What is the image of God in mankind?
Genesis 1:26-27
“Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creping thing that creeps on the earth. God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them”
Man is the crowning point of creation, a living human, was made in God’s image to rule creation. “Our Image” This speaks of the creation of Adam in terms that are uniquely personal. It establishes a personal relationship between God and man that does not exist with any other aspect of creation. It is the very thing that makes humanity different from every other created animal. It explains why the Bible places so much stress on God’s hands-on creation of Adam. He fashioned this creature in a special way- to bear the stamp of His own likeness. It suggests that God was, in essence, the pattern for the personhood of man.
The image of God is personhood, and personhood can function only in the context of relationships. Man’s capacity for intimate, personal relationships needed fulfillment. Most important, man was designed to have a personal relationship with God. It is impossible to divorce this truth from the fact that man is an ethical creature. All true relationships have ethical ramifications. It is at this point that Gods communicable attributes come into play. Man is a living being capable of embodying God’s communicable attributes. In his rational life, he was like God in that he could reason and had intellect, will and emotion. In the moral sense, he was like God because he was good and sinless. However, it did not bestow deity upon man.[1]
After forming man’s body, God “breathed into his nostrils, the breath of life.” Only after God breathed life into the lifeless body did it become a “living soul”. This living soul is not uniquely human, however; what is uniquely human is the divine “image” and “likeness” in man (1:26,27). “He bridged the gap by breathing into man the breath of life, thus making him in His own image”.
God made man in His own image and likeness, and then immediately granted him dominion over the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air, cattle, and other creeping things. The dominion which man enjoyed in the Garden of Eden was a direct consequence of the image of God in him.[2]
The image of God is also the image of the Trinity. Spurgeon said in a sermon on the “Person of the Holy Sprit” “When God first made man, He said, “Let US make man”; not let ME, but, “Let US make man in Our own image.” The covenant Elohim said to each other, “Let us unitedly become the creator of man.” So, when in ages far gone by, in eternity, they said, “Let us save man;” it was not the Father who said, “Let ME save man,” but the three persons conjointly said, with one consent, “Let US save man” It is to me a source of sweet comfort to think that it is not one person of the Trinity that is engaged for my salvation; it is not simply on person of the Godhead who vows that He will redeem me; but it is a glorious trio of Godlike ones, and the three declare, unitedly, “We will save men” [3]
Sin is the thing that has poisoned us and tainted God’s image within us. A.W Tozer writes “Man was made in the image of God, and while sin has ruined him and condemned him to death forever unless he be redeemed through the blood of Jesus Christ, mankind is a being only one degree removed from the angles. But sin, God knows, is like a cancer in the very being of man. Man, made in the image of God, is now a dying man. He is sick unto death, because of the poison of sin. But extract and take out that sin and you have the image of God again. And Jesus Christ the image of God because He was a man without sin.”[4]
We have the ability to regain God’s image once again and that is to accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the gift of salvation. In repentance and the blood of Christ we become white as snow and God’s image is once again restored.
[1] John MacArthur, The MacArthur Bible Commentary (Nashville
[2] John J. Davis, Paradise to Prision (Salem, Wisconsin: Sheffield Publishing Company, 1975)76-77,81
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[3] Charles H. Spurgeon, Spurgeon’s Sermons; Volumes 1 of 5 (Peabody, Massachuestts: 1883), 56.
[4] A.W. Tozer, Tozer Speaks, Volume One (Camp Hill, Pennsylvaina, Wing Spread Publishers: 1994), 15.
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