What it means to be made in God’s image—and why it matters
It’s easy to forget how extraordinary human life is. Scripture doesn’t describe us as accidents or afterthoughts—it says we were intentionally made to reflect the One who created us.
Of everything created by the Lord, we are the only ones held in high enough esteem to bear His mark—to be made in His image. He has given us some of His qualities, yet He has kept others for Himself. These non-communicable attributes are exclusively His and are part of what makes Him God.
Scripture
Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over every crawling thing that crawls on the earth.”
Attributes: What God Keeps, What He Shares
Below is a general outline of some key characteristics of God—some of which are exclusively His, and others that He has imparted to us as humans. (By no means exhaustive.)
Non-communicable attributes (God alone)
- Eternal
- Omniscient
- Omnipresent
- Omnipotent
- Infinite
- Sovereign
- Immutable
Communicable attributes (reflected in us)
- Love
- Wisdom
- Mercy and grace
- Holiness and righteousness
- Faithfulness and justice
- All emotions (joy, anger, sadness, etc.)
Reflections
We are all created in the image of our Creator. The characteristics we have inherited from Him are positive and generally considered desirable. At the same time, we possess none of them in the fullest sense that He does—or to the degree we were meant to. When Adam and Eve fell in the garden, the door was opened for Satan to enter and defile, to a very large extent, all that God made. For Satan, this has been an ongoing effort. As the god of this world, he is constantly working through the hearts of men to accomplish his objectives. The primary means by which he does this is through lies, deception, and temptation. His job is made much simpler when men and women choose to operate with the belief that he—and evil—do not exist.
I can imagine how pleased Satan is when people convince themselves that he doesn’t exist. It has always blown my mind to hear that people who claim to be Christians also say they don’t believe there’s a hell or a Satan. I never understood how someone could proclaim the name of Jesus, read the Bible, and deny the existence of Satan and hell. I think this phenomenon is largely due to fear and an unwillingness to accept that, while our Lord is a loving God, He is also a just God—one who can and will justly send people to hell. In the end, whatever we choose to believe (or not believe) has zero impact on what the truth actually is.
Back to my original topic: Being created in the image of our Creator is a wonderful way of seeing God’s reflection in ourselves. However imperfect, we can still imagine how the attributes we have might look in His perfection. We chase fleeting moments of happiness in this world; for example, God made us to experience everlasting happiness—joy! I won’t go through each and every attribute, examining how we experience it here and now versus how it was meant to be, and how it will be one day.
I can imagine someone asking about anger: How could a loving God give us this emotion, and how could it have been created with right intentions? As with literally all sin and unrighteousness, the wrong turn always happens in the heart. When Jesus became angry in the temple and lashed out—destroying the marketplace that had been set up there—His anger was righteous and came from a pure heart. The people had made a mockery of the temple and defiled it. Most people imagine our God as a God of justice; holy wrath and anger go hand in hand with being a just God.
Of course, our ability to have, give, and understand love is also an attribute we’ve received from Him. To me, it seems clear that this attribute has the most depth and breadth of them all. As a result, it also seems to be the one in which we fall shortest in reflecting His true intention. We can probably trace this back to many roots, and one of the strongest and deepest is selfishness. This is why we are commanded to love others as ourselves: in order to express and display love in its truest form, the lover must lose themselves in the process. There is no better example than Christ exchanging His righteousness for our sins on the cross.
Our Creator is obviously wise. It’s important to understand, however, that we aren’t born preloaded with wisdom like a computer. We are born with certain inherent truths written on our hearts. As the Bible says in Romans 2:15, “They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them.” Our Lord convicts our hearts of His existence and of His moral law. He also places in our hearts a need that only a relationship with Him can satisfy.
As a believer matures in Christ, and as the Lord sees fit, we are given understanding and wisdom. The level and nature of that wisdom is often commensurate with our life experiences and our commitment to praying, reading Scripture, listening, and studying in general.
Another important distinction we should make here is the difference between worldly intelligence and godly wisdom. There is a wide gap between the two. God says in Scripture that He puts aside the indulgent things of this world, and that true wisdom comes from God—not from human intellect. As believers, we should remember that the Lord encourages us to pray for, and ask for, His wisdom. James 1:5 says, “If you lack wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.”
This subject contains more than enough topics to justify a book being written—much less a short blog entry like this. The theme and point I’m trying to make is that we, as humans, should take notice of what it means to have been created in the Lord’s image. It’s an amazing thing, and it gives us an opportunity to see Him more clearly and to understand what He has for us and His Kingdom one day as believers in His Son, Jesus.
Closing
Being made in God’s image isn’t just a comforting idea—it’s a calling. It invites us to take Him seriously, to look honestly at where sin has distorted what He intended, and to pursue the kind of joy, wisdom, love, and righteousness that are only made whole in Christ.
Prayer: Thank you Father for loving us enough to create us with yourself in mind. For giving us a wonderful glimpse of your nature by installing in us images of yourself. I pray that we constantly strive to recognize these qualities within us and work to reflect them they way you meant them to shine from within. Amen
