NEW STUDIES IN BIBLICAL THEOLOGY 36
Series editor: D. A. Carson
Identity and idolatry
THE IMAGE OF GOD AND ITS INVERSION
Richard Lints
Apollos
InterVarsity Press
DOWNERS GROVE, ILLINOIS 60515
InterVarsity Press, USA | |
An imprint of Inter-Varsity Press, England | P.O. Box 1400 |
Norton Street | Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426, USA |
Nottingham NG7 3HR, England | |
© Richard Lints 2015
Richard Lints has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher or the Copyright Licensing Agency.
InterVarsity Press®, USA, is the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA® and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. Website: intervarsity.org.
Inter-Varsity Press, England, is closely linked with the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship, a student movement connecting Christian Unions throughout Great Britain, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. Website: uccf.org.uk.
Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
First published 2015
USA ISBN 978-0-8308-2636-0 (print)
USA ISBN 978-0-8308-9849-7 (digital)
UK ISBN 978-1-78359-306-4
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
The light of my life in whose reflection the gospel shines clear
1 Living inside the text: canon and creation
2 A strange bridge: connecting the image and the idol
Getting started on the wrong foot: creation and image
Human identity and human nature
3 The liturgy of creation in the cosmic temple
4 The image of God on the temple walls
The first table background: kings and representatives
After the first table: sonship and sacredness
5 Turning the imago dei upside down: idolatry and the prophetic stance
After creation—whence is the image?
The Decalogue and the diatribe against idolatry
The golden calf—the ‘great sin’ of idolatry
Covenantal identity and idolatry across the Old Testament
6 Inverting the inversion: idols and the perfect image in the New Testament
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About Identity and Idolatry: The Image of God and Its InversionGenesis 1:26-27 has served as the locus of most theological anthropologies in the central Christian tradition. However, Richard Lints observes that too rarely have these verses been understood as conceptually interwoven with the whole of the prologue materials of Genesis 1. The construction of the cosmic temple strongly hints that the “image of God” language serves liturgical functions. Lints argues that “idol” language in the Bible is a conceptual inversion of the “image” language of Genesis 1. These constructs illuminate each other, and clarify the canon’s central anthropological concerns. The question of human identity is distinct, though not separate, from the question of human nature; the latter has far too frequently been read into the biblical use of ‘image’. Lints shows how the “narrative” of human identity runs from creation (imago Dei) to fall (the golden calf/idol, Exodus 32) to redemption (Christ as perfect image, Colossians 1:15-20). The biblical-theological use of image/idol is a thread through the canon that highlights the movements of redemptive history. In the concluding chapters of this New Studies in Biblical Theology volume, Lints interprets the use of idolatry as it emerges in the secular prophets of the nineteenth century, and examines the recent renaissance of interest in idolatry with its conceptual power to explain the “culture of desire.” |
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