Dr. Barclay with Something to Think About - HIS? IMAGE

 HIS(?) IMAGE

The Bible relates that God, in Genesis, stated: “…Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…” and “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:26-27).  

If man was made in God’s image, and God being a Spirit, then Man in essence must be a spirit, although presented in a human physical form. The first humans because they had the spiritual image of God had a special relationship with Him and also had no reason not to be on good terms with Him.  “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed” (Genesis 2:25).  They were not ashamed because they had no reason to feel shame. They had no guilt, no reason for fear, or remorse; but after sin entered the picture, guilt, and therefore, shame followed for the spiritual being, and deterioration, as well, started for the physical structure. 

As a result what was apparently intended to be a permanent relationship with God changed. Fear and guilt also resulted in a change from man being in God’s image to that of something else. Now man knew guilt and shame as “…the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked…” (Genesis 3:7) and Adam said: “…‘I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked’…” (Genesis 3:10).

So if we’re no longer in the image of God, them whose image do we have? Genesis also says: “And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image…” (Genesis 5:3).  Since we all really came from the first family, then we all have the image of Adam, not God, with all the baggage of fear, guilt, and shame as a part of that inheritance.

As the Bible says: “…God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7). This spirit is still with us, but since we have now inherited from our past the other problems mentioned above, there seems to be within us a constant conflict between how we actually feel and how we should feel. The spirit of God tells us how we should feel and our inherited ‘spirits’ control how we actually feel. 

The concept of original sin may stem from this inherited image that we obtained from Adam and the only way to change from the image we now have is to regain the image we were initially meant to have. That means reconnecting with the God we rejected when man first turned his back on the initial instruction given to Adam, after Adam had been given God’s image. 

This is probably why the Bible refers to it this way: “…‘The first Adam was made a living being [a living image of God].’  The last Adam [Christ] became a life-giving spirit” (1 Corinthians 15:45).  The first Adam reflected God’s image in a human form and Christ releases that spirit back to what it was meant to be.  It’s something we should all look forward to and aim toward, and while we are doing so consider that “…whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy- meditate on these things” (Philippians 4:8). 

And that should be sufficient to think about.