So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

  - Genesis 1.27

It is a great dignity that God bestowed on man the image of His eternity and the likeness of His character.

  - Columbanus, Sermon XI (Irish, 7th century)

There are, as Francis Schaeffer liked to say, no ordinary people. People are not animals, even though modern science classifies them as such, and many treat one another thus. Human beings are the image-bearers of God.

For Columbanus this meant that we are made for eternity and for holiness. The human soul is eternal, whether the disposition of it be in glory or in torment. We who have come to realize the hope of glory (Rom. 5.1, 2) have a duty to all other human beings, to point them toward this hope by all our words and deeds.

So also with the life of holiness. Christians are called to work out their salvation in fear and trembling, so that we bring holiness increasingly to completion in the fear of God (Phil. 2.12; 2 Cor. 7.1). Our lives should serve as beacons to all other image-bearers, summoning them to seek the life of holiness as well.

All the people you meet today will be image-bearers of God, possessors of a "great dignity" of which many will be completely unaware. For those who know themselves to be such - our fellow believers - let us encourage and assist them in living for the glory of God and the life of righteousness in Jesus Christ. For those who have not yet discerned their proper calling, let us do all within our power to urge them to join us in this journey.

And let us treat them with the dignity which is their due, for in doing so we may awaken in them some longing for more than an animalian existence, a longing which can only be satisfied through faith in Jesus Christ.

You are not an ordinary creature, and neither are those you encounter throughout the day. As Columbanus goes on to say, "A grand distinction for man is the likeness of God, if it be perserved; but again, it is a great damnation to defile the image of God."

Let us make it our business always to demonstrate and encourage that distinction.

T. M. Moore, Principal

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