Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. (Gen. 1:26)

The act of creating man was based on the deliberate counsel of God. Though all that God had done in Creation up to that point He pronounced as good, Creation was incomplete without man. Man was no afterthought, but the result of deliberate forethought on the part of the Godhead. And after God created man He then said that everything He had made was "very good" (v. 31).¹

God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. (Gen. 1:27)

The Hebrew words in Genesis 1:26-27 are tselem and demuth (translated in the Vulgate by imago and similitudo). The equivalent New Testament words are eikon and homoiosis. … Tselem means a fashioned image, a shaped and representative figure, an image in some concrete sense (2 Kings 11:18; Ezek. 23:14; Amos 5:26). Demuth refers also to the idea of similarity but more in the abstract or ideal. By using the two words together, the biblical author "seems to be attempting to express a very difficult idea in which he wants to make clear that man is in some way the concrete reflection of God, but at the same time he wants to spiritualize this toward abstraction" (Addison H. Leitch, "Image of God," The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1975], 3:256).

The Greek and Latin fathers distinguished between image and likeness, referring the former to the physical and the latter to the ethical part of God’s image. Irenaeus understood the image to refer to man’s freedom and reason and likeness to the gift of supernatural communion with God which was lost in the Fall. But such distinctions cannot be substantiated on the basis of the words. Note also that the prepositions are used interchangeably in Genesis 1:26-27 and 5:1-3.²

Much has been written attempting to explain what is meant by man’s being created in the image of God. Here are some of the explanations.

1. The corporeal view. This relates the image of God to man’s total being including his corporeality. Strictly speaking, it includes both the material and immaterial aspects of man. But since it includes the material body of man as part of the image of God, it may be labeled the corporeal view. "Man is a representative by his entire being, for Israelite thought always views man in his totality, by his physical being as well as by his spiritual functions, and if choice had to be made between the two we would say that the external appearance is perhaps even more important than spiritual resemblance. According to L. Koehler the image of God could consist in man’s upright position . . . [but] the solemnity with which the priestly writer speaks of the imago Dei seems to prove that he did not restrict it to this single aspect. . . . It is also to a rather physical sense that we are directed by the passage in Genesis which refers to the image of God over the matter of blood vengeance (9:6)" (Edmond Jacob, Theology of the Old Testament [New York: Harper & Row, 1958], pp. 168-9).

Two obstacles appear to stand in the way of accepting this view.

(1) Since God is spirit and has no body, how could the image of God in which man was created be corporeal? (2) Animals have bodies but are not said to have been created in the image of God, so corporeality does not necessarily have to be related to the image of God.

2. The noncorporeal view. This view connects the image of God to facets of personality Many writers emphasize moral likeness dominion the exercise of will and intellectual faculties (ability to speak organize etc. ) as specifics of the noncorporeal image of God

3 A combination view. I would suggest a combination of the two previous views as follows Genesis 1:27 states that mankind male and female was created in the image of God No one attributes sex to God because of this statement; yet male and female indicate sex. Similarly, just because man, created in the image of God, has a body, does not necessitate attributing a body to God. But obviously man was created a total being, material and immaterial, and that total being was created in the image of God.

Therefore, (1) man’s body is included in the image of God. "While God is not physical in any way, there is a sense in which even a man’s body is included in the image of God, for man is a unitary being composed of both body and soul. His body is a fit instrument for the self-expression of a soul made for fellowship with the Creator and is suited eschatologically to become a ‘spiritual body’ (1 Cor. 15:44). . . . [His body] was not something apart from the real self of Adam, but was essentially one with it" (Ralph E. Powell, "Image of God" Wycliffe Bible Encyclopedia [Chicago: Moody, 1975], 1:832).

(2) To be created in the image of God also means to be a living being. This was Paul’s emphasis on Areopagus (Acts 17:28-29). Refuting the belief that inanimate idols could represent the living God, he argues that since mankind is the offspring of God, and since human beings are living beings, God must also be a living Being.

(3) Man is not only a living being, but a being like God with both intelligence and will that give him the ability to make decisions that enable him to have dominion over the world (Gen. 1:28).

(4) Adam was not only a unitary, living, intelligent, determining being, but also one who was able to have unhindered fellowship with God. How can we express Adam’s original condition? Some use the word innocent, but Adam was more than innocent, which seems to connote only the absence of wrong. Adam’s original holiness was positive; yet it was not equal with God’s—it was creaturely. Because it was subject to testing, it was unconfirmed. It provided immortality, for until Adam failed the test, he was not subject to the inevitable law of death due to sin.

To sum up: the image of God in which man was created included the totality of his being as living, intelligent, determining, and moral.³

Everyone who is called by My name, And whom I have created for My glory, Whom I have formed, even whom I have made. —Isa. 43:7

Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created. —Rev. 4:11

1 Charles Ryrie, Basic Theology (Computer file)

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid.