of God. By extension, the reader can infer that God means for the earth-creature to govern the living beings in the same manner that God would do. God creates the earth-creature in such a way that it will be able to imitate God to fulfill its purpose.
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Most of the characters in Label: Beauty are fixated on finding their purpose in the fashion industry. Virginia’s sense of identity depends on her job as a model, and Sandra looks for her identity by reflecting Virginia’s image and looking for Virginia’s approval. But when Virginia loses her job and Sandra feels like she’s losing herself and not even gaining her idol’s regard, it becomes clear that any identity the industry offers leaves these young women downtrodden. God’s purpose for humanity, on the other hand, grants humanity responsibility over other living beings that God has made. Since God forms humanity in God’s own image, the creator elevates a creature to relate to the rest of creation as the creator does. Finding identity in God is not so much limiting as it is uplifting.
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28 And God blessed them and God said to them,
“Fruit and multiply and fill the land and subdue it,
and reign over the sea-fish and the sky-fliers
and every life form that crawls over the land.”
God’s royal task for humanity encompasses all three tiers of created space, and the psalmist’s understanding of humanity’s “reign” does the same.
Psalm 8:8 Sheep and oxen, all of them,
and even the beasts of the fields;
9 the flocks of the sky and the fish of the sea
which traverse the seas’ paths.
The psalmist’s elaboration here of the creatures under humanity’s feet includes land-crawlers, sky-fliers, and sea-swimmers–creatures from every biome. It is no small kingdom that God has tasked humanity to govern!
10 Yahweh our sovereign,
so majestic is your name in all the land.
The psalm’s final line repeats the first verbatim, forming an inclusio. Robert Alter interprets the psalm’s structure, enveloped with the repeated affirmation of Yahweh’s sovereignty, as indicating that the intervening lines serve to define “what concretely it means for His name to be majestic throughout the earth” (Alter p. 148). As discussed here, the body of the psalm describes Yahweh delegating royal tasks to the creatures God has formed, centering the observation that humanity governs the creatures of land, sky and sea. What follows from Alter’s interpretation is the conclusion that Yahweh’s sovereignty manifests through the human activity of organizing and cultivating flourishing for the rest of creation.
At the same time that Psalm 8 centers on the anthropological statement that God has elevated humans to a royal vocation, human dominion is impossible outside the theological framework of God’s sovereignty and creative power. When humans try to assert dominance over creation without reference to God’s authority, without praising God, we corrupt our royal vocation (Brueggemann and Bellinger p. 60). The form of the poem, with praise of God’s sovereignty enclosing a description of humanity’s royal vocation, generates an image of humanity’s status bounded in by God’s ultimate authority over all creation. The psalmist self-consciously remarks on this boundedness, observing that humanity is granted a surprisingly high calling to reign in creation while also observing that the human’s relationship to God as creator gives definition to this calling. As God’s stewards, humanity mediates between “the Source of goodness and the good creation” (Towner p. 354). It is a noble calling, but a calling to serve.
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While learning about their identity in God presents an uplifting development for Sandra and Virginia, the theological standard that defines human dignity represents a humbling shift from the self-perception of a character like Loretta. Whereas Sandra and Virginia are searching for the right external standard on which to base their sense of self-worth, Loretta is quite certain of her individual value, to the extent that she lacks consideration for the value of others. Lacking a sense of identity in relation to God can lead to underconfidence or overconfidence. Knowing that we are made in God’s image confirms our own worth while also inviting awareness of our responsibility to treat all God’s creatures with the care and respect that God does.
