HUMANNESS GOD MADE HUMAN BEINGS IN HIS IMAGE So God created man in his own image, in the image

of God he created him; male and female he created them. Gen. 1:27 The statement at the start of the Bible (Gen. 1:2627, echoed in 5:1; 9:6; 1 Cor. 11:7; James 3:9) that God made man in his own image, so that humans are like God as no other earthly creatures are, tells us that the special dignity of being human is that, as humans, we may reflect and reproduce at our own creaturely level the holy ways of God, and thus act as his direct representatives on earth. This is what humans are made to do, and in one sense we are human only to the extent that we are doing it. Gen 1 26 And God said, Let us make humankind in our image and according to our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of heaven, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every moving thing that moves upon the earth. 27 So God created humankind in his image, in the likeness of God he created him, male and female he created them. Gen 5 This is the record of the generations of Adam. When God created Adam, he made him in the likeness of God. Gen 9 6 He who sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God was man created. 1 Cor 11 7 For indeed a man ought not to cover his head, because he is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of the man. James 3 9 With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. The scope of Gods image in man is not defined in Genesis 1:2627, but the context makes it clear. Genesis 1:125 sets forth God as personal, rational (having intelligence and will, able to form plans and execute them), creative, competent to control the world he has made, and morally admirable, in that all he creates is good. Plainly, Gods image will include all these qualities. Verses 2830 show God blessing newly created humans (that must mean telling them their privilege and destiny) and setting them to rule creation as his representatives and deputies. The human capacity for communication and relationship with both God and other humans, and the God-given dominion over the lower creation (highlighted in Ps. 8 as the answer to the question, What is man?), thus appear as further facets of the image. Gods image in man at Creation, then, consisted (a) in mans being a soul or spirit (Gen. 2:7, where the NIV correctly says living being; Eccles. 12:7), that is, a personal, self-conscious, Godlike creature with a Godlike capacity for knowledge, thought, and action; (b) in mans being morally upright, a quality lost at the Fall that is now being progressively restored in Christ (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10); (c) in mans environmental dominion. Usually, and reasonably, it is added that (d) mans God-given immortality and (e) the human body, through which we experience reality, express ourselves, and exercise our dominion, belong to the image too. Gen 2 7 when Yahweh God formed the man of dust from the ground, and he blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. Eccles 12 7 And the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the breath returns to God who gave it. Col 3 9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.

The body belongs to the image, not directly, since God, as we noted earlier, does not have one, but indirectly, inasmuch as the God-like activities of exercising dominion over the material creation and demonstrating affection to other rational beings make our embodiment necessary. There is no fully human life without a functioning body, whether here or hereafter. That truth, implicit in Genesis 1, was made explicit by the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus Christ: as the true image of God in his humanity as well as in his divinity. The glorified Lord Jesus is embodied to all eternity, just as Christians will be. The Fall diminished Gods image not only in Adam and Eve but in all their descendants, that is, the whole human race. We retain the image structurally, in the sense that our humanity is intact, but not functionally, for we are now sins slaves and unable to use our powers to mirror Gods holiness. Regeneration begins the process of restoring Gods moral image in our lives, but not till we are fully sanctified and glorified shall we reflect God perfectly in thought and action as mankind was made to do and as the incarnate Son of God in his humanity did and does (John 4:34; 5:30; 6:38; 8:29, 46; Rom. 6:4, 5, 10; 8:11). John 4 34 My food, said Jesus, is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. John 5 30 By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me Rom 6 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. Rom 8 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.

On Barth - The first principle to keep in mind, then, in understanding Barths doctrine of the image is that it is articulated in a thoroughly anti-metaphysical context. What does that mean? It means that Barth stands in the tradition of modern German protestant theology which grew increasingly suspicious of speculative medieval and Greek ontological formulations. This goes back to Schleiermacher and is a common concern through Ritschl and von Harnack. So, to put it simply, the image is NOT a substance or thing which man possesses That brings us to the second principle found in Barths doctrine of the image. The image is fundamentally a relationship. There is an I/Thou relationship in God. However, that relationship is not that of two individuals, but of one. In God there is contained in a whole the object-subject relationship. But this I/Thou relation in God has an analogue in man, who is himself relational. That brings us to the third principle. Man images God by virtue of his male/female relation. Man confronts man in the male/female relationship. This is the I/Thou relationship which imitates God who is himself an I/Thou, object/subject, relationship. Barth makes much of this. This IS the image of God in man. Man is the imago dei only and in so much as he is male and female. And, finally, the image of God is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is himself the I/Thou relationship. He IS the male/female relation in that he is never an abstract person. But is always an everywhere the groom of his bride, the community of faith. He is the I-groom in eternal relation with his Thou-bride. He is the the solution to the age-old subject/object relation. He IS the eternal divine I who eternally relates with the human Thou in the everlasting knowledge of God as the one who is with us in a third time of redemption. Accident, as used in philosophy, is an attribute which may or may not belong to a subject, without affecting its essence

Calvin
In our image, etc. Interpreters do not agree concerning the meaning of these words. The greater part, and nearly all, conceive that the word image is to be distinguished from likeness. And the common distinction is, that image exists in the substance, likeness in the accidents of anything. They who would define the subject briefly, say that in the image are contained those endowments which God has conferred on human nature at large, while they expound likeness to mean gratuitous gifts.86 But Augustine, beyond all others, speculates with excessive refinement, for the purpose of fabricating a Trinity in man. For in laying hold of the three faculties of the soul enumerated by Aristotle, the intellect, the memory, and the will, he afterwards out of one Trinity derives many. If any reader, having leisure, wishes to enjoy such speculations, let him read the tenth and fourteenth books on the Trinity, also the eleventh book of the City of God. I acknowledge, indeed, that there is something in man which refers to the Father and the Son, and the Spirit: and I have no difficulty in admitting the above distinction of the faculties of the soul: although the simpler division into two parts, which is more used in Scripture, is better adapted to the sound doctrine of piety; but a definition of the image of God ought to rest on a firmer basis than such subtleties. As for myself, before I define the image of God, I would deny that it differs from his likeness. For when Moses afterwards repeats the same things he passes over the likeness, and contents himself with mentioning the image. Should anyone take the exception, that he was merely studying brevity; I answer, that where he twice uses the word image, he makes no mention of the likeness. We also know that it was customary with the Hebrews to repeat the same thing in different words. besides, the phrase itself shows that the second term was added for the sake of explanation, Let us make, he says, man in our image, according to our likeness, that is, that he may be like God, or may represent the image of God. Lastly, in the fifth chapter, without making any mention of image, he puts likeness in its place, (Genesis 5:1.) Although we have set aside all difference between the two words we have not yet ascertained what this image or likeness is. The Anthropomorphites were too gross in seeking this resemblance in the human body; let that reverie therefore remain entombed. Others proceed with a little more subtlety, who, though they do not imagine God to be corporeal, yet maintain that the image of God is in the body of man, because his admirable workmanship there shines brightly; but this opinion, as we shall see, is by no means consonant with Scripture. The exposition of Chrysostom is not more correct, who refers to the dominion which was given to man in order that he might, in a

certain sense, act as Gods vicegerent in the government of the world. This truly is some portion, though very small, of the image of God. Since the image of God had been destroyed in us by the fall, we may judge from its restoration what it originally had been. Paul says that we are transformed into the image of God by the gospel. And, according to him, spiritual regeneration is nothing else than the restoration of the same image. (Colossians 3:10, and Ephesians 4:23.) That he made this image to consist in righteousness and true holiness, is by the figure synecdoche; for though this is the chief part, it is not the whole of Gods image. Therefore by this word the perfection of our whole nature is designated, as it appeared when Adam was endued with a right judgment, had affections in harmony with reason, had all his senses sound and well-regulated, and truly excelled in everything good. Thus the chief seat of the Divine image was in his mind and heart, where it was eminent: yet was there no part of him in which some scintillations of it did not shine forth. For there was an attempering in the several parts of the soul, which corresponded with their various offices. In the mind perfect intelligence flourished and reigned, uprightness attended as its companion, and all the senses were prepared and molded for due obedience to reason; and in the body there was a suitable correspondence with this internal order. But now, although some obscure lineaments of that image are found remaining in us; yet are they so vitiated and maimed, that they may truly be said to be destroyed. For besides the deformity which everywhere appears unsightly, this evil also is added, that no part is free from the infection of sin. Since the main function of divinity in both Israel and the ancient Near East is precisely to rule (hence kings were often viewed as divine), it is no wonder Psalm 8 asserts that in putting all things under their feet and giving them dominion over the works of God's hands, God has made humans "little less than Elohim" (Psalm 8:5-6). It does not matter whether Elohim is translated as "God" or "angels" (as in the Septuagint), the meaning is virtually unchanged. In the theology of both Psalm 8 and Genesis 1, humans (like the angelic heavenly court) have been given royal, and thus god-like, status in the world.

CD We might easily discuss which of these and the many other similar explanations is the finest or deepest or most
serious. What we cannot discuss is which of them is the true explanation of Gen. 1:26f. For it is obvious that their authors merely found the concept in the text and then proceeded to pure invention in accordance with the requirements of contemporary anthropology, so that it is only by the standard of our own anthropology, and not according to the measure of its own anthropology and on exegetical grounds, that we can decide for or against them. Indeed, is it not almost refreshing to observe that in the end Troeltsch quite obviously makes no attempt whatever to expound Gen. 1:26f, but decides for an independent reconstruction of the concept? The procedure is characteristic of the tendency in much that has been said at this point by other writers both ancient and modern. Karl Barth, The Doctrine of Creation, Church Dogmatics, vol. 3 No. 1 (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1958), 192-193. Moltmann poses the dilemma that I hope to explore in my next few posts: If the likeness to God is lost through sin, then humanity as such is lost at the same time; for it is in order to be the image of God that human beings are created. So is a sinner no longer a human being? But then what happens to his responsibility, which is the reason why he is culpable, and is called to account for his sins? On the other hand, if sin merely clouds and obscures a persons likeness to God, how can a human being be a sinner, and acknowledge himself as such? For in this case he remains essentially, and at the core of his being, good. He has simply made mistakes and has merely committed this or that particular sin. So how can he be condemned in the divine judgement?