The following student report was submitted by Ambassador League Agent Luke W. during the 2009-2010 League.
Mission: Research on the Sanctity of Life
We are created in the image of the invisible God. The sacred texts teach us of His omnipotent words: "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
The one who spoke these words is God Himself. He burned the bush without consuming it and declares "I AM that I AM." He is the only one who has meaning or purpose derived from nothing other than his own essence. In Isaiah 6, the prophets see God; His robe fills the temple. Seraphs that would terrify us by their magnificence take two of their six wings to shield their eyes as they worship proclaiming, "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of His glory." Revelations 4 describes what John saw in heaven; the passage is too long to quote and too wonderful to summarize. The end of the gospel of John closes saying that Jesus did many other miracles but the ones that are written are there so that you might believe. There exists no end to descriptors and evidences of God's greatness; the ones we can express are enough for us to believe.
If God is everything because He is the one thing by which all other things are measured and we are in His image, then doesn't that mean something? We are in the Imago Dei. To kill unborn children, to help the old commit suicide, or to murder is not brave or adventurous, and feels quite humble. Committing any of those acts praises your master, Natural Selection, who evolved from the god whose name is primordial soup. To walk humbly showing mercy to the poor and doing justice, and walking with God is the bravest possible act. To do so, is to declare that I am made in the image of the Great I AM. Such a statement looks rashly audacious, absurd, and almost blasphemous.
When we understand who God is and our relation to Him, is there any way are hearts cannot leap at the words of the Psalter who said, "What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?" God is mindful of us and He placed where we live and determined our ethnicity. The apostle Paul speaking to the men of Athens (in the book of Acts, chapter 17) pronounced:
"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And He is not served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. 'For in Him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are His offspring.'"
It feels dangerous to talk about the sanctity of life. What sin are we guilty of if for one minute we forget that the entirety of our worth is derived from His nature? It also seems dangerous not to talk about the sanctity of life. What have we missed by forgetting that we draw our breath from God Himself? The aim should not be to find out if life is sacred. The purpose of life is to grope for God and to find the God who is near and in finding Him be transformed into His image.
