Are we made in God's image?

GingerBeer said:

Not to live?

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He came as a human to die to defeat Satan and sin, but if no one sinned, what purpose was there? That was your question.

GingerBeer said:

I know that scripture starts with telling us that God made Adam & Eve in his own image. So my question is not about that. I am asking if we were created as we are because God is like that and we're made in his image? I am not asking if God has hands and feet and a body like a man (or woman).

The core question for me is

Did God create man in his image because it was always and eternally God's intention to be incarnate in Jesus Christ or did God decide to become incarnate because man fell into sin and needed a redeemer who was himself a man?​

We do need a redeemer so that is not the issue here. But if we suppose, hypothetically, that Adam never fell nor Eve then would God have become incarnate as man - as Jesus Christ?

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Just after the Fall, we see God walking around in the Garden. "Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden (Genesis 3:8)." It is only speculation, but this implies that He was already "walking around" in human flesh. Even earlier in Genesis 2, we see where God brought the animals to Adam "to see what he would name them (Genesis 2:19)." While it doesn't say what form God was in, I would like to think He was in some kind of human form as opposed to some supernatural form in order to partake in a "Father and son" moment with His child. In Genesis 18, the Lord and two angels appeared to Abraham and enjoyed a meal with him. He was in human flesh at this point, otherwise, He wouldn't have been eating. Now, we don't know if God was in the form of Jesus Christ because it doesn't say and also because Jesus means "God rescues" which doesn't fit these examples of the Lord's appearing to His creation. But, again, I am only speculating. As a side note, God created man to indwell (live inside) him. To be in the image of God is to be a reflection of Him; similar to a reflection one sees in a mirror or a body of water. Salvation is the restoration of the life of God we lost when Adam sinned. That is something only Jesus could accomplish and that is why God became a man. But, that is another conversation. Hope this helps.

So you're asking why we were created in God's image?

GingerBeer said:

The Word was God ... and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (from the Gospel According to John chapter one).

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Yes, I believe that means, God dwells in Jesus and in the disciples of Jesus, because:

Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I tell you, I speak not from myself; but the Father who lives in me does his works…
John 14:10

But if the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
Romans 8:11

GingerBeer said:

I know that scripture starts with telling us that God made Adam & Eve in his own image. So my question is not about that. I am asking if we were created as we are because God is like that and we're made in his image? I am not asking if God has hands and feet and a body like a man (or woman).

The core question for me is

Did God create man in his image because it was always and eternally God's intention to be incarnate in Jesus Christ or did God decide to become incarnate because man fell into sin and needed a redeemer who was himself a man?​

We do need a redeemer so that is not the issue here. But if we suppose, hypothetically, that Adam never fell nor Eve then would God have become incarnate as man - as Jesus Christ?

Click to expand...

Romans 5:14
Adam was made in the image of Him who was to come.
He who was to come, is come ( and is coming again), in the likeness of sinful Adam, but without sin, in a body of new Man creation flesh that was created brand new in the womb of a female Adam person (instead of being made brand new out of the dust of regenerated earth), so that He could reverse adopt Himself into the Adam race to be the legal Kinsman Redeemer.
He put on the New Man flesh garment created in the womb for Him which He donned as a garment, as Isaiah 59 so states (for it states that YHWH could find no “ish/man” to intercede for the Adam race), and so He, YHWH, in the Person of God the Word, put on the Garment of Yeshua/Salvation, so as to be the Legal brother to the Adam race, and the Redeemer/Kinsman.

He was always going to come. The plan was made before the foundation of the world, because God knew Adam would become defiled, and die in spirit and become not fit, in his flesh, to be fit for the glory again, which he was created for; so the plan is fulfilled in the New Creation human being name (Israel is that Name -Isaiah 49), by His fulfillment of His planned Day of Atonement. God never had a plan “B”. This is “IT”!
God was manifest in the flesh, seen of men, died as our Ransom, descended to Hell below to take our sins to give them to Azazel (wrongly translated “scapegoat”, in the OT), who is chained there and who led the rebellion of the Watchers who fell, and ascended into Heaven, received into Glory -in the fully human being flesh body that was typed in the Living Oracle given to the namesake people of the New Man name, so as to yearly rehearse the Day of Atonement that was to come, and is come, in tha the body of flesh that YESHUA wears was typed in the incorruptible solid gold Mercy Seat.

In Sheol/Hell below, our Redeemer gave to Azazel, all our sins and transgressions which were laid on Him by the Father, on the cross (Isaiah 53), when He tasted spiritual death for us and cried “MY God,My God, why have You forsaken ME”!
In Hell below, when He announced to the chained angels the Atonement was completed and their doom was sealed, He then took captivity (Death) captive, and emptied the chamber, there below of all those who waited there in the death of separation from the glory of the Father, but who were awaiting the Atonement. Those souls who were held there in death of spirit and death of body since the first death of Abel, the murdered prophet, but who died in righteousness or innocence (those who died before understanding right from wrong, includes murdered in the womb babies and those who died before the age of accountability), and He took them all to heaven, to await the regeneration of their bodies, so as to be clothed with them “for the Glory” -which regeneration happens at the time of the rapture of the living redeemed saints, which is before the tribulation that brings many remaining on earth to confess Him as LORD, but who have to be either killed as martyrs or endure to the end of the tribulation to be “saved” -born again....

GingerBeer said:

Do you believe that is the only reason for creating man in Christ's image?

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That is the reason Jesus became man.

GingerBeer said:

Yet man is made a physical being and it is the whole man including his physical being that is the image of God.

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As God is a Spirit we cannot look like God as we are physical.
Neither can we look like Jesus unless that likeness is to be human.

GingerBeer said:

Jesus is God and he has a human body so why can't we look like God?

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Genetics.

GingerBeer said:

The kind that distinguishes a human being from a cute little kitty?

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No the same genes that cause aunties and grandmas to coo, 'he's got his fathers eyes and his mothers ears etc etc'
genes control not just height and hair colour, but every aspect of how we look.

In Gen 2:7, we read that God made man.

In particular, God... not God + Angels

So, if Scripture does not contradict itself, then in Gen 1:26, when God says "let us make man"...

God is not talking to His Divine Council (= God + Angels), because none of His Divine Council members (Angels) helped make man.

Therefore, God [the Father] is talking to His Godhead (Word + Spirit) who are, in fact, the only other Divine Beings mentioned up to that point in Gen 1:

• [Father] God made the heavens & earth (Gen 1:1)
• [Holy Spirit] Spirit of God hovering over waters (Gen 1:2)
• [Word] God said, "let there be light" (Gen 1:3)

This is in fact the exact argument of Saint Irenaeus of Lyons (modern France) 1850 years ago:

We do know that only God the Father is Omniscient, "only the Father knows" (Matt 24:36), so the ignorance of the Word + Spirit to God's plans for making man are not surprising (despite what some modern commentators say)

GingerBeer said:

if we suppose, hypothetically, that Adam never fell nor Eve then would God have become incarnate as man - as Jesus Christ?

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in order for man to commune with God, he needs to be sanctified. this sanctification was needed before the fall event, the fall event simply exposes our need for sanctification but it does not create it. the fall event would set in motion a different way to obtain sanctification which seems to have been automatic and in ignorance before the fall but would have still existed. A perfect piece of paper will burn just as quick as a tarnished one when exposed to fire. We are the piece of paper, God is the fire and it really doesn't matter what we look like, in order for us to meet God, we simply cannot do it alone.

GingerBeer said:

...God's intention to be incarnate in Jesus Christ or did God decide to become incarnate because man fell into sin and needed a redeemer who was himself a man?
We do need a redeemer so that is not the issue here. But if we suppose, hypothetically, that Adam never fell nor Eve then would God have become incarnate as man - as Jesus Christ?

Click to expand...

Where does the Bible say God incarnated?

I know only that God lives in Jesus and also in disciples of Jesus, but I don’t think that is the same as being incarnated.

Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I tell you, I speak not from myself; but the Father who lives in me does his works.
John 14:10

Don't you know that you are a temple of God, and that God's Spirit lives in you?
1 Corinthians 3:16

1213 said:

Where does the Bible say God incarnated?

I know only that God lives in Jesus and also in disciples of Jesus, but I don’t think that is the same as being incarnated.

Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I tell you, I speak not from myself; but the Father who lives in me does his works.
John 14:10

Don't you know that you are a temple of God, and that God's Spirit lives in you?
1 Corinthians 3:16

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John 1:14, "Word became flesh"

GingerBeer said:

Jesus is God and he has a human body so why can't we look like God?

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Son of Man was Jesus physically flesh and blood.
Son of God was Jesus invisible. In other words Jesus' divinity was invisible to us just the way the Father is invisible to us.

Col 1:15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:

God is invisible therefore the part of Jesus that was the image of God must also be invisible. The Divine glory of God.

I think that makes some sense, I hope.

Hank77 said:

Son of Man was Jesus physically flesh and blood.
Son of God was Jesus invisible. In other words Jesus' divinity was invisible to us just the way the Father is invisible to us.

Col 1:15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:

God is invisible therefore the part of Jesus that was the image of God must also be invisible. The Divine glory of God.

I think that makes some sense, I hope.

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makes sense that "Son of Man" might emphasize the human nature, whereas "Son of God" would emphasize the Divine nature?