The Old Testament and the Sanctity of Life | CBHD.org

The Old Testament and the Sanctity of Life | CBHD.org
One of the most important contributions of the Old Testament creation theology is its implicit universality. Those familiar with the Bible tend to take this universality for granted, but it is an enormously important dimension of Old Testament creation theology and must not be overlooked. Consider the fact that all references to humanity in the early Genesis narratives are references to all humanity. God says, “Let us make humankind in our image.” This explicitly includes “male and female” (Gen. 1:26-27), and implicitly includes every male and female. The shedding of anyone’s blood is banned in Genesis 9:5-6 on the basis of everyone’s status as the image of God. Delegation of dominion is extended to all humans—William Brown describes this as the “democratization of royalty in the creation account”—such that we are all kings.1 Psalm 8 reflects on the “glory and honor” with which humanity as such is “crowned.” There is no hierarchy offered here between subcategories of human beings: Jew or non-Jew, male or female, young or old, slave or free, sick or well, friend or enemy (cf. Galatians 3, where Paul can be taken to argue that this original human egalitarianism has been renewed in Christ). The fact that such distinctions dominate much of human history and even creep into biblical law and narrative represents a weakening of this implicitly egalitarian and universalizing theology of creation.2 There is but one God who makes one humanity. This is a non-negotiable element of biblical creation theology.

The oneness of humanity in part results from our common origin not just in one Creator God but in one shared ancestor. The creation narrative found in Genesis 2 tells a story in which God begins to create humanity by creating one person first. Here the older, less gender-sensitive English style actually helps us: God creates “man[kind]” by creating “a man.” The first woman is then formed out of the first man. From them come absolutely everyone else. Paul put it this way at Mars Hill: “From one he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth” (Acts 17:26). Paul actually offers a wordplay here—from enos (one) to ethnos (nations/peoples). However unlike each other the different ethnoi may seem, we came from the same place. From one person, came all people. One might say that Genesis 1 teaches the universality of the imago Dei, and Genesis 2 teaches a primal human unity by narrating a story in which all human beings come from one common ancestor. In our origins, we are one race—the human race.