In His Image

Because of the victory of Christ, the last Adam, over all the fails of the first Adam, collectively known as Adam and Eve, the human race can be seen as having been brought back into the Garden of Eden (in a spiritual sense) with all people assuming the role of Adam before the Fall.

What I mean by this is because God through Christ has reconciled the world to Himself, and everything that resulted from the Fall has been overcome spiritually, including death, Satan’s reign, hell and God’s wrath (for believer and not)all human beings have been reinstated to the position of being “an Adam or an Eve” in their lives, standing, as it were, before God and freely choosing whom we will follow – our own will (which symbolically means we partake of forbidden tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil or His which is symbolically meted out by our choosing to feasting on the Tree of Life (which is His Son).

If we choose to follow Him and His will for us, we have to wonder:

What is God’s will for human beings in terms of the overall plan of action? We certainly know that He wants us to be of faith, and to be loving (which by biblical definition means being merciful, kind, longsuffering, patient and the like) but what about in material existence itself?  From the overall plan to the day to day activities?  

Let’s go back to the creation of Man and hear what God said in Genesis chapter 1 after creating him. 

Genesis 1:26 And 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 fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So, God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, 

Be fruitful, 

and multiply, 

and replenish the earth, 

and subdue it: 

and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

After saying “Let’s make man in our image . . .” and then following that creation of Man, God will (again) instruct him to: 

•    Be fruitful

•    To multiply

•    To fill (or replenish) the earth

•    To subdue it

•    and to rule it or have dominion over it

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These instructions are generally understood to be God’s general directives to the human race, as Adam and Eve represented, at that time, the human race in its entirely. It is also tacitly understood that Man was to pursue these things through an exercise of his or her own free will. Meaning, they are general directives and lack specifics. 

It is of interest that nowhere do we see God telling angels to: 

Be fruitful

To multiply

To fill the earth

To subdue it,

or to rule over it

Have you ever wondered why God issued these five commands to the first Man?  Could it be that God instructs human beings to pursue these things because God Himself did them first?   Remember, He made us in His image.  What is an image? An image is a “representation” somehow of something else. It bears the characteristics of, or performs the functions of the original thing it represents, right? 

Many people think that because God made Man in His image that this means literally but God is spirit and Man is of the earth and material, so when God choose to create beings in His image, He was making creatures that have the capacity “to do what God does” and hopefully from the same heart or essence or purpose.

When God declares that Man is in his likeness, He is essentially saying that we “are to be like him.” We reflect His image. But how are we supposed to actually be like Him? I strongly suggest that if we look back at the list provided in verse 26 of Genesis 1, we get our answer to this question. In other words, did God do the things He commanded the human race to do? When?  Let’s course through the first verses of the first chapter of Genesis to find out!

So, when was God fruitful? When He created all things in heaven and earth and all that in them is! 

When did God multiply? When He created Man in His own image – something He did not replicate in the creation of angels, animals, fish or birds.  He multiplied Himself in and through us!

When did God fill the earth? When He created all life in the seas and on the earth and gave them all the capacity to reproduce.

When did God subdue? When He brought the undefined chaotic mass of the earth under His control.

When did He rule? When He issued His every command to all the elements and divided the light and dark, and ordered the boundaries of the sea and sky and when He ordered and then also when He commanded Man to do these very same things that He did Himself!

Now, if we define God’s image according to these characteristics it would seem that angels, though powerful and intelligent, are not made in God’s image.  Why?  I’m not so sure angels are commanded to be fruitful nor do they appear to multiply. We have no record (in scripture) that angels function in this way. Angels, it would seem, don’t have children. But man is specifically equipped and commanded to multiply. Do angels “fill the earth” in the sense of spreading themselves and their work over the earth to extend their rule? No. Earth is the realm that God has given in-trust to Man, again, operating in and reflecting His Image!  Do angels subdue, that is, create things under their hands and bring things under their control or do they merely act on the commands of God?  We might note that angels are spiritual warriors that appear to fight against the demonic to bring things under God’s influence, but we have no record that angels exercise the power to choose to subdue elements and things around them.  What about rule? Do angels rule? Certainly, there are angels that have authority. But do they rule in the same way that man is commanded to rule in Genesis? There is no scriptural indication that this is so.

So, what does it mean to be made in God’s image? I suggest that to make man in God’s image was to say to man: “Do what I do while being like me.”

And so, from all of these things I want to take the liberty of taking what God did in the beginning, and what He commanded Man to do in the beginning, and encourage each of you, along with myself, to do the same in the obvious ways and perhaps in the not-so-obvious.