The image of God redeemed

Although I have not posted on the image of God in some time, more recent developments with embryonic stem cell research, and continuing concern regarding the Freedom of Choice Act, prompt me to take up the thread again.

In the first post in this thread, I attempted to defend biblically the proposition that all homo sapiens, from conception to the grave, bear the image of God. In the second post, I briefly described what it means for human beings today to bear the image of God, differentiating between structural and functional understandings of the image and pointing to the explanatory power of this portrait of human beings.

In this post, I would like to examine one way that the Bible describes salvation. Although the mirror that is human being has been shattered, God does not intend for it to remain that way. All human beings possess the image of God structurally; none of us fully possess it functionally. Through the cross of Christ, God intends to restore His image in human beings.

Notice that I did not say that no human being possesses the image of God functionally. On the other side of humankind's rebellion against God, there is one who perfectly and fully reflects the glory and being of God: Jesus Christ. This truth lies implicit in the biblical teaching that Christ is fully human but wholly without sin (Jn 8:46; Heb 4:15; 9:14; I Pet 1:19). His nature is as our nature, but without sin; Jesus bears the image as we bear the image, but without the mirror being broken. But Christ as the image of God is not only implicit, but Scripture also teaches it explicitly (II Cor 4:4; Col 1:15). Christ fully possesses the structural and functional dimensions of the image of God.

Why is this reality so important? To cite the popular paraphrase from Athanasius' On the Incarnation 54.3, "The Word was made like us so that we could become like Him." Athanasius himself made clear, as John Piper has helpfully pointed out, that we do not assume God's nature in the same way that the Son assumed human nature. Rather, it is a reference to the image of God that all human beings bear. In becoming one of us, and providing justification for us, Christ removes the obstacles of guilt and wrath (Rom 8:3; Phil 2:7). Having forgiven all believers our sins and credited us with Christ's own righteousness, God now looks upon His people with favor and works on their behalf. Through the work of the Spirit He transforms each of His children so that they are not only credited with righteousness, but also live in righteousness, progressively becoming increasingly able to obey God and display His character. In other words, the mirror is being repaired (II Cor 3:18; Eph 4:24; Col 3:10; II Pet 1:4). And at the end of history, when Christ returns and makes all things new, the mirror will be fully restored and we will perfectly image God even as the man Jesus Christ images Him (Rom 8:29; I Cor 15:49).

This teaching of Scripture on the restoration of the image of God should encourage greatly Christ's followers. Everyone who trusts in Christ is a new creation (I Pet 1:3-5; II Cor 5:17) with new desires to please and glorify God (Rom 7:22; 8:5-11). Yet as Scripture and experience attest, we consistently fail to obey Him perfectly (Rom 7:13-20; I Jn 1:8-10). But the image is being restored and will be fully restored. For someone who wants to honor God, that promise gives much hope. It should also help us see that God's purposes cannot be thwarted. God created everything good, including human beings (Gen 1:31). Human and demonic rebellion may have marred what God has created, but it has not undone His purposes for His world. He will remake human nature not only into something that may not sin, but ultimately that cannot sin.

And it reemphasizes the importance of the image of God for our view of human nature. One approach to undermining the dignity of all human life is to find a basis for human personhood not related to the image of God. But that is not an approach that any Bible-believing Christian can take. The image is so important to God that He describes salvation as its restoration, not just in one or two passages, but throughout the New Testament. Christians need to keep God's image front-and-center in our understanding of human beings. It is that important to God.