Yesterday I finished my literary journey through Steven J. Lawson’s book “Made in Our Image”. Lawson sets out to confront the popular “user-friendly” image of God that is seen in secular and even religious circles. The term “user-friendly” is used because “many present-day thoughts about God have been so trivialized that He appears human like with finite limitations. Instead of seeing man created in God’s image, we are now configuring God into our image.” Now while that statement in and of itself needs clarification and over the course of the 222 pages of this book Lawson does just that.
Lawson doesn’t approach this topic from the bottom up, looking at the variety of user-friendly religions and then comparing them to his view of God, rather he dedicates the book primarily to setting forth the Biblical (high) view of God. With this approach anything that falls short of the Biblical standard is immediately obvious, and the result convicting. Using this approach the book is divided into three, dutifully alliterated parts: The Exploitation of God, The Essence of God (The largest section), and the Experience of God.
In part one Lawson pictures the exploitation of God as a great masterpiece being spray painted over. After stirring our imaginations to consider the outcry that would occur if someone snuck into the Louvre and vandalized the Mona Lisa he remarks: “An offense greater by far…is the work of those who, whether intentionally or not, unlawfully enter the corridors of our hearts and despoil us of a true picture of God.” “Vandalizing God’s image…with loose thinking, partial truths, and bad theology is at the center of every sin.”
After detailing how we can “reduce the irreducible God” through the above mentioned methods Lawson dives into what I believe is the primary focus of this book: Describing the full essence of God as made manifest through Scripture. Following a chapter dedicated to the personhood of God, Lawson breaks from the “user-friendly” mold by bringing God’s holiness, sovereignty and wrath to the forefront of our attention. As he talks about God’s wrath in a chapter titled “The Black Velvet Backdrop” Lawson details all aspects of God’s wrath (cataclysmic, abandonment, last days, eternal and redemptive) in such a way that I found myself extremely conscious of my sin and the fact that I deserve nothing less than the full wrath of God! Unlike many modern “theologians” that I have read, Lawson nowhere apologizes for what Scripture makes plainly clear – God is a God of holy wrath!
With the black velvet backdrop of God’s wrath in place Lawson then proceeds to showing the diamond that sparkles ever brighter – God’s love and goodness. This section was extremely helpful to me. There are many sections that I found helpful, but this quote introducing the chapter on God’s love ranks at the top: “Why did we not begin this book with a survey of His love? It is simple. Before we could appreciate the riches of God’s love, we first had to see the humbling depravity of the sin that separates us from a holy God. Only after we see the depths of His righteous wrath can we appreciate the heights of His unmerited love. If, however we were to rearrange the sequence of thought and speak first of God’s love, with no understanding of His holiness, we would minimize His love and not treasure it as we should.”
Lawson closes the book with three chapters dedicated to the experience of God. These chapters deal with having a true knowledge of God, having a reverence or healthy fear of God and exalting God in our lives. He spends a great deal meditating on Isaiah’s experience of God in Isaiah 6, showing how that should play out in our lives and contrasting that to what seems to be the norm in “Christian” lives. Lawson wraps up the book by expressing his desire that the reader will “come to know Him who is holy, awesome, fearful, and sovereign, and who has extended His unmerited love and grace toward us in His Son, Jesus Christ.”
For my part, I highly recommend this book to anyone! Several times throughout the book I found myself coming under conviction as “user-friendly” images of God in my own life were exposed. I would doubly recommend that anyone in, or planning on going into the ministry read this book. With all the books promoting conversation this, and cultural awareness that (neither of which are inherently bad), without a proper understanding of God all other aspects of the ministry will fall short of bringing people to a true knowledge of God.
