Made in the Image of God

Today's Reading

Before we can understand the story of Christianity and slavery, we must begin where the Bible begins: with the radical declaration that every human being is made in the image of God.

"Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.'... 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).

In the ancient Near East, the concept of the "image of God" was not new — but its application was revolutionary. In Egypt and Mesopotamia, the king was the image of the gods. He alone bore divine authority. He alone represented the deity on earth. Genesis democratized this concept with breathtaking audacity: not the king, not the priest, not the warrior — every human being, male and female, bears the image of the Creator.

This means that human dignity is not earned, not conferred by society, and not dependent on productivity, intelligence, or status. It is given — stamped into every person at creation. It cannot be revoked.

Biblical Connection

Paul extended this principle to its logical conclusion when he told the Athenians: "He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth" (Acts 17:26). The human race is one family. There is no separate origin for different races. There is no biological basis for ranking one group above another. The unity of humanity is not a modern ideal — it is a biblical fact.

Why It Matters

Tim Keller observes: "The Bible's opening chapter makes a claim so audacious that the ancient world could not have invented it: every human being, without exception, bears the image of the Creator" (Generous Justice, Chapter 1). This claim is the theological dynamite that would eventually blow apart every justification for slavery — though it would take centuries, and much suffering, before the fuse burned down.

Every argument for slavery — ancient or modern — requires the dehumanization of the enslaved. They must be less than fully human, less than fully rational, less than fully bearers of the divine image. Genesis 1 makes that argument impossible for anyone who takes the text seriously. The tragedy is that so many who claimed to take the text seriously did not.

This is where the story begins: with a God who made every human being in His own image, and with the long, painful, still-unfinished work of living as though that were true.