Phil Gons

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The Image of God, Part 2

I delivered this message at Spring Creek Bible Church on November 8, 2015, as part 5 of The Doctrines of Man and Sin series.

Prefer what I actually said? Read the transcript (lightly edited for readability).

1. Introduction

This is part five of our series on the doctrines of man and sin. We’re going to continue our study on the image of God. We’ll focus this week on (1) what the image is, (2) who is in the image, (3) what it looks like, and (4) how it should affect our lives.

To reiterate what I said last week, this is one of the most important doctrines for understanding who we are as humans. It gets at the heart of why we exist, and it has far-reaching implications for how we live in every area of our lives. It’s a profoundly practical doctrine.

2. Review

In our first class we introduced the doctrines of man and sin and talked about why it’s important to study systematic theology in general and these doctrines in particular.

In our second class, we looked at the origin of man, where we came from and why we were created. In week three we talked about the nature of man.

Last time we began our study of the image of God.

We learned that

  1. Being in the image of God emphasizes how we’re like God.
  2. The English, Hebrew, and Greek terms for image and likeness largely correspond to each other.
  3. The terms image and likeness, while having slightly different shades of meaning, are synonyms and should be viewed as two sides of the same coin. Where one is, so is the other.
  4. The terms for image generally focus on the visual representation of something; the terms for likeness generally focus on their similarities.
  5. A parent-child relationship and a picture are helpful analogies for what it means to be in the image of God.
  6. The passages about the image of God fall into seven categories: (1) man in God’s image, (2) man in Adam’s image, (3) fallen man still in God’s image, (4) Jesus as the perfect image, (5) Jesus in man’s image, (6) man being restored to God’s image, and (7) man perfectly imaging God.

3. Class Schedule

Let’s review our class schedule:

  1. 9/20: Introduction
  2. 9/27: The Origin of Man
  3. 10/11: The Nature of Man
  4. 10/18: The Image of God, Part 1
  5. 11/8: The Image of God, Part 2
  6. 11/15: The Fall
  7. 11/22: Original Sin
  8. 11/29: The Nature of Sin
  9. 12/13: Modern-Day Issues

4. Outline

Here’s what we’ll cover today:

  1. What is the image of God?
  2. Who is in the image of God?
  3. What does the image of God look like?
  4. How should the image of God affect us?

5. What is the image of God?

There have been a variety of views on the image of God throughout the history of the church. There are different ways to organize the views. Some1 divide them into two main categories: (1) structural, what we are, and (2) functional, what we do.

Others2 group the views into three buckets:

  1. Substantive/Structural: The image of God has to do with who we are.
  2. Relational: The image of God has to do with how we relate to God and others.
  3. Functional: The image of God has to do with how we function and exercise dominion.

Some3 add a fourth view:

  1. Representative: The image of God has to do with man’s status as a representative of God.

1. Substantive/Structural View

The image of God is primarily or exclusively man’s spiritual or psychological nature as intelligent, emotional, volitional, and moral being. The emphasis here is usually put on intelligence. Man is like God in his thinking, unlike any other earthly being. This is also true of his capacity for emotion, love, compassion, joy, etc.

Since man’s moral and intellectual abilities vary from person to person, this view can tend toward degrees of being in God’s image and call into question whether unborn babies or the disabled are in God’s image.

2. Relational View

Millard Erickson describes this view this way:

The image of God is not to be understood in terms of any structural qualities within humans; it is not something a human is or possesses. Rather, the image is a matter of one’s relationship to God; it is something a human experiences.4

There is certainly something unique about man as a relational being: his ability and need to relate to God and others. But when the emphasis is put on the act of relating rather than attribute of being relational, we end up with degrees of the image and even the possibility of some not having the image. Can a person in a coma relate to God and others? Does he or she stop being the image of God?

3. Functional View

Erickson says of this view,

This is the idea that the image is not something present in the makeup of the human, nor the experiencing of relationship with God or with fellow humans, but rather consists in something one does. It is a human function, the most frequently mentioned being the exercise of dominion over the creation.5

This view suffers the same problems as the previous two. It easily results in degrees of being in the image and even the absence of the image when man is not functioning as he ought.

4. Representative View

Mike Heiser articulates this view:

The image is not an ability we have, but a status. We are God’s representatives on earth. To be human is to image God.6

This view’s strength is that it doesn’t result in degrees of the image or loss of the image. It’s weakness is that it doesn’t say enough about what the image is. If it’s merely a status, could God have made monkeys or trees his representatives instead? If not, it implies that the status or appointment to image or represent God on earth is in some sense related to our natures as God-like beings.

5. The Comprehensive View

Each of these views captures an important aspect of what it means to be in and function as God’s image. But no one view captures the whole story. The image of God includes our fundamental nature, our status or appointment as his representatives, how we relate to God and others, and our responsibility to rule over the earth. If you take away any of these things, you’d lose part of what it means to be in and function as the image of God.

I believe it’s important that we embrace a comprehensive view of the image of God and not define it too narrowly. We should distinguish, however, between being the image of God and manifesting the image.

Most fundamentally being God’s image involves (1) our nature that is like God’s and (2) our status as his representatives. We manifest being the image of God by (3) the way we relate to him and others and (4) how we subdue and exercise dominion over the earth.

There aren’t degrees of being God’s image. We’re all fundamentally God’s image to the same degree: (1) we all possess a nature like God’s, and (2) we all have the status as God’s imaging representatives. However, we don’t all manifest that image to the same degree. Whether due to sin or its effects, we manifest his image to different degrees at different times—until we’re fully restored to image him perfectly.

Does the image include our physical nature?

Theologians are divided on whether our bodies are in some sense in God’s image. Many theologians argue that since God is a spirit and has no body, our bodies can’t in any sense be in his image.

Arguments Against It

J. Gresham Machen puts it this way:

“The ‘image of God’ cannot well refer to man’s body, because God is a spirit; it must therefore refer to man’s soul.”7

Many others express something similar.

I disagree, and I’ll explain why. But first let’s look at the biblical teaching used against this view.

God is spirit.

The Bible is clear that God is a spiritual being, not a physical being.

John 4:24: God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

And spirits don’t have physical bodies.

Luke 24:39: See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”

God is invisible.

The Bible is also clear that God is invisible.

Colossians 1:15: He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

1 Timothy 1:17: To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

Hebrews 11:27: By faith he [Moses] left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.

Don’t these two things taken together prove that our bodies can’t be in God’s image, since God doesn’t have a physical, visible image for us to be in?

I don’t think so.

Responses to the Arguments

First, being spiritual doesn’t mean without visible form.
  1. Angels are spiritual, but have a visible form.

We know that angels are spirits.

Hebrews 1:14: Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?

All throughout the Bible people see angels. But aren’t they taking on human form? Sometimes, yes—particularly the angel of the Lord. But often they are seen in what appears to be their true form. They have similarities to man, but also differences (Judg 13:6; Is 6:2; Mt 28:3). If they merely looked like humans, people wouldn’t have been so scared of them (Mt 28:2–5; Lk 1:12–13, 26–30; 2:9–10). What’s apparent, then, is that spirits can be seen and seem to have a visible, though not physical or material, form.

  1. The spirit’s of the dead still have a correspondence to their physical bodies.

The rich man in the story of the rich man and Lazarus (Lk 16:19–31) is described as having eyes and a tongue. These could be metaphorical, but it’s possible that our spirits correspond to our bodies in a more direct way than we typically think.

When Samuel was summoned to speak with Saul, he is described as an elohim and an old man wrapped in a robe (1 Sam 28:13–14). Samuel’s spirit was still apparently recognizable as Samuel.

Peter, James, and John saw and spoke with Moses and Elijah when Jesus was transfigured (Mt 17:3). They didn’t have bodies. They had long since disintegrated, and the resurrection hadn’t happened yet. They were spirits, and they had visible and recognizable appearance.

The disciples confused Jesus for a spirit when they saw him walking on the water (Mt 14:26). They believed that spirits look just like people.

All of these passages point in the direction of spirits having visible form, even if it’s not a physical form.

Second, invisible doesn’t necessarily mean has no visible appearance.

Okay, but God is invisible, right? Angels and human spirits aren’t said to be invisible, but God is.

The Greek word for invisible is aoratos (ἀόρατος). It’s made up of two parts: a, which means not, and oratos, which means seen. Together they mean not seen or unseen.

There are several ways something can be unseen:

  1. We’re incapable of seeing something that can be seen. An example is a blind person who doesn’t have the ability to see what’s clearly there, or a person in a dark room.
  2. We’re not able to see something because it is too small or too far away. An example is bacteria or a far away galaxy.
  3. We’re capable of seeing it, but something else is blocking our access to it. An example would be the sun at night or the stars during the day.
  4. We’re capable of seeing it, but it doesn’t have the attribute of visibility. The thing is by nature not visible. An example would be air or emotion.

So in what sense is God invisible?

Often people think of God’s invisibility in the fourth sense. That since God is a spirit, there’s nothing to be seen. But we’ve seen already that other spirit beings can be seen. Invisibility isn’t necessarily an attribute of spirithood. Incorporeality or immateriality is. But that’s a different matter altogether (no pun intended). There are incorporeal and immaterial things that can be seen, like light, for example.

I think it’s best to think of God’s invisibility in terms of #1 or #2 or #3.

Third, the Bible talks about seeing God numerous times.

Whatever sense he’s invisible has to be consistent with the verses that talk about him being seen.8

Genesis 32:30: So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.”

Exodus 24:9–11: Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up, 10 and they saw the God of Israel. There was under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. 11 And he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel; they beheld God, and ate and drank.

Exodus 33:18–23: Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” 19 And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. 20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” 21 And the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, 22 and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.”

Numbers 12:8: With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?”

Job 19:26: And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God,

Judges 13:22: And Manoah said to his wife, “We shall surely die, for we have seen God.”

Isaiah 6:1, 5: In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 5 And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

Matthew 5:8: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Matthew 18:10: “Take care that you do not despise one of these little ones; for, I tell you, in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven.

John 1:18: No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

John 5:37: And the Father who sent me has himself testified on my behalf. You have never heard his voice or seen his form . . . .

John 6:46: not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father.

John 14:7–9: If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” 8 Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

John 15:24: If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not have sin. But now they have seen and hated both me and my Father.

1 Timothy 6:16: who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.

1 John 3:2: Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.

1 John 4:12: No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

Hebrews 12:14: Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

Revelation 22:4: They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.

Let’s summarize the data:

  1. God has a face (Ge 32:30; Ex 33:20, 23; Mt 18:10).
  2. God has a back (Ex 33:23).
  3. God has a form (Nu 12:8; Jn 5:37).
  4. God sits on a throne (Is 6:1, 5).
  5. People saw God (Ge 32:30; Ex 24:10, 11; 33:23; Judg 13:22; Is 6:1, 5).
  6. People saw God’s face (Ge 32:30).
  7. People can’t see God’s face and live (Ex 33:20, 23; Judg 13:22).
  8. Believers will see God (Job 19:26; Mt 5:8; 1 Jn 3:2; Heb 12:14; Rev 22:4).
  9. Angels see God’s face (Mt 18:10).
  10. No one but Jesus has seen God (Jn 1:18; 5:37; 6:46; 1 Tim 6:16; 1 Jn 4:12).
  11. Seeing Jesus is seeing the Father (Jn 14:9; 15:24).

In addition to these passages, the Bible records numerous visions of people seeing God sitting on his throne (e.g., 1 Ki 22:19; Ps 9:7; 11:4; 47:8; 103:19; Is 6:1; Dan 7:9–10; Heb 12:2; Rev 4; 7:10–11, 15; 11:16; 19:4; 22:1, 3). While it’s possible these are metaphorical, it’s unlikely they all are. Many of these scenes include details like Jesus sitting next to his Father, angels bowing down and worshiping them, etc. Given this and the data above, it’s more likely that at least in some of these passages God manifests himself in ways similar to what we read in these passages.

I want to affirm all that the Bible teaches about God. He’s a spirit. He’s in some sense invisible. But he’s also in another sense visible. Jesus has seen him. The angels continually see his face. No one can see him and live, which means there’s something to see. But the Bible promises that will one day see him as he is.

However we understand God’s spiritual nature and invisibility, I don’t think the Bible warrants a view that disconnects our physical nature from being like him in some important way. We shouldn’t picture God as having a physical body, but neither do we need to conclude that there’s nothing visible about him.

Proponents of the View

Here are what various theologians have said on this issue:

Irenaeus of Lyons

Now the soul and the spirit are certainly a part of the man, but certainly not the man; for the perfect man consists in the commingling and the union of the soul receiving the spirit of the Father, and the admixture of that fleshly nature which was moulded after the image of God.9

John Calvin

Although the primary seat of the divine image was in the mind and heart, or in the soul and its powers, yet there was no part of man, not even the body itself, in which some sparks did not glow.10

Herman Bavinck

It follows from the doctrine of human creation in the image of God that this image extends to the whole person. Nothing in a human being is excluded from the image of God. While all creatures display vestiges of God, only a human being is the image of God. And he is such totally, in soul and body, in all his faculties and powers, in all conditions and relations. Man is the image of God because and insofar as he is truly human, and he is truly and essentially human because, and to the extent that, he is the image of God. Naturally, just as the cosmos is an organism and reveals God’s attributes more clearly in some than in other creatures, so also in man as an organism the image of God comes out more clearly in one part than another, more in the soul than in the body, more in the ethical virtues than in the physical powers. None of this, however, detracts in the least from the truth that the whole person is the image of God.11

Man’s body also belongs to the image of God. . . . The body is not a tomb but a wondrous masterpiece of God, constituting the essence of man as fully as the soul … it belongs so essentially to man that, though through sin it is violently torn away from the soul [in death], it is nevertheless again united with the soul in the resurrection.12

G. C. Berkouwer

Scripture’s emphasis on the whole man as the image of God has triumphed time and time again over all objections and opposing principles. Scripture never makes a distinction between man’s spiritual and bodily attributes in order to limit the image of God to the spiritual, as furnishing the only possible analogy between man and God.13

Anthony Hoekema

If it is true that the whole person is the image of God, we must also include the body as part of the image.14

John Frame

It should already be evident that the image of God does pertain to the body. Man’s physical strength is a major aspect of his power to subdue the earth and take dominion of it. Some have objected that the human body cannot be God’s image because God is incorporeal. But God’s incorporeality does not mean that he can never take physical form, only that he is sovereign in his choice of whether or not to take a physical form; and if he chooses to take one, he is sovereign in choosing the form he takes.15

Jonathan Stephen

However, as should be clear from what has been said so far, the biblical doctrine of the image of God should not be defined in purely non-physical terms. At this point we can easily slip into an unscriptural dualism. There is what the old commentators used to call ‘the double image’. God’s image and likeness is also reflected in man’s physical body. When Paul said of the incarnate Christ that ‘He is the image of the invisible God’ (Col. 1:15), that is exactly the point being made. An image has to be visible! We have of course to be careful. ‘God is spirit’ (John 4:24). Nevertheless, he created a body for man that was designed to reflect much of his true nature.16

If we deny that our physical nature is in some sense made like God, it seems like we must conclude that it was arbitrary, that God could have made us in his own image and given us a completely different body, like the body of a kangaroo or elephant.

I think it’s right to conclude that our whole person, including our physical nature, is in some sense like God. As we saw last time, the strong visual nature of the terms for image and likeness reinforces this as the correct view.

We need to be careful not to deny the biblical teaching about God’s nature as spirit and incorporeal, but it’s possible to affirm the Bible’s teaching on God’s nature and allow for some kind of correspondence between God and our physical nature. More than possible, I think it’s required by careful analysis of all the biblical data.

6. Who is in the image of God?

There have been a variety of opinions on who is in God’s image.

  1. Some have held that fallen man doesn’t have the image.
  2. Others have held that fallen man has the image, but not the likeness.
  3. Others have held that men are in God’s image more than women.
  4. Others maintain that both humans and angels are in God’s image.

Let’s look briefly at each of these.

Fallen Man Still in God’s Image

We’ve already discussed this point, but let’s review it.

Some theologians have argued that the image of God is lost at the Fall, recreated at regeneration, gradually restored through sanctification, and completely restored at glorification. They argue this because they have a hard time seeing how sinful man can reflect God at all. His whole being is opposed to God. How is he like God?

This results from a confusion between being in the image of God and manifesting the image of God. Being in God’s image is part of our very nature as humans. We can’t cease to be in God’s image without ceasing to be human. We’ve been appointed to represent God. That’s true whether we do or don’t.

Let me illustrate this with our two analogies for the image of God:

  1. My son is in my image. He’s like me in his nature, in both material and immaterial ways, and he carries the Gons name and represents me. This is unchanging. Depending on how he lives, he may manifest his likeness to me and representation of me to varying degrees at various times.
  2. Like an old picture covered in dust that obscures its likeness to the one it pictures doesn’t cease to be a picture of that person, neither does sin or its effects cause us to cease to be God’s image. That old picture does a poor job of representing the one it pictures, and so we do a poor just of reflecting God through our fallen nature.17

When you understand the image of God broadly to include man’s spiritual and physical natures and his responsibilities to represent God and exercise dominion over creation, you can see how there remains some likeness between God and even the most sinful of humans.

The two main passages that establish this are Genesis 9:6 and James 3:9.

The Image and Likeness Are Inseparable

Based on our study last time, it seems that image and likeness are two sides of the same coin. They have subtly different shades of meaning, but they’re used interchangeably for the broader concept of our being made like God. Both terms don’t need to appear for the full concept to be there. Trying to see one retained and the other lost doesn’t account well for the biblical data.

Man and Women Are Equally in God’s Image

Aquinas commenting on 1 Corinthians 11:7 says,

But in a secondary sense the image of God is found in man, and not in woman: for man is the beginning and end of woman; as God is the beginning and end of every creature.18

But that’s not Paul’s point. John Frame helpfully explains:

So Paul’s point in 1 Corinthians 11:7, then, is not that woman does not image God; it is rather that in addition to imaging God, she is also made to honor man, and that her appearance must be appropriate to that latter function. Nor is there any need to speak of her imaging God in some lesser sense than does man.

Does her subordination itself detract from her capacity to image God? That is an important question for us to ask at this point. But the answer must surely be negative. Men, too, are always placed in relations of subordination to other people (Ex. 20:12; Rom. 13:1; Heb. 13:17), but that fact does not prejudice their being the image of God.19

All human beings are in the image of God from conception. All human beings are in the image of God equally. Human beings manifest God’s image to differing degrees. An unborn baby is no less in the image of God than a fully mature adult. An elderly person with dementia or a child with physical or mental disabilities is no less in the image of God than a perfectly healthy person. But his ability to fully function in the image of God and manifest the image of God is restricted by sin and its effects. One day God will fully restore all of his believing children into the image of God and enable us to image him perfectly and fully.

Are humans the only creatures in the image of God?

Most theologians have taught that man alone is in the image of God. Though all of God’s creature manifest his glory, none of them does so to the degree man does, who is God’s image.

Bavinck articulates this point this way:

“The entire world is a revelation of God, a mirror of his virtues and perfections; every creature is in his own way and according to his own measure an embodiment of a divine thought. But among all creatures only man is the image of God, the highest and richest revelation of God, and therefore head and crown of the entire creation.”

Some have argued, though, that angels are also in God’s image.

Aquinas affirmed this:

The image of God is more perfect in the angels than in man, because their intellectual nature is more perfect . . . . [A]s in their intellectual nature, the angels are more to the image of God than man is, we must grant that, absolutely speaking, the angels are more to the image of God than man is, but that in some respects man is more like to God.20

So did Calvin:

“The image of God belongs to them [angels] also.”21

Others have held this based on a view that the angels were part of God’s heavenly council. Here’s an example from Reformed biblical theologian Meredith Kline:

In the creative fiat addressed to the heavenly council, “Let us make man in our image,” angels are identified as sharing in the image-likeness to God.22 The lines of likeness connect not only God and man but God and angels, and man and angels. Agreeably, in the reflection of Genesis 1:26ff. in Psalm 8:5ff., man’s likeness to God is expounded in a comparison of man and angels.23 That man in his likeness to God is like members of the divine council suggests that to bear the image of God is to participate in the judicial function of the divine Glory. And it is this judicial role that is prominent when the image idea next appears in Genesis 3:22. There, man’s likeness to God is expressed in terms of his knowing good and evil, which has to do with the royal function of judicial discernment and decision rendering. The latter is elsewhere noted as a mark of likeness to both God and angels.24

Kline studied at taught at Westminster Seminary, and was a conservative Reformed biblical theologian in the line of Geerhardus Vos. The Unseen Realm, a recent publication by Mike Heiser, a scholar in residence at Faithlife where I work, defends this same view.

They establish this view along these lines:

1. The plural in Genesis 1:16 doesn’t refer to the Trinity exclusively, but to the triune God and his heavenly host.

Genesis 1:26–27: 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 Hebrew word for God is elohim. It’s a plural word that usually refers to the one true God. But sometime it refers to the angels, the heavenly host.

Genesis 3:5 is an example of a passage that could perhaps use elohim in both senses.

Genesis 3:5: “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Genesis 3:22 has similarities to Genesis 1:26–27.

Genesis 3:22: Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—”

Disobeying God’s command will result in become like God, or perhaps like the heavenly host, knowing good and evil. The latter view is suggested from 2 Samuel 14:17.25

2 Samuel 14:17: “And now your servant says, ‘May the word of my lord the king secure my inheritance, for my lord the king is like an angel of God in discerning good and evil. May the Lord your God be with you.’”

Knowledge of God and evil is a characteristic of God and angels, suggesting that the use of elohim might here be used more broadly as the heavenly host.

2. This is consistent with the use of elohim elsewhere in reference to angelic beings:

Psalm 8:5: Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings [elohim; angelos; Heb. 2:6–8] and crowned him with glory and honor.

Psalm 82:1, 6–7: God [elohim; theos] has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods [elohim; theos] he holds judgment . . . . 6 I said, “You are gods [elohim; theos], sons of the Most High, all of you; 7 nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince.”

There seems to be a clear likeness between God and angels, a likeness that we might share to some degree as his image on earth.

3. Several other passages refer to the angelic host as “sons of God.”

Genesis 6:1–4: When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.

Deuteronomy 32:8: When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God [DSS: elohim; LXX: angelos].

Job 1:6, 2:1: Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. 2:1 Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the Lord.

Job 38:6–7: On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, 7 when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God [LXX: angelos] shouted for joy?

Psalm 29:1–2: Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings [ben elim], ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. 2 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness.

Psalm 89:5–7: Let the heavens praise your wonders, O Lord, your faithfulness in the assembly of the holy ones! 6 For who in the skies can be compared to the Lord? Who among the heavenly beings [ben elim] is like the Lord, 7 a God greatly to be feared in the council of the holy ones, and awesome above all who are around him?

Daniel 3:25: He replied, “But I see four men unbound, walking in the middle of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the fourth has the appearance of a [son of] god [bar elahin; LXX angelos].”

God’s first created family, his first sons/children, were the angels. We are his second family, his second sons/children (Lk 3:38; Acts 17:28). We saw that the parent–child relationship is used to illustrate what it means to be in God’s image. This could reinforce that angels were also created in God’s image. No other creatures are called God’s sons—only angels and humans.

I’m hesitant to take a definite position on this, but I do think a solid case can be made for understanding angels in some sense as sharing in the image of God, but representing God instead in the spiritual realm, while we represent him here in the physical realm.

7. What does the image of God look like?

We’ve identified what the image of God is and who is in the image of God, but before we can figure out what implications it has for how we live our daily lives we need to understand clearly what is means to be the image of God, what the image of God looks like in action.

Being and Displaying the Image

What the Image Is

To know what it means to be the image of God, we must start with what the image of God is:

  1. Our entire nature is God’s image. We are like God.
  2. Our status as humans is God’s image. We represent God.

This is true of all people, male and female, of all ages and races—saved or unsaved.

How the Image Is Displayed

We express this image in three fundamental relationships:

  1. In our relationship under God. We must live in dependence on God and for God. We relate to God in worship and obedience.
  2. In our relationship alongside man. We must live in fellowship and community with our fellow man. We relate to others in love and service.
  3. In our relationship over creation. We must subdue and steward all that God created. We relate to creation by creating and controlling.

We do this to varying degrees and at varying times.

The Pattern of the Image

At it most basic level, the image of God by definition looks like God. If we want to know how we should manifest God in our lives, we simply need to understand the ways the Bible tells us we are to be like God. We’re not to be like him in his incommunicable attributes: his eternality, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, etc. We are to be like him in his communicable attributes: his truthfulness, his kindness, his love, his mercy, his graciousness, etc. We should look at God in his Word and imitate him.

We could spend a whole series talking about the ways we’re supposed to be like God. Let’s just look briefly as the passages that explicitly call us to be like God without outlining all the ways.

Be Like God

Like the Father

Matthew 5:48: You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Luke 6:36: Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.

Ephesians 4:24: and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Ephesians 4:32: Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Ephesians 5:1: Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.

Like Christ

We get even greater clarity on how we are to be like God by looking at Jesus in his incarnation.

John 13:14–15: If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.

Ephesians 5:2: And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Colossians 3:12–14: Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

1 Thessalonians 1:6: And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit,

1 Peter 2:21–23: For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. 22 He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. 23 When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.

1 John 2:6: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

By studying the life of Christ in the incarnation we’re given a perfect pattern we should seek to follow. We should spend much time gazing at the beauty of Christ in the Scriptures.

Hoekema puts it helpfully:

Christ is called the image of God par excellence; he is the “image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15). If, therefore, we wish to know what the image of God in man is really like, we must first look at Christ. This means, among other things, that what is central in the image of God is not such matters as reason or intelligence but rather love, since what stands out more than anything else in the life of Christ is his amazing love.26

Be Like Other Imagers

But secondarily we can imitate other imagers.

If we want to see what imaging looks like, there are three primary places we can look:

  1. Adam and Eve in the garden—before sin entered the picture
  2. Man being restored and being like God
  3. Man in the new heavens and earth—after sin has been destroyed
Like the Original Imagers

We can look at Adam and Eve before the Fall and see what the image looks like.

  1. Imaging God includes exercising dominion over the earth just has God exercises dominion over the spiritual realm (Ge 1:26, 28; 2:15, 19, 20; 9:2–3; Ps 8:6–8). God is sovereign being, and we exercise authority under him. As we rule over creation, we image God.
  2. Imaging God is relational and includes male and female together, which is needed for procreating (Ge 1:27; 2:18, 20; 5:2). There was an incompleteness to man without a women. This doesn’t mean single people aren’t fully in God’s image. Marriage is one way we express our relational nature, but not the only way. God is a relational being, and he made us to be relational. As we live relationally, we image God.
  3. Imaging God is closely tied to procreating (Ge 1:28; Gen 9:1, 7). God invited man into the work of creating in a derivative way. When we bring another human life into existence or use our Godlike creativity in other ways, we image God. God is a creative being, and he endowed within us the ability and desire to create.

Imaging God includes dependence on God and responsibility to obey God. God didn’t issue prohibitions to any other creatures. He gave special responsibilities to man and set him up as ruler of the earth.

Like the Renewed Imagers

The Bible gives us each other as examples of the image to follow and imitate. We’re all in pursuit of imaging God better.

1 Corinthians 11:1: Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.

1 Corinthians 4:16: I urge you, then, be imitators of me.

Philippians 3:17: Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.

Philippians 4:9: What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

1 Thessalonians 1:6: And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit,

2 Thessalonians 3:9: It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate.

Not only can we look at other imagers who are being renewed, but we can look at the commands giving to imagers to obedy. All of sanctification and obedience to Christ has as its aim our restoration to perfectly imaging God.

Like the Restored Imagers

What the Bible describes about glorified man may also tell us something about what the image of God looks like. We won’t take time to look at this today. I’ll leave that for you and your further study.

Like the First Imagers

We’re never called to be like angels, but we are told that we were made like them and will be like them when we’re fully restored in the recreation of all things.

Matthew 22:30: For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.

Luke 20:34–36: And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, 35 but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, 36 for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.

Renewed in the Image

Add this section in the future?

  • This is the work of sanctification.
  • The Spirit progressively restores the image in us through the Word.
  • In particular, we should study the image in its various forms and imitate it.

8. How should the image of God affect us?

We looked at what it means to be in God’s image, but what does it mean for how we live? What are the implications for daily life in this fallen world?

Here are 8 ways the image of God should impact the way we live:

  1. We belong to God. In Mark 12:13–17 Jesus teaches that just as the coins bearing Caesar’s image belonged to Caesar, so the things that bear God’s image belong to God. While everything belongs to God as creator, anything that bears God’s image is especially his. We should remember daily whose image we are: that we belong to God, that our spouses belong to God, and our children belong to God, that our friends belong to God, that our neighbors belong to God, and that even our enemies belong to God.
  2. We exist for God. As God’s image, we were designed to display God in a way the rest of creation can’t. Our very purpose for existence is to be like God, to point to God, to mirror him and reflect his glory. When you get up in the morning, when you work, when you go about life, God’s design for you is that you’d image him. It’s not just something you do at church or when you’re reading your Bible. All of life is meant to image God. A proper view of the image provides clear purpose for our lives.
  3. We mustn’t mistreat God’s image. Not only should we take care of the image that God given us personally, but we should care for and honor and respect and love the billions of images of God all around us: the ones we live with, the ones we go to church with, the ones we work with, the ones we shop with, the ones we ride the bus with; the young ones, the old ones, the black ones, the white ones, the male ones, the female ones, the strong ones, the weak ones, the healthy ones, the sick ones. They’re all God’s images; they all exist to magnify his glory. All human life is precious and sacred. It’s all like God. A proper view of the image of God eradicates discrimination and prejudice based on race or gender or age or intelligence or ability.
  4. We must follow our model. Jesus is the perfect image of God. God is restoring us to perfectly image him after the pattern of his Son. Our destiny is to be a little copies of him. The entire aim of sanctification is to become more like him and better image God. We must keep our eyes fixed on him. We should not only soak ourselves in the gospel, but we should study and delight in his life of modeling perfect humanity for us. We mustn’t go far from his life.
  5. We must rule over all creation. As God’s representatives on the earth, we were meant to rule over creation in his place. We should steward and use the world’s resources responsibly and in service of others. We should improve the world, we should create, we should innovate, we should live out the fullness of being God’s image in all domains of life. A full view of God’s image results in a high view of work, business, culture, art, science, technology, sports, music, and so much more. These are all good ways we subdue the earth and exercise dominion over it. They are ways we model God’s creative glory. Living as the image of God isn’t just about doing “spiritual” things. All of creation, all of life, is God’s domain. We should embrace and redeem it and rule over it for him. All vocations used for him are sacred. We need Christians in all areas of live displaying what it means to be the image of God.

Anthony Hoekema puts this well:

“The renewal of the image of God . . . involves a broad, comprehensive vision of the Christian view of man. The process of sanctification affects every aspect of life: man’s relationship to God, to others, and to the entire creation. The restoration of the image does not concern only religious piety in the narrow sense, or witnessing to people about Christ, or ‘soul-saving’ activities; in its fullest sense it involves the redirection of all of life.”

  1. We should recognize and delight in God’s image in others. There is an appropriate delight in man that recognizes what is good in man as likeness to God and turns it into praise of God. Even in fallen man there are opportunities to get glimpses of God’s glory. Listening to a masterfully composed orchestral arrangement that’s masterfully played and masterfully streamed over the internet at the click of a button through some metal wires and into my ears is an opportunity to marvel in God’s creative genius. Let us look for and delight in God through the images he’s created of himself.
  2. We must live in community. God didn’t just create Adam. He created Adam and Eve. He created them as complementary relational beings and gave them the responsibility of extending that community through procreation. He told them to fill the earth and multiply. God is a relational being, and we image him when we live as relational beings. Christ, the image of God, is also the head of the body. We live out the fullness of the image of God as we’re united together with him in the one new man (Eph 2:15).
  3. We must live in hope. None of us images God as we were designed to. Whether through sin or its affects, we’re all merely a flicker of the light God designed us to be shining forth. But his purpose will success, and will will one day be complete free from sin and from its effects on our minds and our bodies, on our relationships and on our ruling. Whether you have a debilitating disease or chronic pain that keeps you from fully imaging God as you were designed to, one day God will set all things right. From the little one whose life was cut short, to the one who died of dementia, we will all be made perfectly new to image God for all eternity.

9. Conclusion

As I’ve been studying the image of God over the last few weeks, I’ve been struck at least three things:

  1. This is a broad and sweeping and pervasive doctrine. It reaches from eternity past to eternity future. It’s an essential thread that runs through the whole of Scripture and God’s work of redemption.
  2. It’s intimately tied to the theme of God’s glory, which is at the heart of the whole Bible. God’s pursuit of his own glory has as its primary aim his own image.
  3. It’s thoroughly trinitarian. All three persons of the Trinity are involved in man as God’s image.

I tried to capture that in these 13 statements:

  1. God existed from all eternity in perfect community as Father, Son, and Spirit, delighting in and enjoying his own glory.
  2. God planned from all eternity to create us and conform us to the image of his Son.
  3. God created the heavenly host in his image for his glory as his first created sons.
  4. God created us in his image for his glory, to be like him, to live in communion with him and community with others, to fill the earth, to subdue and rule over the rest of creation, and to display his creative glory.
  5. We sinned and rebelled against God, we stopped functioning as his image fully, and we stopped displaying God’s glory fully.
  6. Sin is fundamentally the veiling of the image of God, the veiling of God’s glory.
  7. Jesus is the perfect image and glory of God. Unlike Adam and his children, Jesus perfectly images God.
  8. Jesus became the image of man in order to restore man to the image of God.
  9. His cross work was all about restoring us to fully image God.
  10. Through regeneration by the Spirit, God began his work of restoring us as God’s image.
  11. Through sanctification by the Spirit, God continues to restore us to his image as our minds are renewed as we behold the glory of Jesus’ image in the Word.
  12. In glorification and resurrection, God will perfectly restore his image in us and make us copies of his Son, making Christ as the preeminent one among all his brothers and sisters.
  13. For all eternity we will radiate God’s glory as we perfectly image him and mirror his perfections in the new heavens and new earth.

Marriage, parenting, missions, discipleship, teaching, preaching, working, playing, loving—indeed, all of life—they all have as their aim helping people see and realize and delight in their purpose in this grand plan of the triune God to magnify his glory through his imagers for all eternity.

10. Resources

  1. Hoekema, Anthony A. Created in God’s Image. Grand Rapids; Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 1994.
  2. Kline, Meredith G. Images of the Spirit. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 1999.
  3. Machen, J. Gresham. The Christian View of Man. New York: Macmillan, 1937.
  4. Heiser, Michael S. The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible. Bellingham, WA: Lexham, 2015.
  5. Lints, Richard. Identity and Idolatry: The Image of God and Its Inversion. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2015.
  6. Berkouwer, G. C. Man: The Image of God. Studies in Dogmatics. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962.

11. Review Questions

12. Next Week

Next week we’ll turn our attention to the Fall of Adam and Eve.

13. Pray and Dismiss

8. Questions about the image of God.

  1. Are the image and likeness of God the same thing?
  2. Can the image be lost?
  3. Does the image include our physical nature?
  4. Are angels in the image of God?
  5. Are unborn children or disabled in the image of God?
  6. How does the image relate to idolatry?
  7. Are we the image of God or in the image of God?

Like man, angels reflect God’s moral character. Like man, angels visible appearance has some correspondence to God. Like man, angels seem to be relational beings. Like man, angels represent and act on behalf of God.

Verses that talk about God’s hands, God’s voice, etc. sitting on a throne.

The appearance of God is described in Daniel 7 and it is the same appearance which Christ had in Revelation 1.

  1. Imaging God has something in common with the angels (Ps 8:5; cf. LXX and Heb 2:6–8; Gen 1:26).
  2. Imaging God involved temporary status lower than angels, but eventually rule over them (Ps 8:5; Heb 2:7 // Mt 19:28; Lk 22:29–30; 1 Co 6:3; Heb 2:5; 2 Ti 2:12; Rev 2:26–27; 5:10; 22:5).
  3. We fail to image God when we fail to exercise the dominion he gave us (Heb 2:8).
  • Moral, intellectual, functions, roles, relationships, physical, work, dominion, representation, creativity, procreation,

How we image God

  1. Looks like (i.e., has the appearance of; has a correspondence in physical nature)
  2. Is like (i.e., has the characteristics of; has a correspondence is spiritual nature)
  3. Represents
  4. Reflects

Does God have an image? Doesn’t he have to for us to be made in his image?

The wording of God’s making man in his image is important.

Psalm 94:9: He who planted the ear, does he not hear? He who formed the eye, does he not see?

Summarizing the life of Jesus is an impossible task, but we can look at his life through the lens of . . .

  1. Jesus was like God. Those who saw him saw the Father.
  2. Jesus represented God. Like the first Adam, Jesus was appointed to represent God, to be the head of a new humanity and to point people to God.
  3. Jesus lived in reverent obedience to God. Jesus had a clear sense of purpose.
  4. Jesus lived in community and service of others. He came not to be served, but to serve. He taught, he healed, he loved, he had compassion, he gave, he fed, he protected, he warned. He cared for his fellow man.
  5. Jesus ruled over creation. He commanded the winds and waves to obey him. . . .

Notes

1. Hoekema. ↩

2. Erickson. ↩

3. Heiser. ↩

4. Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013), 464–465. ↩

5. Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013), 465–466. ↩

6. Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015), 42–43. ↩

7. The Christian View of Man (New York: Macmillan, 1937), 169. ↩

8. Genesis 16:13: So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.” Judges 6:22–23: Then Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the Lord. And Gideon said, “Alas, O Lord God! For now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.” 23 But the Lord said to him, “Peace be to you. Do not fear; you shall not die.” Ps 11:7 Psalm 17:15: As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness. ↩

9. Irenaeus of Lyons, “Irenæus against Heresies,” in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 1, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 531. IRENAEUS, Against Heresies, 5.6.1 ↩

10. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, vol. 1, The Library of Christian Classics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 188. ↩

11. Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: God and Creation, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), 555. ↩

12. Dogmatiek, 2:601. Quoted in Anthony A. Hoekema, Created in God’s Image (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1994), 68. Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: God and Creation, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), 559. ↩

13. G. C. Berkouwer, Man: The Image of God, Studies in Dogmatics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962), 77. ↩

14. Anthony A. Hoekema, Created in God’s Image (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1994), 68. ↩

15. John M. Frame, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2013), 787–788. ↩

16. Jonathan Stephen, Theophany: Close Encounters with the Son of God (Epson, UK: Day One Publications, 1998), 21. ↩

17. Like a dusty old picture or a dirty mirror, something is veiling the true reality. The reality is still present, it’s just clouded and distorted and marred and tainted by sin. ↩

18. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne, n.d.). STh., I q.93 a.4 ad 1. ↩

19. John M. Frame, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2013), 793–794. ↩

20. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne, n.d.). STh., I q.93 a.3 resp. ↩

21. Institutes II, xii, 6. ↩

22. [43] Hence, too, a designation of angels found in council contexts is “sons of God” (Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7; Pss. 29:1; 89:6). ↩

23. [44] Cf. Hebrews 2:7. ↩

24. Meredith G. Kline, Images of the Spirit (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 1999), 27. [45] 1 Kings 3:28, cf. 9; 2 Samuel 14:17. ↩

25. Cf. 2 Sam 14:20. ↩

26. Anthony A. Hoekema, Created in God’s Image (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1994), 73. ↩