In the Image of God

My apologies for the recent FTP (Failure to Post). I aspire to share something at least once through the week and early every Sunday morning. Recent speaking commitments, travel and work have limited my time to reflect and write. Hopefully, we’re back on track with today’s post.

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Then God said, “Let us make humans in our image, in our likeness.” So God created humans in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26, 27)

What does it mean to be made in the image and likeness of God? And are image and likeness different ways of saying the same thing or two separate realities? Theologians have pondered these questions for centuries.

Irenaeus, who lived in the second century, thought that we lost the likeness but kept the image of God when we sinned. Christ showed us what true “likeness” was like. Thus, the more like Christ we become, the more of God’s likeness we recover.

Another influential Christian theologian, Aquinas, believed that image/likeness existed in a person’s intellect or ability to reason. That’s what separated us from other animals. Like them, we possessed a body, but unlike us — or God — they lacked the ability to reason. Aquinas believed the image of God existed in people in different stages.

John Calvin, following Augustine, believed the image of God resided not in the intellect or ability to reason, but in the soul. Karl Barth emphasized the idea of relationship since God used those plural pronouns (“Let us . . . in our . . .”). Another German theologian, Helmut Theielicke, suggested that we reflected the image of God through exercising dominion over creation.

There are probably as many different ways to think about what it means to be made in God’s image as there are people to think. But the person who had the most influence on my position was not a theologian or scholar; she was my sister.

I have three siblings, but I had four. My nearest sister, Jean, died when she was 42.

Jean was born with severe mental and physical disabilities. She never spoke a word, walked a step, went to school or kissed a boy. Every bite of food she ever ate was spooned into her mouth, usually by mom, but sometimes by dad or one of her siblings. She wore diapers all her life. Wherever she went, someone had to carry her.

Doctors predicted she wouldn’t live past a year. Then past the age of 5. Then past 16. When she started outliving her doctors, they stopped making predictions regarding her demise. I’m not a physician, but I know why she lived what was, for someone with her set of physical issues, an impossibly long time. My parents loved her.

I’m not a psychiatrist or theologian either, but I know why they loved her. Because Jean was made in the image and likeness of God and, therefore, had intrinsic value as a member of our family in particular and as a human being in general.

Whatever it means to be an image bearer of God, it has nothing to do with looks or intelligence or even your ability to reason. Human worth is not appended to achievement or success. Your skin color, body shape and gender have nothing to do with your value. Your dignity is not determined by dress size or the digits on the scale. Your worth is not conditioned on your contributions to society. You are invested with inherent value because you bear the image of God.

We may never fully understand what that means, but its implications are enormous.

If human worth is connected to talent, then some of us are worth more than others. But it isn’t.

If dignity is directly related to intelligence, then some of us possess more of it. But it isn’t.

If beauty makes you more valuable, then some of us are worth bargain basement prices. But it doesn’t.

Being made in the image of God makes every single one of us absolutely invaluable. And that includes the 1.21 million of us who are aborted every year (just in the U.S.) before anyone ever has a chance to judge their talent, intelligence or beauty. Forget the pragmatic tragedy that we’ve probably terminated several thousand brilliant minds that might have discovered a cure for cancer or a way to bring peace to the Middle East. We’ve destroyed millions of divine image bearers.

That’s the tragedy.

Today, when you encounter another human — pushing a cart down a grocery store aisle, staring at the ceiling in an elevator, drumming a steering wheel in traffic or sitting across the living room in his or her favorite chair — remember that you are encountering something, someone who is made in God’s image. They are more than they appear to be. They are sacred.