In the Image of God

Genesis 1:27 says “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

Wow! There is a lot of meaning packed into this one verse. First of all, man did not evolve from slime. Man was created in the image of God.  And second women too were created in the image of God. They were given the same exalted state in which Adam was created.

What does it mean to be created in the image of God? After all, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). How can man be like God in any sense?

Can man be like God physically?  Yes! We don’t know what the spiritual body is like. We do know that all the capabilities of our physical bodies are capabilities that God has to a much greater degree. He can hear, He can see, and He can speak. His hand is not shortened that it cannot save (Isaiah 59:1).

Can man be like God mentally?  Yes!  “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9). We share with God the ability to love, be aware of ourselves, to understand spiritual concepts, to think and to plan. While we share these things with God, His capability is far above ours.

Can man be like God spiritually?  Yes!  Man has the capability to conceive of the unseen God. He can sense His presence and His guiding. He can understand that the things he sees on this earth come from the hand of the Creator. He has a social consciousness; he can sense the feelings of others. He can discriminate between the common and the Holy.  He has a desire for the promised future.

A Pattern for Life

How does this translate into everyday life?  Adam and Eve in Eden loved God and patterned their lives on what they understood of God. What God did, they would do to the extent of their capabilities. For God to do something was to them a command for them to do likewise.

Created in His image, God was enthroned in his personality. To obey Him was natural. Everything he had came from God, and everything he did was modeled on what he saw and heard of God. He had freedom to choose, but there was no reason to sin.

This earth was created in six days!  Well, not really. There was a very real seventh day that was just as much part of creation as the other six days.  Adam was created on the sixth day. His very first full day was the seventh-day – the Sabbath. When God rested on that day, Adam would rest too. God was not physically tired!  Neither was Adam. But they rested from a work that God had completed.

Was the seventh-day Sabbath of Genesis 2:1-3 just for God’s rest?  Hardly! God does not get tired? God was setting a pattern for mankind to follow. Mark 2:27, 28 says that “The Sabbath was made for man.” It was made for man at Creation and was meant to be a blessing for man all through history.

From the time of Creation onward, we have had the weekly cycle of seven days. All attempts to change the calendar have failed.  Corrections have been made, but these did not change the weekly cycle. If ten days are added to Tuesday, July 4, the next day is Wednesday, July 15. This kind of change has been done several times. When Jesus was on earth, He had no question as to which day was the Sabbath; and we have had good records since then.

A Sabbath Covenant

On the seventh-day Adam put aside common week-day labor. This common week-day labor is not bad. It is doing the work of God in supporting life. But by its very nature it tends to focus on common things. On the Sabbath, there would be 24 hours to focus on the reason for labor, on the reason for life. On the Sabbath, they would look away from their necessary labor to learn about God. They would lift their eyes to a higher goal, to become even more like God!

In their Sabbath fellowship with God, they would learn about true love. The kind of love taught by Jesus when He was on earth. They would learn about true service to others.  How in their labors they would not seek to accumulate the best for themselves, but would seek for ways to help others. It was an exhilarating experience. To spend a whole day focusing on God’s purpose for their lives.

The Sabbath was for man to be a covenant. It was a time for man to deepen his relationship with God, and by keeping the Sabbath to choose to do the will of God.  “I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people!” Then we can fervently say as did Thomas, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28). Then as God has promised, He will make of us to be a peculiar treasure, a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation (Exodus 19:5,6).