In the Image of God, Part 1: What It Means

In my previous post I mentioned that God’s Spirit is working in us to conform us, eventually perfectly, to the image of the Son. I’d like to follow that up by thinking more deeply about our standing as in the image of God. 

It’s the first thing God tells us about ourselves. After He tells how He made everything else, He describes the last act of the Creation Week:  

²⁶ And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. ²⁷ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Gen 1.26-27).  

You and I are made in the image of God. What does that mean? And what difference does it make? 

What is the image of God? Interestingly, the Bible never tells us directly what it is. But there are some clues: 

• It distinguishes the human from the animals, who immediately precede man in the creation narrative.  

• It characterizes both male and female (Ge 1.27).  

• It’s something like the way a son resembles his father (Ge 5.1-3).  

 Over the centuries there have been a lot of suggestions. I’ve gone into more details about this in a previous series, but let me summarize the views here: 

• It’s something we do: Dominion (Ge 1.28) 

• It’s something we are:   

• Morality (Ep 4.24) 

• Relationship (male & female; social health)  

• Sonship (Lk 3.38; Ge 5.3-5)  

• It’s something we have:  

• Creativity (Ge 1.1)  

• Immortality  

Or maybe it’s all of the above.  

You were created to radiate the love and mercy and grace of God.  

 Now, we need to note a critical point: 

We’re not the way God made us. 

We’re not the same as the Adam that God created. Something significant has happened to us. Adam chose to sin, and now we’re busted.  

The image in us has been marred. But it has not been destroyed. 

After the Flood God told Noah, 

Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man (Ge 9.6). 

Here we’re told that the murder victim, though fallen like everyone else at this time in history, is in the image of God. 

Further, James writes, 

Therewith [with the tongue] bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God (Jam 3.9).  

 The word similitude here is the word Genesis uses for “likeness.” And it’s spoken of a time when there’s cursing going on—so it’s after the fall. 

So we sinners are still in the image and likeness of God. 

Toward the beginning of this post I asked two questions: what does it mean that we’re in the image of God? and what difference does it make? 

Next time, we’ll get to the second question. 

Photo by Ilia Zolas on Unsplash