A phrase used in scripture in reference to humankind as created by God and as distinguished from other creatures. Throughout history, there have been many different ideas as to what it means to be created in God’s image, but the bottom line is that in some way (or ways), human beings are like God and are meant to represent him in the world; also called imago Dei.)
- From scripture:
Then God said,”Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good (Genesis 1:26-31 ESV).
- From John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, I.3:
[T]he image of God extends to everything in which the nature of man surpasses that of all other species of animals. Accordingly, by this term is denoted the integrity with which Adam was endued when his intellect was clear, his affections subordinated to reason, all his senses duly regulated, and when he truly ascribed all his excellence to the admirable gifts of his Maker. And though the primary seat of the divine image was in the mind and the heart, or in the soul and its powers, there was no part even of the body in which some rays of glory did not shine. It is certain that in every part of the world some lineaments of divine glory are beheld and hence we may infer, that when his image is placed in man, there is a kind of tacit antithesis, as it were, setting man apart from the crowd, and exalting him above all the other creatures.
- From Daily Doctrine by Kevin DeYoung, page 113-114:
Older theologians tended to emphasize the structural aspects of the image of God. They viewed man’s capacity for intelligence, rationality, morality, beauty, and worship as that which distinguishes us from the animals. Even in unborn babies and persons with severe impairments, there is still a unique human capacity for these qualities, however limited by physical or psychological constraints.
More recent theologians have focused on the functional aspects of the image of God. That is, they identify God’s image less with our essence than with our ethics. According to passages like Romans 8:29 (“predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son”) and 1 Corinthians 15:49 (“as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven), the image of God is not just what we have, it is what we are called to do and to be (1 John 3:2-3).
Both aspects teach us something important about the image of God, but the Bible allows us to say more about the functional (what we do) than the structural (what we have).
Learn more:
- Aaron Armstrong: What Does It Mean to Bear God’s Image?
- Richard Phillips: Man as the Image of God
- Justin Taylor: The Image of God: A Primer
- Peter May: What is the Image of God?
- Westminster Seminary California: Basics of the Reformed Faith: Divine Image Bearers
- Kevin DeYoung: Six Implications of Being Made in the Image of God
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