Image of God

Robert L. Dabney (1820-1898)

We learn that man, unlike all lower creatures, was formed in the ‘image of God’–’after `His likeness.’ The general idea here is obviously, that there is a resemblance of man to God. It is not in sameness of essence, for God’s is incommunicable; nor likeness of corporeal shape, for of this God has none; being immense. This image has been lost, in the fall, and regained, in redemption. Hence, it could not have consisted in anything absolutely essential to man’s essence, because the loss of such an attribute would have destroyed man’s nature. The likeness which was lost and restored must consist, then, in some accidens. The old Pelagians and Socinians represented the image as grounded in man’s rationality, and consisting especially in His dominion over the animals and the world. The Reformed divines represent it as grounded upon man’s rationality and immortality, which make him an humble representation of God’s spiritual essence; but as consisting especially in the righteousness and true holiness, in which Adam was created. The dominion bestowed upon man is the appropriate result of his moral likeness to his Maker. Thus Witsius–The image consisted antecedenter, in man’s spiritual and immortal nature; formaliter, in His holiness; consequenter, in His dominion. The first was the precious tablet; the second was the image drawn on it, the third was the ray shining from it. But we substantiate the definition of God’s image; as to its first particular, by Gen. 9:6, where we learn that the crime of murder owes its enormity chiefly to this, that it destroys God’s image. See also, Jam. 3:9. But since the fall, man has lost his original righteousness, and his likeness to God consists only in his possession of an intelligent spiritual nature. Dominion over the earth and its animals was plainly conferred, Gen. 1;26,27; Ps. 8, and it is implied that this feature made man, in an humble sense, a representative of God on the earth, in Gen. 1:26,27, from the connection in which the two things are mentioned, and in 1 Cor. 11:7, from the idea there implied, that the authority given him by God over the other sex makes him God’s representative. But the likeness consists chiefly in man’s original moral perfection, the intelligence and rectitude of his conscience. This is argued from the fact that the first man, like all the other works of creation, was ‘very good.’ Gen. 1:31. This ‘goodness’ must, in fairness, be understood thus, that each created thing had in perfection those properties which adapted it to its designed relations. Man is an intelligent being, and was created to know, enjoy and glorify God as such; hence its moral state must have been perfect. See also, Ecc. 7:29. And that this was the most important feature of God’s likeness, is evident; because it is that likeness which man regains by the new creation. See Rom. 12:2; Col. 3:10; Eph. 4:24. This also, is the likeness which saints aspire after, which they hope to attain when they regain Adam’s original perfection. Ps. 17:15; 1 John 3:2.

(From: “Systematic Theology”)

James H. Thornwell (1812-1862)

But in reference to his moral condition the Scriptures are very explicit. They have left no room for doubt. His primitive state is represented as a state of integrity, in which every part of his constitution was adapted to the end for which he was created. This is what is meant when it is said that he was made upright. As the end of his creation was moral, he must have possessed the knowledge and the dispositions which were necessary to the attainment of it. As the moral law bound him from the first pulsation of his life, that law must have been impressed upon his nature, and his first acts of consciousness must have been in conformity with its spirit. It must have been written upon his heart; it must have formed an original element of his being. That this was the case is articulately taught in all those passages which represent him as bearing in his primitive condition “the image of God.” The proper explication of this phrase will explain the perfection of his moral state. A slight examination will show that it is used in a looser or stricter sense. In a looser sense it indicates those spiritual properties which belong to man as a person–the faculties of intelligence, conscience and will. But a close inspection will show that even in the passages in which the phrase is thus loosely taken there lies at the foundation a tacit reference to the other and stricter meaning. For example, in Gen. 9:6: “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made He man;” the argument manifestly turns upon the moral nature of man, the rights which consequently accrue to him, and the perfection which he is precluded from attaining by premature death. So James exposes the wickedness of cursing our fellow-men because they are made after the similitude of God–that is, moral perfection is their destiny, that to which they should aspire, and of which they are capable. The reason that the phrase is transferred to our spiritual and personal nature apart from any direct implication of positive holiness, is that this nature is the indispensable condition of holiness; it is the subject in which that must inhere. Hence it has been called the natural or fundamental image of God; it is the condition on which alone man can realize that image. But the strict and proper acceptation of the phrase is holiness-holiness of nature, or habitual holiness, as contradistinguished from specific exercises or acts. The decisive passages are Eph. 4:23,24; Col. 3:10. From these passages we learn that the image of God consists generally in true holiness, and that this holiness, as the universal spirit or temper of the man, manifests itself in knowledge and righteousness. It is that state of mind which produces these results. To define it more accurately we must ascertain the meaning of the terms knowledge and righteousness, as here used by the apostle. Here we are at no loss. It is the knowledge of God which results in faith, love and true religion. It is, in other words, a spiritual perception of His beauty, excellence and glory. Adam, as endowed with this knowledge, looked abroad upon the creation and saw what science with all its discoveries so often fails to discern–the traces of the Divine glory. He saw God in all above, beneath, around. Nature was a vast mirror, reflecting the Divine beauty, and as he saw he loved and adored. God to him was everywhere present; the whole universe was full of his name. It was written upon the starry vault, the extended plain, the lofty mountain, the boundless sea; upon every living thing, from the reptile that creeps upon the ground or the tiny insect that flutters in the breeze, to the huge leviathan or his own noble frame and nobler soul. The first light of day that beamed upon his eyes was accompanied with a richer light that radiated from his soul, and clothed all nature in the garb of Divine beauty and loveliness. He knew God with a spiritual discernment as a being to be loved, feared, trusted, worshipped. This was true holiness as it irradiates the understanding. This knowledge of God in the creature is the perfection of knowledge. Science, until it reaches this point, does but fumble. It misses the very life of true knowledge; it is only a learned and pompous ignorance.

But this habit of spiritual discernment was accompanied with righteousness or rectitude of disposition–that is, a state of soul in conformity with the requisitions of the Divine law–a propensity to universal obedience. The law was the bent of his being. As soon as the concrete occasions should present themselves, he had that within him which would at once reveal and incline to the right. The intuitive perception and the prompt disposition manifested his holiness, and induced all forms of actual righteousness which his circumstances and relation demanded. This, then, was the primitive condition of Adam. He was made in the image of God–as being an upright creature, with reason enlightened in the spiritual knowledge of God as that knowledge was mediated throughout the creatures, with a will prone to obey the dictates of reason thus enlightened and therefore in accordance with the spirit of the Divine law. He knew his relations to God, his relations to his wife, his relations to his children and his relations to the world; and knew them with that spiritual apprehension which converted his knowledge into one continued act of religion.

That true holiness is the strict and proper sense of the image of God, appears from the contrast betwixt the image of God and that of the Devil. If the possession of a personal, spiritual nature were the image of God, the Devil and his angels would bear it. But their image is, in the Scriptures, made directly contradictory to the image of God. Hence, that image must consist in those moral perfections which Satan has lost, and which man, since the fall, acquires only by a new creation.

(From: “Collected Writings”)