Genesis 1:26
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness,

A number of members have referred to this recently, and I am curious:

What do you understand by this passage?

That God has a corporeal form? With a, heart, lungs, stomach etc.

Or is it in the sense of our consciousness?

Or a spiritual form?

Or ‘all three’ ?

Or ‘none of the above’ ?

I would be interested in your comments.

Rob

Hi Rob. Yes, this is an interesting verse. However, I think the answer to your question resides in the second half of the verse which you didn’t quote ...
[quote author="Gen 1:26"]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.”

I think we reflect God through our created purpose, that is in exercising godly “dominion” over the rest of the earth. Evidently this “dominion” has been corrupted by human sinfulness so instead of caring for the earth as God’s representatives and stewards, we exploit it.

Hi Rob
Youth Works has a great explanation of this passage in their Beginning with God Scripture material.

Humans beings are distinctive in creation because they were created in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-30; 5:1; 9:5; Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:10).  No other creature is described this way.  When God said ‘Now we will make humans, and they will be like us’ (genesis 1:26), he was speaking as a Being of more than one person.  We discover from the Bible that the one God has three persons - the Father (James 1:17,18), the Son Jesus (John 1:3), and the Holy Spirit (genesis 1:2; Psalm 104:30).  This means we are made for relationships and building communities, because we need each other as well as God.

Being made in God’s image means that we can know God and relate to him personally (John 17:3).  Knowing who God is gives meaning and purpose to life (Psalm 89:15; Ecclesiastes 12:13,14; Colossians 3:10).  We are moral beings who are able to discern and do right and wrong (Romans 1:17-18).  As such, we are capable of being holy if we truly know and obey God (Ephesians 4:24; 2 Peter 1:3-4).

Thax <><

Hi Craig. I think the paragraphs you’ve quoted demonstrate questionable exegesis. There is no evidence to suggest that the author of Genesis had any inkling to a trinitarian Godhead. Therefore it seems quite implausible to suggest that the author was saying in effect that we were made to reflect God being in relationship with himself.

Angus Johnson 19 August 2007 2:38pm
Hi Craig. I think the paragraphs you’ve quoted demonstrate questionable exegesis. There is no evidence to suggest that the author of Genesis had any inkling to a trinitarian godhead. Therefore it seems quite implausible to suggest that the author was saying in effect that we were made to reflect God being in relationship with himself.

Whether the writer of Genesis knew that God was triune or not, it doesn’t affect the truth that God said we were to be made in his image (Gen 1:26). With the benefit of a few thousand years hindsight perhaps, understanding better who God is does help us to understand who we are as well. It seems reasonable that knowing that God is a relational God gives me insight into why people, made in his image, are relational as well.

I love this image of God concept as it helps me understand who I am. It gives me an understanding not only who I am, but who others are, and who we are in relationship to God. The concept helps me realise that people have value and are precious to God and each other.

The best explanation I’ve heard is about our soul (pysche) - that like God we have a mind to think, a sovreign will to decide stuff and the capability to feel emotions.

Angus Johnson - 19 August 2007 04:38 PM

Hi Craig. I think the paragraphs you’ve quoted demonstrate questionable exegesis. There is no evidence to suggest that the author of Genesis had any inkling to a trinitarian godhead. Therefore it seems quite implausible to suggest that the author was saying in effect that we were made to reflect God being in relationship with himself.

Hey Angus,

Craig might be citing Youth Works, but its not their stuff. They are just recapping Karl Barth. He has a fairly extensive exegesis of these verses and a thorough defense for reading “us” in Gen 1 as a reference to the trinitarian God. You could look in Church Dogmatics III/1 pages (from memory) about 100-200.

I guess it all depends whether you come at scripture as a systematic theologian (who will concede that authors can write things better than they know because of inspiration), or as a biblical scholar (who wants only the meaning that the author intentionally put there).

That being said, I disagree with Barth’s take on the image, but for very different reasons that what you do.

[Ed: spelling]

Nathan Lovell - 19 August 2007 06:57 PM

Craig might be sighting Youth Works, but its not their stuff. They are just recapping Karl Barth.
...
That being said, I disagree with Barth’s take on the image, but for very different reasons that what you do.

Hi Nathan. Yes, perhaps I’ve been unhelpfully dogmatic in how I’ve presented my reading of this verse. While I stand by my reading, perhaps I should provide a link to John Piper’s very detailed article on The Image of God which covers various ‘positions’ on this verse.

I guess it all depends whether you come at scripture as a systematic theologian (who will concede that authors can write things better than they know because of inspiration)

I’m very happy to acknowledge an unintended (by the author) but inspired prophetic revelation in this verse - Jesus is the Image of God (Col 1:15) - but this couldn’t have been the author’s intended meaning.

I guess it means something like God calls to us and we have been given the capacity to hear and respond.
That capacity may be where the image is.
I’m never really comfortable dividing humans up into soul, body, mind, spirit etc. So that’s as good as I can do.

See here.

Martin,

You lazy sod! (He just likes to let us know that he has answered all of these questions before!  )

;-)

Well, it was two years ago - and to save everyone else having to travel over there - here is Martin’s post:

Just a quick comment or two on Gen 1:26 and the image of God.

Most English versions obscure the syntax of the Hebrew here which is accurately translated by the NET Bible:

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, after our likeness, so they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth.”

Note that the text explicitly identifies the purpose or result of being made in God’s image: to rule over creation. The ESV, for example, does not use “so that” in this verse but does so in every other instance of this particular Hebrew construction in the OT!

Anyway, this is not to say that the image of God is confined to the authority to rule, but it does at least encompass rule.

Traditionally theologians assigned different sets of attributes to ‘likeness’ and ‘image’ which humans and God supposedly shared. I think they read far too much into the text at this point. As far as I can tell, ‘image’ and ‘likeness’ are essentially synonymous.

Barth and others suggested that the image of God was a capacity to relate to God, but this view overlooks the primary meaning invested in the term by the syntax and by ancient practice where statues of monarchs were erected to represent their rule over a territory.

I hope you wont mind

Rob

Just throwing in my 2 cents worth…
It might be useful to look at at few more verses in the context

26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

As well as the image of God being about authority, the passage also highlights the male and female involvement in the ‘image’ - now this could be just saying that women are as much the image of God as men, but perhaps it is also saying that it is in our ‘maleness’ and ‘femaleness’ that the authority of God will be exercised - that would certainly dovetail in with Gen 2, which in turn may make sense of Paul’s biblical theology expressed in Ephesians 5.

It would also only be a short step from this to Barth’s understanding of a relational aspect to the “image” that echoes the Trinity.

[quote author="Mark Williamson"]As well as the image of God being about authority, the passage also highlights the male and female involvement in the ‘image’ - now this could be just saying that women are as much the image of God as men, but perhaps it is also saying that it is in our ‘maleness’ and ‘femaleness’ that the authority of God will be exercised - that would certainly dovetail in with Gen 2, which in turn may make sense of Paul’s biblical theology expressed in Ephesians 5.

It would also only be a short step from this to Barth’s understanding of a relational aspect to the “image” that echoes the Trinity.

It may also be that Gen 1 is implying that part of the means by which human beings were to subdue the earth was through filling it (so connecting the image, the command to fill the earth, the command to subdue it, all together with the image being bound up on male and female).

So what’s the relationship between ‘men and women’ as the image of God (Gen 1:27), and Christ as the ‘image of the invisible God’ (Col 1:15)?

If ‘image’ is to be found in the fact that we are male/female, then how is Christ (who is singular and only male) the image?

Hehe… those of us in 2nd year at MTC will know that I’m stirring the pot. I’ve just finished a doctrine essay on exactly this question but it will be interesting to hear what others think.

Nathan Lovell - 20 August 2007 12:12 PM

If ‘image’ is to be found in the fact that we are male/female, then how is Christ (who is singular and only male) the image?

I don’t think that ‘image’ is found “in the fact that we are male/female”, but as Mark indicated above - both men and women are created to be the Image of God (ie it’s unrelated to gender). So, Jesus is the Image of God firstly because he was born human and secondly because he is the incarnation of God.

Angus Johnson - 20 August 2007 12:26 PM

I don’t think that ‘image’ is found “in the fact that we are male/female”, but as Mark indicated above - both men and women are created to be the Image of God. So, Jesus is the Image of God firstly because he was born human (ie unrelated to his gender) and secondly because he is the incarnation of God.

Yes! I agree. (Barth doesn’t...) anyway. What does ‘born human’ mean? What is the relationship between our genome and the Image of God?

Gen 5:1-3 might be worth a gander here as well. The image seems to be passed on genetically.