Made in the Image and Likeness of God



Reading: Mt. 22.15-22

Give to God what is God’s

We have lately heard reports after the Presidential and Vice-Presidential debates that no “knock-out punch was thrown.” Well, unlike in those debates, in Jesus’ answer to Israel’s religious leaders he does deliver a knock-out punch. They had tried to trap him with their question. If he answered one way, the people would become disillusioned in him. If he answered the other way, he would become Rome’s enemy. The leaders thought they had him. His answer silenced them, sent them away and caused his listeners to marvel.

His answer is more than just a fiery debate ender. It reveals much about who we are: “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” What does it mean to us? What is Caesar’s? Jesus’ answer is that which bears Caesar’s image and likeness belongs to Caesar. What then is God’s that we could give it to him? What is it that bears God’s image and likeness? The answer is at the core of Christianity’s message. We, humans, bear God’s image and likeness. Jesus is implying to us to give ourselves to God, for we are his. Jesus is calling us to return to God the Father. In Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, he shows us that he is the Way for us to return to the Father.

If one considers the range of self-portraits done by artists, the spectrum includes the abstract, profane, solemn, beautiful and mad. When considering one’s own image in a mirror or photograph, we perceive a similar spectrum of attributes in the way we view ourselves. An analysis of our personalities, thoughts or behaviors produces similar spectrums of conclusions about ourselves. People are generally not satisfied with their self-image; therefore, we do not necessarily understand what motivates God and what God means in making people in his self-image and likeness. One evangelical theologian asserts, "A full understanding of man's likeness to God would require a full understanding of who God is in his being and in his actions and a full understanding of who man is and what he does." (Grudem 190) That’s the rub of what the Bible tries to show us…who God is and who we are. To understand what it means to be made in the "image and likeness" of God, we must gain an understanding of God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and their actions. This begins in the self-revelation of God in Scripture and continues with the image of God perfectly displayed in Jesus Christ who is God. And then there is the completion of us being recreated in the full image of God in Jesus Christ and returning to the Father.

We learn from the creation account in Genesis that humans are made in God's image and likeness,

Genesis 1:26-27 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.

God has made all humans in his image and likeness. In Jesus’ question and in these verses “image” and “likeness” are synonyms indicating a representation. Humans are not created identical to God but serve as his "created analogy." (Ferguson 328) In other words, we are created representations of God and analogous to God.

The Psalmist sheds light on God's thoughts and investment in creating humans. He says to God,

"I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them. (Ps 139.14-16)

God takes great care in making us in his image and likeness; the image and likeness of God is not our appearance so much as the moral, spiritual, mental and relational aspects of people. (Grudem 191-192) All of these attributes make up the image and likeness of God. The image of God pervaded the whole of Adam and Eve, spirit, soul and body. They were fully, distinctly and wonderfully made in God’s image. Humanity represents a wonderful work…God’s masterpiece and self-portrait.

When creating Adam, God breathed the breath of life into a body formed from the dust of the earth. He placed the glory of his self into it. The breath of God formed the man's spirit, the spirit united with and informed the godlike soul, and the body was consumed in God's light. The Holy Spirit no longer only hovered over the waters but indwelled the creation.

As we consider this brief episode of paradise before sin entered people, we see the tree of life in the garden as a beacon of God's desire for eternal fellowship with a race of people bearing his image and likeness. This reveals God's delight in humans. In the Book of Proverbs in the Bible, the voice of wisdom personified, a voice that I think is indicative of the voice of God the Son beside God the Father at the beginning of creation, reveals God's joy in creating people. He says,

"Then I was beside him, like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man." (Prov 8:30-31)

There is a tangible delight that God experiences in his creation. God created people to look and act as much like himself as anything he could create. This is what prompted me to begin a poem summarizing the gospel story with the following verse:

Jointly, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit

Endeavored to create a being

Similar to themselves,

Unlike anything ever seen,

Symphonious to Heaven’s Trinity.

--From the poem The Story of God and Man (JESUS)

Unlike sinful people, God absolutely loves and likes himself. "God is love." (1 Jn 4.7) He is not like us. God is thrilled with his self-image…It is the image of love. In creating humans in his image, he gives to people the very best that he can imagine and create.

In creating humans in his image and likeness, God gave people freedom; freedom to love him or not to love him. The theologian Emil Brunner writes, "God is the One who wills to have from me a free response to his love, a response which gives back love for love, a loving echo, a loving reflection of His glory." (Brunner 467) God desires that people participate in his attributes, but the requisite for participation has always been freedom. A free return of what God has created and given. Adam and Eve were made glorious and beautiful, full of love, goodness, possessing power to do good or evil, so that people would be not God’s servants only but his children—children who would choose to love him as Father, choose to belong to him and his family.

Despite the sins of Adam and Eve, the fall of humanity, and our sins, there is still a continual stamp upon the nature of people that we are and have always been made in God's image and likeness. Human life is never independent of the will and Spirit of God. (Colwell 29) As Job admits, "The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life." (Job 33.4) However, the image of God in people has become distorted and partially lost due to sin. People no longer automatically possess the eternal, abundant life and glory of God, that light of life that includes the character of God. We do not see a human possess the full image and likeness of God until Jesus Christ comes in the fullness of God’s image and likeness. Jesus was born in the likeness of men (Phil 2.7), and he also possessed the life that is the exact and full image of God, the eternal light of life and of people. (Jn 1.4)

While all others are born in sin, Jesus is "the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation." (Col 1.15) He is "the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature." (Heb 1.3) Jesus gives himself to the Father in voluntary belonging. Because of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, we can give ourselves to God and regain through Jesus the full image of God.

Those who give to God what still bears his image by coming to the cross of Jesus and asking for forgiveness and pardon of sins, receive the forgiveness of sins, are recreated in Christ and are being transformed and conformed into his full image. (2 Cor 3.18; Rom 8.29) The Bible says that Jesus will appear again and we shall become like him as he transforms even our “lowly” bodies to be like his “glorious” body in the place he has prepared for us. (Phil 3.21)(1 Jn 3.2) (Grudem 190-191)

You can give to God what is his by returning to him and inviting the Lord to come and live in you and transform you into the image of Christ. God sent his son into the world for you, because you are his, and his love for you has never decreased. Jesus has come that you might come home to him, voluntarily returning to him what is his own.

Give to God what is God’s: yourself.

Works Consulted

Bray, G.L. “Image of God.” New Dictionary of Biblical Theology. Eds T. Desmond Alexander, Brian S. Rosner, D. A. Carson, Graeme Goldsworthy. Downers Grove: IVP, 2000. 575-576.

Brunner, Emil. “from The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption: Dogmatics, Vol. 2.” Christian Theology Reader 3nd Ed. Ed. Alister McGrath. Malden: Blackwell, 2007. 467-469.

Cowell, J. E. “Anthropology.” New Dictionary of Theology. Eds. Sinclair Feguson, David Wright, J.I. Packer. Downer’s Grove: IVP, 1988. 28-30.

Erickson, Millard. Introducing Christian Doctrine. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1992.

Ferguson, S. B. “Image of God.” New Dictionary of Theology. Eds. Sinclair Feguson, David Wright, J.I. Packer. Downer’s Grove: IVP, 1988.328-329)

Grudem, Wayne. Bible Doctrine. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999.

Keener, Craig. A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. Grand Rapids: William Eerdmans Publ Co., 1999.

McGrath, Alister. Christian Theology 4th Ed. Malden: Blackwell, 2007.

Stephans, Craig. “Made in the Image and Likeness of God.” Systematic Theology. Dr. Rev. Justyn Terry. TESM. Spring 2008.

Stephans, Craig. Life as God Has it. Lima, OH: Express Press, 2000.

Stephans, Craig. “The Story of God and Man (JESUS). 2007

Wenham, G.J. “Genesis.” New Bible Commentary. Eds. G. J. Wenham, J. A. Motyer, D. A. Carson and R. T. France. Downers Grove: IVP, 1994. 54-91.

Wilkins, Michael J. Matthew. The NIV Application Commentary. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004.

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