While man would still function as humans, the fundamental functions would, in fact, be distorted either by being misguided, misdirected, misappropriated, and mishandled. In other words, sin damaged the nature of who they were and thus damaged how they functioned.
Functionally, God wanted mankind to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth, subdue the earth, and have dominion on the earth (Gen 1:28). G.K. Beale argues, “God’s ultimate goal in creation was to magnify his glory throughout the earth by means of his faithful image-bearers inhabiting the world in obedience to the divine mandate.” Here are three headings to summarize the creation mandate into the fundamental functions of humanity: relational, cultural, and managerial (steward/overseer).
These three functions are alive and well within the human race today. Although these functions are to be practiced with the glory of God as the aim, they are not because of the Fall. These functions, because of man’s shattered image are misguided, misdirected, misappropriated, misunderstood, mishandled, and misused.
We live in a fallen world, with a fallen race (humanity); and with a fallen race, comprised of damaged image bearers, you will find broken and fractured relationships, corrupted culture, power-craved individuals and peoples, and overall bad stewardship of life. All of this is found both on the micro and macro level of humanity, and we all (at some time) have been guilty of breaking and fracturing a relationship, corrupting culture, abusing power, and bad stewardship.
Enter the missio Dei. At its core, the mission of God is to create a people for Himself (from all peoples) that would reflect His glory in all spheres of life (see Adam, Israel, Jesus, the Church, and New Creation). Therefore, the missio Dei, at the core, aims at restoring and renewing the imago Dei in man.
Francis DuBose in his work, God Who Sends, highlights the relationship between the imago Dei (image of God) and the missio Dei (the mission of God). DuBose argued, “To recover the lost image of God in humanity is what the Bible is all about. And one of the major salvific themes of the New Testament is how that image has been restored through the redemptive work of God in the Second Adam, Jesus Christ.
The Apostle Paul, in a few places, captures this notion of redeeming and renewing God’s image in man (Col 3:10; Rom 5:12-21; 8:29; 1 Cor 15:45-49; 2 Cor 3:12-18). As Dubose put it, “just as God’s first mission (“the incipient sending”) was to deal with the problem of the broken image of God in the first family, so God’s final mission in Scripture (the ultimate sending in Jesus Christ) was to restore that image of God in the new family of the redeemed.”
Getting Discipleship Right
Matthew 28 contains Jesus’ command to “make disciples of all nations.” There were two parts of disciple-making — baptism and teaching. Baptism was this obedient act of identifying with Jesus. Teaching all that Jesus taught them was the way they would instruct believers about their new life in Christ.
Discipleship, in sum, is the convergence of the missio and imago Dei. Therefore, discipleship could be defined as the restoration process of learning what it means to be truly human after the likeness and image of Jesus.
