Then God said, "Let us make human beings in our image, to be like ourselves.....Then God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." (Genisis 1:26-27, NLTse)
These verses from the first page of the Bible are among the most remarkable in all of scripture. The God who existed before all that is decides to create the cosmos. He then sets about speaking into existence seemingly infinite expressions of life. But this is not the end. Before taking vacation time, God says, "Let's cap off our masterpiece with a living creature that is like us. Let's make one that is in our image!" (This is where the music rises and crescendos. Think "Thus Sprach Zarathustra" by Richard Strauss. You may remember this piece from the beginning of the film 2001.
Theologians have long looked for ways to understand what it means that men and women were created in God's image. If indeed, God emptied himself by becoming a man and then submitting to death on a cross in order to rescue men and women and all creation, it must be that we are of more value than it is almost possible to imagine. The most expensive painting sold to date is a Jackson Pollock that went for One Hundred and Forty Million Dollars in 2006. (This was before the stock market crashed. I imagine the seller is feeling pretty good these days. One wonders about the buyer.) An image created by Jackson Pollock smearing colored oils onto canvas has an amazing value. An image created by God's shaping of earth into a man and animated by his breathing into it has even greater value. You and I are worth exactly the life of God. Every human being that has ever come into existence is worth the life of God. Osama Bin Laden and the Craigslist Killer are worth the life of God. Beings bearing the image of God are of infinite value.
We are worth so much to God that he sent his only begotten Son to die for us. This causes me to want to know as much as I can about what it means that I have been made in His image.
The Bible uses the Greek word Eikon when it speaks of creatures made in the image of God. The apostle Paul describes Jesus as the perfect Eikon of God. If we are ever to know what we are, we must first know what God is. The early chapters of the Bible tell us three things that God does; (1); He creates, (2); He relates, and (3); He rests. God is a creator, a relator, and one that rests. Maybe these verses telling us what God does are a clue as to who we Eikons of God are.
I previously wrote about the Eikon as a creator in my piece called "The Mind of the Maker". I'll write next time about the Eikon as a relator.
In His Image
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