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Brief Reflections on Our Statement of Faith: #6 Man

Article 6. – Man.

We believe that man was created in the image and likeness of God. We believe that because of this, each human life is of immeasurable value and worth. We also believe that in Adam’s sin the race fell, became alienated from God, and became subject to the power of the devil. As a result of this, every human being inherits a sinful nature, and is utterly unable to remedy his lost condition (Genesis 1:26; 2:17; 6:5; Psalm 14:1-3; 51:5; Jeremiah 17:9; John 3:6; 5:40; 6:53; Romans 3:10-19; 5:12; 8:6-7; Ephesians 2:1-3; 1 Timothy 5:6).
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The idea that man has been made in the image of God is one that is foundational to a Scriptural understanding of humanity. And yet few things can be more confusing to someone trying to understand wht the Bible teaches. What is the image of God? Is it our ability to think or to love? Perhaps it's that we have a soul? Or maybe somehow we actually look like God? Christians have at different times connected the idea of God's image to all of these things.

But if we read the first passage where we find this idea, in Genesis 1, I think more light is shed.

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 it seems we have in Genesis 1 is God tying his image in man to man's task on earth: to rule as God's representative. We image God by reflecting what he is like. This is intrinsic to humanity, and there are many ways, such as reason and love, etc in which we do this. But no one of those pieces is the whole of God's image. Further, following our rebellion in Genesis 3, our ability to image God has been deeply marred. So while each human being still is an image bearer of God, whose life is of innate and immeasurable value (see Genesis 9:6), we stand in a very different position than Adam and Eve originally did. We need to be re-fashioned.

And so we see in Colossians 1 that Christ has come as the image of the invisible God. The eternal Son of God took on human flesh as the perfect and complete image of God. The Good News is that he died for our sins and rose again, offering forgiveness for sins and eternal life to all who trust in him. This Good News, or Gospel, is what 2 Corinthians 4:4 calls the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. And part of what happens when we trust in him is that we will be conformed by the Holy Spirit to the image of [the] Son (Romans 8:29).

God made us to reflect him, and to be his representatives. In sin we rebel against him and his reign, seeking to rule ourselves. In salvation, Jesus comes as the perfect image of God and redeems rebels, and conforms all those who repent and trust in him to his own image. In short, Jesus offers life abudantly, life where we can reflect God the way he intended. We will do so imperfectly in this life, but this is the joy we were made for.

Psalm 16:11 (ESV): You make known to me the path of life; 
in your presence there is fullness of joy; 

at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. 

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