“Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:26-27).
“In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female, and blessed them and called them Mankind in the day they were created” (Genesis 5:1b-2).
Although both male and female were created in the image of God, the Bible does not give us a specific definition of what that entails. To be made in the image of something is not to be an exact duplication of it but a likeness, or representation of it. Since God is Spirit, then we can safely say that when God breathed into man the breath of life, impart-
ing into his body with a spirit and soul, He gave him the capacity to be His representative.
It is our spirit that enables us to communicate and relate to God who is Spirit. We were given spiritual life to live out our human life here on earth, to reflect the nature of God, using our conscience to discern moral and ethical values. We are capable of being responsible, rational, accountable, and to exercise authority over all God has given us.
Some things that sets us apart from all other forms of life God created are:1
- our uniqueness which is expressed through our personality
- our freedom, exercised in our capacity of having free-will
- our intellect gives us the capacity to reason and gain knowledge
- our moral conscience gives us the ability to discern good and evil
- our creativity allows us to imagine, invent and produce
- our ability to be sensitive in expressing a wide range of emotions
- we have self-awareness and can be self-contemplative
Although we have these similarities of God’s likeness, we are to be mindful that we are the creature and not divine, we are to enjoy our God-like humanity in those humble terms, and not let pride deceive us into thinking we can be greater than God and survive independent of Him.
Notes
1. See Pastor Dan Lewis, Genesis PDF, pgs. 12-13 http://troychapel.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Genesis.pdf