Dear friends,
One of the great statements of the Bible that is most often quoted or alluded to in public Christian debate is the ‘image of God’. But what does it refer to, and to whom does it refer? In this episode we continue to look at the New Testament understanding of the early chapters of Genesis. And here we find there are more references to the image of God than in the Old Testament. For there is a great surprise in store for those who read Genesis 1.
Yours,
Phillip
Phillip Jensen: Hello again from Two Ways News.
We are talking about this famous phrase, “the image of God”. People are beginning to see how fundamental that phrase is to Western civilisation. That is where we gain the concept that all humanity is one and that all humans are the same at the most fundamental and important point. We are not like the animals. We are all in the image of God. But when you look at the New Testament, God's understanding of God's word is much greater than we may have expected just from the Old Testament. But before we get to the New Testament, Peter, how does the Old Testament treat the idea of the image of God?
Peter Jensen: It is rarely mentioned. You could say that there is a reference in Genesis 5:3, but it's not a direct reference, talking about Adam's children. “When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.” Reading it in the context, you will see, “in his image”, i.e., Seth is also an image bearer of God, as are all the descendants of Adam. But that's reading a little more into it than is specific in the text.
Phillip: It is giving us some indication of the meaning of the phrase. You are like your father, but it's more than that. You share in the inheritance of your father.
Peter: A very important point, particularly if you're going to understand how the Bible unfolds with both the doctrine of sin and also the doctrine of the significance of every single human being. A point is also made in Genesis 9:6, where there is a specific reference, "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image." The importance of this lies particularly in that it is post-the-fall, it is setting out the significance of every single human life, and it is saying the reason is that we remain the image bearers.
Phillip: This is outside the garden. This is after sin has entered the world and entered our hearts. We're still in the image of God. We don't lose that image.
Peter: The idea of being the image of God, in a sense, although not often specifically mentioned, is fundamental to virtually every page of the unfolding story of the Old Testament. Because what we have is an anthropology, an idea of human beings as, first, very precious, retaining their significance as human beings in the sight of God and therefore of one another.
Human beings have a special role within the created order, a role of being the image bearers, in other words, having dominion. But following the disastrous choice of Adam and Eve, that dominion is now exercised only with extreme difficulty, for the whole world groans, and things have gone badly wrong. And worse than that, the dominion of human beings is exercised with sin dwelling in our hearts. What you could say then is that the image of God remains, but the image of God has been terribly distorted. We don't show forth God in the way that Adam and Eve may be said to show forth God. We tarnish what we touch. So, the image is distorted by the original desire to have the knowledge of good and evil. And so, the corruption of the image bearer is virtually on every page of the Bible as sin and evil stalk the world.
Are there other mentions of ‘image'?
Phillip: Creation is assumed through it all, but you get a psalm like Psalm 8: “What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?” When you come to the creation issues, or the non-Jew issues in particular, the image is there in contrast to the idol worshippers, because the word ‘image’ is used most commonly of idols, the metal idols, the carved golden images, but they're the images of their gods, and the failure is, of course, these gods do not rule anything. The images are the images of man's imagination rather than us being the image of God. Idolatry fails us in so many ways because God speaks, God moves, God has power, God hears and God creates. Statues do not move, do not speak, do not hear, nor do they create. All images of God or gods that humans create are always misrepresentations of God. And so the actual phrase ‘image of God’ is only used on those two or three occasions you've mentioned in the early chapters of Genesis, the contrast of the false images of God occurs throughout the Old Testament. But come to the New Testament, because that's where the image language picks up again.
Peter: Before we do, Psalm 8 is also crucial. I know you mentioned it and asked the question, but if you look at the answer to the question, you'll see that the answer depends very much on Genesis 1.
What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?
Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet
It's very important. It's an exposition, if you like, of image-bearing, but it's important also because it turns up in the New Testament at a crucial moment.
Phillip: The image is a concept of ruling, of the inheritance, of the ownership of the world, that God owns the heavens and has given the world to mankind, as the psalmist says. In the New Testament, do we still have the image of God?
Peter: Occasionally, verbally, but I think it's fundamental to the thinking. It says, for example, in James 3:9, speaking of the restless evil of the tongue, “With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God.” So the image and likeness of God, that phrase from Genesis 1, is in play there. James is endorsing what we already read from Genesis 9, that we are still image bearers. Likewise, we could refer to 1 Corinthians 11:7, which calls upon the same idea. And there's an interesting phrase in Mark 12.
Phillip: Yes, Jesus is challenged about paying taxes to Caesar, and he's caught on the horns of a dilemma, because if he says, 'Yes, we pay taxes to Caesar,' the Jews would say, 'You're being unpatriotic.' And if he says, 'We don't pay taxes to Caesar,' then they'd hand him over to Caesar as punishment for not paying taxes. But he gives the clever answer.
Peter: He asks them to produce a coin, a denarius, and they brought one, and he said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?”
Phillip: 'Image' would be a better translation than 'likeness'. There are two words, ‘image’ and ‘likeness’, and they're being used synonymously, from Genesis 1. Although used synonymously, you lose the connection when the translators don't give you the same little indicator. So “Whose likeness is that?” changed to “Whose image is that?” And immediately the Bible reader thinks, ‘Oh yes, idolatry, oh yes, humans in the image of God.’
Peter: Also very important is what he then says in Mark 12:16-17
“Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said to him, “Caesar’s.” Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
And who are the image bearers of this God?
Phillip: The punchline is very simple. Caesar owns the coin, so give it to him. It's his. God owns us, so give him what he owns! We, who are in his image.
Peter: That's a little survey of some of the more explicit references in the New Testament, but there is an even more profound application of the concept. Let’s now turn to that.
Phillip: Colossians 1 speaks of Jesus and of being transferred out of the kingdom of the dominion of darkness into the kingdom of God's beloved Son. Then it tells us who this beloved Son is, the one in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the Son. He is the image of God, and it goes one step further. He is the image of the invisible. The very language of image is one of visibility, but Jesus is the image of the invisible God, and then it explains in a sense what that means: the firstborn of all creation.
But in the age of inheritances, where the firstborn inherited everything, the second born was put in the navy, the thirdborn was sent into the colonies, and the fifth or sixth born was sent into the clergy. Charles inherited the Kingdom of Great Britain and Australia, I understand also, but his brothers and his sister – no, they're not the firstborn, so they don't inherit. It's not so much being born first as being the heir, the heir of all things. That's what's meant by the image. When God created humans in his image, he gave us his world. He created us to rule over the world his way, not our way, but we were the ones whom he placed all things under our feet, as it says there in Psalm 8. Jesus is the one for whom, as the passage goes on to say, the world was created because he is the image of God.
This has incredible implications, for example, in the incarnation. How can God become man? Because man is created in the image of God, and God the Son is the image of God. While there is this massive gap between God and man, there is also a relational connection between God and man, affecting the whole nature of religious language. The trouble people have with religious language is this: are we just using analogies, or can we only speak in terms of negatives? We say, 'We're not this, we're not that,' and we can't actually say anything about God? No, we can speak univocally about God. What we say about God is what is, because God, the Son, was the Word of God, the image of God. So, in saying that God is loving, I'm not saying he's like love; I'm saying he is loving. He is love. Colossians 1:15 has huge implications.
Peter: I sometimes think that in our preaching we constantly mention the cross of Christ, which is appropriate because it is so central, but it doesn't remain central if we forget the things that lie around it, that is, its context: the resurrection, the ascension of Christ, and the present lordship of Christ. All these things will make the cross even more wonderful. Now you mentioned the incarnation. That is wonderful! And yet, even more wonderful is that the incarnate one should be crucified on our behalf. So, what I'm urging us all to do is to study the scriptures carefully to think about the present work of the Lord Jesus Christ, as well as what he achieved on the cross, which is the great work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Phillip: Some people have replaced the gospel with incarnational theology. It is the truth, but it's not the whole truth. It's an essential element of the truth, but it's because he is the incarnate that he can die as the substitute for our sins and that he is resurrected and brings us the bodily resurrection, not just his bodily resurrection, but our bodily resurrection. Creation finds its fulfilment, not just in the incarnation, but in the incarnation, in the atonement and in the resurrection. It is as the image of God that he dies on the cross and rises again. In 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 Paul says
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
As we preach the gospel, we need to preach the glory of God that is seen in the Word become flesh, dwelling amongst us, full of grace and truth. He is the one who is the proper man. That is in that great Luther hymn: “For us fights the proper man who is God himself.”
Peter: He is the proper man because, having taken on human nature, he never sheds it. He is always both God and man, which is a matter of immense hope for us. For our Adam, our real Adam, our leader, is always one of us, and we are in him.
Phillip: We are created in God's image, yet we don't seem to be ruling the world, and since the fall of Adam, we're not. Hebrews 2 picks up Psalm 8 explicitly to explain and understand this, then says
Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
This is marvellous because Jesus died for us in submission to his Father's will, paying the penalty for our sin and turning aside God's anger. Because his resurrection has fulfilled the full payment for sin, we now see Jesus where Adam was supposed to be and failed. In fact, we see Jesus crowned with even greater glory because we see the true Adam. Peter, you love eschatology and talking of the end things, and that's a key part of it. The creation is not the beginning and end of the story. That's just the beginning for us to understand what God's long-term plan was, which centres upon Jesus, the true image of God.
Peter: 1 Corinthians 15:49 says
Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.
That is the Lord Jesus. We are going to be in his image who became one of us and died for us. That is our future.
Phillip: It gets rid of the distortion that we have. We are in his image but distorted. But does that transformation wait for the last day?
Peter: We are already a new creation, as we mentioned last week. So too, the Holy Spirit is at work in our lives and hearts, having been sent. Those who believe in Jesus have received the Holy Spirit; the Spirit is at work in us. At the end of 2 Corinthians 3:18, the apostle says
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
The word ‘glory’ in the Bible means a bright ‘shiningness’ of the sun, but it also means weight; it's like gold, and we are going to be clothed with glory, and to prepare us for that, we are being changed from one degree of glory to another by the Lord who is the Spirit into the likeness of Christ.
Phillip: I like the word ‘splendour’ to capture the concept of glory. You are awestruck with the splendour of it and the splendour of God. The glory of God is found in his character and his person. We think the glory of humans is found in bodybuilders, which is such nonsense. We will have bodies that will be glorious. They will be transformed as we learn to live by truth and truth-telling rather than by lies and as we learn to live by love and justice rather than by cheating. That transformation is happening already, as mentioned in 2 Corinthians. Paul also talks about it in Colossians.
Peter: It is occurring even now and pointing towards the wonderful future. In Colossians 3:9-10, the apostle is speaking about the church and how people who belong to each other in the congregation of God's people should behave towards one another.
Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.
In other words, we are personally being transformed, but also our future is corporate. Christ died for his church. The future is not being on your own in some way, having reached your fulfilment and your ambition. The future is our fellowship, what the Bible calls the body of Christ, and together we are built up into the likeness of him who is the Lord of all.
Phillip: It's in contrast to the lies of the world; you often can hear people saying, 'I don't mind going to hell. I'll be down there with all my mates, and we'll be enjoying ourselves.’ It is stupid to say that because mateship comes from God; there is no mateship in hell. There's no love in hell, except for love of self, and when everybody loves themselves, mateship doesn't exist. Truth, love, faithfulness, kindness, gentleness, and self-control – these are the things that come from the Spirit of God. The image of heaven is one of the great feast, but the essence of feasting is not the food; it's the fellowship that you have as you consume the food. We celebrate weddings or birthdays by eating, but the important part of it is waiting till everybody is at the table and eating together and sharing the food because it's the fellowship of God's people, and that works when we're transformed into his likeness. It is the image that is that transforming work, which is in progress now but will be accomplished at the Lord's return.
Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Links & Recommendations
For more on this topic, check out this talk from the Queen’s Birthday Conference 2019 on The Idols of the Eyes.
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