The Idols of God
Parameters for understanding the imago Dei
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. (Genesis 1:26–27)
The doctrine of the imago Dei (image of God) is essential to the Christian worldview. It goes to the heart of what it means to be a human being in God’s world. As such, Christians often talk about how people are “made in the image of God.” At the same time, we rarely bother to define what we mean by that. And not without reason. After all, a single definition of imago Dei that is both comprehensive and concise is not easy to develop. I tend to agree with John Hammett and Katie McCoy when they write,
Definitions for the image of God may vary and emphasize different aspects of humanity. The lack of a single definition within the biblical text may itself signify the complex nature of the imago Dei. Just as the image of God cannot be reduced to a single capacity or characteristic, Scripture does not provide a single definition. However, biblical teaching does establish some boundaries or parameters. Whatever the image of God is, it must fit within these parameters.1
So what are the parameters? When you formulate them according to biblical data, it becomes clear that the imago Dei has dimensions that are both creational and Christological. Here’s how Hammett and McCoy outline them:2
Creation in the image of God is something affirmed for all persons; it constitutes humans as humans (Gen. 1:26-27; 5:1-2; 9:6; Jas. 3:9).
Creation in the image of God is affirmed only for humans, implying that humans are unique among God’s creatures and are of transcendent worth and dignity, simply because they are image-bearers (Gen. 9:6; Jas. 3:9).
Even after the fall, humans are spoken of as being in the image of God (Gen. 9:6; Jas. 3:9), so the image isn’t completely lost in the fall.
Since Christ is both the perfect image of God in his deity, and the perfect representation of what it means to live out creation in God’s image in his humanity, the image of God in us must be something that allows for correspondence between Christ and humans. It is something that Jesus lived out perfectly in his humanity.
The [New Testament’s] numerous renewal texts [see Rom. 8:29; 1 Cor. 15:49; 2 Cor. 3:18; Col. 3:10; Eph. 4:24] require us to consider our creation in God’s image in dynamic terms. It is not that the image itself has changed, or that we ever lose the status of being creatures created in God’s image. But the living out of the meaning of being created in God’s image has been impacted in some way by sin. Now, in Christ, the living out of God’s intention in creating humans in his image is progressively being realized in believers in renewal and transformation, and will one day lead to a complete conformity to the image of Christ.
The word ‘image’ in our English Bibles (Gen. 1:26-28, 9:6) is translated from the Hebrew word tselem (צֶלֶם). This particular word typically refers to an inferior representation of a person or a thing, something lesser standing for something greater, such as a statue, an idol.3 Most of the time, the biblical authors use tselem in a negative way, responding to the abominations of idolatry and violations of God’s law (Ex. 20:3-4; cf. Lev. 26:1; Deut. 4:16-25; Isa. 30:22). However, tselem does have some fluidity of meaning, depending on context. Zooming out from Genesis, sometimes tselem is used in a more abstract sense, such as in reference to the brevity of life in Psalm 39:5–6a:
“Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! Surely a man goes about as a shadow [tselem]!”
Tselem points to the reality that, on the one hand, human beings correspond to God in way that’s unlike any other creature. Yet on the other hand, we image him only in some limited and undefined sense. We are a shadow of the divine, icons of the invisible. Every person you meet is an idol of God.
The other Hebrew word Genesis uses alongside tselem, translated as ‘likeness,’ is demuth (דְּמוּת), which often refers to a physical replica of something in a “like for like” sense. For instance, Genesis 5:3 refers to Seth being fathered in the likeness of (or demuthow) his father Adam. From a value standpoint, Seth is not inferior to Adam; both are human persons. Such may, to some extent, underscore the main distinction between demuth and tselem, though both words have similar meaning and seem to be used synonymously in Genesis 1:26-27. Of the two, however, tselem may more strongly imply some level of inferiority between a representation and the substance to which it points.
Whereas tselem more so emphasizes the difference between God and his images (more on this in a moment), demuth may serve to highlight the genuineness of humanity’s correspondence to him, namely that we have been “fathered” by Creation’s Lord and King. As Paul says to unbelieving Greek philosophers in Acts 17:28, “we are indeed [God’s] offspring.” As such, every person you meet is royalty, sired by the Sovereign and thus authentically his demuth. Of course, we are not fathered by God the same way that Seth was fathered by Adam (i.e., physical reproduction). But the fact that God reveals himself as a Father to humankind genuinely reveals something about how we came to be, who we are, and how we should live (Eph. 3:15).
Stating intent to create us in his image and likeness in Genesis 1:26-31, God then immediately says, “Let them have dominion.” Creation’s Lord asserts a direct link between our imaging and our dominion-having. Being made in his image must mean that humans have a built-in, irrepressible capacity to rule over his world as an extension of his sovereignty, and are thus responsible to rule over it in the particular ways he stipulates. Our dominion is a delegated dominion, handed down to us from Creation’s Lord and King in the context of relationship.
As such, I believe the makings of a covenant between the Creator and human creatures come in the kit of the imago Dei.4 Gregg Allison defines a covenant as “a structured relationship between God and his people” that is “initiated by God” and “features binding obligations.”5 In the garden, God initiates a relationship with humanity, structures it, and issues binding obligations, essentially saying, “I will give you life in this world as a gracious and loving gift. My creation is entrusted to your care. You must agree to steward it according to my will. These are the wisest possible terms for your relationship with me. Outside of them, there is only death” (Gen. 2:15-17; cf. Deut. 30:11-20). Thus when humanity applies itself to exercising dominion according to God’s will, we bear witness to this covenant, radiating his image and pointing back to his supreme lordship.
Of course, we need to keep in mind that the imago Dei doesn’t mean that men and women are, by nature, divine or even semi-divine. Human beings do not rule over fish and birds and creeping things in the same way God does. Scripture maintains a strict, immutable distinction between creature and Creator. Paul says of the wicked in Romans 1:25 that they have “served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen” (emphasis added).
All that is wrong in the world can be traced back to one central problem—humanity’s tendency to erode the Creator/creature distinction. Unlike us, Creation’s Lord is spirit, invisible, incomprehensible, uncreated, absolutely self-sufficient, not having body, passions, or parts (John 4:24; Acts 17:24-25; Rom. 1:20; Col. 1:15; 1 Tim. 1:17). Later in the book of Romans Paul will tell us that all things are from him, to him, and through him (Rom. 11:33-36).
Yet deep in our hearts, we desire to usurp the preeminence which belongs uniquely to God; we attempt to misuse the knowledge, authority, and agency he entrusts to us as a means of exalting ourselves to rival his supremacy (as if such a thing were even possible). This tendency is as old as the garden of Eden, where the serpent tempted our first parents with the proposition that they could become like God (Gen. 3:5). Adam and Eve failed to resist and the created order has paid a heavy price ever since.
Yet as Hammett and McCoy state (quoted above), the Creator has not revoked his image from humanity. We have certainly become corrupted in consequential ways so long as we remain under the serpent’s spell. But the imago Dei has by no means been abolished from us.
Humanity’s innate retention of the imago Dei is a central reason Christians affirm the sanctity and dignity of human life (Jas. 3:9). If God created people to be his image amidst the created order, then we must understand that each person has innate value and worth in the eyes of the Creator. He made each of us for a good and glorious purpose, after all. But the gospel tells us that only through Christ can that purpose be fully realized. Though all people exist innately as the image of God, we can grow or diminish in our imaging capacity depending on whether we respond to the gospel in faith and are thereby transformed. It is, as Hammett and McCoy remind us, “dynamic” and can be “impacted by sin.”
John S. Hammett and Katie J. McCoy, Humanity (Nashville: B&H, 2023), 76.
Hammett and McCoy, Humanity, 88-89.
Biblically, the doctrine of the imago Dei takes on added dimension when the cultural backdrop of Genesis 1-2 is considered. The Bible’s creation narrative was produced at a time when it was common for kings to fashion images of themselves, such as a statue, to be placed where everyone could see. A statue in the likeness of a monarch—erected front and center, say, at the entrance of a city—would serve as a tangible reminder that he wielded unquestioned dominion over the place in which you were about to set foot. But Scripture maintains that Adam and Eve and their offspring would all exist as the image and likeness of God—not as inanimate statues, but as living, breathing representatives of his cosmic dominion.
Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum present the argument that the imago Dei constitutes a covenant in their book God's Kingdom through God's Covenants: A Concise Biblical Theology (Crossway, 2015).
Gregg R. Allison, The Baker Compact Dictionary of Theological Terms (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2016), 52-53.