We Are Made in God’s Image And Remade in Christ’s
I try to answer two questions here: what you are and what God created you for
I teach undergrads at a university, and it’s amazing to me to see young people finding their purpose in life. They want to do social work, become teachers, and more besides. Everyone wants to know what job they should take, where they should live, and all sorts of practical questions.
But one thing they (and we) often miss is the bigger question behind all of this: What are we made for?
Genesis 1:26–28 is one of those central passages in the Bible that tells us what we are (created in God’s image) and what God made us for. In this article, I aim to address these two questions from Genesis 1 so that you can better understand the Gospel of Jesus Christ. My contention is that God created us in his image so that we might live our lives in Christ.
What Are We?
Whatever we are as human beings grounds our purpose.
If I look at an acorn, I don’t ask the question, will this become a pig or a spaceship? I know what an acorn is—a seed that will become an oak tree. It falls to the ground, germinates by sending a root into the soil, becomes a seedling, then a sapling, and finally a tree.
Sometimes I’ll ask my older son, “What are you?” He’ll say, “A boy.” And I’ll respond by saying, “Good, and you will become a man. So you need to practice courage and self-control.” He is a boy, and a boy has the created potential to become a man.
So asking what God made us to be can be one of the most clarifying questions we can ask to understand why we are here on earth. What we are tells us what we can become.
Now, in the days of creation, God had already made sea creatures, flying creatures, and land creatures. So we know we are not that.
Let’s read Genesis 1:26–27 to find out what we are:
“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.”
What does it mean to be in God’s image? It must be in a way that fish, birds, and livestock are not. We have dominion over them, as verse 26 says. And all these creatures God made in the prior days of creation are not said to be in the image of God.
A rock is created like we are, but it is not the image of God.
A tree grows like we do, but it is not in God’s image.
An animal lives and moves and has instincts like we do, but it is not God’s image.
A gorilla can stand on two feet like we can, yet it is not God’s image.
So whatever it means to be in God’s image, it is not tied to simply being created like a rock; it is not tied to growth like a tree or flower; it is not tied to living as an animal with instincts or even walking on two feet.
It must be something in us. The only thing I can think of that differs from these things is what we might call the soul that can know God and rule over creatures here below at his command.
Possibly confirming this, consider how Genesis 2:7 describes the creation of man:
“Then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”
As Solomon says in Ecclesiastes 12:7:
“And the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.”
Or as Elihu says in Job 33:4:
“The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.”
God gives us a kind of life that goes beyond the animals—a life that means, as Genesis 1:27 says, we are the image of God.
What Are We Made For?
With such dignity in creation, we have to ask: What are we to become? If an acorn grows into an oak tree, what does the image of God in us grow into?
Genesis 1:28 begins to answer:
“And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”
God’s blessing here tells us what humans created in God’s image grow into, what they do—or put more directly, what we are made for.
We might say that being created in God’s image means we are made for :
Being fruitful and multiplying and filling the earth. In Genesis 2, this is explained by the institution of marriage: “A man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (2:24). Husband and wife together work in the garden, take joy in each other—as Adam’s love poem in Genesis 2:23 shows—and have children to fill the earth as Genesis 4 shows.
Marriage, being fruitful, and filling the earth is what we are made for. But this is also how we “subdue” the earth. As families spread, we take dominion.
Dominion includes rule over the fish, birds, and every living thing on the earth.
If these are the things we are made for, what happens when we can’t get married, have children, or fulfill this creation mandate? Here we learn something quite beautiful:
Marriage remains good, but it always points to Christ’s love for the church.
Children remain good, but Paul could call Timothy a child in the faith.
Filling the earth remains good, but we now also fill the earth by the Great Commission.
How the Gospel Renews the Image of God in Us
Genesis 3 tells us our biggest problems are sin, death, the devil, and exile from God. We are the image of God, and God made us to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. But sin, death, the devil, and exile from God stand in the way.
These problems are overcome by a renewal of God’s image through Jesus Christ. The New Testament tells us that we are renewed in the image of God, so that we image Christ.
“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” (2 Corinthians 3:18)
“In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.… For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (2 Corinthians 4:4–6)
Just as God said, “Let there be light” in Genesis to create the world, so now light comes into our hearts to recreate us in God’s image through Christ.
Christ is the image of God:
“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” (Colossians 1:15)
And God’s purpose for us is clear:
“For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.” (Romans 8:29)
“Put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.” (Colossians 3:10)
“Put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephesians 4:24)
“Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.” (1 Corinthians 15:49)
As an acorn grows into an oak, and as we in the image of God grow into those who are fruitful and fill the earth, so also those recreated into the image of God in Christ grow into “true righteousness and holiness.”
Marriage, Family, and the Gospel
Being in the image of God means we grow by marriage and family. But Paul says in Ephesians 5:32 that marriage was always a mystery about Christ’s love for the church.
This makes marriage even more important—it shows that a husband’s love for his wife symbolizes the Gospel, where Christ loves us and dies for us. So be a good husband for the sake of the Gospel; be a good wife for the sake of the Gospel.
Yet marriage also points beyond itself. You may never marry, but you can still enjoy the reality to which marriage points: Christ loving and dying for you.
We are adopted into the family of God. Jesus becomes our brother; God our Father.
We can speak to each other as sons and fathers. Paul calls Timothy his child and compares himself to a father (1 Cor. 4:17; 1 Tim. 1:2; 2 Tim. 1:2; Phil. 2:22). As we go into the world and make disciples, we grow God’s family.
Being created in the image of God means we grow into marriage and family, but it was always meant to show us something more.
What does it show us? That God in Christ would marry his church, loving and dying for her to forgive our sins, overcome death in the resurrection, conquer the devil at the cross, and bring us back to God from our long exile east of Eden.
Even if we never have a biological family, we are adopted into God’s family. Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers (Hebrews 2:11). God becomes our Father by grace. We are all adopted sons and daughters if we have placed our trust in Christ.
The Gift of Renewal
If you read this today and are human, you are created in God’s image. And this was always meant to teach you about the Gospel. God has made you a new creation so that you might grow into true holiness and righteousness because Christ has saved you by faith, making you into the renewed image of God, loving and dying for you, and adopting you into the family of God by grace.
How do you receive all of this? You were made for it. It’s not something you achieve; it’s something you receive.
All it takes is faith, because it comes entirely as a gift of grace.
Trust in Christ. Your sins are forgiven. And you are renewed into the image of God in Christ forever.