Bearing God’s image and ruling on God’s behalf, mankind is to do good on the earth. Man should take God’s goodness and bounty as his example. And God’s rule is not the rule of a despot, but the loving nurture of a caring parent.” 4 God’s purposes for the earth involve a care that extends his blessing and peace – constituting a call both to nature conservationism and social justice – by upholding the just principles of his law.
Vinoth Ramachandra writes: “All human beings are called to represent God’s kingship through the whole range of human life on earth. Man’s dominion takes the form of a viceregency, meaning that man exercises the authority of another, namely, God the Creator.Īs God’s royal servants, man is to rule on the earth in keeping with God’s standards and purposes. Man as God’s VicegerentĪ direct result of man bearing God’s image is the kingly rule into which mankind is called: “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 earth” (Gen. Just as God himself exists within loving community – Father, Son, and Spirit experiencing eternal and perfect love – mankind bears God’s image in relationships of community and love. Most significant, we note that while God made the other creatures male and female, Genesis 1 makes this point only of mankind, indicating that the image of God should be seen not merely individualistically but communally. While the Bible notes differences between men and women, and grants covenant headship in the home and church to males, we should never think that this complementarian arrangement results from inferiority on the part of women before God. With the ability of a nature that reflects the divine image comes the responsibility to fulfill our chief end as God’s creatures: “to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” 3Īfter saying that God made man in his own image, Genesis 1:27 makes a significant addition: “male and female he created them.” This statement grounds the fundamental equality between men and women, who equally bear the image of God. Moreover, man alone among the creatures worships God with spiritual awareness, as Solomon observed: God “has put eternity into man’s heart” (Eccl. Man further possesses a sense of conscience and performs moral decision-making. 2 Others speak to man’s self-awareness and personality, which are of a higher order than animals. Augustine proposed that the image of God resides in man’s memory, understanding, and will, seeking in this way mirror God’s Trinitarian personhood. Over the years, writers have identified different facets of the mind and soul that show divine likeness. With our inner faculties in view, another common way to define the image of God is through aspects of the human nature that place us clearly above the animal world. The problem is that God does not possess a body, since “God is spirit” (John 4:24). Some have identified the image in that man walks upright among the beasts. When we ask how man bears God’s image, one historic approach is to cite man’s evident superiority to lesser beings. The Image of God in Man’s Nature and Relationships John Calvin explains that “man resembles him and that in him God’s glory is contemplated, as in a mirror.” 1 The same language is used in Genesis 5:3 when Adam has a son: “he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image.” Just as Seth bore resemblance to his father, so Adam did to God. “After our likeness” makes much the same point, defining man as like God, though not divine.
The word for “image” (Hebrew, tselem) has the meaning of something that is carved or cut out.
Central to the Bible’s teaching about mankind is the statement of Genesis 1:27: “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him.” Genesis 1:26 recorded God’s will for the human race: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Both “image” and “likeness” speak of resemblance.
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