The Incarnation: Created in the Image of God

In the beginning of the Bible, Genesis states, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. . . . So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."

In what does “image” or "likeness" consist? There are five main solutions that have been proposed by classical theological understandings. I will add a sixth and a seventh:

1. In one understanding image and likeness are distinct. According to traditional Christian explanations since Irenaeus in 180 A.D., image refers to the natural qualities in man (reason, personality) that resemble God, while likeness refers to supernatural graces, e.g., an ethical likeness, that make the redeemed godlike.

2. In the following explanations "image" and "likeness" are interchangeable words, so I will simply use "image." Image refers to the mental and spiritual faculties man shares with God such as man’s reason, personality, free-will, self-consciousness, and intelligence. The Bible, however, does not make this obvious.

3. Image consists of a physical resemblance. Man looks like God. Genesis 5:3 says that Adam fathered Seth “after his image.”

4. The image makes man God’s representative or steward on earth.

5. The image is a capacity to relate to God. Man’s divine image means that God can enter into personal relationships with him, speak to him, and make covenants with him. The “image of God” is not part of the human constitution so much as it is a description of the process of creation which made man different. God never made a covenant with the rest of the created order.

6. I’d like to propose a sixth point. If man is made in the divine image, just as the wilderness tabernacle and the temple in Jerusalem were made “in the divine pattern of heaven,” then perhaps man is a copy of something that has the divine image but is not necessarily a copy of God. Exodus 25:9 and 40 state that the earthly tabernacle was modeled on the heavenly. Since we Christians believe that Jesus has always existed and was not created, and since he too was in heaven, perhaps to be created in the divine image means that we are patterned after him and his likeness. After all, our goal is to grow into the full stature of Christ. How could we do that if we are not like him in some meaningful way?

7. Theologian Tom Wright adds another perspective. He believes that God created man in his image so that God could enter into creation in the person of Jesus.

I hope that you can see some of the richness of the theological understandings on the Incarnation. It is not so that we can wrap everything up in a nice, neat package of understanding, but so that we can explore and enjoy what God has done in Jesus, which leads us into wonder and awe that a mighty, all-powerful, holy God would want to join his creatures. More to come!