Genesis 1:27 single handedly lays down one of the most important and diverse theological concepts in all of Scripture. It says, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
It is not uncommon for the discussion about the meaning of man as Image of God to focus on some attributes that we are assumed to share with God. Our dashing good looks for starters, but more importantly our intellectual and moral awareness, creativity, our desire to order our world, and the like. Like Father like Child; we are chips off the old divine block.
Without taking away from this obvious elevation of man over the rest of God’s wild kingdom, this fixation on attributes misses what would have been obvious and far more basic to those reading Genesis in the pagan context of its penning—Man as God’s image is Man as God’s Idol. There are several Hebrew words in the Old Testament for pagan idols and “Image” from Genesis 1:27 is one of them.
Now, before we lose our minds over this idea, it’s important for us to understand exactly what the author of Genesis means by talking about men and women this way. This does not embracing some pagan idea about God, Man, or reality by designating man as the idol of God. In fact, other than declaring Yahweh to be the One Holy Creator of all, the one and only true God, there could hardly be a more anti-pagan sentiment than declaring man the Idol of God in the world.
The secret to seeing Genesis 1:27 as the knock-out punch that it is to the entire pagan worldview is to understand the role given to idols in Ancient Near Eastern paganism and to understand the implications of this shift in Biblical worldview from “image as object” to “image as man.” Man as Image of God is function, calling, identity, protected status, process and telos… God’s end goal for us.
While there is no time here to present the whole complex vision of God, Man, and Reality in the pagan worldview, we must, at least, give a nuts and bolts picture of the function of idols in pagan worship so as to reveal the basic sense this concept would have had to those Israelites struggling between the Biblical worldview presented by the Prophets of Yahweh and the pagan worldview dominating the rest of the planet.
First, the idol is not the god. Pagans didn’t think they were actually making deities, in and of themselves. The idol was the image of the god ritually transformed into a portal for the god. This is what Paul means when he says in 1 Corinthians 10:19-20, “What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God.” In paganism, the idol is opened up spiritually through ritual magic to become a portal of rule and divine presence in the temple of the god… i.e. the god’s special place to rule and reign. The idol is meant to be a spirit infused instrument for the reigning of the deity in his or her realm.
Thus, to say that man—male and female—is made in the image of God is to declare man’s function, man’s commission, man’s calling. God made man to rule and reign on earth as His regents, spirit-filled instruments to extend His rule and authority over His creation until the whole of the created order is like Eden, His temple in the earth. It is, therefore, no accident that the actual making of man in God’s image in Genesis 1:27 is followed by the detailing of Man’s commission to take dominion, in Genesis 1:28, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
What we have in the fall of man into sin, therefore is not so much a marring of God’s image as an open rebellion against man’s very reason for being, a throwing over of our commission and calling to fulfill the will and purpose of the Creator in the world in order to fulfill our own.
We see the emergence then of decisively self-interested worship in paganism. Man pushes the spirit of the god away from himself and engages the god through the demonized object. The worshipper objectifies his god, manipulating his god, who is susceptible to the rules of ritual magic, in order to turn the power of the god to the worshipper’s own purpose.
When Jesus is pulled into a lose-lose trap between those who cooperated and those who resisted Roman rule over the Jews, Image as identity comes to the foreground. Jesus is asked to settle the matter of whether it is right to pay taxes to Caesar while standing in a crowd populated with folks who would kill Him for saying, “Yes,” and others who would kill Him for saying “No!”
As usual, Jesus pulls out a win-win. Presenting a coin used to pay the Roman tax, Jesus asks whose image is on it. They reply “Caesars.” Then comes the boom. Jesus says “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Many preachers read this and say, “Wow, yeah, pay your taxes AND your tithe.” And I’m like, “Missed it, Dude.” The message is far more profound than that…. But please, do pay your tithe; I need a raise.
The question to be asked and carefully answered is, “If Caesar’s image stamped on the coin makes the coin Caesar’s, then what is stamped with the image of God that makes it HIS!!!”
Answer: You are.
You were made to be filled with God’s Holy Spirit and to submit yourself wholly to HIS rule as HIS regent over HIS creation. You are His… now act like it.
Image of God also provides one of the most productive foundations for thriving human society. In Genesis 9:6, we find the seed of all just laws, saying, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.” To strike at God’s image is to strike at God. The fall does not change this. As David refused to raise his hand against the Lord’s anointed, evil as Saul had become, so God has called upon all men to honor the image of God in his fellow man. Every man, woman, and child, rich or poor, intelligent or diminished, of every race and tongue is Image of God and deserves to be treated with all the honor that such a status demands.
Finally, in the New Testament, incarnate God comes to us in Jesus Christ, who is, says Paul in Colossians 1:15, “the image of the invisible God…” In Him, we find the hope of last days’ actualization woven into man’s status and commission as Image of God. Indeed, Paul declares in Romans 8:29, “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. ” Through Him, says Paul in 2 Corinthians 3:18, “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image.” As God called Adam to “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion… over every living thing that moves on the earth,” so Christ has, in His parting, commissioned us, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”
We are God’s image. We are called therefore to function as God’s image. We are called to live a Spirit-filled life honoring to both God and to others bearing that image. If we do, God brings us through an often painful discipling process of becoming more and more like Jesus. This process will culminate in our final transformation into His image, as 1st John 3:2-3 declares, saying, “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,” but until that day, says John, “everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies himself as He is pure.”
