On the sixth day of God’s creation and process of restoration He created man in His own image and according to His likeness (see Gen. 1:26). God’s creation of man was more particular than His creation of any other thing: there was a council held in the Three of the Godhead, and the result was the decision to create man!
Man was created not according to “man-kind” but according to God-kind, according to the image of God. God desires to gain an image, an expression, in humanity, and for this He created man according to His image inwardly and bearing His likeness outwardly. The entire Bible speaks of how God will gain His image being expressed corporately in man. We need to ask ourselves,
Is there any difference between image and likeness? What is the image of God? How can an invisible God have a visible image? Who can be the image of God? How can we as human beings have God’s image and bear His likeness?
The Importance of the Image of God as His Expression in His Economy
Never until now did I notice or appreciate how much God desires to have His image expressed in man according to His economy. As we read the Bible we see that again and again the image of God is mentioned or implied, covering from eternity past to eternity future. The image of God is God’s expression in His economy on the earth and in the universe.
In the entire economy of God, from eternity past to eternity future, God’s image is what is on God’s heart. The entire plan and economy of God is about God’s image, His expression. Here are eight main points related to God’s image (recently shared by bro. James Lee in a message):
- In God’s creating and upholding the universe, God’s image was mentioned. In Heb. 1:2-3, the One through whom the universe was made is the effulgence of God’s glory and the impress of His substance. Christ is the impress of God’s substance – bearing the characteristic of God, being a mark, a seal, with the image of God. God’s creation and upholding the universe is for God’s expression, His image. In creation we see God’s power and divine characteristics, His image (Rom. 1:20).
- In man’s creation, God’s image is mentioned (Gen. 1:26). God created man out of the dust of the ground, and man has God’s image and likeness. Man was made in a more special way, according to God’s image and with His likeness.
- The Christ in Whom we have redemption is the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:14-15). Even our experience of redemption has to do with God’s expression! We are not redeemed merely from the world and from Satan, but we are redeemed in Christ as the image of God!
- The Image of God is manifested in our Growth and Transformation in life. As we grow in life unto maturity, we will be like Him at the time of His manifestation because we will see Him even as He is (1 John 3:2)! The end result of our growth in life is that we will look like Him, having Christ’s image. Today we are being transformed into the same image, from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:18). As we grow in life and are being transformed, we will arrive at the image of Christ.
- The end result of our transformation is that we will be conformed to the image of the Firstborn Son of God (Rom. 8:29). Not only inwardly but also outwardly we will be conformed to and shaped in His image. As we grow in Christ, we are inwardly transformed and outwardly conformed!
- The church as the new man is being renewed unto full knowledge according to the image of Him who created the new man (Col. 3:10). In the church life today as the reality of the new man we are being renewed day by day according to His image.
- At the coming manifestation of Christ, all His believers will become like Him and will look like Him (see 1 John 3:2). We will be transfigured in our body, and we will have the body of His glory to bear His image in full (Phil. 3:21).
- In the New Jerusalem, God appears like jasper, and the entire city has the appearance of jasper (see Rev. 4:3; 21:11, 18, 19). This means that for eternity we will look like God, expressing His image in the entire universe for His glory and manifestation!
God Created Man in His Own Image, According to His Likeness
The decision of the council held in the three of the Godhead in eternity past was to create man in the image of God and according to His likeness (Gen. 1:26). God’s desire is to gain a corporate people by dispensing Himself into them and making them His expression, and for this He created man!
We as human beings are created by God not according to “man-kind” but according to God-kind, in His image and according to His likeness. Even though image and likeness refer to the same thing, there’s a difference between them.
God’s image refers to His inner being, the expression of the inner essence of God’s attributes. God has many attributes like love, kindness, compassion, righteousness, etc, and the most prominent of them are love (1 John 4:8), light (1:5), holiness (Rev. 4:8), and righteousness (Jer. 23:6). God is the sum total of these attributes, and our inner being is characterized by all the attributes of God.
God’s likeness refers to God’s form (see Phil. 2:6) and it is the expression of the essence and nature of God’s person. So then image refers to something inward related to God’s inner attributes, and likeness refers to God’s form and person – they are distinct, yet not separate!
We are created in God’s image – this means we have God’s image inwardly, and God’s inward attributes were copied into our spirit. Our spirit is the breath of Jehovah bearing the characteristics of Jehovah God, including all His attributes, which were copied into our spirit to become our inward virtues. No matter how sinful a man is, deep inside there are God’s attributes as his virtues: love, light, holiness, and righteousness.
Also, we were created according to God’s likeness – we look like God, and God looks like us! If we see that God created us in His image according to His likeness, we will not do anything to our body to “beautify ourselves” according to our thought or in our way, because God made us in the best possible way to be His duplication!
Man is God’s Duplication, God’s Kind, Created According to Christ
All the other living things were created by God according to their kind (see Gen. 1:11-12, 21, 24-25), but man was created according to God’s kind (see Acts 17:28-29). Man today is God’s duplication and expression on the earth, bearing God’s image and having His likeness. God is the original, and we are His mass duplication and reproduction.
Why did God create man in His image and according to His likeness? God desires to be man’s content and He wants man to be His container, being filled with His divine life. Since God and man are of the same kind, it is possible for man to be joined to God and to live together in an organic union (see John 15:5; Rom. 6:5; 11:17-24; 1 Cor. 6:17).
This is God’s desire in His creating man: to be joined to man and bring man into an organic union with Him, so that God in man would be expressed on earth.
We have grown together with Him in the likeness of His death through baptism (Rom. 6:5), and now we grow in the likeness of His resurrection. We are in an organic union with the Lord in which we are one spirit with Him, and you can’t even differentiate which part is man and which part is God: we are joined, united, and mingled together! Hallelujah!
Col. 1:15 and Heb. 1:3 show us that Christ is the image of the invisible God, and in Gen. 1:26 we are told that man is created in the image of God. This means that Christ is the image of God, expressing the invisible God in a visible way, and we are created according to Christ as the image of God!
We are created according to the image of Christ, and God intends that Christ would be our content and our life, making His home in us!
Thank You Lord for creating us in such a special way. We are created in God’s image and according to His likeness. We today look like God and we have His image inwardly in the human virtues as copies of the divine attributes. Lord, You are our content. Lord, You are our life. We praise You for bringing us into an organic union with You through regeneration. We just want to grow in You daily, remain in the organic union, and be continually transformed and conformed to Your image to express You!
References and Further Reading
- Inspiration: bro. James Lee’s sharing in the message and portions in, Life-study of Genesis (msg 6) and Truth Lessons – Level One (Vol. 1, lesson 3), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on the Crystallization Study of Genesis (1), week / msg 4, God Creating Man in His Own Image for His Expression.
- Further reading: recommending Gen. 1:26 and all the footnotes, and Col. 1:15 with footnote 1 (in the Recovery Version Bible).
- Hymns on this topic:
# God in His own image / Hath created man, / That he may be able / To fulfill His plan; / That he may receive Him / As the tree of life / To become His fulness / As to man the wife.
# What we are, we’re His image; / We’re created in His image, / To express the Christ, subdue the earth, / The purpose of our second birth, / We’re His image, glorious!
# God has made man on the sixth day in a special way. / In God’s image and God’s likeness, man was formed from clay / With a spirit, soul and body, a three-part man / God’s vessel was this man.
