A common description of humanity is that we are all God’s children. It is said, we are all made in the image of God. This comes from the verse in Genesis 1:27:
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”
Is this still true? A brief study on the image of God tells the story of salvation.
An Important Difference
In the beginning every man was made in the image of God. Then again, there was only one man and one woman (Gen 1:26-27).
Here the Bible stands in contrast to false religions that teach that we see god in every person, or that we are all little picture frames for God. This is false. Adam was made in the image of God, but he was not the image of God.
The difference is crucial. Man was made after or according to God’s image, but man was not God nor do we become gods.
In Adam’s Image
Man’s image changed when sin entered by that one man. By sin, the image of God that man was made in was ruined. God was righteous, but man was sinful. God was life, but now man must die.
In Adam all die, and every man born in Adam is now made in Adam’s sinful fallen image.
“And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image…” – Genesis 5:3
The Second Adam
The Bible calls Jesus Christ the second Adam, but with an important difference. Instead of describing Jesus as made “in the image” of God, Paul says that Jesus is “the image” of God.
“Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:” – Colossians 1:15
Jesus was the fullness of the Godhead bodily, God manifest in the flesh, and he said about himself:
“…he that hath seen me hath seen the Father…” – John 14:9
Only Jesus could say this. No other man could ever say they are the image of God.
In Christ: God’s Image
We were born in Adam’s image. We are destined to die in this image unless we get a new likeness. Only God can perform this transformation.
God is able to put us in his image again through Christ: the image of God. This transformation takes place by grace through faith in the gospel.
God made man in his image. Man remade himself in his own image with sin. Christ came to manifest the image of God to save us from sin. Salvation occurs when you trust God in Christ to pay for your sins and his resurrection to make a new creature.
It is the power of Christ’s death and resurrection that is able to remake you in His image.
“For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son,” – Romans 8:29
You can be made in the image of God, but only if you trust Christ to pay for your sins through death, and make you in His likeness through resurrection. The Bible calls this regeneration.
You were born in Adam. You should not stay that way. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, the image of God, and be saved.
“Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;” – Titus 3:5
Article Index Published: September 17, 2016
Last Modified: March 27, 2019