January 17 – LD 3, Day 3: Man in the Image of God
by Prof Herman Hanko
Read: Genesis 1:26-28, Ephesians 4:20-32, Colossians 3:1-10.
Our teacher is not
finished with a description of the wonder and glory of our original creation.
We are told that “God created us . . . after his own image, in true
righteousness and holiness.”
The word “image” here
means that God created us so that we were in some way like him. We could not,
of course, be as glorious as he is, for we are always finite creatures and he
is always the infinite God. But it does mean that in moral purity and sinlessness, we were like him, though even then in a
creaturely way.
Although the narrative in
Genesis 1 does not tell us specifically what elements were a part of that
image, two other places in Scripture do tell us this. They both speak of how,
through Christ, we are saved in such a way that the image of God is restored in
us. Ephesians 5:23, 24 tells us that the restoration of the image in us is a
renewal of the mind (23) and that we are to put on the new man that, after God,
is created in righteousness and true holiness (24).
The new man is “after
God;” that is the new man is like God. We sometimes say of a young girl, “She
takes after her mother.” “She is like her mother.” That likeness to God is
characteristic of the new man, which is created by God. And that new man is
characterized by righteousness and holiness.
Colossians 3:10 tells us
that specifically, knowledge belongs to that image: “And have put on the new
man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.”
The text specifically says that in creating us in his image, God gave us true
knowledge.
We surely were not
created wicked. God made us as creatures that possessed true knowledge of him.
And “knowledge” here means the same as it means in Genesis 4:1, where Adam is
said to have known his wife. That is, he knew her in the most intimate
knowledge of the covenant fellowship of marriage, for that knowing produced a
son. Adam knew God in the covenant of fellowship in which God spoke to him in
the cool of the day.
Adam’s righteousness was
his perfect conformity to the will of God in all his life and activity. And
Adam’s holiness was a spotless, guiltless holiness of his nature that reflected
the glory of God.
He was an unsurpassed
creation of God who represented God’s cause in God’s world.
That is how we were
created. Consider into what a shamble we have fallen.