Our secular society is plagued with confusion these days because it has rejected the biblical view of human identity. Scientists assure us that humans are the result of random, chance, meaningless evolutionary processes, rendering human life no different in value from any other form of life. Philosophers tell us that human life is meaningless and irrational. Pop culture urges us to assume whatever identity we happen to feel whenever we want. Is it any wonder that society is so confused?

If I am no more than the product of random evolution, then it doesn’t really matter how I identify myself. If I feel like a woman or an animal, I can behave that way. If I am convinced that I am no more than molecules in motion, then I may as well just follow my inner appetites. “Eat, drink, and be merry.” Our culture today is more than willing to affirm me in virtually any kind of deviant or dysfunctional identity I prefer to assume. Many of those in power are happy to affirm me in whatever identity I prefer. Society demands that we recognize those who identify themselves in irrational and ridiculous ways.

Christians have a source of identity that the world rejects. God in his word tells us what and who we are. The psalmist asked the question, “What is man…?” and the Bible gives us the answer to that question. We know who we are and why we are here. We don’t just make it up or come up with it ourselves. We affirm what God says about us. We obtain our identity from God and from his word. We obtain our identity from the facts about how God has made us and where he has placed us in the world. God’s word and God’s world tells us who we are, and we are obligated to identify ourselves accordingly.

One of the first things the Bible affirms about human identity is that man is a creature made in the image and likeness of God.

Genesis 1:26–27  Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Genesis 9:6   Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man.

What does being made in the image and likeness of God imply about identity?