That theme emerges clearly for the first time in the New Testament, for the New Testament writers saw in Jesus what the image of God was really supposed to be. The Old Testament writers never said explicitly that the image of God was defaced by sin and required divine renewal. To be restored in God’s image, God must turn us away from our fallen nature in Adam and re-create us in Jesus Christ, who is both the original (John 1:1) and a perfect copy (Hebrews 1:3). The only recourse is to go back to the original or to a perfect copy. If you try to copy from a defaced copy, you will get defaced images. Illustration: In photocopying, you can make copies from another copy as long as the latter is perfect. 7 Thus the Lord removes from us the distortions of the image due to sin and leads us toward a perfect likeness to God. As Adam begat sons in his defaced image of God (Genesis 5:1ff.), so Christ’s children bear His pure image. Salvation transfers us from the old humanity dead in Adam to a new humanity alive in Christ (Romans 5:12-19 1 Corinthians 15:22, 45-49). Adam defaced the image of God in which he was made, but Jesus honored and glorified the God whom He supremely pictured and represented. Christ is the image of God (2 Corinthians 4:4 Colossians 1:15 Hebrews 1:3, cf. Christian love is defined as the imitation of Jesus, especially His atonement (John 13:34ff. And that renewal is a renewal in the image of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:49 1 John 3:2ff.). 6 Moral qualities are important in Scripture, because Scripture is the story of how God restores His righteousness in the world.

5 Following John Murray, I call these qualities of “moral excellence,” thereby distinguishing them from the mere fact (see below, C) that we are capable of making moral decisions. Colossians 3:13), humility (Philippians 2:3-11), holiness (Ephesians 4:24 Leviticus 19:1), and knowledge (Colossians 3:10). When Scripture mentions specific ways in which people resemble God or Jesus Christ, it usually focuses on moral qualities like righteousness (Ephesians 4:24), ethical perfection (Matthew 5:48), purity (1 John 3:2ff., 9), love (John 13:14, 35ff. The fact that we image God in the totality of our being does not discourage but rather encourages us to find more specific kinds of correspondence. So human nature itself is the image of God. And all sin is moral decision, a faculty that we share uniquely with God and the angels. In sinning, Eve sought to be like God (Genesis 3:5), not by imitating His goodness, but by coveting His prerogatives. Even sin images God in perverse sorts of ways. I would infer that everything we are reflects God in some way, though of course everything we are is also different from God! Our souls, bodies, reason, will, goodness are like God, but also unlike Him, for He is the Creator, paradigm and infinite exemplar of these qualities. To say we are “in” God’s image is to say that we are made “to be” the image of God.

We are the image of God (1 Corinthians 11:7). How are we like God?įirst, everything we are is like God.

But Scripture often compares God to human beings, even deducing from our physical make-up what God must be like (Psalm 94:9). To be sure, in many ways God is very different from us (Isaiah 46:5 55:8ff.). To say that we are God’s image is to say that we are like God. 2 Let us look at each of these functions in turn.

Israel was forbidden to worship images, but, perhaps surprisingly, Scripture teaches that there is a true image of God, ourselves.Īn image resembles and represents the one it pictures. But what does it mean? The basic idea is simple. The idea that we are made in the image of God has given comfort and moral stimulus to many.

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