What Is the Image of God?
One of the most important questions we can ask is what does it mean to be human? Answering this question helps us understand our identity and place in the world. Do we have value? Are we just the result of random events?
From a biblical perspective, this question is wrapped up with the question of what it means to be created in God’s image. In Genesis 1:26-28, God declares that he will create humanity, male and female, in his own image.
But what does it mean to be made in the image of God? To answer that question, we can start by examining the two words God uses in Genesis 1:26 to describe the creation of man. God creates man in his image, after his likeness. In many ways, these words image and likeness are synonymous. But while they have a large overlap in meaning, they each have a slightly different nuance.
The word image (tselem) often refers to a statue that represents someone or something. Elsewhere in the Old Testament, it is used for statues of false gods. It carries the idea of representation. The image represents what it resembles.
The word likeness (demuth) usually indicates a thing that looks like something else. The focus is often on the resemblance of one thing to another. It can also be used to refer to a model of something else.
Anthony Hoekema helpfully summarizes the meaning of the words:
“The two words [image and likeness] together tell us that man is a representation of God who is like God in certain respects.” 1
In other words, that God made humanity in his image means that God created humanity to be like him and represent him as his royal sons and daughters in creation.
1. God created humanity to be his likeness in creation.
To be made in God’s image means that in some sense, we are like God.There are many different views about what that means and what the image of God is. Some views pick out one specific aspect of humanity and say that is the image of God, what makes us God’s likeness. But notice that God doesn’t single out one part of man and call that his image. God creates humanity as his image, to be like him, and we cannot reduce the image of God to just one part of us.
Our whole person, body and soul, was created by God to be like him in certain ways, to show creation what the Creator is like. This doesn’t mean that we are little gods or god-replicas. It means that God designed every part of us so that it images him in some way.
We can focus on at least three ways humanity is God’s likeness in creation.
First, the image of God sets humanity apart from the animals, birds, and sea creatures.
Humanity is distinct from the animal kingdom in our rational, spiritual, moral nature. Unlike the animals, God created us with an eternal soul that images his immortality. We also can reason and communicate in a way that mirrors God. Furthermore, we have the capacity for righteousness, for language, and for creativity. God is God who speaks and creates, and he made people who can speak and who use his creation to create new things. We have a sense of beauty, art, and aesthetic taste that is distinct from animals
Second, God also created humanity with a unique capacity for relationships.
In verse 27, the image of God is related to the reality that God created humanity male and female. God created us for relationship with one another and with himself. We image God in that we were created for relationship. God himself is the Father who loves his Son by the Spirit (notice that the Trinity is hinted at in the phrase “Let us create…” in Gen 1:26). He made us to be like him in that we have the capacity for relationships with each other and with him, relationships rooted in love. We have fellowship with one another and with God that is beyond anything the animals or even the angels experience.
Third, God created humanity as a body-soul unity.
Even our bodies reveal truth about what God is like. The image of God doesn’t just include not our spiritual nature that. Our bodies are not just a shell to hold our souls. God created us with a body-soul unity that together images him.
This does not imply that God is material or has a body like we do. The point is that our bodies reveal certain qualities that image God in certain ways. Our bodies are a marvelous unity that point to the unity of God, and they are the way we experience the senses. It is through our bodies that we speak, hear, and see. God performs all these actions, though without any material form.2 In our physical, material form we experience the world in a way that mirrors qualities that God possesses in perfection.
Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck reminds us:
“The body is not a prison but a marvelous piece of art from the hand of God Almighty, and just as constitutive for the essence of humanity as the soul.”3
God created us, body and soul, to be like him, to be his likeness in the world. We were created with mental, moral, spiritual, relational capacities that image God.
2. God created humanity to represent him in his creation.
The language of image has royal connotations. In Ancient Near Eastern cultures, the king was depicted as the image of a god. Kings themselves would also set up images of themselves across their lands to represent their authority and status. Here in Genesis, though, God creates all of humanity in his image, not just the king. All of humanity was created to represent God in creation as royal image-bearers.
Image language is also connected in Genesis to sonship language, specifically in Genesis 5:1-3:
“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.”
This is the only other passage in the Bible where these two words image and likeness are used together like this. In Genesis 5:1-3, Seth is seen as a son in his father’s likeness and image. The key point we derive from this parallel is that image language is connected to sonship language.
To be created in God’s image, then, means that we represent him as his created sons and daughters. When God created humanity in his image, he created us to be his children. We are God’s children created to show the world what our God is like. God created humanity to be his royal sons and daughters who represent him in creation.
After the book of Genesis, no other Old Testament book explicitly mentions the concept of being created in God’ image. But we do read more about how God’s people relate to God as his son. We read about how God chooses Israel to be his son to represent him among the nations. God’s people were to live as those restored to their purpose to image God, to represent him in the world as his children. This culminates in Jesus, the Son of God, the Image of the Invisible God who makes God known.
God makes this royal function of his image-bearers explicit by stating the purpose for which he created man in his image. God created humanity to fill the earth and rule over it The second part of verse 26 shows the purpose of the first part: The NIV translates the verse this way:
“Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’”
God repeats this purpose in verse 28 when he calls his sons and daughters to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth with his image and rule the rest of creation. The image of God has a royal function. God created man and woman to rule his creation with him and under him. God summoned Adam and Eve to fill the earth with his image by having children so that all of creation would clearly be seen as under God’s dominion. All of creation was to be filled and ruled for the glory of the Creator by those who bear his image, his royal sons and daughters.
To be human means to be made in God’s image. We are unique and set apart from the rest of God’s creation. God created humanity with the capacity for righteousness, virtue, language, rationality, culture-making. He created us for relationships with each other and with himself. Finally, God created us to reflect his holiness and glory in creation and to rule his world as his royal sons and daughters.
Even after Adam and Eve rebelled against God, this image has not been erased. It still defines us even though it is often very blurry and cracked. The image does need to be healed and restored in us. But even still, every human person today remains a person created in the image of God.
The image of God reminds us of the good givenness of our identity. It grounds the worth and dignity of every person. Ultimately, it is only restored and healed in us through the work of Jesus, the Image of the invisible God.
This article was adapted from a recent sermon. You can view the video below: