When my son was born everyone said he looked like me. “He’s a spitting image of you!” I was captivated by the thought of this little human life bearing some semblance of my image. I stared into my son’s face for hours, memorizing every contour, and trying to see the resemblance that others saw. It’s a crazy thing to see yourself in another human being. (Unless you happen to be a twin, triplet etc.) We are so used to uniqueness that to see some of ourselves in another’s face is a strange experience. At least, it was for me.

Creation of Man

The word says we are created in God’s image. In Genesis 1:26ff and Genesis 2:5-8 the creation of man is recounted. We were formed from the dust of the Earth. Whereas God created by his mere word before, “Let there be light..” and so on, in the creation of mankind there is a deliberative approach. “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” (Gen 1:26) and then in v. 27a “So God made created man in his own image.” He stated his intention to make us, specifically in his image and likeness. He stated a purpose for this pinnacle act of creation; that we would have dominion over the Earth and its living things. Genesis 2:7 adds to our creation account that God formed man from the dust of the ground and “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.”

Image Bearer

The term Imago Dei, Latin for “Image of God”, comes directly from Genesis 1:27. We are in some way fashioned after the image and likeness of God. (Gen. 1:26) Naturally we wonder, “Is God humanoid in shape or form?” John 4:24 says emphatically that “God is Spirit.” If God is Spirit, then being created in God’s image and likeness is more than my merely looking into my son’s face to see something of myself. I cannot look into the face of God to see how I bear his likeness.

More Than Skin Deep

I think the key is in Genesis 2:7. God not only creates us from the dust of the Earth, but he breathes into our nostrils the breath of life. In this, I think, we find out what image and likeness is. God is Spirit, if we bear his image and likeness, we have a spirit or soul as well.  We alone are the only rational, thinking, logical beings on the Earth. We alone possess the capacity to worship God. Bavinck says (emphasis mine);

“On the other hand, it follows from the doctrine of human creation in the image of God that this image extends to the whole person. Nothing in a human being is excluded from the image of God. While all creatures display vestiges of God, only a human being is the image of God. And he is such totally, in soul and body, in all his faculties and powers, in all conditions and relations. Man is the image of God because and insofar as he is truly human, and he is truly and essentially human because, and to the extent that, he is the image of God. Naturally, just as the cosmos is an organism and reveals God’s attributes more clearly in some than in other creatures, so also in man as an organism the image of God comes out more clearly in one part than another, more in the soul than in the body, more in the ethical virtues than in the physical powers. None of this, however, detracts in the least from the truth that the whole person is the image of God. Scripture could not and should not speak of God in a human manner and transfer all human attributes to God, as if God had not first made man totally in his own image. And it is the task of Christian theology to point out this image of God in man’s being in its entirety.”
Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 2,page 555.

So What?

God created us in his image. God created us. We are not evolved, here by chance, or descendants of lower animal forms. We are created specifically in the image of God. As such, each of us has equal worth, dignity, and value. All mankind is worth protecting, from the womb to the tomb. All mankind is equally made in God’s image. There are no separate races. We are one human race comprised of a multitude of ethnicities. All human life is to be valued.

In Matthew 22:15-22 the Pharisees and Herodians try to trip Jesus up by asking if they should pay taxes or not. He tells them to give him a Denarius and makes them tell him by way of a question that Caesar’s likeness is on the coin. He then gives the profound statement to “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” They were silenced at this authoritative answer. Why? Jesus effectively said, “Give Caesar his money, it’s got his likeness and inscription on it. You however bear God’s likeness and inscription. Thus, you render to God what is his.”

We bear God’s likeness and inscription. He owns us, body and soul. We are to render to God our bodies as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1) which is reasonable. Why is it reasonable? Because we are made in his image, wholly owned by our Creator.

Render to God what is his, fellow Image Bearer, which is your everything.