Gen 1:26 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." Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the
image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
One of the many interesting things of the Bible is its use
of themes that come full circle. For
example the theme of fruitful gardens in which the Bible begins and ends
speaking of a garden (Rev. 22:2); a theme of a temple culminating in a place in
which we need no temple, etc. These are
not just interesting but are important in understanding the overall message of
God’s Word.
Another theme is begun in the first chapter of Genesis
quoted above; it is one of bearing the image of God. All men are to be image bearers of God not in
the way we look but in the way we act.
We don’t have time to treat in detail the ways man was created in God’s
image but we might list a few. We are
rational and moral creatures; we have personhood and so have self-consciousness,
moral consciousness and a consciousness of others. We can love.
But that which most reflects God is to love him and all that
honors him supremely. Holiness is that
part of God’s image that we fully lost in the fall of mankind into sin. Since this is the first moral attribute
mentioned and assigned to man it would be a safe bet that the restoration of
this aspect of God’s image would be foremost in our redemption. And this leads us to this continuing theme in
Scriptures.
After the fall man naturally demeaned the glory of God by
creating God in his own image and that of creation. We refused to bear God’s image and recreated
him in our own image. The essence of sin
is to worship the creature rather than God by making a god out of creation. This is one reason why the very first commandments
to Israel addressed this very thing. You
are not to think of me as like unto yourselves or any other creature. Honoring God properly is the main problem sin
has caused us. Paul taught the Athenians
that our loss of being proper image bearers will result in judgment, Act 17:29
“Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being
is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of
man. Act 17:30 The times of ignorance
God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, Act
17:31 because he has fixed a day on
which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed;
and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."
But just to finish up this idea of a biblical theme let me
quote some other NT verses. Col 1:15
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
om 8:29
For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the
image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 2Co 3:18
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are
being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For
this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
There are reasons why we are commanded to be conformed to
the image of Christ. We lost the ability
to reflect the glory and holiness of God in the fall. The purpose of redemption is not because God
just won’t be happy without us in heaven but that his image might be restored
in man and so we might glorify him as we were created to begin with. By the power of God in us through the Holy
Spirit we now can reflect his image with our new natures.
But there is an inescapable conclusion from these NT texts
as well. Everywhere in the NT God tells
us to be conformed to Christ’s image; we do not read that we are to be
conformed to God’s image in a generic sense.
In Col 3:10 we read, “and have put
on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its
creator.” There we are said to be
conforming to the image of our creator but John 1 and other places have made is
clear that this also is a reference to Jesus Christ.
My point then is Jesus must be God or God is telling us to
commit idolatry by conforming to and worshipping a creature rather than the
image of the true God. The divinity of
Christ is inescapable since God tells us to conform to his image and we were
created in the image of God and by this we will be judged. Will God accept those who honor his Son less
than he does?