Man as the Image of God

What is meant when we say that human beings are made in the image of God?

Genesis 1:26-27 is the foundational text.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

While the fullness of what this “image” implies has often been a matter of controversy and speculation, some central elements are undisputed: (1) Human beings are not simply material, but have a spiritual dimension called the soul; (2) That which is most like God in man is more of what is meant by this “image,” namely that which is immaterial or spiritual; (3) granting the excellency of the soul over the body, the body is still designed by God; that body is good, and it will be renewed with the soul on the Last Day; and (4) certain moral or communicable attributes, such as knowledge, goodness, holiness, power, and righteousness, belong to man (though in a finite way) as they do to God. 

The two words used in the Genesis text, namely “image” (tselum) and “likeness” (demut) have often been treated as if they each have a unique significance. But this has just as often been disputed. Bavinck displays some ambivalence in commenting, “there is no material distinction to between them,” but then adds, “The concept of ‘image’ is more rigid, that of ‘likeness’ more fluid and more ‘spiritual,’ so to speak.”1

Important consequences follow from even these basic and commonly accepted notions.

First, this doctrine implies that while man is like God, he is not God. We are analogies and not identities. We will see that this is not the case about Christ, who is the Image as to essence and person (see Heb. 1:3). Of course it is impossible for God to make another God anyway, since two divine attributes are self-existence and eternity. For our part, we are creaturely, dependent, and finite. Morally speaking, we are accountable to God; He is not accountable to us (Job 38–42). He can cease our existence instantly and effortlessly; we cannot chase him away no matter how hard we try.

Second, from the analogous sense of image-bearing, it follows that there are certain attributes of God that we call “communicable” and which find analogies in this image. So there are analogies within the analogy. For example, human beings can "create" in a secondary sense. Only God can create ex nihilo. However, since man is rational, he exercises dominion over nature by two kinds of creativity: 1. material creativity and 2. immaterial creativity. Examples of the first are building and agriculture. Examples of the second are music, theories, and stories.

Third, it implies that we are different from the lower animals. Man has been given dominion over the other creatures God has made (Gen. 1:28; Ps. 8:6). While we must not abuse animal life, humans have a greater ultimate worth than animals. This has implications for ethical issues such as abortion, animal rights, and environmental activism.

Different Models of the Image of God

There are usually said to be three main views about the image of God (or are there four, or even more?). The three most basic go by the adjectives structural, functional, and relational. In other words, these “models” seek to answer the question: What is meant by the image of God? While these views may not be attempting to exclude the dimensions spoken of in the other models, what each of them do is to claim that there is one conception that has priority.

In the Structural View, the divine image is rooted in some constituent part of humanity. Some quality — or to use the older word “faculty”— sets man apart from either angel or animal and yet makes him more like God. Usually this regards an intellectual or moral component of man, not bodily of course. Turretin speaks of this in terms of wisdom in the mind, holiness in the will, and rectitude in the affections. This is essentially what WCF IV.2 has in view when it speaks of man made in “knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness.” What is the strength of this view? It seems to accord most with realism. If the divine image is not connected to our natures, then it is reduced to arbitrary designation. It would be as reasonable to say that my dog or computer is the divine image as much as to say that a human being is. One disadvantage is that it may not properly distinguish between proper function and essential function.

For example, it could be suspected that if the image of God is rooted in intellect, then those with lesser or no mental capacities are not human. Or, as another instance, if the image of God is rooted in spiritual morality, the non-Christians are not human.2

In the Functional View, the divine image is explained in terms of what we do. Where do we find this in Scripture? In Genesis 1:26-28, we see Adam given dominion. By extension, all who are born to the race of Adam are still given this dominion. Psalm 8 speaks of this dominion still being in effect after the fall. To exercise dominion in the right way is to be more like the image than if one was not. This view has the advantage of immediate context. Man is the vice-regent, the steward of God on earth. This can often be conceived in Christological terms, in that the three offices of Christ (prophet, priest, and king) become the lens through which to view dominion. Here the disadvantage is somewhat similar to in the first view. For example, if the image of God is rooted in function, what of those who are incapacitated: whether by birth, oppression, lack of opportunity, injury, or aging?

There is another disadvantage rarely considered. If one considers either dominion in general, or else the difference between the sexes, purely in terms of a “job description,” then who is to say that this is not arbitrary? It seems only to move the problem back a step. Now one might ask: But who does man think he is to exert dominion over that animal or that piece of land? Or, Who does that fellow Paul think he is to tell women that they can’t preach? A function apart from specified nature can be altered, and who is to argue against it unless the nature of things demands it?

In the Relational Model, we see a Trinitarian focus. In social spheres, orders, or relationships, we model something of the glory of God in the tri-personal sense. This can be viewed as a sub-set of the structural view: as this capacity for relationship is part of the nature of man. This is most clearly seen in the institution of marriage and the family. But it has also been traced out in other orders. The disadvantage here is that it can tend toward Social Trinitarianism. It can begin to project onto the Godhead the features of his analogies in his effects.

Obviously enough, the whole question of abortion turns on this very set of limitations. All of the arguments given by the advocate of abortion rights must assume, at bottom, that the “fetus” lacks one of these qualities—whether structural, functional, or relational—and this is precisely what we hear. Such a baby will not be wanted (relational), lacks either mental or physical powers (structural), does not have the capacity to survive or will suffer x “quality of life” (functional). Something is missing from our definition.

Oliver Crisp and J. P. Moreland,3 among others, seem to place the functional and relational views together as one. A popular understanding among Evangelicals would defy such a categorization. For one thing, most in the previous generation would see God’s reasons for creating human beings to have almost everything to do with fellowship—whether between God and oneself, or else between husband and wife, parents and child, and between friends. In this popular conception, such relationships have little to do with an objective task that has been chosen for them.

Many among the Reformed would opt for what may be called a Covenantal Model of the image.4 The idea is that Adam was made as a covenantal creature. Here, in Genesis 2, the covenant of works would be God instructing man on how to be the image of God. Do this and live; don’t do it and die. But not only is there the prohibition about the tree, but all of the positive mandates, procreation, labor, Sabbath, and so forth. Consequently, to be the image is really just a synonym for the life of the covenant of works. Man’s essential makeup is bound up in that original relationship given by God to Adam. A covenantal view of the image of God sees itself as encompassing all of the other models: since the structure, function, and relationship are all defined by God as Lord of the covenant. It will of course be debated whether or not this model can live up to those holistic claims.

A disadvantage can be spotted here as well. If the image of God is made in and as the covenant of works, then the image does not seem to account for its greater end in Christ and the new creation. In what sense are we all related to the covenant of works? If we are not, then we are not the image. If this view is really a continuity with the covenant of grace, then it will wind up being more like the Christological model, which we will come to.

In any event, note that the strength of these objections depends upon the truncated nature of the four views of the imago Dei in isolation. If we take what is true about structure, function, relationship, and covenant, and see them as elements of one, unified view, then the problems disappear. This would be the case in a Realist Model, as functions, relationships, and covenantal attributes are all objects with essential natures.

From the Essence of Man to the Essential Man

What is called the “Christological doctrine of the imago Dei” has its roots in Irenaeus of Lyons. The basic idea is that while Adam may have been the “prototype” of man, treated from the perspective of a left-to-right history, it is actually Jesus Christ who was conceived to be the God-Man before the foundations of the world, and thus was actually the Idea to which Adam conformed from the first. Here is one way that Ireaneaus said this,

“For in times long past, it was said that man was created after the image of God, but it was not [actually] shown; for the Word was as yet invisible, after whose image man was created, wherefore also he did easily lose the similitude. When, however, the Word of God became flesh, He confirmed both these: for He both showed forth the image truly, since He became Himself what was His image; and He re-established the similitude after a sure manner, by assimilating man to the invisible Father through means of the visible Word.”5

The “form” and “instantiation” aspect of this sounds Platonic, but then of course there was a body in the design from the beginning, and if there was any doubt of that in history, the resurrection of Christ puts the exclamation point on the inclusion of the body.

This brings back in the question of the body’s place. Calvin moved in the direction of incorporating it into the image,6 whereas Bavinck (and Anthony Hoekema following his lead)7 went all the way and insisted that the body must be integral to the image. In one sense, this is only to follow the Aristotelian-Thomist conception of human nature as being complete only as a composite of soul (form) and body (matter). That the Reformed rationale “differs” seems to be merely cosmetic at the end of the day.

If all the Christological Model was driving at was that we are the image to the degree that we conform to Christ, as indeed we are driven to be (see Colossians 3:10), well then the problem that occurs in restricting the doctrine to the covenant of works would be reversed here. No one outside of the covenant of grace would be the image. Indeed to some extent, no one who is not yet glorified would be the image in its fullest sense. Of course there is a truth in that, but this cannot be what is meant starting way back at Genesis. Instead Crisp rightly understands the Christological doctrine to be talking about the archetype.8 In addition to resolving all of the other doctrinal problems, this will have a massive import to ethics as well.

In a Reformed Classicalist ethic, the offices of the orders of creation are patterned after Christ. Where do we find this? Although we do not have the luxury to launch out on such a vast study here, the Davidic throne shows this about Christ as King in Psalm 110 and Acts 2; and Paul’s statement on marriage shows this about Christ as Husband in Ephesians 5:22-33. I would simply challenge the reader to study those passages and consider how the those figures find both their fulfillment and their exemplar in the Person and Work of Christ.

We see this take practical shape in every New Testament command that a member of such an order submits to the authority of that order. We are talking about children to parents (Eph. 6:1; Col. 3:20), wives to husbands (Eph. 5:22-24; Col. 3:18; 1 Pet. 3:1), church members to elders (1 Pet. 5:5; Heb. 13:17), slaves to masters [laborers to employers] (Eph. 6:5; Col. 3:22-23; 1 Tim. 6:1), and citizens to civil magistrates (Rom. 13:1-7; 1 Pet. 2:13-14). Two things are of note in all of these. The first is the common end directives such as “in the Lord” or “as Christ” or “as unto the Lord” or “for the Lord’s sake.” The second is the profound reasoning of Jesus which silenced those who attempted to trap him over whether he would pay the poll tax in Matthew 22.

Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (vv. 17-21).

I will defer to D. A. Carson here for the takeaway.

“When Jesus asks the question, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?” biblically informed people will remember that all human beings have been made in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26) … If we give back to God what has his image on it, we must all give ourselves to him. Far from privatizing God’s claim, that is, the claim of religion, Jesus’ famous utterance means that God always trumps Caesar.”9

The doctrine of the image of God grounds both submission and lawful disobedience to God-ordained authority. Only Christ is the unqualified Head of all spheres. He said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Mat. 28:18). Whether we obey or we disobey one of the heads to whom he has delegated authority, we do each entirely what it says about God in Christ. The Son of God in human flesh is the essence of the Magistrate, Father, Husband, and Master. He alone is the form of these, whereas the earthly instantiations are, to varying degrees, participating in the form of Christ, or else in a state of privation to the same.

Race, Sex, and Calling

It is difficult to find the right word from that third designation. I could have said “circumstance” or “status” as well. Each of those words capture an angle on what I have in mind by “calling.” But these are the three that Paul in Galatians 3:28 subjects to the gospel. Naturally that verse had been the occasion for all sorts of egalitarian leveling in seminary papers over the years. Bluntly put, the gospel does not eradicate what God made of people’s skin color, sex, or even much in their space-time calling. These three—race, sex, and calling—exist on a spectrum (if not a few spectrums) of potentialites which unsurprisingly contributes to the egalitarian’s opportunism. Here is what I mean by that. Race and sex are not changeable. They are what they are.

Someone will say, “Nonsense! What century do you live in? Don’t you know that—”

We know the argument. But it is not really an argument at all. It is a mere begging of the question.

Neither psychological self-identifying, nor physical surgery or hormone therapy changes what sex one is given. These are given by God. And it simply fails to deal with the argument to reduce that to a cosmetic matter, even to the degree that more than visible cosmetics can be altered. For the whole claim of the biblical doctrine is that men and women were created different all the way down to the soul. You may disagree with that. But if it is true, then logically, such cannot be altered. It can only be distorted and resented. But the end of such lashing out against the image is misery and further deception.

God makes boys masculine as part of the divine image that he is to bear; and likewise with the femininity of the girl that God makes.

As to race, if one includes the body in the image of God—and it must at least be included—then it follows that God has done something with things like skin color that he means for his own glory. Consequently to be actually racist (not the devilishly false kind that Marxists have belched out of hell, but actually racist) is to despise God himself. John makes this exact connection in his epistle,

“If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 Jn. 4:20).

What is more difficult to see—on that spectrum of what belongs to immutable nature versus what is more alterable—is how one’s standing in society, or one’s place, is an “image” of God. That is really where the concept of dominion is so necessary to the image. It may be hard to think through in the case of people who seem to have little in the way of resources, yet all have been given some stewardship by God.

The Image as Life, Liberty, and Property

In Genesis 9:5-6 we see the reaffirmation of God’s creational mandates to Adam, but there is an additional imperative.

From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.

Leaving aside the particular innovations of more recent views among the Reformed—namely, that the image-emphasis in Genesis 9:5-6 is entirely about the representative of God administering this justice (e.g. Rom. 13:1-5)—we hold the line at the traditional view, namely, that God is saying, in effect, “You mess with my image-bearer, you mess with me!” God himself grounded a just use of force in a defense of the image against unjust force. The attempts to get around this used to be seen as blatant antinomianism, perhaps motivated by pacifism here or there. But in any case—antinomianism.

This issues forth into the whole rationale for the Second Table of the Law (Commandments 5 through 10), where it is the image of God that is the immediate object being violated in rebellion, murder, adultery, theft, false witness, and coveting. The law of Moses in countless ways draws a thick line between the force and fraud of the violent man, on the one hand, and the sanctity of life, liberty, and property on the other. The trouble is that we do not know what these are anymore. This is to say that we don’t know what an image of God is.

To hear Evangelical leaders today talk about “rights” is a depressing thing. It is spoken of as if the “demand for one’s rights” is about so many “first world problems,” as when a “Karen” (as we are now all agreed to call either her or him or zee) goes back to the drive-through window in a whirling rage of Karen-dom for the high crime of messing up the caramel drizzle. Such a conception would have left our Reformed forefathers quite bewildered.

In Western moral philosophy and legal theory, “rights” has been a way of talking about certain attributes inherent to human nature, such that to attack them was to commit violence. The opposite of liberty is not moral seriousness or duty or whatever else such people have in their mind. The opposite of liberty is slavery. To restrain the will of another in this way is to set oneself up to be God, as a Pharaoh or a Nebuchadnezzar. “Do not murder” is not a personal preference. It is a divine command. The screams of 200 million in the past century, wiped out of existence by the totalitarians, is not the whining of the privileged for their preferences. We are not in the same moral universe as such teachers, and it was somewhere in this doctrine that something went horribly wrong in their thinking.

The Silence of Adam Recapitulated in the Church

Many of the failures of the church's teaching and public witness come from a failure of nerve here. It is not that church leaders did not have access to this doctrine. It was clear as day, but collecting dust on their shelves. The ethical implications are so clear that only the enemies of Christ took notice. Abortion, natural rights, sexual nature, racism, the origins of human life, the purposes and limitations of economic and political activity—they’re all here in seed form. Doctrine does not simply touch ethics. It defines it. It suffocates it. It excludes heresy and barbarism in the same dividing lines. The shape that God gave Adam and Eve is a horror to the culture we live in. That makes biblical anthropology a dividing line. There are other things that make the biblical doctrine of man consequential for orthodoxy. But many of those things work themselves out gradually. These lines strike at the very heart of the spirit of our age.

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1. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, II:532

2. Crisp uses the term “substantive" view: The Word Enfleshed (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016), 55.

3. J. P. Moreland, The Recalcitrant Imago Dei: Human Persons and the Failure of Naturalism (London, SCM, 2009), 4.

4. The idea of the covenantal view as summarized here is taken from lecture notes from Steven Myers in the Anthropology course at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary (November, 2021).

5. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, in Ante-Nicene Fathers: Vol. 1 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 544.

6. Calvin, Institutes,

7. cf. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, II:554-62; Anthony Hoekema, Man Created in God’s Image (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 67-68.

8. Crisp, The Word Enfleshed, 61-65.

9. D. A. Carson, Christ & Culture Revisited (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 57.