Skip to main content

What does being made in his image mean?

Genisis 1:27 

“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them” 

If you asked me this question when I was younger, I probably would have assumed you were talking about the physical attributes of God. I envision God to have white hair, a white beard and all the other facial features of a man. Without context, it’s easy to make this association, but if we look at the root of the word “image”, we get other words like “nature” and “likeness”. Chronologically, God made us in his image (Genisis 1:27) before he formed us (Genisis 2:7): clearly showing that our likeness and nature are more important than the formation of our body (in other words flesh) 

So, in simplicity, being made in his image means we share the same characteristics of God, not physical, but internal. But still, what does that mean? 

We can’t truly understand our nature and likeness, if we don’t understand God’s nature and likeness. Luckily for us, God maps out his character in 66 books in the Bible, but today I want to zoom in on only three: all of which consist in Genisis. 

One of the first characteristic of God that is explored is his creativity. In fact, within the first line of the Bible this is demonstrated. From the very start of existence, God was creating (Genisis 1:1) This shows that creativity is part of the identity of God, and if we are made in his image, that also means part of our identity is to create. This isn’t me saying that God is calling you to paint the ‘Mona Lisa’, but part of your inheritance is to explore your creativity, whatever format that may look like. 

The next characteristic isn’t explicitly mentioned but if we look at all the actions of God, it all points to the fact that God has authority. God’s authority isn’t explained it’s illustrated. He doesn’t just have authority, he is the authority, and that is over everything seen and unseen. Because we are image bearers, God gives us an element of authority (Genisis 1:28) and this is done through responsibility (Genisis 2:15) But through our own authority, we should never neglect the source of authority.  

The last characteristic explored is his goodness. Throughout Genisis 1, while God is creating the earth, a common phrase is “And God saw that it was good”. God in nature is “good” and so everything he produces externally is good. We adopt that same goodness but because we were born into sin, our “goodness” is achieved through God. “Goodness” is a fruit of the holy spirit, and we must first accept Jesus into our lives and receive the gift of the holy spirit.  

If there’s one thing you leave with today, meditate on the fact that you are more than just the formation of your body. Your flesh doesn’t have sovereignty over you, because you are made in the image of God.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Choosing Love

1 John 4:19   “We love because H e first loved us”   Whenever I’m in a bad mood... let’s just say I’m not the nicest person to be around. I’m the type of person that can’t hide how I’m feeling. I rarely smile when something is wrong, I probably walk a little different and most likely I have my head dangling down moping. In this state, I’m probably a short fuse: if someone probably looks at me wrong, I may get angry.   I don’t say all of this to applaud myself, but rather to show what not to do. In this world , it is very easy to not have a good day: whether it’s a person that irritated us, maybe a particular circumstance that you’re in, or ma ybe it’s even yourself. All of this, regardless of the situation forces us to have a choice: a choice of how we decide to treat people.   Love is always spoken about from a feeling-based concept, and though you can feel love for someone, very often we mis s the times when it is not easy. The reason why the...
Post a Comment
Read more

An Omnipresent God

Hebrews 13:8   “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever”   Usually with these blogs I tend to write quite broadly: trying to speak and relate to pretty much everyone . However, today I w anted to speak to a particular type of person: a person who has trust issues. I’m not talking about having trust issues with people, alt hough it would be very normal if this was the case, I’m talking about having trust issues with God.   When I say trust issues with God, I’m not saying you reject his character or existence, but rather you are rejecting his nature of being Omnipresent. When we see this word being used it’s usually from a geographical perspective but very rarely is it talked about from a time perspective.   Let me tell you a quick story about how God convicted me this week, and what influenced this blog today. I was walking back home physically, but in my mind, I was working overtime: stressing about my finances and budgeting. During that time...
Post a Comment
Read more

Identity built through Christ

John 1:12    “ Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed his name, he gave the right to become children of God”   Identity is always something I have struggled with. I believed that if I did not act a certain way with certain people I would not be accepted. I built my identity on the perception of others: letting other people's opinion of me dictate my value as a person. One thing I didn’t realise was that my value had already been written , something established long before I was even born. My value: your value, is built through Jesus. And so, we can’t let the opinion of others affect us, whether positive or negative because our identity is not built on the perception of others but of God. We are all seen di fferently by different people , maybe your someone’s brother or sister, a mum or a dad, or something else. The most common association t o our identity is our names. It’s what our friends , teachers and family refer to us by: an associat...
Post a Comment
Read more