Humanness : What does it Mean to Be “Made in the Image and Likeness of God”?

The snickering was loud enough for me to hear—like most snickering tends to be. I was walking across the parking lot with my dad when I heard it from behind. I could almost feel it. What were my friends, who had never met my dad, laughing about?

“You walk just like your dad!”

Keen observers, these two were—of almost everything, in fact. But my dad was in his mid-60s, and I was in my late 20s (and in my mind, even younger). To make matters worse—and unknown to my friends—for years, our family had joked about how my dad walked like his mother. So there I was, in my dorm parking lot in Dallas, Texas, walking around like my 90-something-year-old grandmother!

But that’s how families are. We bear resemblance in ways evident and unknown. Not only do I possess my parent’s biology but my relational landscape and how I navigate it is imminently tied to theirs as well as the shape of my contribution into this world. I am originally from and belong to my family. I am fundamentally and irrevocably tied to them and, in some ongoing way, represent them.

In a cosmic sense, this is what it means for humans to be made in the image of God.

In Genesis, the creation story breaks its rhythm to highlight something unique about day six: the creation of humans in the image and likeness of God. So important is this doctrine that Lucy Peppiat declares,

"The doctrine of the imago Dei, that human beings are created in the ‘image and likeness of God,’ is central to Christian life and practice and touches, perhaps even helps to form, every other doctrine of the Christian faith in one way or another.”

But what exactly does it mean to be the imago Dei?

Over the centuries, theologians have explored this from every angle.

From those discussions, three major themes emerge:

Three Aspects of Imago Dei

1.) The imago Dei is substantive.

In some way, we carry God’s DNA. Our very essence—our ontology—is that we are the image of God. We don’t just have the image in parts; we are the image of God in our being. This gives every human being inherent dignity, worth, capacity, and capability.

2.) The imago Dei is relational.

How could it not be? We were created by a divine community—the Trinity. To be made in the image of the Trinity means we are most like God when we are in deep, interdependent, loving relationships with others. The Trinity is a perfect relationship—each person fully giving, receiving, and glorifying the others. Our humanity thrives in shared community.

3.) The imago Dei is functional.

To be human is to function as creationaries. To craft good things from the creation. To produce. To manage. To evoke from creation its infinite potential to glorify its Creator. The array of our vocational expressions serve as a means for nurturing potential good latent in creation to realized good that daily awakens and sustains the entire order.

As a summation of imago Dei, A.W. Tozer in his classic work The Pursuit of God explains,

“You and I are in little (our sins excepted) what God is in large.” (Tozer, Pursuit of God).

The Image Distorted

But the fragmentation introduced in Genesis 3 is real. The Fall did have a real impact on humans’ capacity and capability to consistently demonstrate and operate from God’s glory. We turned inward—toward self-glorification, self-seeking, and self-importance. That turning fractures our relationships: with God, others, creation, and even ourselves. Sin distorts our ability to carry out what God had created us to do. It makes it hard. Not impossible, but hard. That “hard” shows up in the very three ways God made us His image:

Three Distortions of Imago Dei

1.) Substantive: We start believing we are God rather than being His image.

2.) Relational: We seek to dominate others rather than lovingly relate to them.

3.) Functional: We exploit creation for our own selfish purposes instead of as a representative of God’s reign.

The Promise of Restoration

I carry not only my father’s gait in ways positive and loving but also damaging and injurious. My family tree is inflicted with a type of rot in deep need of healing— the kind that only God, the Healer, can bring.

But our problem isn’t that we’re human; it’s that our humanity has been distorted. We can only be fully restored by the One whose image we bear. And all of creation is waiting for that restoration. Paul says that creation is groaning, longing for the day when God’s children are fully revealed. This means creation will be set free from its struggle when humanity is redeemed — finally able to live out our true role as caretakers of the world.

One day, when we are fully restored and glorified, we will be truly and completely human for the first time — growing and thriving in all the ways we were meant to. Creation will respond to that renewal too.

On that day, I will walk in the ways of both my earthly father and my heavenly Father — and, in the words of 14th century anchoress Julian of Norwich, “all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well”.

Written by Matt Benson