The Image of God
The Rev. Louis B. Tiscione, Pastor, Weatherford Presbyterian Church (PCA)
Your value does not depend upon who you are, what you do, or even what you may contribute to society. Man’s highest value is that all men and women are made in God’s image, Imago Dei.
There are so-called ethicists who teach that human life has no more intrinsic value than plants and animals. I hope you are shocked by such a statement. Human life has been given a unique value by the Creator. “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness’” (Genesis 1:26a).
At this point, I think that I’ve probably lost all the atheists. The fact is: There is a God. His existence is undeniable. He has made His divine attributes known to all people by all that He has made (Romans 1:19-20). The Bible says that there is no other reasonable explanation for the world around us.
But this article is not about the existence of God, directly. Yet, His existence is the basis for the sanctity of human life. The sacredness of human life is because men and women are made in God’s image. No other creature has been given such a distinction. Because of this, man is accountable to God. We have been set apart by God. We are made in God’s image. One of my favorite Psalms declares, “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him” (Psalm 8:3-4)?
The sense of the words of Scripture in Gen. 1:26 that declare men and women are made in God’s image is that we are likened to objects viewed in a mirror. We are a reflection of God. Distortions of this idea have been offered over the years. Joseph Smith wrote that “God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man.” Another famous or infamous personality teaches that God is actually a man who is six feet, two inches tall. This word-faith heretic even goes on to describe God’s arm length.
Grounding ourselves in the truth is the best defense against such false teaching. In other words, know the truth in order to recognize error. So then, what is the truth of being made in God’s image? It cannot mean that mankind looks like God in a physical sense, as those referenced above teach. God made us male and female. Both men and women bear God’s image. All reasonable people admit that men and women are not the same. There are only two genders, male and female. Yet, both bear God’s image.
Bearing God’s image means to possess some of the attributes of God. Attributes are the characteristics that define a being. Now, I used the word “some” to qualify the attributes of God that we bear. We are not God. No man is immortal. No man is self-existent. No man can make the claim that he had no beginning. Yet, all men are able to reason, think, and have limited knowledge. All men have a sense of right and wrong.
In bearing these characteristics, we are faced with our limitations. For example, we don’t know everything, in spite of thinking we might. We don’t always do what is right in spite of having the moral law written on our hearts. The Bible says that every intention of the thoughts men’s hearts is only evil continually (Genesis 6:5).
Yet man’s sinfulness does not eliminate man’s dignity. God made man in His image, male and female He made them as recorded in Genesis 1. Two chapters later, the Bible records the Fall of Adam and the woman. As a result, all of those attributes were marred by the Fall. We all still have the God-given attributes, and we also have an inherited sin nature. Adam is referred to as the head of the human race (Romans 5:12ff). Along with the dignity of being human comes the responsibility for our actions.
Having said all this, the fact that we are sinners does not remove the dignity which God conveyed by making man in His image. Neither does it reduce our responsibility to exercise good management of His creation.
Human life is sacred because God made it so. Remember, no man can change what God ordained. You have dignity and value because the sovereign God made you in His image!
