... still in the image of God?

we had an interesting time at small group on wednesday night, which, of course, is not to say that it's not usually interesting but tonight was a bit of an in-between night for a break between romans and nehemiah. we were discussing the question, are we still in the the image of God?

we looked at several passages in genesis (but none elsewhere in the old testament, it now occurs to me to notice) and several in the new testament (james, colossians, corinthians), considering a fairly general timeline of creation - fall - re-creation through Christ's death and resurrection.

discussion afterwards has really peeled back the lid on a worm-can-full of reading that i'm currently ploughing through. lots of stuff, right back to early church fathers like augustine and contemporary thinkers like john piper. i'm probably going to be pretty quiet on the subject for a little while as i ruminate on what i think about the whole thing.

part of that thinking will include the questioning the worth of thinking much about it at all. it feels to me that there's a certain dancing-angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin quality about the discussion: i'm not saying that mankind being made in the image of God is a pointless discussion subject but it would be so easy to get too caught up in the debate and lose sight of the point of it all, which should surely be an improved relationship with God? i'm somewhat pessimistic that the debate will lead to unanimous glorifying of God at whatever result emerges.

right now i'm thinking that on this side of glory we are simply unable to comprehend the imago Dei concept. it's already taking up a lot of brainpower thinking about it.