Shaping the Image

In his Lesson, Dr. Steve Deneff moves beyond Wesley’s sense of the image of God as the ways we as humans function to who we actually are. Deneff speaks of the image of God as “something God gives us.” When the animals were created, Deneff indicates, they were finished. They were fully formed. By contrast, humanity was not finished at the point of our creation.

Our journey towards holiness is a journey in relationship with God. Deneff begins this Lesson with a reference to René Girard. Girard argued that we “borrow” our desires from those around us. We do not have desires on our own, but they are shaped by others. Following this idea, Deneff wonders what might happen if our desires were shaped by our relationship with God. 

Deneff wonders. Is this not what we are talking about when we think about the image of God in us? Is holiness not about the shaping of who we are because we are in relationship with God? Is it not a kind of “borrowing” of our desires from God?

So rather than talk about the ways in which humans function, as Wesley did, Deneff speaks of five domains in which God wants to shape us, components of who we are. These are aspects of who we are that God wants to shape in relationship.

First, there is the spiritual component to who we are. This is the part of us that reaches out to God. We are created to long after God, to seek out union with God. We are “in” God, and God is “in” us.

Then there is the political component to who we are, as Wesley also believed. God created us with the capacity to rule and govern. We can improve things. We can steward God’s creation.

Next, there is the moral dimension of who we are. We can discern between right and wrong. Deneff mentions Richard Foster’s concept of “love’s permission.” We are free to express our deepest thoughts, feelings, and desires in our relationship with God.

We are relational beings. “Holiness is to live in right relationship with other people,” Deneff says. We can give to them and not just take in some transactional mode.

Finally, Deneff mentions a vocational component to the image of God. God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden and sent them to work. So, also, God calls us to work in the world with him.

Deneff thus emphasizes that the image of God in us is not static. It is something that God is constantly shaping to be more and more like him. In relationship with him, he is constantly making us more like him in the various aspects of who we are. We long for him. We rule like him. We choose good like him. We love others like him. And we work like him.