But God made us in His image. So, how come people believe we evolved from apes?
I personaly believe we are unique. Gods own sons and daughters. Ok, we may share dna with many apes etc but i still believe we are unique.
The divine image and likeness isn't about bodily shape, or form, or anything like that. That's not the theological meaning behind the concept.
Throughout Scripture the idea of God's habitation and the idea of temple is an interesting one. For example, David wanted to build a temple, a permanent structure where the Ark of the Covenant would be (instead of the Tabernacle which was mobile), God told David that there was too much blood on his hands, but that his son would be able to do so; and indeed Solomon was tasked with the building of the first temple. What does Solomon say in response to this? "The heavens, even the heavens of heavens, cannot contain you, how much less this house which I have built." The Psalmist says, "The heavens are Your throne, and the earth is Your footstool." In the New Testament we see Christ say, "Tear down this temple and in three days I will rebuild it" speaking of the resurrection of His body, and the idea of the Temple is summarily subsumed into the Person of Jesus and His Church, St. Paul saying, "Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple?" And St. Peter speaking of the Church as God's temple, "You yourselves are like living stones being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ". And in the Apocalypse of St. John, when all is said and done, the penultimate vision of the renewal of all creation and the New Jerusalem is that there is no temple in this new city, for God and the Lamb are its Temple, for God dwells with His people and He shall be their God and they shall be His people.
If we look at Genesis 1 this theme of temple can be seen even here, that the whole universe is God's habitation, the heavens and the earth. When a temple was built, the final act was always the installation of the image of the god; of course God has always prohibited idols but what we do have in Genesis 1 is God saying He will make man in His own image. The final act of creation was the creation of human beings, made in His image and likeness. The point of the image in temples was to represent the presence of the divine; obviously God prohibited images of His likeness because nothing could be compared to His likeness, but God did create human beings to be His image-bearers. Not because we look like God, or that God looks like us, but that we are the divine representatives on earth, we are the image-bearers, created to reflect the divine glory. To be the reflection of God in creation.
The Divine Image is not about form or shape, but
purpose. Human beings uniquely bear the divine image, not because we aren't animals or aren't related to other animals--but because human beings uniquely in this world have a relational dimension with God, each other, and with the rest of creation. That man is a rational animal, man--unlike every other creature on earth--is capable of understanding the ramifications of his actions, their impact on others and other creatures, and is capable of culpability for those actions, and has the capacity to either act as shepherd and priest, or as tyrant and monster. Through sin we have played the part of tyrant and monster, hence the redemptive drama of history which has its fullness in Jesus Christ and, ultimately, the renewal of the whole creation at His Parousia.
The precise "mechanics" of anthropogenesis is ultimately irrelevant to these theological points. That is, the evolution of human beings through natural processes as orchestrated by God because God is the architect of the natural world no less makes human beings created in the divine image than if one wishes to take the Genesis creation stories literally. The points remain the same either way; because the divine image isn't about what we look like, but about our purpose within creation as creatures representing the divine glory and created to share in the divine glory.
-CryptoLutheran
