Wednesday, May 17, 2017

The Image of God


What is the image of God and how does it relate to salvation?  Genesis 1:26-28 is the first instance where this phrase is found.  It is the clearest passage in all of Scripture regarding the identity of humanity, yet many who spend their lives studying God’s Word will pass from this life without digging further into its meaning.  I hear more speculations these days than I do Biblical truth.  How exactly are you and I created in the image of the eternal Godhead?  Some say it is because we have a will and have been given the ability to reason and think logically.  Others see it as our sense of discovery and constant pursuit to improve the way we do things.  Still, many in the Church simply view it as having specific personality traits and the ability to show love to one another. While all these are all true in part, I would like to go deeper into what it means that we have been made in God's image.

Here is what the Bible says:

26Then 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 birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”[1]

Notice the characteristics of mankind which God stated in the above passage.  Within these few verses you will find three ways in which man is made in the image of God and, as such, is separated from everything else in all of creation (i.e. animals, insects, angels, etc.).

1.      Genesis 1:26 – Rulership.

God, in His ultimate Sovereignty, established and ordained man with authority over all the earth.  Everything, from fish to birds and livestock to bugs, was placed under the dominion of man.  The Sovereign God decreed a level of sovereign rule to be given to man.

2.      Genesis 1:27 – Plurality.

God created mankind.  He did not just make a singular man.  On the contrary, He designed both male and female.  Adam by himself was not made in the image of God.  This image, as seen in the Genesis passage, is a collective reflection — a corporate identity.  All of us together make up the image of God.  When God looked over all of creation and saw that everything He had made was very good[2], He was not saying that everything was just okay until woman was made.  What He saw when He looked over creation was His image (male and female) manifested.

3.      Genesis 1:28 – The ability to give life.

When God acted, life began.  Not only did it begin, but He specifically designed the human body to bring forth life through the form of an action.  Like God, life begins when we intentionally act in a certain way.

So how does this separate us from the rest of creation?

We are different because nothing else in all of creation functions in all three of these aspects.  For example: the angels have authority to rule[3] and they exist in great numbers[4], but they cannot give life.  They are not capable of having children or creating living organisms out of nothing.  On the flip side, animals and creeping things exist in very great numbers and are continually breeding, but they are all under human dominion and have been given a fear and dread of man by God[5].  Mankind, at this point, rules over all the animal kingdom and will, at some point in the future, rule with Christ over God’s kingdom[6].

Have you ever stood on the shore of a pond or lake and gazed at your reflection in the water?  It is basically a mirror.  The problem, however, is that there is no freedom involved.  The image does exactly what you do.  It goes where you go and jumps when you jump.  It has no will, mind or emotion of its own.  It cannot choose to do something different, nor can it run away and hide like Peter Pan’s shadow.  The Spirit of God, in Genesis chapter one, hovered above the surface of the waters and saw His reflection.  It moved where He moved and did as He did.  If God just wanted a mirrored image, then He could have stopped there in His creative work, but instead He determined that was not good enough.  He desired His image to be able to decide for itself whether or not to seek Him.  He decreed to give His image life and free choice with the conscious ability to make decisions.  God brought His shadow, reflection and image to life in order to pursue Him.



[1] Gen. 1:26-28; ESV, 1
[2] Gen. 1:31; ESV, 2
[3] Eph. 6:12; ESV, 979
[4] Matt. 26:53; ESV, 833
[5] Gen. 9:2; ESV, 6
[6] 2 Tim. 2:12; ESV, 995

No comments:

Post a Comment