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What does it mean to be made in the image of God?
The Latin phrase is imago Dei, and it stands as one of the most profound declarations in all of Scripture. But let us be careful — this does not mean that we are little gods. That is a heresy, and a dangerous one at that. What it means is that God, in His perfect wisdom, has blessed us to share in certain of His characteristics by granting us physical bodies through which to experience them.
God can see, hear, touch, create, and reason — all without a physical body. He is spirit. But He has fashioned us in such a way that we participate in those very capacities through flesh and bone. This is why Scripture speaks of God as if He possesses hands, eyes, and ears. Theologians call this anthropomorphism — and yes, that is a long word. It simply means describing something by giving it human characteristics.
We do this all the time. The atheist speaks of nature as though it thinks and plans ecosystems. Someone might say "my computer is being stubborn today." Does that mean your laptop has developed a bad attitude? I certainly hope not, or we are all in serious trouble. Does time have legs when we say "time marches on"? Of course not. But the image helps us relate to something beyond our immediate experience. In the same way, when God describes Himself with human characteristics, He is meeting us where we are — speaking in a language our finite minds can grasp, so that we might know Him truly, even if not exhaustively.
But here is what we must not miss: the creation of man was not incidental. It was intentional. Deliberate. Precise. God did not fashion Adam as an afterthought to tend the garden. He fashioned Adam as a perfect image of Himself — and that perfection required sinlessness. Adam, before the Fall, bore the image of God without blemish, without distortion, without the fracturing weight of sin. Adam — before the fall — was exactly what God intended — a flawless representation of the invisible God in visible form. And if that thought arrests you, it should. Because it quietly raises a question that the rest of Scripture will spend centuries answering: “if that perfect image was lost, could it ever be recovered?”
We will return to that question shortly. Adam, then, was a perfect physical image of an incorporeal God. In the garden, God spoke creation into existence, breathed His very spirit into the dust, and placed all things under Adam's dominion. As creation stood subject to Adam, it stood subject to God's order — and therefore to God Himself. Had God already possessed a physical body; there would have been no need for the Son to take on flesh. He would have already been.
Imago Dei Twisted
Now, this concept of a divine image did not vanish when mankind fell. It was twisted. Corrupted. Redirected. Consider the ancient pagan temples. Many of them bore a striking structural resemblance to the Tabernacle later ordained at Sinai — golden interior furnishings, two chambers, and in the innermost chamber, a physical image of their deity. That image was the focal point of all worship, and its physical characteristics were deliberately chosen to represent the capabilities and nature of their god.
Take, for example, Apis — the sacred bull of Egypt. Apis was believed to be the living image of the god Ptah and later associated with Osiris. Specific markings on the animal carried theological weight: a white triangular marking on the forehead signified divine purity, a crescent moon marking spoke of cosmic authority, and the sheer, brute strength of the bull embodied the god's dominion over life and death. Worshipers bowed before this beast as though standing in the presence of the divine itself. Priests tended to it, fed it, adorned it. This was their imago dei. And where did they get this idea? It is likely that civilizations descending from Adam carried with them a distorted memory of a primal truth — that there is a God, and that He has an image bearer on the earth.
They were not entirely wrong in their instinct. They were catastrophically wrong in their application. This is precisely why God, at Sinai, delivered the Second Commandment — that no image of any creature, whether in the heavens above, the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth, was to be fashioned for worship. Worship was not to be directed toward images of creation, nor was God to receive worship through such images. The beast, the bird, the bull — none of these were the image of God. Only man was created imago dei.
The Image Restored
The perfect image of God — though shattered in the Fall of man — was not erased entirely, but deeply fractured. Mankind retained enough of the image to remain morally accountable but no longer stood as the unblemished representation of God's glory in the earth. Enter Christ.
Paul writes in Colossians 1:15 that Christ "is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation." And the author of Hebrews declares in Hebrews 1:3 that He is "the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature." Notice the precision of that language — not a resemblance, not an approximation, not a reasonable facsimile. The exact imprint.
The Greek word used is charakter — the image of a die pressed into wax, leaving a perfect and complete impression. Jesus is what Adam was always meant to be, and infinitely more. In Him, the image of God is perfectly and permanently restored. This means that our love and adoration flowing toward Christ flows rightly and fully unto the Father.
Imago Dei still Among Us
But Christ has ascended. He sits now at the right hand of the Father. So where is that physical channel of love and devotion present among us today? It is here. It is us. The Church is called the Body of Christ, with Christ Himself as its head (Col. 1:18).
Let me be clear — this is not sentimental language designed to produce warm feelings on a Sunday morning. It is a theological directive with real and weighty implications. We are the present, physical embodiment of Christ's image in the world. The hands, the feet, the voice of the one who is the exact imprint of God's nature. And here is the practical weight of this truth: a healthy body can reach outward. A body riddled with disease, bitterness, and internal division cannot extend its hand to anyone. When the church loves one another well — genuinely, sacrificially, and consistently — it becomes a living testimony to the world. It is a physical image that beckons people to look beyond us, to the One whose image we bear.
Now let me be absolutely plain here, because this point is easily misunderstood — I am not saying that we worship mankind. We do not. That would be the very idolatry God condemned at Sinai. What I am saying is that Jesus summarized the entirety of the Law under two commandments: love God and love your neighbor as yourself.
The first three commandments govern our duty toward God; the remaining seven govern our duty toward man. And these two are not in conflict because Jesus again says, “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” By loving our neighbor — who bears the image of God — we demonstrate our obedience to and affection for God Himself. Love is not divided here. It is unified. To love the image is to honor the One whose image it is.
The health of our love inward toward the Body of Christ directly determines the reach of our witness outward. So let me close with the simplest and most demanding instruction in the New Testament. Hebrews 13:1 — four words that carry the entire theological arc we have walked through this morning: "Let brotherly love continue." Not begin. Continue. The assumption embedded in that word is that it is already present among us. The command is that we do not permit it to grow cold or grow thin. Let it continue — in our homes, in our pews, in our conversations, in our conflicts, in our ordinary Monday mornings when no one is watching and the theology feels far away. Let it continue, because in doing so, we image forth the God who is love, through the Son who is the exact imprint of His nature, by the power of the Spirit who has been poured into our hearts and is actively renewing that image after our Creator (Col. 3:10). So, let brotherly love continue.
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