Made In His Image

Made in His Image

The final creative act on day six of creation began with this divine deliberation: “God said, ‘Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us’” (Genesis 1:26).

What does it mean to be made in God’s image? We are in God’s image in our ability to think and feel and love, in our ability to understand right from wrong, and in our ability to make choices. We’re like him in that he is Spirit and we have a spirit. We are patterned after our Maker.

But something terrible happened to that divine image when Adam and Eve sinned. The image of God in humans became distorted and damaged. So now, although we are still in his image, aspects of that image have become twisted, and the sinful nature we inherited from Adam and Eve has been passed from generation to generation. We long for the day when that marred image of God in us will be restored to its original beauty. Yet God has planned to do something even greater than restore what his image in us once was in the Garden. God intends for the original image of God in humankind to be restored and even superseded by the greater glory of becoming a new creation in Christ.

Jesus is “the visible image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), “the exact representation of his being” (Hebrews 1:3, NIV). And “those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (Romans 8:29, NIV, emphasis added).

God intends to conform us to the image of Christ—and the completion of this process is still in the future for us, on the day Christ returns and we are given resurrection bodies. Yet we are, even now, being glorified—our inner lives and characters are being gradually changed into his likeness by the sanctifying power of his Holy Spirit. This is not something we do, but something we receive. The righteousness and holiness that are the image of God in us are created in us, not elicited from us. “We are God’s workmanship” (Ephesians 2:10, NIV).

I am your child, made in your image, but you have not yet shown me all of what I will be like when you appear. But I know I will be like you, for on that day I will see you as you really are.