What is the meaning of 'In the Image of God'?

Question: "What does it mean that humanity is made in the image of God (imago dei)?"

Answer: On the last day of creation, God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). Thus, He finished His work with a “personal touch.” God formed Adam from the dust and gave him life by sharing His own breath (Genesis 2:7). Accordingly, humanity is unique among all God’s creations, having both a material body and an immaterial soul/spirit.

Having the “image” or “likeness” of God means, in the simplest terms, that we were made to resemble God. Adam did not resemble God in the sense of God’s having flesh and blood. Scripture says that “God is spirit” (John 4:24) and therefore exists without a body. However, Adam’s body did mirror the life of God insofar as it was created in perfect health and was not subject to death.

The image of God (Latin: imago dei) refers to the immaterial part of humanity. It sets human beings apart from the animal world, fits them for the dominion God intended them to have over the earth (Genesis 1:28), and enables them to commune with their Maker. It is a likeness mentally, morally, and socially.

Mentally, humanity was created as a rational, volitional agent. In other words, human beings can reason and choose. This is a reflection of God’s intellect and freedom. Anytime someone invents a machine, writes a book, paints a landscape, enjoys a symphony, calculates a sum, or names a pet, he or she is proclaiming the fact that we are made in God’s image.

Morally, humanity was created in righteousness and perfect innocence, a reflection of God’s holiness. God saw all He had made (humanity included) and called it “very good” (Genesis 1:31). Our conscience or “moral compass” is a vestige of that original state. Whenever someone writes a law, recoils from evil, praises good behavior, or feels guilty, he or she is confirming the fact that we are made in God’s own image.

Socially, humanity was created for fellowship. This reflects God's triune nature and His love. In Eden, humanity’s primary relationship was with God (Genesis 3:8 implies fellowship with God), and God made the first woman because “it is not good for the man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). Every time someone marries, makes a friend, hugs a child, or attends church, he or she is demonstrating the fact that we are made in the likeness of God.

Part of being made in God’s image is that Adam had the capacity to make free choices. Although they were given a righteous nature, Adam and Eve made an evil choice to rebel against their Creator. In so doing, they marred the image of God within themselves, and passed that damaged likeness on to all of their descendants (Romans 5:12). Today, we still bear the image of God (James 3:9), but we also bear the scars of sin. Mentally, morally, socially, and physically, we show the effects of sin.

The good news is that when God redeems an individual, He begins to restore the original image of God, creating a “new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24). That redemption is only available by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior from the sin that separates us from God (Ephesians 2:8-9). Through Christ, we are made new creations in the likeness of God (2 Corinthians 5:17).

www.gotquestions.org/image-of-God.html

dms1972 said:

[My apologies this would have been better posted in Christian Scriptures forum]


I have come across a few different views on this, at least they seem to me to differ somewhat, and not sure who is right, perhaps they all hold some truth?

I am speaking of course of Genesis 1:26,27

Then God said "Let us make man in Our Image, after our likeness..."

1. Some take it in the sense of man is just an image of God.

2. Other point out that the verse says "in Our Image", and say man is not the Image of God per se, but made in the Image, the Image being Christ Himself, the God the Son (2 Corinthians 4:4; Colossians 1:15). Man and the Divine Image are therefore not identical.

3. Yet others see distinction of meaning or nuance between the nouns "image" and "likeness" - image then refers to the natural or physical aspect, and likeness to the spiritual or ethical aspect of man's constitution.

It seems to me the first view sees no special reference to Christ in the term Image.


I must admit until I came across Phillip Edgecumbe Hughes book The True Image, I took the sense of it to be no. 1.

What way do you understand this verse?

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To me it honestly means nothing more and nothing less than what it says. God will look something like man, maybe not exactly like him in certain ways, but the same in image.

dms1972 said:

[My apologies this would have been better posted in Christian Scriptures forum]


I have come across a few different views on this, at least they seem to me to differ somewhat, and not sure who is right, perhaps they all hold some truth?

I am speaking of course of Genesis 1:26,27

Then God said "Let us make man in Our Image, after our likeness..."

1. Some take it in the sense of man is just an image of God.

2. Other point out that the verse says "in Our Image", and say man is not the Image of God per se, but made in the Image, the Image being Christ Himself, the God the Son (2 Corinthians 4:4; Colossians 1:15). Man and the Divine Image are therefore not identical.

3. Yet others see distinction of meaning or nuance between the nouns "image" and "likeness" - image for them refers to the natural or physical aspect, and likeness to the spiritual or ethical aspect of man's constitution.

However if verse 26 is taken as announcing the decision of God to create man "Let us make man..." and verse 27 the fulfilment of that decision "So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created he him..." there is no mention of likeness in verse 27, which suggest verse 26 has but one notion to convey, not two.


It seems to me the first view sees no special reference to Christ in the term Image.


I must admit until I came across Phillip Edgecumbe Hughes book The True Image, I took the sense of it to be no. 1.

What way do you understand this verse?

Click to expand...

What is the first thing we know about the nature of God?

ewq1938 said:

Very close..."God will look something like man" should be "man will look something like God"

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LOL, yeah I guess I got that backwards

devin553344 said:

To me it honestly means nothing more and nothing less than what it says. God will look something like man, maybe not exactly like him in certain ways, but the same in image.

Click to expand...

God is not physical, so no, that's not it. We don't "look like" God.

dms1972 said:

What is the meaning of 'In the Image of God'?

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As @AvgJoe says, this refers to the ways that we are like God (although in a much lesser way).

God has incommunicable attributes that we do not share (like being omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient).

But the "image of God" consists of us sharing the communicable attributes of God (although in a much lesser way). For example, we can think, we can communicate, we can love. This is what the "image of God" means.

ewq1938 said:

God disagrees with you in scripture. We are created in God's image and likeness. That's physical in English and the original Hebrew.

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No, that's not physical. God is spirit, not physical, as John 4:24 teaches us, and Isaiah 40:18-19 tells us that we cannot make physical likenesses of God.

Physical things are created. God is not created. What you are selling is a religion completely different from Christianity.

ewq1938 said:

God disagrees with you in scripture. We are created in God's image and likeness. That's physical in English and the original Hebrew.

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No, actually, it's not.

Radagast said:

No, actually, it's not.

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Man is made in the image of God the Son, the second person in the Holy Trinity. Christ is the only one who has a human nature as well as a divine nature. The Holy Bible says that Christ is the image of the invisible God and the firstborn of every creature (Colossians 1:15). According to our Catechism:

CCC 359 "In reality it is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of man truly becomes clear."224
St. Paul tells us that the human race takes its origin from two men: Adam and Christ. . . The first man, Adam, he says, became a living soul, the last Adam a life-giving spirit. The first Adam was made by the last Adam, from whom he also received his soul, to give him life. . . The second Adam stamped his image on the first Adam when he created him. That is why he took on himself the role and the name of the first Adam, in order that he might not lose what he had made in his own image. The first Adam, the last Adam: the first had a beginning, the last knows no end. The last Adam is indeed the first; as he himself says: "I am the first and the last."225

Selene03 said:

Man is made in the image of God the Son, the second person in the Holy Trinity.

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Actually, that's the complete opposite of the truth, if you mean what I think you mean. God the Son became Incarnate and took human flesh. He took our form. As the Catholic Catechism #461 says, "the Church calls 'Incarnation' the fact that the Son of God assumed a human nature in order to accomplish our salvation in it."

Prior to the Incarnation, the Logos/Word/Son was not "man-shaped," He was a spirit, as God the Father is a spirit.

As to creation in the image of God, since you are Catholic, you should note what St Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church says: "we may consider in it that in which the image chiefly consists, that is, the intellectual nature"

Following St Thomas Aquinas, the Catholic Catechism #356 points out that the most important aspect of the image of God is that "Of all visible creatures only man is 'able to know and love his creator.'," and #357 adds that "He is capable of self-knowledge, of self-possession and of freely giving himself and entering into communion with other persons."

The traditional Protestant view is essentially the same as the Catholic one on these points.

The earlier parts of the Bible understood God very anthropomorphically. (e.g. Genesis 18:21 describes God going to Sodom to investigate Sodom's sinfulness). The latter books of the Old Testament and especially the New Testamant show a much more developed conception of God, distinguishing it from the Greco-Roman conception of gods as glorified supermen.

The ancient Israelites most likely took it at face value.

Radagast said:

Actually, that's the complete opposite of the truth. God the Son became Incarnate and took human flesh. He took our form.

Prior to the Incarnation, the Logos/Word/Son was not "man-shaped," He was a spirit, as God the Father is a spirit.

As to creation in the image of God, since you are Catholic, you should note what St Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church says: "we may consider in it that in which the image chiefly consists, that is, the intellectual nature"

Following St Thomas Aquinas, the Catholic Catechism #356 points out that the most important aspect of the image of God is that "Of all visible creatures only man is 'able to know and love his creator.'," and #357 adds that "He is capable of self-knowledge, of self-possession and of freely giving himself and entering into communion with other persons."

The traditional Protestant view is essentially the same as the Catholic one.

Click to expand...

Time and space cannot contain God. He exists outside of time and space and can exist inside time and space at the same time. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit have always been in existence. God acts in three distinct Persons, though He is one and a singular whole. This is the mystery of the Trinity. As the Son of God, Jesus takes part fully in this divine and hidden life of God. But we also know that God is not given to change or alteration; He is perfect in His nature. God is as He is throughout and apart from time. He is eternally the Father, eternally the Son, and eternally the Spirit.

These three Persons also exist in relation to one another. In attempting to express this relationship of Father to Son within God we say that the Son is "begotten" of the Father. This is the way that Scripture refers to this divine relationship. When did this take place? Before creation, since, as John notes, the world was made through the Word (the Son). Such an "action" on the part of God takes place outside of His Creation, outside of time itself. It is not an "event" closed by time, but a way of being within God himself. That is why we say that the Son is "eternally begotten" of the Father.

We have to be careful to understand this term. It is often used as synonymous with "to be born" but it really means "to cause to be." Even though the Son is eternally existent, the Father "causes him to be." God is the cause of his own existence. So "begotten" here is not the same as "being born." That is why the Church, in the Nicene Creed, continues this way: “The Son is begotten, not made, one in being with the Father."

Someone posted Got Questions, which was a good brief look at what consists in being made in the image of God, and after his likeness. I really loved how they explained the examples of how we display it.

My answer is: what distinguishes us from the lower animals, and what reflects the divine nature in some way. Image can be understood to refer to his 'character' that we resemble or share as human beings.