The Image of God in Man and the Mandate that Follows

Songs: 12, 13, 30, 10

Introduction

“What is man?” the psalmist’s question echoes throughout the pages of scripture and all of history. It is a question asked of almost every moment of observation. The philosopher wonders if its answer might tell us where true happiness lies. The sociologist might find that the answer says something to how we should relate to one another. The politician to how we might govern, the biologist to how we might live longer, how we are or aren’t different from other living things. The theologian’s answer informs religious practice, even the child asks it of what he or she can look forward to becoming and the mother asks it of the growing bump inside her womb and so on. The implications of the answer to this question are apparently endless.

All these fields of question ask something of the field of knowledge we call anthropology, or the study of man. In recent times, most people have skirted this field to observations of culture, worldview, ethnicity, and even evolution so many of the so-called experts in the study of man have taken to studying skulls of skeletons, DNA strands, ancient languages, ancient customs, technologies, and the like. While I believe we can learn a lot from an honest study of some of these natural revelations, we would be fools to ignore the genesis of the question and answer to that question that starts here and continues through the next 2 chapters of genesis. Here we have in seed form the answer to the question, “what is man?”

Let’s read the passage...

Genesis 1:26–31 “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. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.”

Thesis

There is a movie I watched on a plane a couple years ago called “Nice Guy”. It’s about a mega multi-player online video game where the people who made the algorithm for this video game world and its players gave all of the prop players various scripts limitations for what they could do and say. The characters don’t realize they’re video game characters and they find themselves in a constant rhythm of behavior that they can’t break out of but one of the characters finds himself unusually attracted to another character in the game and somehow gets freed from the script of the game and you learn toward the end that the reason he is attracted to a particular character and drawn to be free from the script is that his designer, the code writer couldn’t help but write it into him that he would do good and love this other character because the code writer couldn’t help but create his character like himself and the character was never fulfilled until he lived according to his original design.

When God creates mankind in His image at the pinnacle of creation, he creates us to glorify Him as His image bearing representatives in Christ. As his glory-bearing representative creatures we were and now are in Christ to become more like him, being fruitful, multiplying and putting everything under his feet.

Purpose of His own glory.

Why did God make you and all things? For his own glory… God looked over all that he created and saw that it was good, he declared it as good, blessed it with a benediction of goodness but when he looks over all creation it was not yet very good because there was nothing that resembled Him. There was nothing in His likeness and image and so God says let us make something after our image.

Now here we have a confusing phrase where the One God says “Let us (plural) make” in “our image” and then he (singular) “makes” man in His own (singular) image. This phrase perplexes Hebrew scholars to this day. Is he speaking to a host of angels or some other type of divine-like creatures or is this perhaps a conversation within the persons of the trinity? There are problems and perks to all the views here in my opinion and its not a phrase that one should depend on for their whole counsel of scripture. While I wouldn’t lay the entirety of the doctrine of the trinity on this one verse, I wouldn’t rule it out of the mind of God to wrap up the mystery of his triune nature in a phrase like this either. He is three but one and not divided and here has the ability to speak as three and create as one. We are after all baptized into the singular name of the “Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit”.

But our subject for this text is actually not the nature of God but the nature of man and yet here we are sitting in wonder about the nature of God. So it goes with all of scripture and these chapters that have anthropology as their subject are actually about their author and creator. To know what man is, to know who you are is in some way to know God. But again, what is this final creature, man? This pinnacle of creation. Or so we may now ask what is the image of God here given to man?

As is often the case we can more easily answer this in the negative. Being in God’s image and likeness means our image is not like animals, our image is not like plants, not like sea, or sky or anything else that comes before in creation. We are distinct from the rest of creation. When we ask “what is man?” We cannot assume that we can find the whole of the answer from dissecting our material flesh or looking closely through a brilliantly designed device unless Michael designs us something that will give us eyes to see the soul giving breath of God in us.

We do find when we study mankind many similarities to other creatures and for the most part it has been a helpful study to ask the question “what do we have that animals do not?” Intellectual reason, sophisticated language, creative ability to make all kinds of art and technology.

While I do think many of things are included in what it means to be image bearing creatures, the idea here in Scripture is more general, more complete, and most importantly, more telling of the end of all creation. God created us to glorify God and enjoy him forever! We are created for His glory! And we are created enjoy complete communion with him.

The image of God language is all over scripture a few times it is spoken of all people but then it is mostly spoken of in reference to believers and Christ: 1 Corinthians 11:7“For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man.” Colossians 3:10 “and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.” Ephesians 4:24 “and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” James 3:9 “With (our tongue) we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.” Genesis 9:6 “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.”

2 Corinthians 4:4 “In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

When Moses uses this word, image, he is using the same one found in the 10 commandments that we shall not make “graven images”. We’re so prone to overlook this command and this idea of imaging as an idol because almost every church has interpreted this command to its own liking, we don’t think we’re tempted to fashion a calf out of gold, and on the other hand we’ve given up on any truth claims associated with art and beauty anyway so we’re not tempted to worship any of our culture’s art.

My brother often displays some of his paintings in galleries of Kansas City and he said something to me one time that has always stuck with me. He said something like “when you walk around these galleries or any art museum you go to, the greatest art is always the people observing the art.” We image God, we represent God and his likeness. We are like paintings whose beauty and attributes reflect and communicate and glorify its creator.

So in one aspect of image bearing, mankind images and glories God just by being his handiwork.

Vice-regents given the world by a charitable God

But there is also an aspect of imaging God by acting according to His purpose.

From this point in creation, we would already ascribe to God an attribute of one with Kingly rule, one who speaks and his subjects obey. Here God speaks and creates and forms material. Some commentators have pointed out that Genesis 1 you see a kingly role or office and Genesis 2 you begin to see the priestly role and office.

As king, God creates and prepares everything for man to share it with him. He is a generous God who creates mankind out of his love and out of his charity he shares creation with man that man would enjoy it.

This is the other aspect of image that we see throughout the ancient context and it is intuitive enough in our own day. If I asked you, should we pay taxes to an oppressive authority or not? what would you say? You would recall Jesus’ answer, “who’s image and likeness?” We, like the coin, like the statues all around the kingdom, represent the King to the rest of creation.

But we see here that man doesn’t just represent the king, Adam was to be king in his own right.

We are under his ultimate authority as image bearers who are still creatures and not God and as creatures we are to subject ourselves completely to him. Adam was to obey God perfectly as a creature. But... Man was supposed to rule in a kingly way over all the earth. This is a sort of vice-regency given to Adam at the beginning.

This vice-regency seems to be an essential reason for the creation of man in God’s image and likeness.

If you look at the word that follows the image in the text, the translation may say “and let them” and it should be read as some translations have it as more of a consequential phrase. The NET says “in our image, after our likeness, so they may rule over… The dominion of mankind over the earth is a necessary consequence of being made in the image of God.

The ability to rule is an implied aspect of the likeness of God that mankind inherits.

All the attributes and qualities that we spoke of before that separate man from animal reinforce this idea. It is mankind’s ability to think and reason, communicate, create, and learn that all give us the ability to rule over the earth. While we are all given different levels of abilities and capacities for these attributes, the drive toward these things was created to be in all of us, we are not here speaking only of the nature of Christians but of all mankind.

This is a law or principle written on the hearts of all mankind. This is a natural, created part of mankind’s DNA, that we would want to rule the earth. We can see it from toddlers building forts in the sand to MBS building a city in the middle of nowhere, Aramco engineers drilling for oil to Elon Musk building rockets to go to Mars. Conservationists introducing wolves to national parks to ranchers gunning down those wolves to protect their livestock. We see it in big things and small, we see it with a perverted, fallen sinful twist and we see it with good intentions and ignorant planning but we see wherever we look man’s innate ability and desire to rule the earth.

But it is not just implied, it is commanded

In verse 28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply! Fill the earth and subdue it!” He blessed all the creatures before with the apparent ability to reproduce but here is the first time he speaks to it. His first words after he creates mankind are a blessing with ability and a command to obey.

God creates mankind with both a natural purpose and ability to obey him but also a specific command and communication to obey him. Adam and Eve were to be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. They were to rule over not just Eden but presumably the whole earth through their offspring. God’s image, his glory would fill the earth as the waters cover the sea. When we look back at this first command we can see the purpose for the whole world, the purpose for mankind. You were made to glorify God and the earth was made for you to enjoy with him.

How far have we fallen from the image of God?

What happens with our first parents is that instead of fulfilling this mandate and living out their created purpose, they let the serpent steal their dominion and with it lose the perfect blessing and communion with God… And since the Fall, there is a sense in which man has to no avail sought to recover dominion from the serpent but to no avail. When Adam and Eve lost their dominion, they fell short of the glory of God, they didn’t take after his likeness in their actions and their offspring to after the serpent rather than God. And Scripture shows us that the holiness of mankind lost at the fall only gets more depraved until Noah and though there are cycles and glimpses of hope, in Seth or Noah or Abraham and so on… Every time we sin we are ascribing glory and honor to the serpent and in our defilement unworthy of the holy presence of God, we are hiding the glorious image of the invisible God under a dark veil of sin.

And though every person still bears the image of God, but we behave in manners completely unbecoming of who God created us to be. We can’t shake his image but we have no ability on our own to recover the image bearing mandate that was intended by God from the beginning.

Even just this week I have felt deeply how short I come of the glory of God as a true man. I’ve noticed how quickly my thoughts can wander into anxiety instead of remembering that God called me a son and I have every reason for contentment. How often I can look down on a fellow image bearer as if I’m better than them. How undisciplined I can be to develop healthy habits. How often I can let my emotions rule over me instead of getting self-control. How quickly I can be jealous of others instead of praising God for them. How quickly I can grumble instead of be thankful. When I think of the absolute holiness, perfection, and glory of our God and how he made us to represent him in all the earth, I come no where close. I feel completely unlike God. Our sin makes us doubt this reality that we are created to be His image bearers. Our sin gives license to a foolish thought that maybe we are only material beings. Our sin makes us begin to doubt if we have any purpose at all, any reason for existence.

I wonder if John felt that way in the vision in Revelation...

When the angel called out to all the creatures of heaven and earth and asked if there is anyone worthy... there is no one…until the Kingly priest, The Lion Lamb who was slain, Jesus Christ is found worthy and able to open the scroll. He has dominion. He who is the Hebrews 1:3 “ radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,” He who is the Christ, the eternal Son of God is worthy and able to take back dominion represent the father before all creation.

How much are we redeemed?

In this passage, we understand from the whole context that Adam is only a type of the more glorious anti-type of Christ. When the eternal Son of God, the Word, takes on flesh and dwells among us, He makes the Father known to us. He is the only begotten Son of God. So when Scripture calls Adam the son of God in Jesus’ lineage, it is only actually as a shadow and type of the true eternal Son. The even more profound and glorious mystery of creation is not man in God’s image, it is the actually the wondrous mystery of the nature of God himself who eventually takes on flesh in the promised Christ.

If you want to know what is mankind or who you are meant to be, you can’t keep looking to yourself, contemplating the depths of your thoughts and dreams and doubts or the memories of your past, you can’t just listen to your heart, you can’t just strive to take control and see how much you can accomplish, you’re not defined by your successes and failures, if you want to know who you are meant to be, you have to look to Christ, if you look to Him and trust in Him, you are redeemed to one day be glorified into an even better image than Adam and Eve possessed. If you trust in Him, then it will Christ in you, the hope of glory.

The plan from the beginning was not to stay in the garden, Adam and Eve were supposed to be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth, subdue all of the earth and they were to accomplish this work and then enter into an eternal rest, eating from the tree of life and enjoying fellowship with God forever. That is where we are headed in Christ. When we share the Gospel, don’t just speak of getting back to the garden, woo God’s creatures by the hope of the eternal glory that is to come. Show them the new creation, the new earth where we don’t even have an ability to sin or be sad as apparently Adam and Eve did in the garden.

This view of the end things is essential to actually understanding the first things.

Scripture tells us that Christ was there at creation Colossians 1:15–17 “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

That means if all things were created for Christ, then even the chief end of man is Christ. The greater glory of Christ wasn’t just a plan B because Adam failed. When God gives the world to Adam and Eve, he gives it to them through Christ. The communion between God and man was already in a sense mediated through Christ, not as though sin was present and there was a need for atonement but Christ was needed for communion between God and man for creature to fellowship with creator.

1 Corinthians 15:45–49 “Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.”

If you trust in Christ and his work he has made you new, given you a new image, a new self. He has made

Ephesians 1:9–10 known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.”

And so I encourage and exhort you to live according to your new nature in Christ. Go and be fruitful, multiply and subdue the earth. Be ambassadors of Christ and joyfully work the field that God has given you, trusting his perfect timing to bear fruit and patiently hoping for the consummation of all things.