Made in God’s Image

 

Made in God’s Image

 

Preface

In writing this study I have prayed and asked the Holy Spirit to lead my thoughts and writings. I have tried very hard to follow God’s Word and not man’s opinions (including mine). I have worked to have the Bible be my only rule book and guide and, if my thoughts and writings do not match up to the Bible, I have removed them.

As we study the Bible, we must always look at how we apply what we study applies to our lives, culture, and world. If we are honest, we must say little has changed from the earliest times until now. Humankind has much more technology but our thinking, lusts, desires, temptations, greed, etc. are the same. What can we learn from God’s Word and how can we effectively apply it in today’s world?

This study is not intended for sale. The bibliography may be incomplete, and some quotes lack proper citations. I did try to reference but at times was wrapped up in the study and forgot to do so. Hopefully, these are few. My apologies to any people who I missed.

Each of us are responsible for our interpretation of the Bible. Each of us must walk in the light we have been given by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit must lead in how you interpret what you read and what you do with what you learn. We must not relinquish this responsibility to any commentator.

“Thoughts, comments, disagreements, and clarifications to this study are more than welcome.”

This study is not intended for sale. No academic format (i.e. APA or Chicago) has been followed although I have tried to list all end notes and references.

Introduction

This study explores God’s creation of ha adam as male and female, the meaning of “made in God’s image,” and the purpose behind human existence.

First, it is necessary to define "theomorphic" and "anthropomorphic. Theomorphic is God manifesting his image and likeness in humanity, so that God’s divine nature and qualities are reflected inhumanity. Anthropomorphic is humans imaging God in human terms. Theomorphic is the opposite of anthropomorphic. It's important to recognize that theomorphic humanity is distinct from the heretical concept of theomorphism, which incorrectly suggests that God's nature can change or that humans can become gods.

Depictions of Greek and other pagan gods and goddesses commonly illustrate anthropomorphism. These deities were often portrayed with human-like appearances, and behaviors similar to those of the cultures that created them. These people could not really imagine anything greater than themselves so the gods and goddesses they imagined from their minds imaged them and their culture. An appallingly, inadequate, and imperfect, substitute for YHWH who is the one true God who created us in His image.

Many people, including those called intellectuals, scientists, learned, and wise ridicule the idea that man was created by God. They advance their ideas that the creation of the universe, especially humans, is both accidental and through a process of evolution.  The belief that our planet is merely an ordinary, ‘run of the mill’ planet, one among a multitude of earth-like planets in a universe brimming with life must be laid to rest. 

Physicist Gerald Schroeder rightly says, “We live on a planet within a galaxy of a universe made for life. . .. a just-right Earth.” By extrapolating from an array suppositions and calculations, he maintains that “the likelihood of finding anywhere in the entire universe a stellar system with a planet able to support complex intelligent life is one chance in 10¹⁸. . . for at best there might be one earth-like planet for each 10,000,000 galaxies.”  Mathematician Roger Penrose calculates that odds that the entire universe is as orderly as our galactic neighborhood to be one in ten to the power of ten to the power of 123, which is one out of a billion repeated a billion, billion times— a number larger than the total number of fundamental particles in the observable universe.

Recognition of and belief in the divine design of the universe—and of life within it—requires much less faith than believing that the universe somehow was spontaneously self-initiated and then evolved over eons of time.

Made by God in His Image

God—not blind fate or evolution—created humanity with all its distinctives, and his creation was by intricate and superintelligent design so that every aspect of human existence contributes to the overall integrity and welfare of the human race. (Genesis 2:7-9) God did not just speak humanity into existence by a divine fiat: He got his hands dirty, God made man, not created man! It was an act of carefully modeling shapeless clay from the dust of the earth itself. This was not a “creative” act as such but a forming of elements that already existed: the earthling was being formed from the earth. (Genesis 2:7)

In effect, when God created humanity, He used Himself as the template by which to form, create, and fashion human beings.  (Genesis 1:26-27) So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. (Genesis 1:26-27) Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”

Things did not emanate from God unconsciously, nor are they produced by a mere act of thought . . . but by an act of will, of which the concrete word is the outward expression.” (Genesis 1:26-27) Abraham Joshua Heschel says that “the symbol of God is . . . not a temple or a tree . . . a statue or a star . . . [but] man, every man.”   “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God he made humanity (ha-adam).” (Genesis 9:6) Humans alone, therefore, are theomorphic in that God placed in them his own image. The God of Scripture, therefore, is not an anthropomorphic creation of human beings instead, human beings are the theomorphic creation of God.

An image is a likeness or representation of someone or something. The scriptures tell us we are made in the image of God. (Genesis 1:27, NASB) When people see us, they should be seeing an image of God. God is spirit, God does not have a body. We should not expect or look for physical likeness or similarities but rather look for and expect similar characteristics, philosophy and actions.

What does ‘Made in God’s Image’ mean

” God must be understood in the context of the divine revelation of the Hebrew scriptures.” ‘Anything else is simply futile human imagination and conjecture. “Love is the essence of the divine reality, the basic source from which all of God’s attributes arise. God has been defined and even defines himself in terms of love, love is central to who God is. What is meant by the phrase image and likeness of God? The answer to this question is important for all humans. The declaration of humankind’s bearing the image of God is intentional and profound. The complete manifestation of God’s image and likeness in humanity require both male and female. God’s image and likeness can never be limited to a single-gender.

Being created in the image of God means that we reflect God. We live, think, feel in a way, and speak in a way that calls attention to the brightness of the glory of God. God is loving in character and action. God is completely and totally holy. God is peaceful, peaceful and unique. There is only one God, YHWH, and all the gods and goddesses’ man has imagined and worshipped do not exist., they are figments of human imagination. (John 4:24)

It is important to know God made us.  God did not create ha adam from nothing but lovingly, personally, formed us from the earth. God made sure ha adam was formed the way He wanted, in His image. What does it mean to be made in the image of God? What are its practical implications for how we view the world and our lives in our cultural context? To harm or destroy another person is to assault the image of God in that person. Being made in God’s image means we were built for relationship. At our core, our most fundamental need is to love and be loved – in a word, to belong. Ultimately, God made us in His image so that we might glorify Him, belong to His family, and enjoy eternal, intimate, loving relationship with Him, 

Made Male & Female

The Genesis narrative employs two separate accounts of the same event, describing God’s actions to produce human life on Earth. The first is in Genesis 1:26-31 and the second in Genesis 2:21. Genesis 1:26-31 describes God creating ha-adam as one unit that included both male and female characteristics, physical, emotional and spiritual. Mark 10:6 “But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.”’ (Matthew 19:4) Everything necessary for gender-specific existence was present in the original undifferentiated entity called adam (human­ity). In the first account, the creation of humanity—male and female—was clearly “simultaneous, not sequential.”

In the second account, Genesis 2:21-24, the male and female were surgically separated as God removed what pertained to the feminine from the side of ha-adam and, from that substance, fashioned woman. Immediately thereafter, however, the male and female were reunited in “one flesh.” Without this understanding, the existence of humanity as reflections of the image and likeness of God is impossible, for God is one manifest in three—Father, Son, and Spirit—who are coequal, consubstantial, and coeternal.

 In the first account, the creation of humanity—male and female—was clearly “simultaneous, not sequential.” In the second, the process by which God produced gender-specific beings from the one undifferentiated humanity is outlined in much more specific detail.

Male & Female separated.

Genesis 2:20-24 expands on Genesis 1:26-31 by providing additional details about the process. The second account describes in detail how God created separate genders from an undifferentiated humanity.         Luke 1:37 (ESV) For nothing will be impossible with God.” Gensis 2:20-22 NASB “for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. ²¹So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. ²²The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man and brought her to the man.”

When God made ha-adam in no way could this process be described as a “creation out of nothing. Instead, it was a “fashioning” or “building up” of what already existed. The Genesis narrative specifically says that God took the female essence “away from” ha-adam and fashioned that essence into the woman. This specific notation proves that the man and the woman that were the final result of God’s “making” of humanity were consubstantial (of the same substance) and that they are, therefore, coequal. There is no hint of superiority or inferiority, dominance or subjection of either the male or the female in God’s gender-specific human creation. The two were to be one as God specifically said: “They two shall be one flesh.”

The male became male only when the female was surgically separated. God created humanity as a single being that became two people. In this separation, both individuals maintained relationships with each other, and with God. Genesis 1 and 2 show humanity's relationship with God, which is partly diminished in Genesis 3. Although sin is contrary to God's nature, God continues to extend love and to humanity. He consistently offers compassion and encourages individuals to restore their relationship with Him.

“There is absolutely no theological truth to the assertion of philosophers from virtually all of the cultures of the world-including theologians in ecclesiastical history-that women are of weaker conscience than men, or that women are more susceptible to evil than men.” If we are made in the image of God and we say one part of us is weaker than another, we are saying the same of God, which would be absolutely false.

 Purpose of God making people

He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8  NIV) “ For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10 ESV) “Your hands have made and fashioned me; give me understanding that I may learn your commandments.” (Psalm 119:73 ESV)

The most important aspect about the human creation was that humanity was intentionally formed for the specific purpose of imaging of the God of heaven in the earthly creation. All of humanity, irrespective of gender, race, ethnicity, intellect, or erudition equally possesses the very likeness of God himself, the quality that sets humans apart from the rest of creation and endows them with their very reason or justification for existence The greatest value of humanity is the fact that God took the initiative to design humans beings in such a way that all of them are theomorphic—that is, without exception, they all bear the image and likeness of the God who created the human race and sustains it by his powerful Word. (Genesis 1:26-27 NIV)

“Bring My sons from afar and My daughters from the ends of the earth, ⁷Everyone who is called by My name, and whom I have created for My glory, Whom I have formed, even whom I have made.” (Isaiah 43:7 ESV) “²³Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. ²⁴God is spirit, and His worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” (John 4:23-24 NIV)

 Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. the clear understanding that God alone is to be worshiped and that human beings, animals, the earth, the stars, and the universe can never be objects of worship. (Genesis 2:7 ESV) In short, ha adam was made to worship and serve God on the earth. Our justification for existence is to praise, worship and serve God.

Difference between people made by God and animals.

All of humanity, irrespective of gender, race, ethnicity, intellect, or erudition equally possesses the very likeness of God himself, the quality that sets humans apart from the rest of creation and endows them with their very reason or justification for existence. Being created in the image of God means that we image God. We reflect God. We live, think, feel, and speak in a way that calls attention to the brightness and the glory of God. Everything except humans were created from nothing, man was formed (Genesis 2:6, 8 YLT), made, by YHWH personally. (Genesis 1:1-23; Genesis 1:26-27 YLT) (YLT is Youngs Literal Translation) (https://biblehub.com/interlinear/genesis/1-26.htm)

 

 

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Dr. John D. Garr. I made extensive use of his books, especially Theomorphic Humanity. He is always open to discussion, questions and guidance. He is a great teacher, mentor, and friend. I am also indebted to my wife Betty, her sister Cheryl and the Tuesday morning Bible study for their input and review of this study.