Theological Term of the Week: Ectype

ectype
“A copy of the archetype. In theology, the creature is the ectype and God is the archetype.”1 Human knowledge, for instance, is ectypal. It is an imitation of God’s knowledge—derived from his knowledge and only a finite likeness of it.

• From scripture:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness… .

So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them. 

(Genesis 1:26-27 ESV)

• From Systematic Theology by Louis Berkhof on human ectypal personality: 

We should be careful … not to set up man’s personality as a standard by which the personality of God must be measured. The original form of personality is not in man but in God; His is archetypal, while man’s is ectypal. The latter is not identical with the former, but does contain faint traces of similarity with it… . What appears as imperfect in man exists in infinite perfection in God.

Learn more:

1. Herman Bavinck: The Archetypal/Ectypal Distinction

Related terms:

• accomodation
• archetype
• image of God

1 From None Greater by Matthew Barrett.

Filed under Anthropology

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Sunday's Hymn: My Hope is Built

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand.

When darkness veils his lovely face,
I rest upon unchanging grace;
In ev’ry rough and stormy gale
My anchor holds within the veil.

His oath, his covenant, his blood
Support me in the whelming flood;
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.

When I shall launch in worlds unseen,
O may I then be found in him;
Dressed in his righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne.

—Ed­ward Mote

 Other hymns, worship songs, or quotes for this Sunday:

• Christ Is Thy Light at The Happy Wonderer
• And Speaking of the Church at The Outspoken Tulip
• Our Hiding Place at Tried With Fire
• Lord’s Day 36, 2019 at The Thirsty Theologian

Selected Reading

I read these recently and recommend them to you.

Christian History

Cotton Mather - A Life of Suffering
Cotton Mather is widely “considered [to be] one of the most bigoted and stubborn men of his time, the epitome of the narrow-minded Puritan,” but “his writings tell us of a man deeply concerned with the wellbeing of others, committed to the cessation of persecution of other Christians and humbled by a lifetime of impediments and afflictions.”

Culture

Faithfulness Is Not Theologically Complicated
Greg Koukl: “[O]n a host of culturally charged moral and spiritual issues, faithfulness is not theologically complicated. Why, then, are many who claim to be Christians foundering on fundamentals with such regularity?”

What Does the Bible Say About Transgenderism?
This goes well with the piece linked directly above. “[W]e cannot assume that Christians—even those in good churches—know what to think about gender or why to think it.”—Kevin DeYoung

Missions

I’d Probably Still Cancel Your Short-Term Mission Trip
Some golden calves are difficult to destroy. 

English

Verbing Nouns and Nouning Verbs
Apparently, “forming verbs from nouns and nouns from verbs is a normal part of English and has been for at least a thousand years.” But I still don’t like it.