Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
Genesis 1:26-31
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
A few years ago, I was introduced to the Discovery Bible Study (DBS) approach to introducing people to God. It is quite simple. We read the text, repeat it, and then ask a couple of questions. What does this text tell you about God? What does this text tell you about humans? Then it moves on into application. If this is true, what do you need to change in your life because of what you learned? It is a simple discovery as the Holy Spirit works through the Word of God to reveal God to people who do not know God. I am not the teacher; the Holy Spirit is. There is a little more to the process, but these questions are at the core of the DBS process.
I began noticing an interesting phenomenon both with people I have worked with and from other DBS practitioners’ stories. Amazing things would often happen during the first session of the series we call “Creation to Christ.” It is a series of passages beginning with the creation story in Genesis 1 and going on through key Old Testament passages and ending up in the gospels where they meet Jesus. That first session is just the creation story. Remember, I don’t teach. I just facilitate with the questions and guide the discussion.
Often, the participants gain a new and higher view of human beings when they read this passage. They are struck by the statement that God made man in his image and after his likeness. The text goes on to elaborate and give his newly minted humans dominion over the rest of creation. People are different from the rest of the creation.
One profound story is told of a man who participated in a DBS, and when it came to his turn to tell what he needed to change in his life because of what he learned, he said, “I have to stop paying women for sex.” The other guys in the group were shocked, not by what he said, but by how he came to that conclusion. The question was, “How did you come to that conclusion from the Genesis 1 creation story? He explained that he saw women as created in the image of God for the first time, and he couldn’t treat them that way anymore. The Holy Spirit knows how to penetrate men’s hearts with the Word of God beyond what we would normally expect.
I have recently gained a more precise understanding of the meaning of God’s “image” and “likeness” that has elevated my understanding of humanity further.1 Without going into the in-depth language discussion for how the terms are used both in Scripture and in contemporary usage at the time of writing, I will just jump to the conclusions.
“In that light, “likeness” specifies a relationship between God and humans such that adam can be described as the son of God, and “image” refers to a relationship between God and humans such that adam can be described as a servant-king.”2 The rest of creation does not bear this same image and likeness of God. Human beings were created with God’s likeness in that he tasked us with subduing the earth and having dominion over all of the other created creatures, the servant-king picture. We are meant to serve God and exercise dominion over the creation that he has given to us. This speaks of the human to creation relationship.
As those created in God’s image, we are intended to be his sons. There is a covenantal relationship of loyal love and faithfulness intended between God and humans from the beginning. We failed in Adam to fulfill that covenant and are no longer, apart from Christ’s redemption, able to act as sons of God.
Psalm 8 is a commentary on this creation narrative in Genesis 1:26-28.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
4 what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.
6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under his feet,
7 all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.9 O Lord, our Lord,
Psalm 8:3-9
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Humans were made a little lower than the heavenly beings (often understood as angels). He crowned us with glory and honor and gave us dominion over creation. Why does the Psalm end with, “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth?” Because these humans he has been describing are his image, his likeness, his glory, and honor are shown in the people he created. Even in our fallen state, we show his image and his likeness.
Our American culture has lost this Biblical view of man. We need a revival of Biblical anthropology, not atheistic Darwinistic anthropology that sees humans as evolved from primordial ooze and thus having no more intrinsic value than the asphalt we drive our cars on.
God’s enemy has been assaulting God’s image forever, and he has been doing a bang-up job in Western culture in recent history. The result of this loss of God’s image in our consciousness allows for all sorts of evil to go on. Would we have so much ethnic and racial tension if we all saw our ethnically diverse fellow humans as the image and likeness of God? Would we fight the creation order of male and female if we understood God’s created order? Would we so easily murder our unborn if we understood that they are each in the image and likeness of God?
Understanding who or what our fellow human beings are is important. Unfortunately, apart from the redemption in Christ, we have all marred the image of God through sin. As a Jesus-follower, do I look at unbelievers as the image and likeness of God? Or do I think of them as less than that? Jesus doesn’t look at them as less than that. He died for them because he does see them with that glory and honor, and the potential to indeed function as a servant-king under the Lordship of Jesus. Do we?
When we see humans behaving in a disgusting manner, can we remember that God intends something better for them? Can we see them as redeemed sons and servant-kings honoring King Jesus? I pray we will. Every human being is created with this potential. They need to have a viable presentation of the gospel from someone they know and trust who demonstrates what it is to be a servant-king and son of God.
