Made in The Image of God

[kittylover0991]

Hey folks,

This is a question that someone brought up to me one time, and I just can't stop thinking about it

At the time of creation of the earth... God created man in His image.. hence, we were created perfect. Question, we are born sinners because "by one man sin entered into the world".... Are we still in the image of God?

Searching for an Answer,

Crystal

[Kabowd]

I think this is an extremely important question to ask because how we view ourselves (and others) will reflect in everything we do. Our culture tells us that we are nothing more than matter which came about by chance, and even though they tell us we're more "advanced" than the rest of the members of the good chain, we're still just a part of the chain. This is what society feeds us from very early on, so it's no wonder we have low self-esteem and regard one another with such little respect. This has led us to devaluing life altogether (from anorexia, cutting, suicide, abortion and euthenasia, to embryonic stem-cell research). It's no wonder that our generation has seen the highest rates of depression, suicide and eating disorders. But if we view ourselves and other human beings as image bearers of God, it puts everyting into a whole new perspective. Everyone, every single human, takes on a deeper value and significance when we view them the way they should be viewed. It is the imago Dei that seperates us from every other created thing.

After the fall, even though sin tainted everything, Scripture teaches that the image of God still remains. This is why there is repeated admonition against harming others, cursing them or murdering them. Both James 3:9-10 and Genesis 9:6 use being image bearers of God as the reason we should not harm others. Thus, this tells us that even fallen human beings somehow retain the image of God. Even so, Paul teaches in Colossians and Ephesians about growing in the image of God and being "renewed". So I guess the most complete answer to your question is that yes, fallen people still retain the image of God...however it is not complete. This is why we need Christ to restore and redeem us to our complete purpose.

Some of the proofs we have that we are image bearers are: fallen people are creative, fallen people still have a conscience, fallen people still have the capacity for logic and reasoning, fallen people can still love, have relationships and do good things. Of course, none of these things can achieve salvation and still lack redemption. They will always be tainted and incomplete, apart from Christ.

The best way to understand it would be to realize that when God created people, His purpose was for them/us was to reflect His image on the earth. We were given the honor of representing Him by cultivating the earth, creating, loving, overseeing and developing a kingdom that honored it's King. When Adam sinned, this purpose was thwarted but not destroyed. So God sent Jesus, so that through Him, our original purpose could be restored. Make sense? If fallen human beings no longer retained the image of God, there would be no reason to value life at all.

By the way, most of what I just said I learned from a from a book called "Heaven is a place on Earth" by Michael Wittmer. I highly recommend it. It gives a very thorough and biblically sound portrait of who we are, why we're here and what the future holds for us.

[Kabowd]

When Adam ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil man literally lost his right to express God. How serious is that. Yes sin entered into man thru his awareness of it, but at the top of the mountain is man not gaining the Life of God. Man could not be in sin and express God at the same time so he could not partake of the Life of God.

So is this person saying that post-fall, humans no longer were image bearers of God? If so, then God would've destroyed us right then. Also, this would contradict the verses I gave in my above post. Furthermore, it would leave us with little-to-no reason to value humanity at all.

[branchesofHim]

Hey folks,

This is a question that someone brought up to me one time, and I just can't stop thinking about it

At the time of creation of the earth... God created man in His image.. hence, we were created perfect. Question, we are born sinners because "by one man sin entered into the world".... Are we still in the image of God?

Searching for an Answer,

Crystal

God created man in His image and after His likeness for the intent that He could bring His love into this world. It's all about the Bride of Christ: His love indeed! Bless you in Jesus Christ the Lord.

Peace.

[Dad Ernie]

Greetings All,

As Ruck has said, nowhere in the scriptures does it say that man was created "perfect", in fact, after the 6th day, God looked upon ALL His hands had created and said it was very good. Let me add to God's Word by saying "for the purposes to which He intended it. Too many have made too much out of "being in God's image". What I mean by that is they have gone far beyond what the scriptures actually say. When you look at the verses in context, we find that "like God", He has given us a certain amount of dominion over this earth. Read the verses in context. You will find that we do not look, in appearance, like God, we cannot LOVE as God loves, we cannot show mercy or grace as God reveals it to us. We are created "below the angels", for Jesus was made in likeness of Adam, a little lower than the angels.

As far as loving humanity because of some intrinsic worth or value, that idea is absolute nonsense, because there is NONE righteous no not one! All have fallen short of the glory of God - even Adam! Jesus was created in the likeness of Adam BEFORE the fall, because He retained (on this earth) complete and free communion with the Father. Adam lost that for us when he was booted out of the Garden and lost access to the "Tree of Life". This meant DEATH! And DEATH fell upon the whole human race because of Adam's sin. Jesus came to deliver us from this DEATH and put us back in communion/fellowship with God.

It would be worth your while to read and consider the following:

Romans 8:20 For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,

Read this in Context. I know that many expositors disagree with this, and so may many of you, but give it some DUE consideration because the Lamb's Book of Life was written BEFORE the FOUNDATION OF THE EARTH, which means, before Eden. Everyone's name was there in The Book at the very beginning.

I would only ask that you consider that HE KEPT THE ERASER.

Blessings,

Dad Ernie

[apothanein kerdos]

As Ruck has said, nowhere in the scriptures does it say that man was created "perfect", in fact, after the 6th day, God looked upon ALL His hands had created and said it was very good.

This is absurd. If creation was somehow flawed in its conception then there is absolutely no point to restoration unless we hold to a Gnostic worldview (liberation from the physical world). Though creation was not complete in the sense that the ground could be tilled, culture had to develop, etc., it was perfect in that no sin had touched it. In fact, you are asserting a very Eastern view in saying that a perfect God could create an imperfect creation. To say so is to say God can create imperfection, or something less than what He is truly capable of...in other words, God is lazy. The problem is that this obviously is not the case. Furthermore, we are told to seek perfection in the Bible whilst also being told to seek out what God has created. Though it is now fallen, it at one point was perfect, including humans. Paul, in 1 Timothy 4, says that creation is still good after the fall. To say it was just "good" before the fall and not perfect, is to miss the entire point. This means that the fall didn't effect creation at all, it was just good then and it's just good now. Again, no point in redemption.

Secondly, "very good" is more of a mistranslation or an inadequacy in the translation. The Hebrew here, tov meod, does mean "perfect." It means God used force to bring about something that was "acceptable." Is anything less than perfection acceptable to God? Are you seriously going to assert that God has a standard that falls short of perfection? This is why tov meod comes with the implication that "very good" means perfect. It means "created to a state of agreeable pleasentry" and appeals to the physical, ethical, and spiritual status of creation. To say that creation was not perfect is saying, "God created something and had standards less than perfection." There is no getting out of that.

Let me add to God's Word by saying "for the purposes to which He intended it. Too many have made too much out of "being in God's image". What I mean by that is they have gone far beyond what the scriptures actually say. When you look at the verses in context, we find that "like God", He has given us a certain amount of dominion over this earth. Read the verses in context. You will find that we do not look, in appearance, like God, we cannot LOVE as God loves, we cannot show mercy or grace as God reveals it to us. We are created "below the angels", for Jesus was made in likeness of Adam, a little lower than the angels.

For one, you have to add to God's word to get to the belief you have. Secondly, and more importantly, you are downplaying what the image of God is. Anytime you show love, compassion, any emotion whatsoever you are showing the image of God, lost or not. Even though someone is lost they are still in the image of God, even though it is tarnished. If we take the approach of devaluing the image of God, as you have, we lose our justification for many of our beliefs. A proper belief in imago Dei shows us that we share in the nature of God (though finitely).

As far as loving humanity because of some intrinsic worth or value, that idea is absolute nonsense, because there is NONE righteous no not one! All have fallen short of the glory of God - even Adam!

Well someone needs their daily dose of scripture. If this is the case, abortion, stem cell research, murder, lust, or anything that destroys the body should not be viewed as a sin. Only things which destroy the spirit should be sinful...if I murder someone it should not be a sin because I have only destroyed what is unrighteous and has no value.

Man is VERY important because man is in the image of God. IT IS BECAUSE WE ARE IN HIS IMAGE THAT HE CAME DOWN TO SAVE US. IT IS BECAUSE WE ARE WORTHWHILE, IT IS BECAUSE WE HAVE VALUE, THAT HE CHOSE TO SAVE US IN THE FIRST PLACE. (added for emphasis) In othe rwords, it is because man has intristic value that God decided to save us. Not to add value to us, but instead to salvage the value we had left after the fall. In fact, in Genesis 9 we see that God says man is still made in His image, and that to kill another man is to violate this image. He does not put qualification on this and therefore it is to be applied to both the Christian and non-Christian. Both are made in the image of God and therefore are to be treated as such. In fact, Brave Saint Saturn has a song along similar lines called "Heart Still Beats":

The girl in the alley kneels with exhaustion

She's guarded by the skinny guy who limps from some infection

Behind a veil of bleached thin hair her eyes tell a story

Like a photo of Berlin, December 1944

She's looking for a handout, she's been high for several weeks now

She's too far gone for whoring and the money just gave out

And her heart still beats inside

And the blood runs in her veins

A remnant of life remains

Her heart still beats inside

The man finally comes to the door, I've seen him several times

He always looks ticked off and his sunglasses stay on

I think he got his biceps and tattoos while in prison

And it doesnt seem to bother him when he says "go to hell"

And his heart still beats inside

The blood runs in his veins

A remnant of life remains

His heart still beats inside

The thought it comes to my mind, to somehow intervene

But it could bring me trouble, and what can I do anyway?

It's hard to be effective when it happens so often

To see a life unraveling, through drawn venetian blinds

I'm sickened by compassion, I'm stifled by my limitations

Anesthetic apathy, come take the pain away

And my heart still beats inside

The blood runs in my veins

A remnant of life remains

And my heart still beats inside

Oh God, we need you here

We're sinking fast and we dont care

The evidence is all around me, on both sides of my door

Our hearts beat

The reason I point out this song is because it's Biblical in what it says but also conveys what I am trying to say. If we remove the concept of imago Dei from unregenerate man, we have lost all justification in trying to witness to him. It is because the lost still love, hope, and live without Christ that we are called to witness to them. In other words, they are living in the image of God without even knowing it, and tarnishing further His image at the same time. If man has no value, then God is an absurd God who I wish to have NOTHING to do with because He would then be cruel and worthless to me and humans. To create man without value? To create man with no instristic importance? What an evil god you must worship. If man had no importance to God, then He would not die for us, live for us, or help us in any way...in fact when Jesus points to how God takes care of the birds of the air and flowers on the earth, notice that He says, "Then how much more will my Father in heaven look out for you." In other words, Jesus is acknowledging the importance of man. To say man is no longer important or that he lacks intrisic value is really border line heresy.

As for man being fallen, great, what have you proven? How does this negate man's importance? What it is saying is that man is fallen and cannot restory the image of God (which is what salvation is) on his own. What's your point?

[Kabowd]

As Ruck has said, nowhere in the scriptures does it say that man was created "perfect", in fact, after the 6th day, God looked upon ALL His hands had created and said it was very good.

This is absurd. If creation was somehow flawed in its conception then there is absolutely no point to restoration unless we hold to a Gnostic worldview (liberation from the physical world). Though creation was not complete in the sense that the ground could be tilled, culture had to develop, etc., it was perfect in that no sin had touched it. In fact, you are asserting a very Eastern view in saying that a perfect God could create an imperfect creation. To say so is to say God can create imperfection, or something less than what He is truly capable of...in other words, God is lazy. The problem is that this obviously is not the case. Furthermore, we are told to seek perfection in the Bible whilst also being told to seek out what God has created. Though it is now fallen, it at one point was perfect, including humans. Paul, in 1 Timothy 4, says that creation is still good after the fall. To say it was just "good" before the fall and not perfect, is to miss the entire point. This means that the fall didn't effect creation at all, it was just good then and it's just good now. Again, no point in redemption.

Secondly, "very good" is more of a mistranslation or an inadequacy in the translation. The Hebrew here, tov meod, does mean "perfect." It means God used force to bring about something that was "acceptable." Is anything less than perfection acceptable to God? Are you seriously going to assert that God has a standard that falls short of perfection? This is why tov meod comes with the implication that "very good" means perfect. It means "created to a state of agreeable pleasentry" and appeals to the physical, ethical, and spiritual status of creation. To say that creation was not perfect is saying, "God created something and had standards less than perfection." There is no getting out of that.

Let me add to God's Word by saying "for the purposes to which He intended it. Too many have made too much out of "being in God's image". What I mean by that is they have gone far beyond what the scriptures actually say. When you look at the verses in context, we find that "like God", He has given us a certain amount of dominion over this earth. Read the verses in context. You will find that we do not look, in appearance, like God, we cannot LOVE as God loves, we cannot show mercy or grace as God reveals it to us. We are created "below the angels", for Jesus was made in likeness of Adam, a little lower than the angels.

For one, you have to add to God's word to get to the belief you have. Secondly, and more importantly, you are downplaying what the image of God is. Anytime you show love, compassion, any emotion whatsoever you are showing the image of God, lost or not. Even though someone is lost they are still in the image of God, even though it is tarnished. If we take the approach of devaluing the image of God, as you have, we lose our justification for many of our beliefs. A proper belief in imago Dei shows us that we share in the nature of God (though finitely).

As far as loving humanity because of some intrinsic worth or value, that idea is absolute nonsense, because there is NONE righteous no not one! All have fallen short of the glory of God - even Adam!

Well someone needs their daily dose of scripture. If this is the case, abortion, stem cell research, murder, lust, or anything that destroys the body should not be viewed as a sin. Only things which destroy the spirit should be sinful...if I murder someone it should not be a sin because I have only destroyed what is unrighteous and has no value.

Man is VERY important because man is in the image of God. IT IS BECAUSE WE ARE IN HIS IMAGE THAT HE CAME DOWN TO SAVE US. IT IS BECAUSE WE ARE WORTHWHILE, IT IS BECAUSE WE HAVE VALUE, THAT HE CHOSE TO SAVE US IN THE FIRST PLACE. (added for emphasis) In othe rwords, it is because man has intristic value that God decided to save us. Not to add value to us, but instead to salvage the value we had left after the fall. In fact, in Genesis 9 we see that God says man is still made in His image, and that to kill another man is to violate this image. He does not put qualification on this and therefore it is to be applied to both the Christian and non-Christian. Both are made in the image of God and therefore are to be treated as such. In fact, Brave Saint Saturn has a song along similar lines called "Heart Still Beats":

The girl in the alley kneels with exhaustion

She's guarded by the skinny guy who limps from some infection

Behind a veil of bleached thin hair her eyes tell a story

Like a photo of Berlin, December 1944

She's looking for a handout, she's been high for several weeks now

She's too far gone for whoring and the money just gave out

And her heart still beats inside

And the blood runs in her veins

A remnant of life remains

Her heart still beats inside

The man finally comes to the door, I've seen him several times

He always looks ticked off and his sunglasses stay on

I think he got his biceps and tattoos while in prison

And it doesnt seem to bother him when he says "go to hell"

And his heart still beats inside

The blood runs in his veins

A remnant of life remains

His heart still beats inside

The thought it comes to my mind, to somehow intervene

But it could bring me trouble, and what can I do anyway?

It's hard to be effective when it happens so often

To see a life unraveling, through drawn venetian blinds

I'm sickened by compassion, I'm stifled by my limitations

Anesthetic apathy, come take the pain away

And my heart still beats inside

The blood runs in my veins

A remnant of life remains

And my heart still beats inside

Oh God, we need you here

We're sinking fast and we dont care

The evidence is all around me, on both sides of my door

Our hearts beat

The reason I point out this song is because it's Biblical in what it says but also conveys what I am trying to say. If we remove the concept of imago Dei from unregenerate man, we have lost all justification in trying to witness to him. It is because the lost still love, hope, and live without Christ that we are called to witness to them. In other words, they are living in the image of God without even knowing it, and tarnishing further His image at the same time. If man has no value, then God is an absurd God who I wish to have NOTHING to do with because He would then be cruel and worthless to me and humans. To create man without value? To create man with no instristic importance? What an evil god you must worship. If man had no importance to God, then He would not die for us, live for us, or help us in any way...in fact when Jesus points to how God takes care of the birds of the air and flowers on the earth, notice that He says, "Then how much more will my Father in heaven look out for you." In other words, Jesus is acknowledging the importance of man. To say man is no longer important or that he lacks intrisic value is really border line heresy.

As for man being fallen, great, what have you proven? How does this negate man's importance? What it is saying is that man is fallen and cannot restory the image of God (which is what salvation is) on his own. What's your point?

Well, that about sums it right up

[apothanein kerdos]

so basically what you are saying is man was perfect in and of himself. This is where you err in your words.

You, sir, have perfected the art of drawing straw men. No where did I say that man was valuable in and of himself. In fact, I specifically said that man was valuable because he is made in the image of God. This places a reliance for our value. In other words, if we lose our humanity (God's image) then we lose our value. Our value is dependant upon God's humanity. This was abundantly clear and if you knew anything about theology it would have been assumed at the point I said imago Dei.

It seems that we place too much value on ourselves. I pray that God gives us the revelation of where our rightful place is. Christ died in OUR place. I pray that you remember that. God showed our worth when Christ was put on the cross. Man was never perfect, for he lacked God's life.

This counters everything you have said to this point.

"Man is not valuable because man sins."

"Man is valuable because Christ died for him."

These are mutually exclusive positions. Pick one and go with it.

As for man not being perfect, I already responded abundantly to that, so if you wish to rehash such a heresy, I ask that you respond to what I actually put instead of relying on rhetoric.

(me'ôd ṭôb) this is the word used AK. means wholly good. Not perfect but on the whole every thing was to God's satisfaction.

You used a condordance. I used the actual hebrew. Hmmmm I looked at the term in the context of the Hebrew structure and relied on someone who speaks Hebrew fluently to confirm what I saw and help in what was hard for me to understand. You looked it up in a dictionary which isolated it from the context. Hmmmm

This is who was satisified. But there was still man gaining Gods Life. This is something man had to agree to.

Man did not have to agree to be made in God's image. God simply did it. Man doesn't even have to agree in order to hav evalue....truth is truth no matter who believes it or lives it.

I have no problem having a discussion on this, but if you're going to falsely present my position whilst ignoring everything I have said and relying solely on rhetoric, then I'm going to have a hard time keeping up a good discussion with you.

[apothanein kerdos]

Again, it's rhetoric that doesn't even touch what I'm saying.

How did man not have the life of God prior to the fall? How was he in the image of God but lacking the life of God? You are making absolutely no logical sense what so ever.

I'll wait for Dad Ernie to repond to what I wrote. I really see no point in discussion...one of my biggest pet peeves is rhetoric.

[FocusOnJesus]

If we say we are still in the image of God, then we must say that God is sinful. Adam lost the image of God when he sinned. It wasn't a stumble, it was a bonefide fall!

Ever notice that you came out of your mother instead of a handfull of dust from God's hand? And God didn't tell Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply until after they got the boot from Eden.

No, we are no longer in the image of God, but Christ will restore us if we believe on Him.