God’s Image
Doctrine of Man • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Creation and God’s Image
Creation and God’s Image
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.”
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
The culmination of creation
The culmination of creation
Man is the crown peak creation
I don’t think the chronology of God’s creative work is insignificant. It is meant to show a crescendo which culminates in the creation of man.
That God created the heavens and the earth at the beginning of the creation and man at the end of the creation account is significant:
Only in these two instances is the Hebrew word bara used to describe God’s creative work (see verses 1 & 27). This bookend shows culmination.
Man alone is created in the image of God.
The other creatures, the plants, the sun and the moon are all products of God’s work, but they are not said to haven been created in the image of God.
24 And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so.
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.”
The dominion God gives to man is an expression of man’s uniqueness among creation.
It is through man who has been given dominion over creation that all creation relates to God and achieves the purpose of its creation. This can be seen in verse 6:
6 And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.”
The connection in creation
The connection in creation
The triunity of God
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness….
God is personal (knowable) and interpersonal: The God-head relates to itself.
That there is a personal distinction within the God-head is why God could say, let us make man…
Because God is personal and interpersonal, man is able to be personal and interpersonal. He is able to relate to others and to God.
The disclosure that man, in a way that makes him distinct from all other earthly creatures, is a personal being leads us to the very heart of a correct comprehension of the meaning of his being created in the image of God. - Philip Hughes, “The True Image”.
Creation and Inimitability
Creation and Inimitability
inimitability = cannot be copied or replicated
What can’t be replicated? God’s image. Consider again what God said regarding the creation of man:
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.
“In” not “As”
“In” not “As”
… man is not himself the image of God, though his constitution is stamped at the very heart with that image in which he has been created. - Philip Hughes, “The True Image”.
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.
1 Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.
2 Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you. 3 But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God. 4 Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, 5 but every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven. 6 For if a wife will not cover her head, then she should cut her hair short. But since it is disgraceful for a wife to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head. 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.
Paul’s primary purpose here is to give instruction regarding marriage and the relationship between husband and wife.
Now if we go to verses 8 & 9, there is a connection to creation:
8 For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. 9 Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.
Paul’s concern here is not with the creation of man but rather with the question of order and headship in both home and church. Paul is addressing the domestic relationship between husband and wife. He is not teaching that males are the image and glory of God and females are not.
Man is used in a variety of ways in Scripture. In the Genesis account of creation, man is used in the generic sense:
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
Clearly man in the beginning of verse 27 designates the human being as either males or female. Both sexes were created in the image of God, and what Paul is doing in 1 Cor. 11 is exhorting both sexes to be formed anew according to that image. In Christian marriage, there is a gradation of headship: God is over Christ the incarnate Son, who is over man, who is over his wife. As head of the home the husband is described in relation to the wife, not as being God, but as imaging God. The imaging displayed by the husband is intended to be the manifestation or reflection of the self-sacrificial love an protection of the divine Redeemer for His bride the church.
Bottom line: Man, that is, males and females have been created in the image of God, but not as the image of God.
It is distinct and therefore pervades
It is distinct and therefore pervades
The image of God is distinct from man, but pervades his existence.
Every mode of man’s life, including the sexual duality of male and female reflects the fact that he has been made in God’s image.
Christ and His Image
Christ and His Image
So far we have been talking about the image of God and its connection to creation. We have been doing this because it is in the creation account that God declares that He, the triune God, created man in his image.
But we cannot talk about the creation of man without at least thinking about the current state of man. As we know, man is fallen and in need of redemption.
Redemption is mans re-creation:
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
If we were to think a little more deeply about man, we might come to the idea the NT presents us about man and Christ. There was the first Adam, that we have considered in the creation account, but there is the second Adam who is our Savior Jesus Christ.
45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
Jesus is the second Adam in that He came to earth as a representative of humanity, undoing the consequences of Adam’s sin.
The significance of the fact that man is created in the image of God must be understood through the New Testament’s teaching of Christ as the image of God.
“Image” in the New Testament
“Image” in the New Testament
The common usage of the noun image often signifies no more than a copy or reflection which is something other than the reality it represents.
If I make a photo copy of my hand on the copy machine upstairs, what the machine prints is an image or a copy of my hand but not my hand itself.
In the NT the word image can stand for the reality, the true substance, as distinct from a copy or an insubstantial shadow.
For example:
1 For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.
the true form gives the sense of the image which is the literal reading of the true form.
image denotes the authentic and substantial actuality of the good things which, formerly promised, are now realities in Christ as the mediator of the new covenant.
The shadow is described as in contrast to the shadow which has no substantial existence of its own.
Image in the New Testament can be used as a designation of the reality to which it is connected. In these cases, it is distinct from shadowy or unreal imitation.
Christ is the image of God
Christ is the image of God
So, with this understanding of the word image in mind, we can understand what is meant by Christ being the image of God. Christ is not less than or other than God.
That Christ is the image of God means, as Hughes says:
[He] illuminates the core and essence of God.
What we will do now is look at places in the NT where Christ is referred to as the image of God.
2 Cor 4:4
2 Cor 4:4
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.
Paul is not saying that Christ is like God or even through His incarnation, Jesus is the revealer of God to the world (though those things are true of Christ).
Paul is making an ontological (nature of His being) statement with reference to the Second Person of the Trinity.
But we’re picking up in the middle of a paragraph in the middle of a chapter in the middle of a book. Consider the context:
7 Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, 8 will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? 9 For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. 10 Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it. 11 For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory.
The divine glory reflected from the face of Moses but veiled from the people because of unbelief, now declares that the divine glory and beams forth unveiled from the face of Christ and in the gospel of God’s grace.
The glory of Christ, in other words, is not a mere reflection or copy of the glory of God; it is identical with it.
And as Paul makes clear a few verses down, in Christ the original glory is recovered and we are transformed into the same image from glory to gory.
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.
The image of God is has been recovered for man by Christ, and those who are in Christ are being conformed to Christ who is the image of God in which we were created.
The more christlike we become, the greater the glory. (chirstformity - Hughes)
Romans 8:29
Romans 8:29
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.
God’s eternal will is highlighted here. Those He foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.
Even before creation God ordained that man should be conformed to the image of Christ. Christ is the image of God.
And remember, God created man in His image and also purposed before the beginning that man be conformed to the image of the Son.
From eternity to eternity, Christformity is God’s purpose for man.
1 Cor 15:49
1 Cor 15:49
49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.
The context makes clear that Paul is referring to the resurrection of the body, which will no longer be weak or perishable but imperishable.
The man of dust is the first Adam and the man of heaven is the last Adam.
Our bodies, like the resurrected Christ, will bear the glory of Christ.
Keeping in mind what we saw in Rom. 8, the resurrection of our bodies will be the means of fulfilling the divine purpose for our conformity to Christ who is the true image of God.
Col 3:10
Col 3:10
10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
Like we briefly considered in 2 Cor 3, Paul is addressing the issue of our sanctification. The progressive renewal of the image of God is taking place in the life of the believer.
Not only is the new birth a recreation in Christ’s image, but also our subsequent lives in Christ are a deepening of His image upon us.
Col 1:15
Col 1:15
14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
Christ is not a visible likeness of God, but the reality itself. Christ manifests the image of God because He is the image of God.
