The Image
(Today we continue the Biblical Anthropology series.)
It’s time to return again to the Garden of Eden. It’s the 6th day of creation.
Then 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.”
Genesis 1:26-28
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And 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.”
There is nothing like this in the rest of the story of creation. First, the plurals – “Let us”.
Now, I don’t believe that the Trinity is revealed in the Old Testament. But I do believe that it was the Father, Son, and Spirit speaking here, as Creator. And this is something we don’t see in any other creative act. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
What does it mean that the man and the woman were created in God’s image? If you have a simple explanation in your head that you’ve always heard, you might be surprised to know that it’s a matter of some controversy. If you ask four opinions, you just might get four different answers. And yet, this is one of the most important facts in the study of anthropology.
Let’s start by looking closely at the words in Genesis 1. “…in our image, after our likeness.” Simple enough, in some ways. In some sense, man is like God.
When God created the first humans, in some way He was actually copying Himself! Of course, we’re not the same in every way, not exact copies. We’re not God’s little children, as if we were just the same except younger, with all of God’s nature. No. We are not all-powerful creators. We do not create something from nothing, no matter what some preachers claim.
This is why we talk about the “incommunicable attributes” of God – that is, the attributes that He does not share with anyone.
But we must share something of God’s attributes, because we were made in His image, after His likeness.
In fact, take a look at Genesis 5, where the same words are used:
This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created. When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.
Genesis 5:1-3
We read of this genealogy in Luke 3 — “…the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.” So we have a direct comparison between the creation of the first humans, and the parent-child relationship.
Now, I already mentioned that some preachers promote the so-called “little gods” theology. That we are little gods that can indeed create reality with our words and our faith. This is simply false. You may remember in the first part of our study, one of the keywords that came our of Genesis 1 and 2 was dependence. God needs nothing and no one. He is unique, above and beyond His creation. We are dependent – we are creatures.
The Mormons take this to a whole new level. The Institute for Religious Research has this helpful summary of their doctrine:
According to LDS Church teaching, God the Father has a wife, our Heavenly Mother. All human beings preexisted in heaven as the spirit children of these heavenly parents. Jesus Christ is their firstborn spirit son and our eldest spirit brother, and he is the first of us to become a God. Thus, Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are three separate Gods. All human beings, all angels, and the devil and all demonic beings are spirit children of Heavenly Father; we are all of the same “species” as God.
Robert M. Bowman Jr.
That is not what the Bible teaches. When we’re talking about essential nature, we can say with Isaiah, “To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him?” (Isaiah 40:18)
And the expected answer is – no one, and nothing!
And yet, once again, in some way, our ancestors were created in God’s likeness.
Well then, let’s ask this question. Is this some special characteristic that we had before the Fall? Before humans fell into sin? In other words, since we are now by nature sinners, have we lost this special whatever-it-is?
The Bible has the answer. Let’s start in Genesis 9…
Whoever sheds the blood of man,
Genesis 9:6
by man shall his blood be shed,
for God made man in his own image.
This is the covenant of God with Noah. Don’t kill any man or woman, because they were made in God’s image. They have a special value, even in a sinful world. There is some difference between humans and animals here. In fact, God has just said in the same chapter that humans are permitted to eat animals.
…but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.
James 3:8-10
And so, thousands of years later, we are still “made in the likeness of God”. And for that reason, we should not curse humans while blessing God.
Knowing that the people around us are made in the image of God, how should we treat them? With respect. We value every human life.
And so here is something we can be sure of. Biblically speaking, humans have an incredible value, because we were created in the image of God. There is a common Latin term that we use for this idea – imago dei. The imago dei teaches us that every human being has incredible value from the Creator Himself.
In their book on Biblical Anthropology, Beck and Demarest write:
The implications of human persons created in the image of God are immense for theology, psychology, ministry, and Christian living. Ramifications of the imago embrace issues of human dignity and value, personal and social ethics, relations between the sexes, the solidarity of the human family … and racial justice.
James R. Beck and Bruce Demarest – The Human Person in Theology and Psychology
It seems from our study so far that the imago dei is something natural in human beings. It’s who we are. We don’t need to get into all the details. The Bible itself doesn’t tell us everything we might like to know!
But we do know that the imago dei has something to do with our relationships, our vocations, and our purpose. Look again at the verses at the beginning of this article, from Genesis 1:26-28. It’s all there – our relationship with God, with other people, all starting with the man and the woman and their children. And their work – their relationship with the creation.
Genesis 2:15 — “The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.” Again, work is not the result of sin. It’s part of a perfect world. Man was supposed to “work” and “keep” the garden. Subdue the earth and have dominion over its creatures (Genesis 1:28).
Imagine the human race, expanding out from the Garden of Eden over the whole earth – perhaps later exploring the universe, using it all for the glory of God! Kings and Queens of His creation, representatives of the Creator, royal servants of the King of Kings!
Our relationships and our purpose – it’s all connected together. Because of our nature – we were created in God’s image. Even in our failures today, and our daily work, good or bad – we still have the imago dei.
As wonderful as that is, the Fall did have a disastrous affect on us all. And human beings took this holy idea of “the image” and … well, we’ll talk about that next time.