Created in the image of God

Picking up on a line of thought from an earlier post, I intend to explore a little more of what it means to be created in God's image.

Those who believe the truthfulness of Scripture must affirm that every human being reflects or "images" who God is, more than any other kind of created being. We bear His image structurally -- it is "hardwired" into what it means to be human -- and can be seen in our faculties to reason, choose, emote, form relationships, make covenants, work, and create. And before humankind rebelled against God's rule and fell under His curse, we bore His image functionally -- we reflected God not only in what we could do but also in how we did it. Human beings were created good; when God created humans He called His creation very good (Gen 1:31).

When Adam and Eve rebelled against God and came under the curse (Gen 3:16-19), the image of God remained, but it was damaged in us. The image is retained in its structural sense -- human beings still have the faculties we had before. But the functional image has been lost. We are not capable of doing the good we ought; we do not live and use our abilities in the God-worshiping, neighbor-loving way that we were created for (Ps 143:2; Isa 64:6; Rom 3:9-20). We could describe it this way: Human beings are like mirrors, created to reflect who God is. But through our sin we have struck the mirror in its center so that it is cracked and broken. It still reflects. But what it reflects is now distorted, the image ruined.

The fact that the image of God remains provides a strong basis for human rights and inherent human dignity. This account of human being also explains better than any other how we can see such great good and great evil at the same time in humanity. We are bearers of the image of the Creator, more like Him than anything else in the universe, and are therefore capable of brilliant accomplishments in the arts and sciences. We carry the image of the Holy One, of whom the seraphim cry out, "Holy, Holy, Holy" (Isa 6:3), who calls Himself Love (I Jn 4:8), and are therefore capable of extraordinary acts of kindness and self-sacrifice. But we are broken and shattered as well, and therefore capable of taking science and destroying life with it, of taking the arts and profaning truth and beauty with it, of acting in extraordinarily cruel and selfish ways.

If we are to bear His image properly once again, we will need to be remade. And broken artifacts do not repair themselves. If human beings are to become all of which we are capable, then we will need to learn to look outside of ourselves toward the One who made us.