In God's image

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.” – Genesis 1.26

I remember when we were teaching in a Christian school part of the curriculum what a basic catechism. I am not too sure how I feel about catechismal teaching, but I’ll leave that aside.

Anyway, the first question asked was ‘who made you?’
The answer was ‘God made me.’

The second question was ‘what else did God make?’
The answer ‘God made me and all things.’

Whether I like that style of teaching or not the facts are still the same – God made me. It is obvious from the very start that mankind was intended to be different from the rest of creation. Humanity was to have a special place above and apart from all the rest.

We are made in the image of God. Clearly, since God is a spirit and does not have a body like man we are not created in His physical image. We are also not perfect and do not have the His divine attributes. We are not all knowing, we can’t be everywhere at the same time, we are not all powerful.

But God created us with the capacity to love and care and be light to the world around us. He gave us a free will. He gave us the ability to think and to reason. Mankind is different from the rest of creation because we are God’s image bearers.

That image was marred by the Fall. Sin marred the image of God, but to those of us who have been redeemed we bear the image of God to the rest of the world. I have to ask myself if my life reflects the image of God.