What is the Purpose of God’s Creation of Man in His Image and with a Spirit?

photo credit: Marco Bellucci – cc – Question: Why did God Create Man?

Have you ever wondered, What is God’s purpose in creating man? God is a God of purpose, and nothing He does is accidental or as a reaction to what others do, taking God by surprise.

Why did God create man? Some Christians say that God created man because “God wanted to have fellowship with man”, and “God wanted a companion”. Some say that God loved us, and He wanted us to fulfill His eternal plan. Others say that it is for God to display His love and wisdom in dealing with Satan. All these answers are based on the Bible, and God is indeed Someone who wants a companion, loves man, has a plan to be fulfilled, is full of love and wisdom, etc.

But according to the Bible, what was God’s purpose in creating man? According to the entire revelation of the Holy Scriptures, God created man in His image and according to His likeness so that man would receive God as life and express God in all His attributes (see Gen. 1:26-27; 2:9).

The reason God created man in His image inwardly and with His likeness outwardly was not for man to do anything for God or to “be God’s friend”, but so that man and God would be organically one and God would be expressed through man on earth.

We are created in a very special way, according to God’s kind, so that we may receive God as life, contain Him, enjoy Him, worship Him, live Him, and express Him. We have a capacity and an ability to receive God by means of our spirit, and in our inner being there are certain virtues which are designed to contain the divine attributes so that God may be expressed through us.

God’s Purpose in the Creation of Man

Whatever God does is according to what He is. He created man in His image and according to His likeness so that man would receive God as life and express Him in all His attributes. We need to come back to what the Bible says concerning God’s creation of man.

If we would have an all-inclusive view of the entire revelation in the Holy Word, we will see that in eternity past God designed man to be one with Him, in time He created man and provided a way for man to receive God as his life, and for eternity God will be one with man and will be expressed in man in a corporate way.

Just as we design a house according to our taste and preference, so God designed us in a particular way, making us in His likeness outwardly (so we would look like God) and with His image inwardly (having the human virtues as copies and containers for the divine attributes) so that we may receive God, be one with God, contain God, and express God (see Eph. 3:16-19).

We are not made to “work for God” and merely “fulfill God’s purpose”; we are created to receive God, contain God, be one with God, and express God. We have a human spirit which matches God’s Spirit, and through regeneration we become one spirit with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17).

Now our Christian life is a life of living one spirit with the Lord, one with Him in everything, continually receiving Him as life so that we may also express Him.

Why God Created Man in His Own Image with a Spirit?

Why did God create man in His own image (as if creating a copy of Himself on earth, made of clay) and with a spirit? The answer is: God’s economy! In His economy God desires to dispense Himself into man as life, fill man, be lived out in man, and be expressed through man corporately.

We were created because of God’s economy, and we were created in a particular shape and with a specific organ – our spirit – for the purpose of receiving God’s dispensing of His life into us. We are God’s vessels to contain Him, so that He may be expressed through us – vessels of mercy, of honor, and of glory (Rom. 9:23).

Even before the foundation of the world, before God created the heavens and the earth, He chose us, predestinated us, and selected us that we may be conformed to the image of Christ, His Son (see Eph. 1:4-5; Rom. 8:29). God created us in His own image so that through His economy we would receive His life and nature, and we would become His expression (see 1 Tim. 1:4; John 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:4; 2 Cor. 3:18).

We as believers in Christ are now partakers of the divine nature and enjoyers of the divine life, being daily under the divine dispensing of God for our growth in the divine life to express God corporately.

If you consider your Christian experience, nothing is as satisfying and fulfilling as beholding Christ, spending time with Him, praying and reading the Bible, and simply being infused with God. And then, as we enjoy God as life and receive His dispensing, we can all testify that we express Him spontaneously and effortlessly. This is what we’re made for!

We’re Created in God’s Image: His Attributes can Fill our Virtues!

photo credit: Gloves – via Google – a type of Man as a Container of God

The fact that man was created in God’s image means that God’s divine attributes have been copied into man to become his human virtues. We have certain capacities in us, our human virtues, which are positive and good, matching God’s divine virtues.

Even in our fallen condition we have the capacity to love, the desire to be in the light, the capacity to be right and holy like God. Our deepest need and desire is NOT for earthly things or even psychological or philosophical things – it is for love, light, righteousness, and holiness.

Just as a glove is made in the image of a hand, having four fingers and a thumb, but is not real or fulfilled in its meaning unless man’s hand fills the glove, so we are created in the image of God having all kinds of human virtues, but we are not fulfilled or satisfied unless God comes in to fill our virtues with His divine attributes!

We are tailor made for God – custom made for God to come in and fill us. Our virtues, no matter how much we cultivate and develop them humanly, are not real and meaningful unless we are filled with God’s divine attributes.

We love our parents, our friends, our spouse, our children, etc, but our human love is imperfect, runs out, is changing, and is not real! What we need is for God’s love to come in through our contact with Him and fill our love, sustain our love, and be expressed through our virtue of love.

Man was made by God to have love, light, walk righteously, and be holy, and these are capacities in the man created by God in His image so that man would take God in as life and allow God’s life to be expressed through man’s human virtues!

In 2 Cor. 10:1 and 11:10 we see that Paul entreated the believers through the meekness and gentleness of Christ, and the truthfulness of Christ was in him. This means that God’s attributes of gentleness, meekness, and truthfulness have been wrought into Paul to fill his human virtues of gentleness, meekness, and truthfulness, and Paul expressed Christ’s gentleness, Christ’s meekness, and Christ’s truthfulness.

God’s divine attributes become our human virtues through our continual receiving of God as life, and we express God spontaneously and effortlessly by being daily under God’s dispensing and allowing God to grow in us as life!

Lord, thank You for creating us in Your image inwardly and according to Your likeness outwardly so that we may express You. Thank You for regenerating us with Your life and for making us partakers of Your nature. Lord, keep us open to Your dispensing that we may receive You as life, grow in You, and express You corporately. Fill our virtues with Your divine attributes, Lord, that we may have a meaningful Christian life and we would express You on earth today.

References and Further Reading

• Inspiration: bro. James Lee’s sharing in the message and portions in, The Divine Economy (chs. 1-2), and, The Meaning of Human Life and a Proper Consecration (chs. 2-3), 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.
• Buy this book (vol. 1) online here.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # The divine dispensing starts with the Father. / He selected us ’ere the world began. / Predestinated to be His sons / Through His rich life dispensing.
  # Dear saints, just love Him. / Surely you will enjoy Him. / He is so enjoyable, / So precious and so available. / Our God is dispensing / His life into us, so refreshing. / He is so enjoyable, / So precious and so available.
  # God would have a group of people / Built together in His plan, / Blended, knit, coordinated / As His vessel—one new man. / God would come into this vessel / With His nature, life and ways, / Mingling Spirit with our spirits / For His joy and to His praise.