Gen 1:26 Naked Apes?

"let us make man in our Image" Gen 1:26

In 1967, Desmond Morris, an English zoologist and curator of mammals at the London Zoological Society, authored a book titled The Naked Ape. It became an overnight best-seller. Excerpts from the book were featured in Life magazine, it was condensed by Reader’s Digest, and it sold half a million copies in a few short months. Morris’s book began in the following fashion:

“There are one hundred and ninety-three living species of monkeys and apes. One hundred and ninety-two of them are covered with hair. The exception is a naked ape self-named Homo sapiens.”

Are we just naked apes? Is this how are we are to best to understand ourselves?

In 1970 Richard Ryder coined the term Speciesism as a provocation to treat animals better. Mistreating someone because of their species was as bad as mistreating them because of their race or sex. This is what he says:

Since Darwin, scientists have agreed that there is no ‘magical’ essential difference between human and other animals, biologically- speaking. Why, then, do we make an almost total distinction morally? If all organisms are on one physical continuum, then we should also be on the same moral continuum.

Ryder argued that we should treat animals more like humans (although others have since argued for treating humans more like animals!)

This seems reasonable of course unless there is some essential difference. And there is! Verse 26 and 27 tell us that regardless of the way that he did it God made man, but more than that, he made man in his image and likeness. And that makes all the difference!

Almost every day I tell my children that they are special. Every human being is special. You are special. Not because of some sentimental sugary, "wouldn't it be nice" wishful thinking. Not because they have done anything special. Not because they are unique from other people in some ways. But because of the objective fact that they are made in the image of God.

Many of us have "small moments". You may be in a room or party and no one is talking to you. Everyone seems to be ignoring you. You feel small and unimportant. Or maybe you look up at the stars, and see the vastness of the universe and feel small. For me it's when I land in a city at night, or cross over the Dartford bridge and see all the lights of the city beneath me. All those people, all those big buildings. I feel small. Unimportant.

But I am not. And you are not. We are in the image of God. Placed on this earth to represent him and point to him and bring his presence into situations. You are not just a naked ape, an animal. You are an image bearer with inherent dignity and worth and status. You have that not by your achievements or abilities, but just by your existence as part of the human race.

Incidentally these verses also keep us from big moments. "It's all about me", "I'll do what I want", "The universe revolves around me", or at least my little corner of it. We need to know at those times we are not God. We are simply his image. We are more than animals and less than God. We are in-between. That's not such a bad place is it?