Introduction

Picture of my dad and grandmother.

Images reveal—but not fully. They are representations—but very imperfect ones.

This morning we think about one of the great marvels of our humanity, that we are made in the image of God. Not just Christians but all people. Not just on our best days—but even on our worst.

It is a powerful idea with enormous implications.

Series: Right from the Start. Genesis. As the Old Testament, Jesus, and the New Testament affirm, these are the words of Moses. Writing about what actually happened at the start. We look to Genesis for inspired history and not just inspired theology.

For these several weeks we’re looking closely at what God says about humanity. The technical term is “anthropology,” the study of man. Very different than the anthropology my son is learning about at NC State. Our topics:

• Sex and Gender (Oct 22, 29)
• Image of God (Nov 5)
• Sabbath (Nov 12)
• Vocation (Nov 19)
• Marriage (Nov 26)
• The Fall (Dec 3)

What was true “right from the start.” You can’t really get your bearings without looking back to “the start.”

Sermon: (1) The Special Act of Our Creation; (2) The Image of God; (3) The Image of God East of Eden. Understand what it means to be made in the image of God—and live in light of it.

Prayer

I. The Special Act of Our Creation

Day 6 of creation has a lot of parts to it. First “God made the beasts of the earth” and “saw that it was god.” See that in Genesis 1:24–25. God is involved, but like all things in the first five days, he speaks and it happens. Creation by fiat, or creation by decree.

But then on day 6 is a radical break in the pattern. There’s a dramatic pause. A new kind of action that tells us something important is about to happen: God deliberates.

“Let us make...”

Before he spoke and galaxies were made. Here he deliberates. Not because he needed to deliberate. He “chose to” as a “tribute to the excellency of man” (Calvin). It was to instruct us and call attention to humanity.

Just like he took six days to create, when he could have done it all in a moment. He took six days to teach us about himself and about the creation. So here he deliberates with himself.

This is a deliberation within God himself as Father, Son, and Spirit. We know that because of what he says right after this: “Let us make man in our image.” The ones doing the deliberating are the ones making mankind in their image. We are not made in the image of angels or the heavenly host. We are made in the image of God.[1]

There’s the deliberation. Then in chapter 2 we read that Adam was formed from the dust of the ground—and then God “breathed” a soul into him and he came to life (Gen 2:7). The woman’s special creation was from the rib of Adam. From his DNA and body, she was created by God.

No angel, no animal, nothing else in all creation is created in this EXALTED manner.

God didn’t need to do this. He did it to teach us that mankind is unlike anything else in all the visible or invisible creation.

Herman Bavinck, The Christian Family

God first created man, his body coming from the dust of the earth, his soul created by the breath of life breathed in from above....With the body, man stands in fellowship with the earth; with the spirit, which is from above, man is related to heaven...In a special sense a human person is a product of God; a person in his image and likeness, his child and his race.
Herman Bavinck, The Christian Family[2]

And this special creative activity of God was not just true of the first man and first woman. It’s true for each of us:

13 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. (Ps 139:13-14)

The same kind of special creative activity in the garden takes place in the womb.

APPLICATION: Being pro-life and anti-racist.

II. The Image of God

Read Genesis 1:27.

Now what does it mean that we’re made in the image of God? Moses writes this in a culture very used to images of Gods. You go to a temple and there’s a statue or carving of some kind that represents the god you’re worshiping.

To that ancient mind, where the statue is, there the god is. It represents the god.

And the image itself is likely some animal or image that is meant to capture something of what the god is like. It’s going to be a bull or lion to capture the strength of the god. Or some image that speaks of fertility.

Israel was told very specifically and very often that their worship was never to do that. The were never to create an image of God or a picture of God.

That’s the point of the second commandment:

4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Exod 20:4-6)

When they conquered the land of Canaan, they were to destroy all the images used in worship by those nations (Num 33:52).

But there’s one image of himself that God allows—and that’s us. We are his image and likeness—not to be an object of worship in any way at all. But we are nonetheless the only image God allows.

At this point in the Bible’s storyline, we aren’t sure exactly how God and humanity are similar. But as it unfolds, we learn more about God and more about ourselves. From that increased revelation we learn how we’re made in the image of God.

Other things can reveal certain things about God—angels, the creation itself. But only mankind is said to be “made/created in the image of God.”

Aspects of the image of God:[3]

The Image of God is in...

1. Our Soul
2. Our Soul's Faculties
3. Our Virtues
4. Our Body
5. Our Original Home in Paradise
6. Our Dominion
7. Our Relationships/Duality-in-Unity
8. Our Sonship
9. Our Soul Itself – Our soul is a distinct part of us. It’s the part of us that isn’t our body but is inseparable from our body. Sometimes our “soul” is called our “spirit”:

Stephen at his martyrdom:

And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” (Acts 7:59)

This images God who is spirit and has no body. Herman Bavinck says, “The spirituality, invisibility, unity, simplicity, and immortality of the human soul are all features of the image of God” (Bavinck, RD, 2:555).

2. Our Soul’s Faculties – Within our soul is a deep diversity and unity of abilities. Our soul does these different things but always as a unity. Our soul is also called “the heart” in the Bible. And “the heart” overflows into all of our life and behavior (Prov 4:23; Luke 6:45). Our thinks and meditates (Ps 19:14). Our heart “longs for God” (Ps 84:2).

But all these abilities of the heart or soul are the same part of us. We sometimes speak in terms of our “heart, mind, and will”—but it’s different faculties of the same soul doing all this (Bavinck, Augustine). And this images God. We see God in the Bible doing these things.

As much as we try and put these abilities on dogs and cats, they don’t do these things at all like we do! Not dog or cat ever tried to imagine what it was like to be a person. But plenty of us have wondered what our dog or cat is thinking.

3. Our Virtues – There was an “original righteousness” in us that images God (Turretin). It was something that could be lost, but it was something we possessed. We see it in Adam’s naming of the animals and embracing the woman given to him by God. They walked with God in their integrity and obedience. Not for long, but at least for some period of time. This righteousness images God.
4. Our Body – It’s true as Jesus said that “God is spirit” (John 4:24), but it’s also true that “the heavens declare the glory of God” (Ps 19:1). Through the heavens as we saw from Romans 1, the “invisible attributes” of God are made visible. And so, too, with our bodies, our invisible souls are made visible.

But there’s something else about our bodies as well. One author even noted how our ears point to the fact God hears us. Our eyes point to the fact God sees us. Our voice points to the fact God communicates with us. Our hands and feet point to the fact God acts in our lives.[4]

5. Our Original Home in Paradise – Eden was a Paradise. Not our final home but still a paradise. Adam and Eve being placed there points to God’s dwelling in heaven. It is a Paradise. That’s why Jesus could tell the thief on the cross, “Today, you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43).[5]

We’re reminded here of our future dwelling with God. A “new heaven and new earth” is coming, where we’ll dwell with God forever (Rev 20–21).

6. Our Dominion – Right after being made in the image of God, God will bless the couple by telling them to “have dominion” (Hoekema). We are “vice-regents” of God who is the King over all things. He delegates responsibility to us. It’s a real authority even if it’s an authority UNDER HIM.
7. Our Relationships/Duality-in-Unity – Like the Triune God himself, who is one God in three persons, the male and female are “one flesh” in two persons (Gen 2:24).

Adam and Eve image God in a distinct way in their marriage. But we image God through relationships. In relationships, especially in the church, we image God who is three-in-one. In the church we are “one body” even as we are “many parts” (1 Cor 12:27).

Herman Bavinck

The woman herself, seen as a human being, bears the image and likeness of God fully as much as the man does. The creation story in Genesis shows this clearly in the fact that both together are said to have been created in God’s image (Gen 1:27). Not merely one of them, but both, and not the one separate from the other, but man and woman together, in mutual relation, each created in his or her own manner and each in a special dimension created in God’s image and together displaying God’s likeness. For this reason the Lord compares himself not only to a Father who takes pity on his children (Ps 103:13), but also to a mother who cannot forget her nursing child (Isa 49:15). He chastens like a father (Heb 12:6), but he also comforts like a mother (Isa 66:13), and replenishes for the loss of both (Ps 27:10).....Together in mutual fellowship they bear the divine image. God himself is the Creator of duality-in-unity
Herman Bavinck, The Christian Family[6]

8. Our Sonship – Another side of our humanity captured by “image” is the idea of being sons and daughters of God. A child is an image and likeness of his parents. This is true not just by redemption, but by creation. This is not the same as saying we’re saved. It has to do with our original creation.

Genesis 5, Acts 17, Luke 3:

When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. (Gen 5:3)

Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. (Acts 17:29)

Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the son of Heli...the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. (Luke 3:23, 38)

And this is something that separates us completely from angels and animals. There is a special connection between God and humanity profoundly different from any other creature. We are his “offspring” in a way nothing else is.

God said of angels, “Let there be,” and they were. Just like the beasts of the field, though they are more exalted. But we are called “God’s offspring” (Acts 17:29).

But there’s a reason why it is mankind that judges angels (1 Cor 6:3). Angels will not judge us.

APPLICATION:

• Know this for yourself - No person is so disfigured in body or soul that the image of God is not present in him. No person is so beautiful in body and soul that the fall of Adam is not present in him. The residue of sin remains.
• Know this for every person you will meet

III. The Image of God East of Eden

Things changed radically when sin entered the world. Whatever was true of us as made in the image of God in the Garden of Eden, things are different now.

Was it lost? No (Gen 9:6; James 3:9).

No human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. (James 3:8-9)

***This is really important. We don’t live in Eden. We live East of Eden. In a fallen world where bodies and souls aren’t what they were supposed to be.

Some minds will never function like they were supposed to. Some bodies battle profound diseases.

But James reminds us that even in this fallen state, we all and we each possess the image of God. All people are made in the image of God.

Was it lost? Yes (Col 3:9–10; Eph 4:24).

9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. (Col 3:9-10)

How is it regained? Through Christ—the perfect image and representation of God (Col 1:15; Heb 1:3).

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. (Col 1:15)

He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. (Heb 1:3)

The glory of Christ! The glory of his perfection! The glory of his heart, mind, and will. The glory of his relationship with God. The glory of his redemption that undoes the work of the devil.

IMAGE AND MORALITY

James 3:9 tells us something. It tells us that being made in the image of God should affect how we treat people.

We don’t “curse” people because they are made in the image of God. Genesis 9:6 says we aren’t to murder people because they’re made in the image of God.

Conclusion

In many profound ways we image God.

APPLICATION:

• Let it impact how THINK of people.
• Let it impact how you TREAT people.
• Let it impact how you THINK of yourself.
• Let it impact how you TREAT yourself.

Prayer and closing song (“Build My Life”)

[1] John Sailhamer, John Calvin, and Herman Bavinck approach the text this way. Sailhamer was especially helpful on it (Genesis, EBC).

[2] Herman Bavinck, The Christian Family, trans. Nelson D. Kloosterman (Grand Rapids, MI: Christian’s Library, 2012), 2.

[3] These ideas are taken from John Calvin’s Institutes (Book 1 chp 15) and his commentary on Genesis; Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics, Vol 2 (555–562) and The Christian Family; Francis Turretin’s Institutes, Question 11; Anthony Hoekem’s Created in God’s Image (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1986); Brian Rosner’s Known by God; and Bruce Waltke’s commentary on Genesis.

[4] See Bavinck and Waltke on these ideas.

[5] See Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics.

[6] Herman Bavinck, The Christian Family, 3, 5.