Created (to be) in God’s image

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the ratty and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
– Genesis 1:26-27

I had an interesting (and very specific!) conversation with someone today about what it means to be created in God’s image and whether that in fact implies that we’re all God’s children, since we’re told in Genesis that we’re created (as mankind universally) in God’s image. I say ‘yes’ to this latter fact, but ‘no’ to the implication that we’re all God’s children and loved by him. It might seem harsh, but read on!

On the surface it might seem like being made in God’s image is about possessing certain characteristics of ‘God-likeness’ in our being as humans, e.g., ability to have emotions, think, etc. But in the context of Genesis chapters 1-2, I don’t think it’s saying that at all. And if you read the above verses carefully, the word ‘our’ is used by God: “in our image”, “after our likeness”. This indicates that there is something unique within the personhood of God himself that denotes this ‘image-bearing’ nature of humans.

Sarah Young puts it nicely and very clearly:

At the very least [At the core] it must mean that we can relate to him in a very unique way, unlike the rest of creation. God exists in loving relationship between the three persons of the Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit)—the way he has made us to relate to one another reflects this. Also God is a ruler – we reflect his image in that we we created to rule this earth in his behalf, taking responsibility for its care.

Young here makes a few interesting and important points about what it means to be made in the image of God:
1. We were made to be in loving relationship with the three persons of God, as he is in perfect loving relationship with himself.
2. We were made to be relational with each other.
3. We were made to reflect his authority on earth as stewards of his creation, taking care of it on his behalf.

The implications of what these three things mean are wide, but I just want to focus on the first point. In other words, we’re hard-wired for relationship with our Creator. That is the fundamental point, the cornerstone, the be all end all, whatever expression you can add on to this, of what it means to be created in God’s image. But our sin—our rejection of God as the Creator, and as the king of our lives—means we don’t choose to fulfill our purpose! We choose to run our lives our own way, doing what we deem best, but all the time, we don’t gain the satisfaction that we seek and yearn for because we’re just not hard-wired to function that way. Call me dogmatic, but this is what God has to say about why we have screwed up as human beings, though there are facets of things that we are and do that are beautiful; don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that the physical world is evil because it isn’t. God created it and said it is good! But it is also tainted. Hopefully you’re getting the drift of this logic. All that remains to be said is: how can we be counted as God’s children if we reject to be so? How are we bearing God’s image if we’re severing all aspects of relating to him properly as our Creator and manager? Maybe you’re thinking ‘how have I said I’ve rejected him?’ Whether conscious or not, if we’re not letting the boss be our boss, but rather being our own bosses then it’s clear what we think about God’s place in our lives.

Being hard-wired a certain way doesn’t mean we’re robots. It means we would be optimally functioning if we lived in a way in line with the way we are hard-wired, but that means it is a choice. What do you choose? To be an image-bearer, as you were created to be, or to continue to seek to bear a self-made image?