The Image of God: What It Means to Be Human

Today's Reading

Read Genesis 1:26-28 and Psalm 8:3-8. In these texts, the Bible makes its most foundational claim about what it means to be human: we are made in God's image, crowned with glory and honor, given dominion over creation.

Reflection

"Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness'" (Genesis 1:26). These words are the most important statement about human nature ever written. In the ancient world, only kings were considered the "image" of a god — statues and representatives of the divine placed in temples and public squares. Genesis democratizes this: every single human being, male and female, is an image of God.

Francis Schaeffer drew out the implications: "Man is not a cog in a machine; he is not a piece of theatre. Man, made in the image of God, has a dignity that is unique in all creation." This truth stands against every philosophy that reduces humans to mere matter, mere animals, or mere economic units. You are not an accident. You are an icon of the Almighty.

But what does the image mean practically? Three things emerge from the text.

First, reflection. An image reflects its source. Humans are designed to mirror God's character — his creativity, his justice, his love, his wisdom — into the world. N. T. Wright puts it vividly: "To be made in God's image means to be a miniature reflecting mirror, angled to catch the light of God and reflect it into the world."

Second, rule. "Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens" (Genesis 1:26). Image-bearers are given authority — but it is delegated authority, exercised on behalf of the true King. This is not a license for exploitation but a commission for stewardship.

Third, relationship. "Male and female he created them" (Genesis 1:27). The image of God is expressed not in isolation but in community. Human beings are made for one another and for God. Our capacity for love, communication, and covenant are reflections of the trinitarian God who made us.

Psalm 8 marvels at this: "What is man that you are mindful of him? ... You have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor" (Psalm 8:4-5). Crowned — not merely created, but honored.

Going Deeper

If every human being is made in God's image, how should this shape the way you treat people who are different from you — in politics, in culture, in belief? What changes when you look at a stranger and see not an obstacle or a category, but a crown?