How often have you heard it?
"You are made in the image of God."
Sounds pretty good when you think of it. The love that God had for us when He decided to share His creation with a being that bore some kind of resemblance to Him hearkens back to the feeling we have when we look at our newborn and think he has our eyes or she has our smile. We belong together in some way.
And we do.
"Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky,"-Genesis 1:26
Hmmm. Made in God's image. You know what that means? If its Hebrew root matters, it comes from the word 'tsalem', which means 'shape' or 'shadow'. Something that kind of looks like something else, but isn't. Something that is connected to its source, something that conforms to its outline and follows it around but shares no common materiality or consciousness with it. Kind of like a mirror image or that dark spot behind you on a sunny day. There is shape but no substance.
Now, that probably doesn't mean that God, excepting for Jesus, has arms and legs like we do, but it sure does sound like, if we are made in God's image, we are like Him in some very limited and imitative ways.
But, there's a second part to this verse. We are also made in God's likeness, and that comes from a different Hebrew word, 'demut'. This word means something else entirely. This word infers a kind of intimate blood relationship. It means to resemble someone in both appearance and action.
This is where it gets interesting.
It looks to me like 'image' is what we're given by virtue of being made human. It's something we are but 'likeness' is something else. It's something we do. It's what gives us the ability to take our proper place not only among the rest of God's creation but in doing so, also take our place beside God Himself as His earthly agents. God's likeness is what we acquire through living with Him and establishing the closeness to Him that grows our spirit to be more like His. It's what allowed Abraham to be God's friend. It's what allows us to establish a real fellowship with Him and to know Him.
Image is what we are. Likeness is what we grow.
There's seeing and there's feeling. Promise and fruit. We are never quite done, but the journey is both privilege and joy.
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