True concern for God always, inevitably yields true concern for human beings, created in God’s image and likeness. The image of God picks out what is unique about humans among God’s creatures:

• that we are possessed of reason and volition and moral responsibility
• that we are capable of conscious, willful relationships with God and with each other
• that we are commissioned to share God’s rule over the rest of creation
• that we were designed after the prototype of humanity God eternally willed to assume in Jesus Christ.

God “has put eternity into man’s heart” (Ecc. 3:11). Every human you meet, no matter how broken or corrupt or destitute, bears the image of the Infinite and Eternal One.

Every member of the human race is a divine image-bearer. There are no qualifiers. There are no concessive clauses to attach. It’s not, “no matter their race or gender or stage of development,” but, “precisely because of their race or gender or stage of development.” God delights in diversity. What binds us together is not uniformity, but the universal, shared image of God.

There is a corporate solidarity that all humans share in Adam (and that all believers share in the Last Adam). Injustice to one individual or one group is injustice to all. It is even a self-inflicted injustice on the one who commits injustice.  Doing harm to an image-bearer is dehumanizing to all. That’s why God hates sin so fiercely. Sin is so offensive to God, not because he is harmed by it but because we are. God is jealous for our obedience to his moral law, not because he is self-aggrandizing, but precisely because he cares for the flourishing of those he made after his own likeness.

There are no easy solutions to the racial problems that plague our nation. I don’t pretend to have the knowledge or expertise to craft policy or to suggest sweeping solutions. Surely something must change in the culture, training, and tactics of the police. Most certainly, attitudes need to change. Divisions need to be overcome. But whatever the path forward looks like, it has to begin with a far higher view of the dignity of the human person than we are accustomed to, even in the church. “You are gods,” the Scripture teaches us. Let’s start treating each other that way.