Created in the image of God

Genesis 1:26 (NIV)

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.”

Animals in the air and in the water were created on the fifth day.  Animals on the ground were created on the sixth day.  Before the sixth day was completed, God then created man.  When you think about the complexity of the human body---the brain, eyes, ears, skin, bone, muscle, heart, lungs, excretory system, immunologic system, etc—all the Bible says is that God created man.  How did He do that? 

Well, we don’t know.  The greatness of God is infinitely greater than the brightest of human minds can comprehend.  The Bible chooses not to describe how God created man, perhaps because the human writer, Moses, could not possibly understand or explain how the body, soul, and spirit were created.  However, the Bible does emphasize that man was created in the image and likeness of God.  Genesis 1:26 also makes it clear that man was created by more than one person----“….let Us make man in Our image, in Our likeness……”

Who is “Us” and “Our”?  Who was with God when He created man?  Well, John 1:1, 14 affirms that Jesus was with God in the beginning.  Jesus is God according to John 8:58.  What about the Holy Spirit?  Yes, He was there too.  Note what Genesis 1:2 says: “The earth was without form and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God (Spirit in the Hebrew is “ruach” that means “air in motion” or “breath”) was hovering over the face of the waters.  So the use of the plural person pronouns indicates that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit were together during the creation of man.

Indeed, the Bible writes that God “said” and creation happened.  When God spoke, His breath in the form of the Holy Spirit came out and the spoken word became created things.  In Genesis 2:6-7, the Bible talks about God breathing into the nostrils of man and man then being a living being.  The breath of God produced human life.  It is also the case when people are reborn as Christian people.  Becoming a Christian involves the breath of God.  Jesus breathed on His disciples in John 20:22 and said “Receive the Holy Spirit”.  Indeed the Holy Spirit is also called the breath of God.  The breath of God also inspired the writing of Holy Scripture (II Tim 3:16).      

You and I are created in the image and the likeness of God.  There might be a differentiation between image and likeness, but I cannot determine.  Both are used in other verses, but this is the only verse where both are used in the same verse.  A human tendency is to interpret image or likeness in a physical sense, that God has a human form.  No, God is Spirit (John 4:24) and invisible (Col 1:15).  To be created in the image and likeness of God is to have the same spiritual nature as God.  Having the same spiritual nature as God means that man’s spirit lives on after man dies physically.

Because God created man in His image, He put in man a nature to have a personal relationship with his Creator.  St. Augustine said that “Our heart is restless until it rests in You”.  Original sin separated man from God that can only be re-established through faith in Jesus Christ, who was God in the flesh who came to earth to save us by dying on the cross for all of our sins.  That’s why when you do confess your sins and give your life to Christ, you experience peace because your spirit is united with God’s Spirit and God’s Spirit dwells in you (Romans 5:1, 8:16-17).

What and how do you think of yourself in the context of the truth of Scripture that you were created in the image of God?  Does this help you to feel better about yourself, no matter who or what you are?  How does this truth affect your relationship with other people? 

“We are all created in the image of God, and we are all sacred, valuable creations of God. Everybody matters. To treat people differently based on who believes what is to fail to respect the image of God in everyone. As the book of James says, "God shows no favoritism." So we don't either.” -- Rob Bell