The Image of God and Christlikeness
Every human being is made in the Image of God (imago dei), and as such each of us was made to represent God and be like God. For a direct treatment of this reality and its relational implications, see The Image of God.
References to the image of God appear at three turning points in the opening chapters of Genesis. At creation, God decrees, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,” and in the next verse we read that “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:26–27). After Adam and Eve are kicked out of the garden and the curse takes root on the earth, we are told again that “when God created man, he made him in the likeness of God” (5:1). And finally, after the flood the presence of the imago dei in man is reiterated a third time: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image” (9:6). By these three references we are meant to see that man was created in the image of God, that the fall did not mean the end of the imago dei, and that the punishment of the flood did not wipe it out. For a concise reflection connecting the biblical material to contemporary questions, consult Today’s Moment of Truth: Created in the Image of God?, and for thoughts on how imaging growth toward Christlikeness shows up in leadership seasons, see What Season Are You In?
Although the concept is of paramount importance in Christian theology, the explicit language of the image of God does not occur again until the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians 11:7 man is called “the image and glory of God,” and in James 3:9 we are warned against cursing “people who are made in the likeness of God.” The latter passage reinforces the idea that the imago dei is not something that belongs only to God’s people. We must be mindful that the person we are tempted to curse—whoever that person might be and whatever he has done to us—is someone made in God’s image and likeness. For discussion of how the image of God connects to discipleship in culture, see Discipleship in a Post-Christian Era.
There are two important (and related) shifts in the way in which the image of God is talked about in the New Testament.
First, in the New Testament the focus is upon Christ as the man who perfectly displays the image of God. The gospel is the message about the glory of Christ, who is the image of God (2 Cor. 4:4–6). By this gospel we can be saved (5:17–21), and by it we can be transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another (3:17–18). Likewise, in Colossians we are told that Christ, in his divine nature, is the unique image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15–20). Later, believers are told to put to death what is earthly and so be renewed in knowledge after the image of their Creator (3:5–10).
Second, in the New Testament the focus is less upon the image of God as our creational possession and more upon the image of God as our eschatological goal. As Paul says in Romans 8:29, “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.” Or, again, in 1 Corinthians 15:49, “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.” The image of God is not only what we have and what we were given; it is what we are growing into and what will one day be realized in all those (and in only those) who belong to Christ. For Christians, the image of God is both our dignity and our destiny.
