“So God created man in his own image; in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27).
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them,” so wrote Moses 3500 years ago. But what does it mean when he says that humankind is created in God’s image? Does that include the baby you brought into the world, as well as your gray-haired, feeble grandfather who talks about going home and being with the Lord?
Image! As Phil Yancey suggests, “The word image is familiar to us today, but the meaning of the word has leaked away so now it connotes virtually the opposite of its former meaning of ‘likeness.'” In advertising, image refers to the projected, often contrived picture or representation of something—what a marketing firm wants you to perceive something as being. The image and the reality are often quite different.
Frankly, it’s the popular definition that has been pinned on God. The popular notion or image of God is far less than the reality of what God is like, if what Moses wrote is accurate.
The point is, though, you were made in God’s image, in His likeness, touched by the finger of the Almighty. This puts you in a different category than “smartest animal that walks the planet.” How so?
In his book, In His Image, the renowned surgeon Dr. Paul Brandt, along with co-author Phil Yancey, argues that the physical body is an amazing creation that could never have happened by chance; but more than this, it is the spirit of man that testifies loudly to the contention we are created in God’s image. Dr. Brandt, who spent most of his life bringing healing and help to lepers, writes, “Yet increasingly I have come to realize that the physical shell I devote so much energy to is not the whole person. My patients are not mere collection of tendons, muscles, hair follicles, nerve cells, and skin cells. Each of them, regardless of deformed appearance and physical damage, contains an immortal spirit and is a vessel of the image of God.” (In His Image, OMF Lit., 1982, p. 32).
In every war, every crisis, including the heroic response of police, firemen, and rescue workers following the World Trade Center disaster, there are individuals who demonstrate they were created in the image of God by their actions.
But even going beyond that: walk through a museum and view the magnificent paintings of the masters and see the image of God reflected in their works. How else explain what came from the brushes of Rembrandt, Michelangelo, or Van Gogh? Read some of the great literature that fills the shelves—the classics. Read a sonnet from Shakespeare, a poem from Longfellow. Read the 23rd Psalm along with 1 Corinthians 13 and see the reflection of God’s image in what you read.
Listen to the music of George Frederick Handel, a symphony from Beethoven, a stanza written by a slave-trader-turned-minister: we call it “Amazing Grace.” You will see these expressions of beauty mirror the image of the Almighty. At the same time remember that what makes you respond to the sound of music, the beauty of a rose, the love of another person, and the pathos of someone who suffers is a powerful argument for the fact you are created in the image of God—a composite of body, soul, and spirit.
Going beyond that which reflects His image, get to know God Himself—His power, compassion, His beauty, His sensitivity, His knowledge and understanding. Only then will you understand humankind is not a matter of chance. You were created in the image of the Father.
Resource reading: Genesis 1.
