Crowned with glory and honor

Does God actually value us?  If so, why? After all, aren't we all a broken mess? Yes, we are! Yet he values us never the less. "For God so loved (valued) the world - i.e. His creation full of His creatures who bear His image - he gave..." something.

And what did he give? That which is of infinite worth… His only begotten Son. Is this not a very clear message of our infinite worth as well?

So how does this work? Why does He value us this much? 

Because He values Himself first. 

But what exactly does this have to do with us? 

He made us like Himself, with the capacity to appreciate and enjoy who He is. Not ¹unlike the Father, Son, in, by and through the Spirit, enjoy each other. 

Because we are like Him - in His image - this enables us - gives us the capacity - to value Him; to recognize His infinite worth the ¹way He does. He values that we are able to value Him; that we can participate and share in His infinite glory and the delight it brings Him as well as us. He values Himself - His image - in us.

In ²addition, He delights in multiplying and spreading His glory/value to others through us. 

How is this possible?

Next to Him (and His Son) we too have the capacity - as His image bearers - to display his glory in a way no other being or thing can.

In ³Psalm 8:3-5 we are told...

3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

    the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

4 what is man that you are mindful of him,

    and the son of man that you care for him? 

5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the

¹heavenly beings (Elohim) and crowned him with glory and honor.

Throughout scripture, we are told God is crowned with glory and honor, yet in this Psalm, we are told we too are crowned with glory and honor. The word here for heavenly beings is Elohim in the original Hebrew. This is a name used for God that is always plural (i.e. God is a community of love and relationship). It is the same word used in Gen 1:27  "So God (Elohim) created man in his own image, in the image of (Elohim) he created him; male and female he created them."  Of all creation, only we have these characteristics -- glory and honor -- in common with God and are like him in this way. Nothing else, no other created being does.

Because God values himself, he values His image in us and our being able to value him and display His value (glory) to others. This brings joy to more image bearers and greater joy and glory to Him. 

Because he is glorious, He designed us to experience,  appreciate and share His glory. 

For more on how we are hard-wired for glory, click here. 

For a further discussion on being created for glory, click here. 

For a discussion on how value and love are connected click here.

For more on what God is like and how we are like him click here and here. 

For more on how God's glory is our highest good click here. 

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¹Qualitatively if not quantitatively.

²This also makes us valuable. This is the functional or practical part to our value. 

Being His image bearer is the basis of our intrinsic value. This is true simply because of who we are i.e. who God made us to be, not because of what we do. This has nothing to do with our actions but with our capacity to be filled with and pour forth God to others. This is a capacity created by and given to us by our Creator.

When we understand this it changes our view of every human being on the planet. Each of us is in God's image with the capacity to show forth God in a way that none of the other can.

What we are able to do is because of who we are. We have this capacity to do, because of our intrinic value as a bearer of God's image.

To actually live according to this design is the basis of our existential or functional value. This is to live out who we are and were created by God to be. This is our realized value, possible only because of our intrinsic value.

³Psalm 8:5

(ASV)  For thou hast made him but little lower than God, And crownest him with glory and honor.

(CEV)  You made us a little lower than you yourself, and you have crowned us with glory and honor.

(ERV)  But you made them almost like gods and crowned them with glory and honor.

(GNB)  Yet you made them inferior only to yourself; you crowned them with glory and honor.

(ISV)  You made him a little less than divine, but you crowned him with glory and honor.