For All the Saints: Remembering the Christians Departed

by N.T. Wright

The central fact about humans in the Bible is that they bear the image of God (Genesis 1.26–8, etc.). I understand this as a vocation as much as an innate character. Humans are summoned to worship and love their creator, and to reflect his image into the world. When, however, instead of worshipping and loving him, they worship and love that which is not him – in other words, something within the order of creation, whether spiritual or material – they turn away from him. But they can only be maintained in his image, as genuine humans, by worshipping him; they depend on him for their life and character. The rest of creation, by contrast, is subject to decay and death. If we worship it, or some part of it, instead of the life-giving God, we are invoking death upon ourselves instead of life.