1 Corinthians 15:49 “And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.”
My two-year-old daughter Zara was recently gifted some beautiful necklaces that she treasures dearly. I say beautiful – and I guess they are to her – but they are cheap plastic beads strung together and look like Mardi-gras décor. They are quite a treasure indeed. When Zara isn’t proudly wearing them or slinging them around the house, she stores them in a place of honor by hanging them on her “jewelry box” hook. Said hook also happens to double as a handlebar to my range stove. Even if the handlebar can work as a jewelry hook, that isn’t quite its intended purpose.
What is your purpose in life? It is an important question for every person to consider. Purpose can bring fulfillment in life. It can also guide how we invest our time, talent and treasure. Considering our purpose can be big-picture and philosophical with questions like “what is the meaning of my life?” or it might be more tactical with questions such as “what career should I take?” Both types of questions are important, but understanding our big-picture purpose will significantly influence the rest of how we answer the tactical questions in life.
The passage taught this week out of 1 Corinthians 15 highlights whose image we are made in, which gives us our ultimate purpose. When considering the future of a believer’s hope in the resurrection, 1 Cor. 15:49 states that we have “borne the image of the earthly man” (Adam) and will “bear the image of the heavenly man” (Christ) someday.
The language of bearing the image of another takes us back to Genesis 1:27 when scripture says “God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God, he created them…” If humanity was created in God’s image, we are all His image bearers. And like a mirror that has a purpose of reflecting the image of the one looking at it, our purpose can be found in reflecting our creator. As image-bearers, we are made to reflect God in our world.
1 Corinthians 15 gives us a little more insight into the realities of our reflective purpose. We as image bearers hold the same characteristics as Adam did; we have dignity and purpose because of who our creator is, yet we have these effects of sin and death like Adam did. We reflect the first Adam in that we are all sinners, and unable to perfectly reflect God.
But we also see that, for those that are in Jesus, we will someday bear a new image perfectly, the image of Christ. This is our future hope. Our purpose is to reflect our Creator here on earth, even though it will be imperfect in our broken world. And our hope is in the resurrection, which allows for us to be made whole someday when we will reflect Christ and his defining characteristics fully in eternity.
Meet the authors!
Lauren McAfee is a PhD student in ethics and public policy from Southern Seminary. Lauren is author of Not What You Think, Only One Life, and Legacy Study. She also works at the Hobby Lobby corporate office as a project coordinator. She grew up in Oklahoma City and loves her church community at CRBC. Lauren and her high school sweetheart, Michael McAfee, have been married for over ten years and have two daughters, Zion and Zara. Connect with Lauren at www.laurenamcafee.com or on Instagram @laurenamcafee.
