The Image of God, Part I
2021-12-22
Humankind was created in the image of God. There has been a lot of ideas as to what this means.
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. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. (Genesis 1:26-27)
As often is the case in the Bible, there is a restatement of the phrase to clarify what is meant. To “make man in our image” is to make man “after our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). To be in the image of God is to be like God. Immediately after this, God delegated authority to humanity to “have dominion... over all the earth,” which includes the animal kingdom. As a result, the first man named the animals (Genesis 2:19-20). God placed the first people “into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it” (Genesis 2:15). Their dominion made them benevolent caretakers of the world.
As God brought order out of the chaos of the primordial waters, we can see God is a rational God of order and reason. Therefore, human beings also are rational beings.
As God created a world in such the right way for it to be habitable, we can see God lovingly served the creation. He felt compassion on the man when he was alone in the garden. Human beings also have the capacity to lovingly serve. They also are volitional and emotional.
God created human beings to commune with them. God was walking “in the garden in the cool of the day” after Adam and Eve sinned, and God called to them, saying, “Where art thou?” This indicates that it was normal for God to walk in the garden and commune with His people. Though this is a rhetorical question, it shows that Adam not approaching God was out of the ordinary. Human beings are personal beings that were created to commune with God.
God created human beings because He wanted to do so. God has a will or desires. Human beings also have desires.
God created the marriage of a man and a woman to reflect Christ and the church. This shows how human beings reflect the glory of God.
This is what it means to be in the image of God. This is only a sampling of what can be deduced from this passage. Humanity is the difference from the creation being called “good” versus being called “very good.” God did not rest until human beings were made, and the whole world was created before them because it was created for them.
Ultimately, human beings should have reflected the likeness of God. We know that when the original humans sinned, the world was changed forever. Thereafter, human beings now represent a marred image of God. When Christ came, He was everything people should have been, and more, as the Scriptures say that Jesus “is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4; cf. Colossians 1:15).