Bearing the Image of God

The image of God is one of the most important but misunderstood theological doctrines of the Bible.  It is the fundamental characteristic and trait of humanity.  Only mankind is made in the image of God and only man, used generically to mean both male and female, reflect the image of God.  Thus, the image of God is a necessary affirmation of the essential component of humanity.  But what does it mean?

Genesis 1:26-27 states, "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.' So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them."

What is remarkable about these passages, among many things, is that God does not say, "let's put our image into man," or, "let's put parts of our character into man," or, "let's put some of our image into man."  No.  God says, explicitly, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."  In a very real way, every bit of the human is the image of God.  

This is important.  There is no bit or component of man that was not made in the image of God.  Therefore, any attempt to compartmentalize the image of God to suit what humanity deems virtuous or godly is not only incorrect in methodology, it does not actually adhere to the biblical account.

The image of God is not a parsed element of God's intellect or a segment of His creativity or a portion of His righteousness.  No.  Comprehensively, in every respect, man is an image of God.  This is a feature that is utterly unique to one of God's creatures, man.  No other creation of God is deemed to be made in this image.  Nor is any other creature given this lofty and royal dignity to be so esteemed over all of creation as to be made, wholly in the image of God.

To be sure, to state that man, comprehensively, is the image of God does not diminish the Creator-creature distinction.  Rather, the image of God that is humanity is as much a reflective distinction of God as is the image that I see in the mirror is not actually the fulness of me but it, in its totality is an utter reflection.  Or, think of a photo copy.  The photo copy is wholly reliant on its source document for its existence, but it is not the totality of the book that it has been taken from--it is but an image, a reflection.

Fast forward: Adam and Eve sin, and the image is tainted.  Now every human, though still image bearers of God, bear that image through Adam and the marring of his sin.  But in Christ mankind is reborn in faith, and the image of God that is through Adam and sin is redeemed and replaced with the perfect and intended image of God in Christ Jesus.  Praise be to God for this reality!

The Fall of Man

Genesis tells the tales of beginnings.  One of these beginnings that has had long-lasting effects to every human since occurs in Genesis 3, known generally as The Fall.  Although the crux of this episode is chronicled is told in chapter 3, chapter gives us the necessary background information.  Because it is so needed to understand chapter 3, a brief synopsis of the relevant material from chapter 2 is in order.

This is the story of Adam, the prototypical man, and Eve, the prototypical woman.  Adam was created first, formed from the clay and dust by God's own hands, with life breathed into his nostrils straight from the breath of God Himself.  Adam was placed in a beautiful and complete garden, Eden, and given the freedom to take joy at eating any and every one of the fruits in the garden, save one, the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

It is at this point, the first time ever, that God esteemed something not good (Gen. 2:18), for man is a relational creature and is not to be alone.  God then tasks Adam with naming all the beasts and animals  before creating Eve.  Eve was then taken out of man while man was put into a deep, sedative sleep.  And thus the stage is set for chapter three.

In chapter 3, the apex moment of creation, sin, occurs.  Briefly, the serpent comes and entices Eve to take of the forbidden tree.  In a sequence that leads right to death, the serpent lies to Eve, she misinterprets the command of God and eats the fruit to gain the serpent's proposed effect of "god-like" knowledge.  Eve then passes the fruit to her husband who eats, their eyes are then opened to their loss of innocence, and they hide from God who, after confronting their disobedience, curses them for their actions.  There is so much more to this, far more than can be discussed here.  For this, read these two chapters after prayer and God will reveal Himself to us through His Word.

While there is long list of relavent and important points of comment about The Fall, because of the length and scope of this dialogue, the act of disobedience itself will be examined.  There are many misconstructions associated with this event, the chief of which deal with the deceptions of the serpent.

For one, the so-called knowledge to be acquired from eating of the forbidden tree did not make man god-like, nor was it nearly as fulfilling as promised.  This the truth is attributed to all sin.  There is another major point to be associated both with the Fall and with all sin: Eve and Adam, in eating the fruit of the tree, attempted to accrue knowledge apart from God.

This is the very essence of sin: any attempt of man to gain something that is God, such as get knowledge or wisdom or even find salvation, is a deliberate act of unbelief and disobedience.  Put plainly, it is sin.  Although this has been an all-too-brief exegesis of Genesis 2-3, the point is to show that sin has been the same act since the very beginning, though perhaps the particulars have changed.