Do you image God?

God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female (Genesis 1:27).

We are the youngest children of this place we call earth. Our story began long ago beyond the reaches of memory, when God created mankind in his image. What does it mean to bear God’s image? The answer from contemporary theology most often takes the form of seeking to identify the image with some characteristic or characteristics of human person, such as rationality, language, or freedom. But in its context it is far more complex. “Invariably when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe” (John Muir).

Context:  What did the original audience know and understand?

Biblical accounts often read like polemics. “Polemic” comes from the Greek polemikos meaning "warlike or belligerent." It's like challenging someone to a duel of ideas. God uses this technique in his creation story (Genesis 1 & 2), pushing back on the well-known stories of Israel’s neighbors, subverting their gods and their images. The account follows the pattern of the construction of an ancient temple, imitating the religious imagination of the nations who believed their gods lived in a garden or on a mountain. The Tower of Babel and later the Hanging Gardens of Babylon are examples of sacred mountain-gardens. This is not to say the pagans were correct, or that the God of the Bible is like their gods.  Rather, when God spoke to ancient people, he spoke to them using language and imagery they would understand. In Genesis, God is creating a sacred space, a temple garden, in which to dwell with his creation, humanity.

We live in an age of material presence that separates the sacred from the secular. Because of this bifurcation our spiritual senses are blunted and compartmentalized. In the past there was no secular space. The world was sacred, permeated by the spiritual realm, comprised of blurry category distinctions such as gods and goddesses, imps and daemons. They believed everyone was animated by a spirit. For instance, Socrates claimed to have a personal daemon who inspired him. An image, what we might call an idol, was the place where the spiritual realm encountered the human world. Sometimes the spirit took up residence in a person, such as the Oracle of Delphi, but more commonly, through a complex ritual, the spirit entered into an image created by human hands. In a temple built for the god, an elaborate ceremony was performed, opening the mouth and nose of the image so the spirit could enter. Once the god was captured, the primary task of the temple priests was to control the god and care for its image. The Genesis account upends this pagan practice.  In Eden, God creates his own temple, then he creates his own image.  God himself breathes into his image the breath of life, opening his nostrils, and the man becomes a living being. Read more here. Gregory the Theologian (AD 329-390) eloquently describes the moment, “The Word [God] spoke, and having taken a part of the newly created earth, with his immortal hands he formed his image and imparted to it his life.” On the sixth day God declared all creation good, yet before the day was done he declared something not good. The man is alone. Eve was created from Adam’s side, one flesh in two persons imaging God, and God said it was very good. Unlike any other marriage, Adam and Eve, though each found completion in the other, were essentially one being, which is the never completely achieved goal of every true marriage (here). The name Eve means “life”, Adam means “earth”. Imaging God is the essence of Eden, and it requires action. Adam and Eve are to be cocreators with God. Both are needed to accomplish God’s stated purpose: cultivate the earth and fill it with life Genesis 1:26-28. In other words, create beauty in the world (earth) and extend God’s love throughout future generations (life).

The fall of Genesis 3 represents the failure of humans to serve as the image of God. The significance of taking the forbidden fruit is this: It’s about the desire to replace God with yourself, to become your own little god—the source of your own life and being. Adam and Eve made a radical break with God, not just by disobeying a rule, but in the voluntary act of choosing to separate themselves from God at the level of their being in order to become their own little gods, able to determine good and evil. God, alone, is the source of all reality and being. Death and suffering are the natural consequences of humans attempting to change their being in a way that clashes with the nature of reality. The effect is immediate and divisive (Genesis 3:16). The man’s desire to rule over the woman is reminiscent of the pagan’s desires to rule over the god. Dividing God’s image is the handiwork of little gods. The effect ripples outward. Man must struggle in pain to produce sustenance, and woman must struggle in pain to produce offspring. There is an overtone imbedded in the concept of pain: it will permeate life. Adam will now be subject to his source, the ground, and Eve will now be subject to her source, the man. The image of God is no longer co-equal creators. Instead, the image is twisted downward, division and subjugation become the norm. This is the result of choosing man’s image over God’s image.

Sin is not mentioned in the story of Adam and Eve. It enters the human story later, directly attacking the image of God. Sin is found crouching at Cain’s door; “It desires to have you, but you must master it” (Genesis 4:7). Tragically, sin masters Cain. He does the unthinkable, he murders his brother, Abel; he murders the image of God. Justice requires vengeance. God institutes the death penalty for murder and Cain is cursed from the earth. “Then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod opposite Eden” (Genesis 4:16). Eden signifies God’s presence. Nod means “one who wonders away from God.” Such was Cain’s state. Five generations later Lamech is born into the line of Cain. He is the progenitor of polygamy, and the promoter of murder and vengeance, further denigrating the image of God. “Their thoughts were evil continually” (Genesis 6:5), resulting in the downward spiral to utter depravity. God’s warning went unheeded, “My spirit shall not always strive with mankind” (Genesis 6:3). And the flood came…

Historical Progression: Jesus’ cryptic conversation with the Jewish political and religious authorities of the first century provides a telling view into the image of God (Mark 12). The Roman imperial cult was a religion based on the deification of the Roman emperor. Refusal to participate in the cult could result in execution. Hoping to trap Jesus in his own words they asked him, “Is right to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Jesus was not fooled, he knew their hearts. He responded, “Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.” They brought the coin and he asked them, “Whose image is this?” “Caesars,” they replied. Jesus said to them, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” The text concludes “they were amazed at him.” Implied in Jesus response, which they readily understood, is the rhetorical question, “Whose image does Caesar bear?” To be according to someone’s “image” is to resemble him in some way. Jesus is the express image of the Father, and humans are created to be imagers of God by doing his good works (Ephesians 2:10), but it is possible to image someone else. Jesus made that clear. He said the Jewish leaders image their father, the devil (John 8: 37-44), furthermore, they worship in the synagogue of Satan (Revelation 2:9). Rituals and religious robes are a thin disguise. Without God humans are wretched creatures, dehumanizing others, defacing and destroying his image in unfathomable ways. When we cease to image God, when we cease to see God’s image in others, we image the demonic realm, and thereby become less and less human (here). As CS Lewis wrote, “The door to hell is locked on the inside.”

The church is God’s new creation, called to actively spread Eden out into the world, to make it a paradise in which God will dwell with humanity forever. God does not call us to do good works without equipping us with the gifts and talents to do so. The gifts are numerous and gender neutral. Everyone is called to actively and diligently participate (Mathew 25:14-30) To diminish the image of God in another is to diminish it in oneself (Romans 12:3). Occasionally, little gods exhume the splintered skeleton of man’s image, seeking once again to divide God’s image. Augustine is one example. He claimed “the woman does not possess the image of God in herself…but the man is…the image of God” (here). To which Paul would ask, “Can a man reject his own body?” (Ephesians 5:29). Woman came from man and ever after man comes from woman; both are from God (1Corinthians 11:12). Collective approval or disapproval is not based in Christian doctrine. God considers each person individually (Galatians 3:28). As Voltaire quipped, “In the beginning God created us in his image and we’ve been returning the favor ever since.” Eventually the church went back to the garden and rediscovered the image of God in everyone— man, woman, and child— present at each stage along life’s continuum. No one is exempt. Furthermore, Jesus is willing to restore little gods to the image of God. Love overlooks a multitude of shortcomings; it is the defining characteristic of Jesus Christ. He calls us to imitate him by loving one another (John 13:34), even our enemies. “Implicit in that plea or prayer is that humanity, as the image of God, is deserving of love. This thought of loving one another was conjured like a flame. It was so confronting and enraging that the man who stood for it and said it was nailed to a tree until dead as an example to all. That day, the crazed crowd demanded the release of Barabbas, a Jewish bandit and rabble-rouser, and the execution of Jesus, who is the exact representation of God” (Neil Oliver). Indelibly displayed on that day is God’s definition of love; it is unmitigated sacrifice. He laid himself down so that we may rise again. When we image him we reflect God’s love to the world and human beings flourish.

Conclusion: To be human is to bear God’s image, the crown of his creation. Human imagination is a repetition in the finite mind of God’s eternal act of creation (Samuel T Coleridge). We are to be cocreators in collaboration with his reality. As his image bearers, when we reflect God we regain our original perception of creation, the lost perception of Eden, you might say, before we divided creation into good and evil, back when we saw along with God that it was good. God ceased his work on the seventh day, but there is still work to be done. We are, each of us, the eighth day. What spirit animates us? If we create in God’s image the fruit we bear will be very good.

Sources: Journey to Reality, Zachary Porcu; The Religion of the Apostles, Stephen De Young; Man as the Image of God in Reverse: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/wholecounsel/2018/06/19/man-as-the-image-of-god-in-reverse/ ; Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, Michael Pomazansky; The Truth and Beauty, Andrew Klavan; How God Sees Women, Terran Williams; The Unseen Realm, Michael Heiser