Genesis 1:26-28:
And God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”
So God created man in his own image; in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
And God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”
This is the first time in the Bible we come across that mysterious phrase, “image of God”. The passage itself tells us what that means: it means that humans are to have dominion over the earth, over the creatures that inhabit it. An image is a representation or model of something else. Mankind, in exercising divinely-given and divinely-guided authority, represents God, who is the Creator and Ruler of all.
The image is an attribute of all human beings because it is “given” to them as a species, not as individuals. In other words, to be a human is to be an image of God, regardless of one’s mental or physical abilities. This principle, in conjunction with general principles of goodness and love, underpins the Christian doctrine of the sanctity of life. An unwarranted attack (as opposed to justified war) on human life is an attack on the image of God, and by extension God himself. For this reason, conservative Christians uphold the teaching that abortion is not morally permissible.
This idea of dominion speaks to our past in Eden, to our present age in the “valley of tears”, and to our glorious future when the resurrected saints will sit on thrones, ruling under the leadership of King Jesus. We did exercise dominion in the Garden, when Adam and Eve were its gardeners, tending and pruning the plants. We do exercise dominion of a kind now: we have subdued to the earth to make it produce crops and sustainable livestock for our needs. We shall exercise dominion in the future in a kingdom that, as the prophet Daniel puts it, “will have no end”.
The Cross stands at the centre of this story. Jesus, being by nature God, is the Creator and upholder of life. By his grace we draw breath. He is the King of Eternity. But in his humility, he took on our flesh in order to restore us to God’s original plan. More than that, he raises us higher than the position Adam occupied before the Fall. Adam was an earthly ruler, subordinate to God’s council.
Ephesians 2:6-9
[God] has raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.
The image of God goes to the core of our identity and our destiny. The story of our fall from that true model and our restoration by Christ and elevation to a seat of son-ship and blessing, lies at the heart of the Good News. We see that theme repeated again and again, perhaps most notably in the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
But God has also made us to be individuals. In our assessment of the “degeneration” of Western society and in our analysis of the “East-West Divide”, we tend to make an either/or paradigm: either individualism or community. This is a false dichotomy and places an undue “guilt-trip” on Western Christians.
God has made us as individuals. While it is true that our sin can lead us to be selfish, to be focussed on our individual needs, it is not the case that the concept of “being an individual” is bad. Community presupposes individuals. This is why St. Paul uses the image of the body with different parts in First Corinthians: he wants to simultaneously affirm our individual identities and our corporate identity as an integrated whole, united under the headship of Christ.
So, next time you think about your personal identity, think also about your status as an image of God and as a son or daughter of God. You have a glorious destiny ahead of you – but only by the grace of our wonderful Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory, honour, and power to the ages of ages. Amen.
All Along the Watchtower 
Good article, Nicholas. 🙂
If I tried, I could likely find something to disagree with – like most of us, I usually can!
But I want to say something else here. I’ve found it necessary, for several personal reasons, to somewhat withdraw from the internet, one of them being the cesspit of American politics this year, there are also others, and I hear that Chalcedon is incredibly busy with his new job. So both of us have been slackers, and I do want to thank you for covering for me, at least.
You are doing excellent articles, and I suspect that you wish that you got more engagement, well I always do as well. In your case, I suspect that you make your points well enough that most of us have little to add.
I hope that at some point, I will be able to contribute my fair share again.
Good job, my friend. 🙂
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Thanks, NEO, that’s very kind of you. I deeply sympathize with your situation in the US. It must be heart-breaking to see such poor candidates in a two-party system. I wish I could offer some practical support, but I fear they would only be platitudes or the kind of churchy statements that provoke anger rather than calm if given in the wrong circumstances.
I hope that you are able to still have some conversations with Jess, though. She’s always good at keeping up our spirits, I know.
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Thanks, Nicholas, and yes Jess has often pulled me out of various funks. It’s a tough time to be an American, or likely anybody who cares about us. God help us all!
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Indeed, and it doesn’t help that it seeps into our social situations. I was very careful when I went to work after the Brexit vote because most people at the office wanted to stay in. We all just seem to be on edge these days.
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Yep, it’s a divisive time, wish I had any answers. I don’t, but it too will likely pass.
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Yes, and the good thing about the bureaucratic side is that it at least provides some continuity. Although the House will debate the Budget till the cows come home, at least as a country you continue to invest in technology that keeps your military on the cutting edge. That will be necessary as the Middle East undergoes its next round of political changes.
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I fear so, but I also fear that our military no longer has permission to even defend itself, let alone others. We have many very good people in the military but far too often their hands are tied, and so often, we lose the best to save the rest.
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Ain’t it the truth? I suspect both America and Britain have become very legalistic. We don’t allow people flexibility any more to interpret policies and codes – we have let the lawyers win.
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Very true, and certainly not only in the defense area, we have, I think let the lawyers overstep their proper role.
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Yes. Jonathan Swift would find our modern world very distasteful.
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Indeed, he might be led to quote Shakespeare on it!
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Unfortunately that is precisely the kind of activity you can’t quash while simultaneously upholding the values of a classical liberal republic or democracy.
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True, sadly! 🙂
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As it happens, I had to cover a politics lesson recently when one of the teachers was away at a conference and the students were studying the difference between classical liberalism and modern liberalism. We got to look at our old friend Locke in comparison with people like Hegel, Green, Rawls, and Keynes.
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Quite a difference there! Locke I’ve read a goodly part of, some Hegel, and enough of Keynes to nearly make me ill. Rawls is new to me, though. What’s that you say about an echo chamber? 🙂
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LOL – Warning! Confirmation bias ahead! It’s a shame that no one really paid attention to Locke’s idea of toleration, though. It took someone like Robert Peel and the Daniel O’Connell crisis to actually get Catholics equality under the law.
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Quite so! And yes it was, although it was area, driven by religion certainly, where we did a bit better, and we have all improved greatly, although I would caution that we appear to be regressing the last few years, through hate crimes, PC, and such.
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Yes, we don’t seem to fine-tune liberty very well. And there seems in popular culture to be a confusion between liberty and libertinism, and between toleration and agreement. As I explained to my own students: toleration is believing that other people are entitled to their opinion; it does not mean agreeing with that position. You don’t tolerate something you like, you like it!
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I wonder how many times I’ve said that, to little avail, I suspect. And yes, that confusion is rampant. Too many forget that we are meant to be individual, in a community.
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Yes. Ironic, isn’t it – an age where we are ruled by the pedantry of the legal powers, but our educational system can’t teach children to parse the language properly. We need Sesame Street Redux.
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Sure enough, we do.
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mAN MADE IN THE IMAGE OF gOD HAS BEEN MISUSED BY MOST, ESPECIALLY IDOLATERS. Good brother Nicholas definition of image of god is the correct one. Its not that we look like god, …..its who we are and what we can do.
Now, there is a idolatrous cult that uses the statement that Jesus is the express image of god as a reason to make images of wood and stone of men and women, and also to bow befor them. They tell me that since god gave us his image in the form of Jesus, therefor he expects us to make other images…nay, commands us to make images of men and women. That’s why the cult eventually removed the 2nd commandment out of their bible. It raised pesky questions.
Good brother Nicholas definition of gods image can and does also apply to Jesus. Its not his physical appearance that is gods image(sorry idolaters), its who his spirit is and what he does. The idolaters don’t ever examine the scriptures. If Jesus looked like the Father in heaven, how come Jesus kept changing his looks after being resurrected? Images mislead, and god forbids them in the worship of him. Well, then the idolaters point to the trees and animals on the walls of Gods temple and the cherubs. God put those there in His house. Key word…its His house. Now examine the 2nd commandment. It says for us,mankind, not to make for us any images. God can do as he pleases. But we humans are not to make us any images. Yet these Christians go the extra mile to justify why their devotees are on their knees befor billions of graven images by saying that …and I quote…”God commands us to make images” —–Patrick Madrid;Catholic Answers, et al.
I guess if ones religion is antichrist, one is free to “let it fly”
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