Are we made in the Image of God?

THE IMAGE OF GOD - IMAGO DEI

Are We Made in the image of God (Genesis 5:1-3), remembering this was after the fall of man? A response to Mark Wagland.

Thanks Mark for the question.

You highlight Genesis 5:1-3 and this says:
1 This is the written account of Adam's line. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female and blessed them. And when they were created, he called them "man." 3 When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth. (NIV)

Genesis 1:26-27 says similar words:
26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, [a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground." 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.(NIV)

In one word, I believe the answer is 'Yes', though lets delve a little deeper.

Origen wrote these words, 'And God said, "Let us make man in our image and likeness" (Gen 1:26). He then adds, "In the image of God he made him" (Gen 1:27), and is silent about the likeness. This indicates that in his first creation man received the dignity of the image of God, but the fulfillment of the likeness is reserved for the final consummation... The possibility of perfection given to him at the beginning by the dignity of the image, and then in the end, through the fulfillment of his works, should bring to perfect consummation the likeness of God.' So Origen was saying that the 'image of God' related to humanity following the Fall, and the term 'likeness of God' referred to humanity after its perfection when Jesus comes back a second time.

We see God destroying much of the human race from Genesis 6, with the story of Noah. God is pleased with Noah because he was a righteous man, but others were wicked and that grieved God (Gen 6:6). Why would God create human beings in God's amazing image only to destroy them afterwards? The answer really comes down to the idea of human free will, and the great privelege we have to choose the Creator, and to follow this God who loves us and wants to bless our lives. When we follow God and exhibit elements of the character of God (like Noah did), we witness the image of God being expressed in our lives.

This is a short answer. Feel free to comment (anyone), and continue the discussion.

God bless,

Pete.

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The cosmological argument for the existence of God

Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274) wrote these words about the existence of God. Philosophers of religion call it the cosmological argument for the existence of God. You may want to read it a few times to grasp some of its content.

"The existence of God can be proved in five ways. The first and most obvious proof is the argument from change. It is clearly the case that some things in this world are in the process of changing. Now everything that is in the process of being changed is changed by something else, since nothing is changed unless it is potentially that towards which it being changed, whereas that which changes is actual. To change something is nothing else than to bring it from potentiality to actuality, and a thing can be brought from potentiality to actuality only by something which is actual.

Thus a fire, which is actually hot, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, thus changing and altering it. Now it is impossible for the same things to be both actual and potential in the same respect, although it may be so in different respects. What is actually hot cannot at the same time be potentially hot, although it is potentially cold. It is therefore impossible that, in the same manner and in the same way, anything should be both the one which effects change and the one that is changed, so that it should change itself.

Whatever is changed must therefore be changed by something else. If, then, whatever is changing it is itself changed, this also must be changed by something else, and this in turn by something else again. But this cannot go on forever, since there would then be no first cause to this process of change, and consequently no other agent of change, because secondary things which change cannot change unless they are changed by a first cause, in the same way as a stick cannot move unless it is moved by the hand. We are therefore bound to arrive at a first cause of change which is not changed by anything, and everyone understands that this is God. " (cited in McGrath, 2001: 247-248)

Ok, breathe!

William Paley (1743-1805) argued about the existence of God, using what is referred to as the teleological argument for the existence of God. He writes about the biological nature of the human heart, saying, "It is evident that it must require the interposition of valves-that the success indeed of its action must depend upon these; for when any one of its cavities contracts, the necessary tendency of the force will be to drive the enclosed blood not only into the mouth of the artery where it ought to go, but also back again into the mouth of the vein from which it flowed" (cited in McGrath, 2001: 252).

Using these kind of biological examples, Paley argues strongly about the existence of a God. This kind of natural theology definitely flies in the face of the evolution argument.

God exists. He created you. He loves you. He wants you to trust in Jesus as your Saviour. Share