has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 God saw everything that He had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Genesis 2:1-3 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. 2 And on the seventh day God finished the work that He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all the work that He had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that He had done in creation. (NRSV)
Until now God merely spoke and His words brought to life the images of His mind. In verse 26 God holds a conversation, but with whom? Who else was there? Was God speaking with Himself? In short, yes. The conversation began “Let us make humankind in Our image, according to Our likeness.” Note that the pronouns are plural? The pronouns ‘us’ and ‘our’ in the Hebrew language are of a type of plural different from our English plural. English plurals indicate two or more. This Hebrew plural indicates three or more are involved. Here three are involved. God the Father is present guiding the process by His design. Jesus is also present in creation. Consider Colossians 1:16, “For by Him (Christ) all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him.” Through Christ God created the earth (see also the Gospel of John 1:1-3.) Look again at Genesis 1:2 to discover the Spirit of God is also present. Some Bibles such as the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) translate the Hebrew word “ruach” into wind. But the word also translates as spirit. This is not just a wind blowing over the waters of a new creation. The Spirit of God descends upon this momentous occasion. The New International Version (NIV) translates verse 2 “the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all involve themselves in the creation of the earth and its beings.
Don’t be overwhelmed with the concept of the Trinity, that God is One yet Three Persons. There are many good illustrations of the Trinity, even though we who live in a temporal world will not be able to fully comprehend this infinite God. Here is my favorite illustration about the Trinity from C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, pp. 141-142
“You know that in space you can move in three ways - to the left or right, backwards or forwards, up or down. Every direction is either one of these three or a compromise between them. They are called three dimensions. Now notice this. If you are using only one dimension, you could draw only a straight line. If you are using two, you could draw a figure: say, a square. And a square is made up of four straight lines. Now a step further. If you have three dimensions, you can then build what we call a solid body: say, a cube - a thing like a dice or a lump of sugar. And a cube is made up of six squares.
Do you see the point? A world of one dimension would be a straight line. In a two-dimensional world, you still get straight lines, but many lines make one figure. In a three-dimensional world, you still get figures but many figures make one solid body. In other words, as you advance to more real and more complicated levels, you do not leave behind the things you found on the simpler levels: you still have them, but combined in new ways - in ways you could not imagine if you knew only the simpler levels.
Now the Christian account of God involves just the same principle. The human level is a simple and rather empty level. On the human level is one being, and any two persons are separate beings - just as, in two dimensions (say on a flat sheet of paper) one square is one figure, and any two squares are two separate figures. On the Divine level you still find personalities; but up there you find them combined in new ways which we, who do not live on that level, cannot imagine. In God’s dimensions, so to speak, you find a being who is three Persons while remaining one Being, just as a cube is six squares while remaining one cube.
Of course we cannot conceive a Being like that: … but we can get a sort of faint notion of it. But when we do, we are then, for the first time in our lives, getting some positive idea, however faint, of something super-personal, something more than a person.”
The three Persons of the Trinity, the “Three-in-One” God, all participate in creation for a great reason. They desire to share their harmonious lifestyle with their new creation. They will be reflected in the focal point of that creation - humans. They create humans “in Our image, in Our likeness.” What does it mean for humans to be created in the image of God? Great pains must be taken to understand what God has done to create humans. Our reason for existence and the ideal for marriage are both hidden in these two verses (26-27 NRSV)
26 Then God said, “Let us make humankind in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them.
God commands everyone to consider images carefully. The second commandment prohibits humans from making images that try to represent God. Exodus 20:4 (NIV) “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.” Michelangelo sculpted the masterpiece statue of David that stands in a museum in Florence, Italy. He crafted this statue of stone into a wonder of human form. As masterful as Michelangelo’s carving was, even his stone statue cannot come close to depicting real flesh and blood. How can we expect images of stone, wood or other inanimate objects to catch the essence of the infinite God? Anything we attempt would be an inferior mockery, degrading to God. We cannot make an accurate enough or alive enough image of God. But God can and did make an image of Himself when He made humans. He intended something unique when He made humans. He created beings that in some way reflect His likeness. In what way?
Let us clearly state a way that God did not intend for humans to be in His image. God did not intend humans to reflect all that He is - the fullness of His being as Sovereign God. Jesus Christ alone as the only Son of God fully reveals God the Father to the world. Jesus Christ is “the image of the invisible God,“ as the Apostle Paul wrote in Colossians 1:15. In verse 19 of that same chapter Paul writes, (NIV) “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in Him.” The Greek word for image is ‘eikon’ from which the English words icon or statue are translated. We are not to sculpt a statue to represent God or have icons take His place in worship, because God gave us Jesus to worship. Whenever we want to see God, we need only to look to Jesus, not an inferior copy. He is the fullness of God’s love and justice, holiness and majesty, sent to earth by God to be humanity’s Savior and Lord. We are not to create images of God so that our hearts and minds are left free to worship the fullness of God in Jesus Christ.
Therefore, it is a surprise to read in Genesis 1:26 that humans are made in the image or likeness of God the Trinity. Humans are not the fullness of God that Jesus reveals to us. But we are a different type of image of God, better understood in the second word for image used to describe our creation; we are in God’s likeness. We are like God, but not fully God. We are reflections of His image, but not His full image.
To illustrate this point, consider the earth’s moon. The moon has no light source of its own. This is hard to believe during a night when the moon is full. On those nights it is possible to walk outside in the open without any other source of light. We can see our distinct shadows in this moonlight. Yet the moon only reflects the light from its source the sun. There is no mistaking the brilliance of the sun with the reflected light of the moon. Or consider a mirror. A mirror gives a reflection of your own image, yet you know the face in the mirror is not your real face. Children who first discover their reflection in the mirror sit enraptured. After more such discoveries, the mirror holds little excitement for them. The children have learned the difference between a reflection and the real thing.
So we are a reflection of the image of God. In some ways we are like
