LIGHT FOR MAXIMIZED PERSONHOOD

“Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you COMPLETELY; and may your WHOLE spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless...” – 1 The.5:23b

God’s Word releases LIGHT for MAXIMIZED PERSONHOOD in Christ: “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you COMPLETELY; and may your WHOLE spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 The.5:23). This prayer topped Paul’s exhortations, revealing God’s Will for completeness and wholeness of our Personality. God made all things “good,” but gave humanity the notable title, “Image of God,” expressing divinity in humanity, designating us as representatives of the King of the universe. As the crown of His creation that was made “very good,” we are given dignity and dominion, and tasked to care for God’s good creation (Gen.1: 28–31).

God’s plan was for the earth to be filled with His image-bearers, who were to glorify Him through worship and obedience. This state of being of enjoying God’s bliss, blessing and wise rule, is called Shalom – flourishing, wholeness, and delight; a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts maximally employed; the way things ought to be. As God’s image-bearers, human beings are imbued with worth beyond that of animals. God gave all human beings dignity, personhood, and rights. Speaking to Noah after the flood, God emphasized that human life is to be highly valued, and that violence against any human being is to be rigorously punished (Gen.9: 5-6).

Shalom – comprehensive well-being, abundant welfare, peace, safety, justice, order, and wholeness – is God’s Will for the totality of Man: spirit, soul and body. 3 John 2 describes this balanced, rounded prosperity: “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in ALL THINGS and be in heath, just as your soul prospers.” Sadly, humanity fell by rebellion into death and futility, enslaved to idolatry (hatred for God) and violence (hatred for each other). God’s royal image fell into severe ignobility, and was substituted with “spirit-less,” materialistic, dehumanized, dualistic ideologies of personhood. Shalom was violated; but thankfully, redemption in Christ has restored Shalom!

Without the biblical perspective of the human personhood as God’s image-bearers, society freely degenerates into violence, oppression, enslavement, injustice against disliked and lesser-valued groups, and innumerable, heart-breaking exploitations of the weak by the strong: abortion, infanticide, child abuse, gender violence, sexual assault, sex trafficking, labor trafficking, racism, genocide, ethnic warfare, class warfare, and discrimination against the disliked, the disabled, the uneducated, the weak, and the powerless.

Today, the Church of Christ is God’s Image-Bearer of Love and Sacrificial Service to the poor, oppressed, and marginalized (Jam.3:9). By upholding the dignity of humanity as God’s image and tangibly expressing the biblical ethic of personhood, the Church becomes light to the nations, participating in God‘s mission by welcoming the weak and powerless to find grace, mercy, and rest in Jesus Christ. This begins with every Believer walking in the reality of Maximized Personhood – an enlivened spirit, renewed and sound mind, and wholesome body.