Jesus Our Image
I think most people are familiar with the text in Genesis 1:26 that says - ‘God created Man in His image and after His likeness.’
But why is this true?
To truly understand this, we need to go back before the foundation of the world. Back before the Word of God spoke the words - “Let there be light.” Back to the womb of creation where there existed an eternal, unbroken, circle of love and unending selfless communion - the Triune relationship of Father, Son and Spirit. Their decision to create the world was not an act of exclusion of the human race, to set up a separate ecosystem outside of Their eternal, unbroken relationship. Their decision to create began with the thought of our eternal inclusion.
God only exists as love. Love only acts in one way. In total, complete, relentless self-giving and passionate pursuit of the other. As 1 Corinthians says - Holding nothing back. Holding nothing to account. Bears all things. Believes all things. Hope all things. Endures all things. It never fails and never ends. So it should be no surprise that contained in the DNA of God’s original plan of Creation was the redemption and inclusion of that Creation in the same circle of fellowship of the Father, Son and Spirit that had always existed from before the beginning of time.
Yes, to be sure, we know that humankind, made in the image of God, became marred by sin. But humankind never lost its value to God, just as the lost coin never loses any value to its owner in the parable. The sheep may get lost, but the sheep never loses its value.
God’s plan was always redemption and inclusion. And that plan was in place before Creation began. And, the writers of the New Testament all knew this. Paul knew it; Peter knew it; John knew it; Matthew knew it, the writer of Hebrews knew it.
In Ephesians Chapter One it says:
…just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.
Before the foundation of the world, the Word was going to become flesh
This act was not as much a response to sin as much as it was a proactive, creative, active participation of the Godhead to never let us go, to never allow separation to occur between heaven and earth. No matter what. In the revelation of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son - we see that the Father, the Holy Spirit, the human race, and all of creation are not separated but together in relationship.
The incarnate Son, Jesus Christ himself, is the relationship.
For in Him, in His own Person the blessed Trinity and broken humanity are united. The humanity of Jesus - as well as the divinity of Jesus - is the union.
And here’s the point; the body that Jesus would live in - His human incarnation: was in the mind of God before the foundation of the world. Before Adam was formed from the dust of the earth. Knowing that Jesus would come, knowing that this supreme act of God’s love towards all of creation was fixed and secure, the Father prepared the human body of His Son, the inclusion of Jesus in His creative actions, prior to the actual creative act of creating Adam in Genesis Chapter One.
So, the human body of Adam was the body of Jesus. The human body of Jesus was the body of Adam. Though Adam came first. the Word becoming flesh was already decided.
And so man was made in the image of God. Why? Because God would be made in the image of Man. God had already decided to humble Himself and come in the form of a man. The Word incarnate. The Promise that could never be broken.
So we are made in the image of God because God’s creative actions included His recreation, as Jesus, in the image of humankind.
What an incredible thought!
What a wondrous and unspeakable display of love and unbroken commitment to forever join His creation to Himself. To never be separated. To include all of humankind in the never ending circle of relationship that existed between the Father, Son and Spirit.
Paul says in Colossians Chapter One:
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in Him all things were created; things in Heaven and on Earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the Church; He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything He might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all His fulness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in Heaven, by making peace through His blood, shed on the cross.
