Rev. Angus Stewart
(Slightly modified from articles first published in the British Reformed Journal)
Contents
(I) Introduction
(II) A Survey of Views
(III) Refutation of Several Views
(IV) Is the Broader and Narrower View the Reformed View?
(V) A Defence of the Confessional View
(VI) The Image of God in Its Theological Relationships
(I) Introduction
Along with the great biblical questions, “What think ye of Christ?” (Christology), “What must I do to be saved?” (soteriology) and “What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” (eschatology), the question, “What is man, that thou art mindful of him?” (anthropology) must also be asked.1 The question, “What is man?” has engaged the minds of the greatest thinkers in the world and in the church in all ages. Looming large in the answer of the church is the concept of the “image of God.” Some theologians treat man as image of God as part of a chapter in their anthropology,2 others give it a whole chapter,3 others treat it as the dominant motif in the biblical presentation of man4 and yet others use it as their starting point to draft a systematic presentation of the Christian faith.5
Though the phrase “image (or likeness) of God,” as referring to man, occurs relatively infrequently in Scripture,6 theology’s manifold use of it ought not surprise us.
First, the image of God concept is related, in the Bible itself, not only to the God whom we are to image, and Christ, the perfect image of God (II Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:3), through whom we regain God’s image (Rom. 8:29; II Cor. 3:18), but also to creation (Gen. 1:26-27; 5:1; 9:6), man’s dominion over the earth (Gen. 1:26f.; cf. Ps. 8), marriage (Gen. 1:26-27; I Cor. 11:7), regeneration and sanctification (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10), and the sixth (Gen. 9:6) and ninth commandments (James 3:9). With a little bit of thought, and viewing each of these texts in their contexts, it will readily be seen that the imago dei concept has profound implications for doctrine and practice, both faith and life.
Second, the image of God is an especially attractive concept in today’s world. In one brief phrase, man is related to God—something very important in a day of widespread atheism—atheistic evolution is denied and man’s dignity and worth is upheld over against today’s abortion-on-demand culture.7
Third, the phrase’s appeal in itself is also great. The “image of God,” like the “new commandment” (John 13:34), the “keys of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 16:19) and “a new heaven and a new earth” (Rev. 21:1), is one of those highly memorable biblical phrases that stick in our minds and roll off our tongues.
Given the theological breadth, manifold usefulness and powerful appeal of the image of God motif, one is not surprised that the various ecclesiastical groups have all utilized it and integrated it in their theological systems. This article will give a brief survey of the main conceptions of the imago dei, before paying particular attention to the debate between the two views held by Reformed and Presbyterian theologians. Finally, the image of God will be viewed in its proper dogmatic bearing in a distinctively Reformed theology.
(II) Survey of Views
(1) Anthropomorphite View. Anthropomorphites, including the Swedenborgians and Mormons, view the image of God as indicating that God has a body like man. The book of Moses, in the Book of Mormon, reads, “In the image of his [i.e., God’s] own body, male and female, created he them” (6:9). Anthony Hoekema is correct: Mormons “understand the expression ‘image of God’ as referring primarily to man’s physical nature.”8 Thus all men possess the divine image, including unbelievers.
(2) Socinian View. The Socinians, a Unitarian sect which arose after the Reformation, asserted that man’s being in the image of God consists solely in his dominion over the lower creation.9 This view also holds that all men, believers and unbelievers, are in God’s image.
(3) Roman Catholic View.10 Following some of the early church fathers and the medieval scholastic theologians, the Roman Church holds that the “image” (eikon) and the “likeness” (homoiosis) of God refer to different aspects of man. The “image” includes man’s natural gifts, such as personality, intellect, will, etc. The “likeness” is the so-called donum superadditum, a superadded gift endowed upon man’s nature after his creation but before his fall, consisting of the spiritual gifts of righteousness and holiness. The fall resulted in the loss of the donum superadditum and not the whole human nature, which was merely weakened. Fallen man still retains some good, including free will, and is capable of responding to God’s grace and thus meriting more grace.
(4) Eastern Orthodox View. The Eastern Church, like the Roman Church, distinguishes between the “image” and the “likeness” of God (though without the donum superadditum terminology) and uses this distinction to preserve some good in fallen man.11 As a further part of its doctrine of the image of God, Eastern Orthodoxy argues that since Christ is the image of God in our humanity, we can venerate and revere, but not worship, icons of the incarnate Son of God, Mary and the saints.12
(5) Broader and Narrower View. The dominant view of Reformed and Presbyterian churches is that the image of God may be spoken of in broader and narrower senses.13 The imago dei in the narrower sense, consisting of knowledge, righteousness and true holiness, was wholly lost at the fall, but the imago dei in the wider sense, which includes man’s “intellectual power, natural affections and moral freedom,” was retained.14 Thus a seventeenth century Dutch Reformed theologian, Henrici a Diest, writes,
The image of God (which cannot be lost) was the spiritual, immortal, rational substance of the soul, with the powers of knowing and freely willing: the divine image, which can be lost, lay for knowledge in wisdom, for the will and its effects in true righteousness and holiness.15
(6) Spiritual/Ethical View. Speaking of pre-fall Adam in the image of God, Martin Luther declares,
In Adam there was an enlightened reason, a true knowledge of God, and a most sincere desire to love God and his neighbour, so that Adam embraced Eve and at once acknowledged her to be his own flesh.16
With the fall “the image of God was lost” totally and it is only “the Gospel [which] brings it about that we are formed once more according to that familiar and indeed better image, because we are born again into eternal life.”17 Following Luther, Lutheran theologians, generally speaking, denied that the image of God includes the so-called broader sense. They restricted it to the spiritual virtues of knowledge, righteousness and holiness.18 Some Reformed and Presbyterian theologians also share this understanding of the divine image, as we shall see later. Unlike the previous five views, the spiritual/ethical view alone denies that unbelievers are in the image of God in any sense.
Individual theologians often put the concept to a particular use. Some are especially interested in using the imago dei to explicate man’s relationship to the creation. Christian scholars trying to present a biblical worldview find the image of God concept very helpful.19 Christian Reconstructionists emphasize man’s being in the divine image as involving dominion over the earth in keeping with their hope that all of this world will be governed by Christian civil governments before the bodily return of Jesus Christ. Kenneth Gentry asserts “One vital aspect of that image [i.e., man’s being in the image of God] is that of man’s acting as ruler over the earth and under God.”20 Liberal theologian, Douglas John Hall also stresses the image of God as dominion over this world but his is a very different kind of dominion, that not of mastery but of sacrificial service of others.21
Hall also emphasizes the imago dei as relationship to God and our fellow man, as does Harry Boer.22 Paul Jewett defines the image of God in man as
the human spirit (soul) imprinted by the Creator with those endowments that enable us to transcend the world of lesser creatures and live our lives in a unique I-thou relationship with God and [our] neighbor.23
Neo-orthodox theologians, Karl Barth and Emil Brunner also emphasize this I-thou relationship between man and God and between man and man, with the former being particularly interested in the I-thou relationship between a man and a woman in marriage.24 On the other hand, recently an American rabbi argued for same-sex marriages on the basis of the image of God in all men, despite the fact that the first page of the Bible records Genesis 1:26-28.
The uniqueness of man is another idea some wish to derive from the imago dei. Clarence Joldersma, for one, seeks to use this in fashioning a philosophy of education.25 Another educator, T. Van Der Kooy believes, “The equality of all men before God lies also in their all being created in his image.”26 Henry Van Til sees the unity of the human race in the concept of the image of God.27
Others see the image of God as speaking specifically about man’s constitution. Augustine’s “primary use of the imago symbol,” writes Hall, is in his De Trinitate “where he shows that a ‘vestige of the Trinity’ is found in [the] human being, namely, in the faculties of memory, intellect and will.”28 Gordon Clark emphasizes the mind in his presentation of the image of God.29 Johannes Kepler, the seventeenth-century German mathematician and astronomer, declared,
For what is implanted in the mind of man other than numbers and magnitudes? These alone we comprehend correctly and, if piety permits us to say so, this recognition is of the same kind as the divine. Geometry is one and eternal, a reflection out of the mind of God. That mankind shares in it is one of the reasons to call man an image of God.
Pelagius, as one would expect, emphasized the importance of the will in the imago dei.30 Thus the issue of the grace of God lies behind many presentations of the image of God. Pelagius and the Roman and the Eastern churches define the image of God in order to preserve unregenerate man’s ability to repent and believe. Not only is this image of God doctrine used by some to overthrow sovereign grace via free will, but also others use the imago dei to serve common grace. In Abraham Kuyper’s thinking, “all men share in this common grace by virtue of the image of God left in them.” Thus, “Christians can and should work together with unbelievers towards improving living conditions, fighting poverty and promoting social justice for all.”31
For others, their understanding of the divine image is helpful in presenting Christian ethics. This is the major note in Jewett’s work on the image of God. Jewett views “conscience,” “human dignity,” “racial prejudice,” “sex, love and marriage,” “divorce,” “homosexuality,” “the ecological crisis,” “dominion” and other ethical issues in the light of his view of the imago dei.
Furthermore, the frequent use of man as the image of God in many of the works of Francis Schaeffer shows the use of this concept for apologetics.32
(III) Refutation of Several Views
The above list of six cardinal views, plus the various other meanings and applications of the image of God in man, might make us wonder if the imago dei is a wax nose to be shaped whatever way the theologian, educator, politician, ethicist or apologist wills. Van Der Kooy speaks of the “wealth of ideas” which the image of God concept presents for a Reformed pedagogy.33 But Hall, in effect, confesses that he views the image of God as a phrase into which one is free to pour whatever content he wishes. “It was just this flexibility of the imago Dei symbol—its openness to discovery—that rendered it accessible and meaningful to New Testament and subsequent Christian writers,” he explains. “This potential of symbols for incorporating new experiences and addressing emergent problems is what gives to the symbol of the imago Dei its positive usefulness for our present purposes.”34
While we acknowledge the Bible’s unfolding, progressive revelation of the image of God and its various applications and the development of the church’s subjective understanding of this truth, often occasioned by contemporary needs and circumstances, Hall’s relativism must be rejected. Scripture clearly teaches what the imago dei is and how the various ideas mentioned in connection with it ought to be related to it.
The anthropomorphites (II:1 supra) err grievously. Since Jesus expressly declared that “God is a spirit” (John 4:24), man’s body cannot be the principle thing in his being the image of God. Furthermore, according to Ephesians 4:24 and Colossians 3:10, the imago dei must, at the very least, be located primarily in spiritual characteristics.
Similarly, since Ephesians 4:24 and Colossians 3:10 speak of the image of God in terms of the moral virtues of knowledge, righteousness and true holiness, the imago dei cannot consist solely of man’s dominion over the earth as per Socinianism (II:2).
The Eastern Orthodox (II:4) fall into idolatry in their doctrine of the image of God. Whereas the anthropomorphites break the first commandment, which concerns who God is, the Eastern Church breaks the second commandment, which commands us how He is to be worshipped. Instead of appealing to the image of God motif in Scripture, they would be better served in obeying the Bible’s teaching on images (esp. Ex. 20:4-6).35
The fact that God’s Word teaches the total depravity of man, involving the bondage of his will to sin, precludes free will as constituting part of the image of God retained by man after the fall. Thus the Roman (II:3) and Eastern Churches err fatally. They are also wrong, when in support of this heresy, they put different contents into the image of God and the likeness of God. Robert L. Reymond’s arguments at this point bear repeating:
2. Both Genesis 1:27 and 9:6 employ only selem (“image”), apparently regarding the one word as sufficient to explain the entire idea.
3. Genesis 5:1 employs only demut (“likeness”) … This again suggests that the one word is sufficient to express the entire idea.
4. In Genesis 5:3 both terms are employed, but the verse reverses both the order of the terms and the usage of repositions found in Genesis 1:26.
5. In Colossians 3:10 (see also 1:15 and 2 Cor 4:4) only “image” (eikon) is found, while in James 3:9 only “likeness” (homoiosis) is employed, again suggesting that either term sufficiently expresses the original idea.36
If the words “image” and “likeness” do not have different contents, why then does the Bible use two different words? The answer is quite simple. There are images which bear little or no similarity to that of which they are images. They are, in effect, symbols. The addition of the word “likeness” tells us that man is an image in the sense that he is actually like God and reflects His glory. Thus the use of the two words, “image” and “likeness,” states, “emphatically that man uniquely reflects God, that is to say, man as created was the ‘very image’ or ‘perfect likeness’ of God.”37
(IV) Is the Broader and Narrower View the Reformed View?
Of the six main views of the imago dei, four have been refuted (the anthropomorphite, Socinian, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox views). Thus only two now remain: the broader and narrower view (II:5) and the spiritual/ethical view (II:6).
We must, however, consider if it is accurate to call the broader and narrower view the Reformed position. Geerhardus Vos apparently thinks that it is. In an article entitled “The Doctrine of the Covenant in Reformed Theology,” Vos simply speaks of “the Reformed distinction between the broader and narrower sense of the image of God in man,” before immediately contrasting this with the Lutheran view.38 Louis Berkhof, however, sounds a note of caution: “The Reformed Churches … do not all agree as to [the image of God’s] exact contents.”39
Calvin is claimed as an advocate of the broader/narrower view of the divine image, though, of course, he never used these terms, but many have reservations about this. Calvin does speak of the imago dei as consisting in both the possession of intellect and will and their spiritual qualities, but often he mentions only the latter.40 In his words, the later is “primary.”41 Sinclair B. Ferguson distinguishes somewhat between Calvin and the view of most later Reformed theologians:
The image has been defined in ethical and cognitive terms. God is holy and righteous. Man made in his image is so as well. Calvin, in particular, argued for this position … The image of God, therefore, consisting of holiness, righteousness and knowledge of the truth is dynamic rather than static in nature. Reformed theology recognized that more than this was required in order to express fully the Biblical teaching (cf. Calvin’s belief that not even the body is excluded from the idea of the divine image).42
From the quotation below, Heinrich Bullinger apparently taught that the imago dei consists in ethical virtues. In his influential Decades, he writes,
I say, that this depravation of our nature is nothing else but the blotting out of God’s image in us. There was in our father Adam before his fall the very image and likeness of God; which image, as the apostle expoundeth it, was a conformity and participation of God’s wisdom, justice, holiness, truth, integrity, innocency, immortality, and eternal felicity. Therefore what else can the blotting or wiping out of this image be but original sin; that is, the hatred of God, the ignorance of God, foolishness, distrustfulness, desperation, self-love, unrighteousness, uncleanness, lying, hypocrisy, vanity, corruption, violent injury, wickedness, mortality and eternal infelicity? This corrupt image and likeness is by propagation derived into us all, according to that saying in the fifth of Genesis: “Adam begat a son in his own similitude and likeness.”43
Heinrich Heppe asserts that Johannes Cocceius finds the divine image not in the “substance of the soul,” nor yet in the “faculties of the soul,” nor yet in the “imperium which man had over the living,” but in the rectitudo of the soul.44
Nor, says Heppe, is Cocceius alone in this. Heppe tells us that Heidegger, Braun, Witsius, Riisen and others agreed with Cocceius in speaking of, first, the “antecedent of the image” (man’s rational-moral nature); second, the “actual formal nature of the image of God” (the uprightness of the soul as a quality infused into the former); and, third, the “consequent of the image” (Adam’s dominion).45 Witsius explains,
The first of these was, as one elegantly expresses it, as precious ground on which the image of God might be drawn and formed: the second, that very image itself, and resemblance of the divinity: the third, the lustre of that image widely spreading its glory; and as rays, not only adorning the soul, but the whole man, even his very body; and rendering him the lord and head of the world, and at the very same time immortal, as being the friend and confederate of the eternal God.46
Significantly, Heppe states that this view was consciously adopted by these men over against that view of the image of God that speaks of wider and narrower aspects of the image of God. He writes that they “declared against” that conception.47
The view that the image of God does not consist of man’s rational-moral nature but exclusively of spiritual qualities is not only found amongst the continental Reformed theologians; it also occurs in the British Isles.
Article 3 of the Scottish Confession of Faith (1560) penned by the “six Johns,” including John Knox, reads,
By which transgression, commonly called original sin, was the image of God utterly defaced in man; and he and his posterity of nature, became enemies of God, slaves to Satan, and servants to sin.
Elizabethan theologian, William Perkins was not comfortable with the image of God consisting of rationality, morality, etc. He writes,
The image of God is nothing else but a conformity of man unto God, whereby man is holy as God is holy: for Paul saith, Put on the new man, which after God, that is in God’s image, is created in righteousness and holiness. Now I reason thus: wherein the renewing of the image of God in man doth stand, therein was it at the first; but the renewing of God’s image in man doth stand in righteousness and holiness: therefore God’s image wherein man was created at the beginning, was a conformity to God in righteousness and holiness. Now whether God’s image doth further consist in the substance of man’s body and soul, or in the faculties of both, the Scriptures speak not.48
Although theoretically opening the possibility that, though the Scriptures do not teach that the image of God includes man’s faculties, it may be all right so to speak, Perkins goes on to write of the imago dei in such a way as to exclude this.
And hereupon Adam when he sinned, he deprived first of all himself, and then secondly all his posterity of the image of God; because all mankind was in his loins when he sinned. Now then upon the former appointment, when the souls of men are created and placed in the body, God forsakes them, not in respect of the substance of the soul or the faculties but only in respect of his own image, whereof the souls are deprived.49
No man who believed that the soul itself was part of the divine image could so write.
Paul Bayne, the successor of William Perkins at the University of Cambridge, in his commentary on Ephesians 4:24 is very explicit.
The image of God is not to be conceived in bodily things, as the anthropomorphites imagined, nor yet standeth in the essence and faculties of the soul, as memory, reason, will, as Augustine took it, for wicked men have these; nor in dominion and rule, which made man as a little God amongst the creatures, for this is a consequence that followed on the image; but as Paul teacheth, it standeth in these divine qualities, which as certain signs and forms express the divine nature, most holy, most just, so far as the Creator can be figured forth in such a creature.50
Richard Sibbes, another English Puritan, writes,
Therefore, when you read of the image of God in the New Testament [this would include I Corinthians 11:7 and James 3:9], it must be understood of the image of God in Jesus Christ, the second Adam. Now this image consists in knowledge, in holiness and righteousness. If we compare Col. iii. [verse 10] with Eph. iv. [verse 24], this was perfect in Christ, who was the image of his Father, and we must be like Christ the second Adam in sanctification … When God set his image on the first Adam, it was rased, and decayed and lost, by the malice of the devil … For every man by nature carries the nature of the devil on him, till the image of God be stamped on, and the image of Satan rased out.51
Similarly, London pastor, Thomas Vincent (1634-1678), in his oft reprinted commentary on the Westminster Shorter Catechism, includes the following in his exposition of Q. & A. 10:
Q. 3. Wherein doth consist the image of God, which was put upon man in his first creation?
A. 1. Negatively, the image of God doth not consist in any outward visible resemblance of his body to God, as if God had any bodily shape. 2. Positively, the image of God doth consist in the inward resemblance of his soul to God, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. “Renewed in knowledge, after the image of Him that created him” (Col. 3:10). “Put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Eph 4:24).Q. 4. What is included in this image of God, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, as man had it at first?
A. The image of God in man at the first doth include the universal and perfect rectitude of the whole soul: knowledge in his understanding, righteousness in his will, holiness in his affections.52
Robert Rollock, a sixteenth century Scot and the first Principal of Edinburgh University, speaks of the image of God as the “soul of the soul,” that is, godly qualities of the soul.53
Prominent nineteenth century Scottish Presbyterian theologian, George Smeaton opposed the traditional view of the divine image.
The image of God, in which Adam was created, was replaced by the entire corruption of man’s nature (John 3:6). His understanding had been furnished with a true and saving knowledge of his Creator and of spiritual things; his heart and will had been upright; all his affections had been pure; and the whole man holy: but, revolting from God by the temptation of the devil, the opposite of all that image of God became his doleful heritage; and his posterity derive corruption from their progenitor, not by imitation, but by the propagation of a vicious nature, which is incapable of any saving good. It is prone to evil, and dead in sin. It is not denied that there still linger in man since the Fall some glimmerings of natural light, some knowledge of God and of the difference between good and evil, and some regard for virtue and good order in society. But it is all too evident that, without the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit, men are neither able nor willing to return to God, or to reform their natural corruption.54
R. L. Dabney, a nineteenth century American Presbyterian, also rejected the broader/narrower view of the imago dei:
This image [of God] has been lost, in the fall, and regained, in redemption. Hence, it could not have consisted in anything absolutely essential to man’s essence, because the loss of such an attribute would have destroyed man’s nature. The likeness which was lost and restored must consist, then, in some accidens.55
In the twentieth century, the neo-orthodox Swiss, Karl Barth, argued against the image of God’s including man’s intellect and reason.
Two prominent Dutch theologians, Klaas Schilder (in his commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism) and G. C. Berkouwer have also defined the imago dei solely in terms of spiritual/ethical virtues.56
Writing in Scotland, English Baptist A. W. Pink declares,
Even among those preachers who desire to be regarded as orthodox, who do not deny the Fall as a historical fact, few among them perceive the dire effects and extent thereof. “Bruised by the fall,” as one popular hymn puts it, states the truth far too mildly; yea, entirely misstates it. Through the breach of the first covenant all men have lost the image of God, and now bear the image of the Devil (John 8:44). The whole of their faculties are so depraved that they can neither think (2 Cor. 3:5), speak, nor do anything truly good and acceptable unto God. They are by birth, altogether unholy, unclean, loathsome and abominable in nature, heart, and life; and it is altogether beyond their power to change themselves.56a
Arthur Custance, an Englishman by birth who spent most of his life in Canada, expresses similar views. In his article “The Terms ‘Image’ and ‘Likeness’ as Used in Genesis 1:26,” he writes,
It is not, therefore, the possession of a faculty that constitutes in man the Imago Dei, but the possession of a relationship … [when a man is] born again, something which sets him apart from all unredeemed men and makes him a member of what is, in fact, a new species, the blameless family of God. He becomes related as a son to the Father and knows it. He knows it because the new spirit born within him bears witness to this fact in a self-conscious way and because he is assured of it by the Holy Spirit of God, whereby he cries, “Father” (Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6).”57
Another Canadian, Harry Fernhout, states,
The search to locate the image of God somewhere inside man can never become concretely meaningful. It can never give us comfort and encouragement because it is basically on the wrong track. The essence or heart of man cannot be found by looking inside him at some of his faculties. Rather the essence of man comes out in his way of relating to the bond with which God ties man to Himself, the “Love me and keep my commandments.” When God’s Word tells us that we are His image-bearers, it wants us to know not that we have certain qualities or abilities which remain vague and difficult to relate to the bread and butter of daily living, but that we, in the very way we are put together, in our whole way of living and acting, must give a reflection of the king whom we serve … These qualities set Adam as God’s image-bearer. True knowledge, righteousness and holiness; that’s what its all about.58
Theologians of the Protestant Reformed Churches in America have serious objections to the broader/narrower view of the image of God.
Herman Hoeksema, ever zealous for the sovereignty of God’s grace, observes that this “distinction is not an innocent one” because “it prepares room for the further philosophy that there are remnants of the image of God left in fallen man, and that therefore the natural man cannot be totally depraved.”59 Rejecting the broader/narrower conception, Hoeksema opts for a formal/material distinction in the divine image. By this he means that man as man, unlike a dog, for example, is capable (formal sense of the imago dei) of bearing God’s image, which consists of spiritual ethical virtues (material sense of the imago dei).60
Robert C. Harbach follows Hoeksema in the distinction between the formal and material image of God.61
Homer C. Hoeksema, however, finds fault even with this distinction:
It is perhaps even well not to speak of the image of God in the “[f]ormal” and “material” sense, though this distinction is much safer [than that of the image of God in the broader and narrower sense]. For after all, the “image of God in the formal sense” is, strictly speaking, not the image of God in man, but his capacity to be an image bearer. And as such, he may bear either the image of God or the image of the devil. It is well, therefore, to limit ourselves to the language of our Canons and to include in the image of God only what this article [i.e., III/IV:1] included, namely, the excellent spiritual, ethical gift which man forfeited through his rebellion and fall.62
Homer C. Hoeksema’s statement draws attention to a very important matter in determining if the broader/narrower view of the image of God is indeed the Reformed view: what do the Reformed confessions teach? Here we find absolutely no justification for the traditional distinction. Not once do we find a reference to such a thing, instead the imago dei is identified as knowledge, righteousness and true holiness in both the Three Forms of Unity and the Westminster Standards.63 Strikingly all three of the Three Forms and all three documents of the Westminster Standards define the image in terms of these ethical virtues.64 Furthermore the Westminster Larger Catechism clearly distinguishes between man’s constitutional make up in body and soul and the image of God thus excluding man’s soul from being part of the imago dei:
After God had made all other creatures, he created man male and female; formed the body of the man out of the dust of the ground, and the woman of the rib of the man, endued them with living, reasonable and immortal souls [this is man’s constitution]; made them after his own image, in knowledge, righteousness and holiness [this is the image of God in man] (A. 17).65
The Canons of Dordt take it a step further. After defining the imago dei as uprightness of heart, purity of affections and holiness of the whole man and explaining that it was completely lost (“he forfeited these excellent gifts”) and, indeed, turned to its exact opposite by the fall (“blindness of mind, horrible darkness, vanity and perverseness of judgment,” “wicked, rebellious and obdurate in heart and will;” III/IV:1), the Canons state, “Man after the fall begat children in his own likeness. A corrupt stock produced a corrupt offspring” (III/IV:2). We may express the argument of the Canons thus: (1) The image of God consists of spiritual virtues (III/IV:1); (2) These were all lost at the fall where man was completely filled with moral corruption (III/IV:2-3); (3) Thus all the seed of Adam do not have the image of God. Moreover (4) Canons III/IV:4 speak of man’s remaining a rational-moral creature after the fall but with no reference to the broader sense of the image of God. Thus the Reformed confessions are fully consistent with the position of Cocceius, Witsius, Perkins, Bayne, Dabney, Homer C. Hoeksema, et al., but present serious difficulties to those wishing to advocate the broader and narrower view of the image of God.66
A further objection to the broader/narrower distinction of the image of God as being the Reformed view is the fact that it is not held merely by Reformed theologians. In speaking of unbelieving man as possessing the image of God in the sense that he is a rational-moral, personal creature, it agrees with the Eastern Church, Aquinas and the Roman Church, ecumenical Wesleyans like Thomas Oden,67 pentecostals like Wayne Grudem,68 Lutheran anti-Calvinists like R. C. H. Lenski,69 baptists like A. H. Strong,70 dispensationalists like Lewis Sperry Chafer,71 neo-orthodox theologians like Emil Brunner,72 higher critics like Gerhard Von Rad,73 Jews74 and even Arminius himself.75 It is evident that the wider/narrower view of the divine image is not a distinctively Reformed doctrine such as irresistible grace or particular redemption. Instead, this conception can fit with just about the whole spectrum of theological systems.
Since the broader/narrower conception is (1) not confessional but rather fits ill with the confessions; (2) held, in various forms, by Jews, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Baptists, dispensationalists, Arminians, Pentecostals, neo-orthodox and liberals, as well as by many Reformed theologians, though not by any means all; and (3) not peculiar to the genius of Reformed theology but, as we shall see, in opposition to the distinctive character of the Reformed faith; it cannot simply be called the Reformed view. Though speaking of the various views of the imago dei which have been advocated through the whole of the church’s history, Hall’s remarks are apropos to the Reformed tradition also. The image of God, he observes, is “one instance (perhaps one among many, but a very important one) where the authority of the tradition has outshone Biblical authority.”76
Having challenged the right of the broader/narrower conception to the name “Reformed,” theological objections to it will now be presented.
First, the Bible gives us explicit statements of the contents of the imago dei: knowledge, righteousness and holiness (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10).77 It gives no indication that there are other elements such as rationality which ought also to be included. Moreover, the introduction of such terms as rationality, spirituality, morality, etc., as the contents of the image of God in its broader sense moves one’s treatment in a more philosophical rather than biblical direction. Furthermore, arbitrariness is involved. Who is to say in what this broader aspect consists?78
Second, since fallen man is no longer a son of God, he is not the image of God either. The image of God is intrinsically related to sonship.79 Christ is the Son of God. He is also the image of God, for the Son is the image of the Father (II Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:3). Adam was the image of God (Gen. 1:26-27; 5:1; 9:6) and the son of God (Luke 3:38, cf. v. 23) before the fall. Man lost the image in the fall (Canons III/IV:1) and thereby lost His sonship.80 Similarly, God’s salvation restores both the divine image and sonship through the acts of regeneration and adoption respectively. Note Paul’s argument in Ephesians: on the basis of our regeneration in the image of God (Eph. 4:24), we are called upon to be “imitators of God, as dear children” (5:1).
Third, the traditional broader/narrower view of the imago dei presents Christological problems. Surely, no one can be possessed of the image of God without the mediation and cross of Jesus, the perfect image of God. Yet the traditional view posits just that. It presents the unregenerate man as the image of God without Christ, the image of God. And if the unbeliever is in the image of God why cannot he see in Jesus the same image that he possesses (II Cor. 4:4)?
Fourth, if man is the image of God because he is possessed of intellect, will and emotions then the demons and Satan himself are also the image of God. A. A. Hodge is not averse from drawing this conclusion, assuring us that “the devil is in the image of God, because he is an intelligent spirit.”81 Nay more, as Luther, arguing against the traditional view, points out, the devil “has these natural endowments, such as memory and a very superior intellect and a most determined will, to a far higher degree than we have them.” Thus Satan must be a particularly splendid image of God!82 Therefore, according to the traditional view, man is the image of God and the image of the devil. Indeed, the devil is the archetype of the imago diaboli and he is the imago dei. At this point, even Gordon Clark observes that he is moving in the sphere of the paradox, a seeming contradiction.83 Abraham Kuyper is reduced to illustrations—five of them in fact.84 Only Turretin directly faces the issue. He argues that it is not “absurd … that in the same subject [i.e., fallen man] there is the image of God and of the devil in different respects.”85 Logically, Turretin is correct and yet in things so important and weighty we have to marvel at a view that posits such a massive equivocation. Fallen man is a slave of Satan. He reflects the characteristics of his father the devil being “wicked, rebellious and obdurate in heart and will,” “impure in his affections” and possessed of “blindness of mind, horrible darkness, vanity and perverseness of judgment” (Canons III/IV:1). Yet he is the image of God in a different sense, we are told.
Fifth, if unregenerate man is the image of God (in some sense) then there must be some good in him. This follows not merely from God’s delight in His creation, including man who was created after His image (Gen. 1:26-27), as “very good” (v. 31) but also, and principally, from the idea of the imago dei itself. The image of God cannot be bad, nor can it be merely neutral. God is good and, therefore, the image of God is good.86 Man must still have a spark of goodness in him.87 Moreover, God loves that which is good and He surely loves His image. Thus He blesses those in His image (Gen 1:26-28; 5:1-2). If the broader/narrower distinction is to be followed, there is a love or blessing or favour of God for all men.88 This is absolutely intolerable. Moreover, if God loves all men, since His love is a giving love (cf. John 3:16), Christ must have given Himself on the cross for all men (cf. Eph. 5:1-2). Since God’s love is also an active, omnipotent love, they will be saved. After all, God’s love includes not only a favourable and gracious attitude. It necessarily involves His seeking the good of the one beloved and bringing him into covenant fellowship with Himself, the Holy Trinity. This is demanded, for how could God possibly suffer even a tiny part of His image to reside eternally in Hell?89 All these things follow, “by good and necessary consequence” (as Westminster Confession 1:6 puts it), from the teaching that the natural man is still, in the broader sense, the image of God. On the other hand, Scripture declares in the most emphatic terms that Jehovah’s soul “hateth” (Ps. 11:5; 5:5), “abhors” (5:6) and “is angry with the wicked every day” (7:11). His wrath abides on them (John 3:36) and He will “destroy” them (Ps. 5:6) with “the instruments of death” (7:13; cf. 11:6). Yea, the Lord “despise[s] their image [selem]” (73:20). To conclude, the doctrine that all men are in the image of God in the wider sense is both theologically and biblically untenable.
Theologians of false or departing churches exploit this faulty doctrine of the imago dei in support of their heresies.90
For example, one of the main arguments used by those in support of homosexual Canon Jeffrey John’s appointment as the Anglican Bishop of Reading (2003) was that absolutely everyone is in the image of God (including those described in Romans 1:26-27!). In other words, since sodomites are in God’s image, they should not be excluded from office in Christ’s church. The feminists argue similarly from their false view of the image of God to women’s ordination (contrary to I Corinthians 14:34-35 and I Timothy 2:11-12, etc.).
Timothy Ware, an English Eastern Orthodox bishop, points out, “[Eastern] Orthodox religious thought lays the utmost emphasis on the image of God in the human person.”91 “However, sinful we may be,” he writes, “we never lose the image.”92 “The fact that the human person is in God’s image means among other things,” asserts Ware, “that we possess free will.”93 This means that we are “still capable of good actions.”94 According to Ware, not only the freewill of the sinner but also God’s love for him flows from his retention of the imago dei: “Because she or he is an icon [or image] of God, each member of the human race, even the most sinful, is infinitely precious in God’s sight.”95 To crown it all, Ware avers, “Because we [i.e., all of humanity including unbelievers] are God’s icon [or image], we can find God by looking within our own heart, by ‘returning within ourselves.’”96
Harry Boer, a theologian of the Christian Reformed Church, uses the weakness in the traditional “Reformed” view of the divine image to overthrow Reformed theology. Total depravity is the first doctrine to go. Boer observes “that Reformed theology accepts as nonnegotiable two irreconcilable concepts: the retention, however marred, of the image of God after the fall, and the total depravity of Man.”97 He continues,
In short, the glimmer, the residuum, the remnant, the spark of the image of God in its integrity is a glimmer, a residuum, a remnant, a spark of the one and undivided Light and Life and Being of God the Creator … Whether we speak here of “spark” and “glimmer,” suggesting the idea of irreducible minuteness, or of “residuum” and “remnant,” implying a somewhat larger substantiality, makes no difference. A spark can start a fire. Faith like a mustard seed can remove mountains. The life of God does not depend on its quantity but on its actuality, its reality, its authenticity.98
Thus God desires to save all. Boer writes, “Focusing on the imago of himself who stands at creation’s head as vicegerent, God pursues him in his estrangement with the intent of reconciliation.”99 “A central thesis of [his] book,” Boer tells us is that, “Man as imago Dei—and therefore all participants in the imago—has the competence to respond affirmatively to the proclamation of the gospel.”100 What of those who never hear the Word? Boer responds, “The possibility of salvation outside the church and knowledge of the gospel lies in the reality of the imago Dei.”101 One can easily imagine how Boer proceeds to deny particular redemption, reprobation and election on the basis of the image of God. He even uses the divine image as a basis for universalism—the hope that all men eventually will be saved.102 In short, with Harry Boer, the doctrine of the broader sense of imago dei is taken to its logical conclusions. The wider aspect of the divine image takes on a life of its own and eats up the Reformed faith.
Geerhardus Vos evidently also realized the difficulties presented by the broader sense of the divine image to total depravity.
In the extent that these capacities [i.e., understanding and will] are present after the fall, he [i.e., man] remains in the image of God. The purpose here is not to ascribe any good to fallen man, but rather to present him in the deepest recesses of his being and in his true destiny as somebody who has to take in the glory of God and allow it to shine through him.103
Doubtless, Vos’s “purpose” in stating that the unbeliever “remains in the image of God” is not to ascribe any good to fallen man. Nevertheless if words mean anything—for the divine image can hardly be anything other than good—this is the effect. To obviate this, he uses language that appears profound: “deepest recesses of his being” and “true destiny.” Taking “has to” to mean ought (a moral obligation), Vos says that presenting fallen man as being in the image of God means that his true destiny ought to be to image God. In other words, the traditional view teaches that fallen man is the image of God in order to declare his duty to image God. But why not avoid broader/narrower terminology and simply teach that fallen man has lost the image of God entirely through the fall of Adam, our federal head, and that God commands His creatures to love and obey Him? This would magnify the awfulness of the fall, increase the urgency of the call that unbelievers repent of their imaging the devil, and avoid all Pelagianizing tendencies.104
Here one is reminded of Calvin’s strictures regarding the obvious import of theological terminology. Commenting on the phrase “free will,” Calvin writes,
If anyone, then, can use this word without understanding it in the bad sense, I shall not trouble him on this account. But I hold that because it cannot be retained without great peril, it will, on the contrary, be a great boon for the church if it be abolished. I prefer not to use it myself, and I should like others, if they seek my advice, to avoid it.105
There is much wisdom in this because words carry meaning. No matter how one might seek to avoid it, the mistaken idea that fallen man is the divine image in the broader sense is—and will be—used by heretics to deny total depravity. This is even more obviously the case since, given the premise that all men are the image of God in a wider sense—and therefore good to that extent—Boer’s argument is solid. The time has come to reconsider the traditional Reformed formulation of the doctrine of the image of God. Surely the Reformed world must realize the inconsistency of this conception with Reformed theology. The right way is obvious. Luther wasn’t always wrong. The Reformed churches ought to return to the fountainhead of the Reformation on the imago dei. The Bible’s own explicit statements (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10) support this view of the divine image as spiritual virtues. Many Reformed men have gone this way too and, unlike the traditional position, understanding the imago as knowledge, righteousness and holiness fits with the genius of Reformed theology, more specifically, its doctrines of sovereign particular grace and the covenant. Since the Reformed confessions also support this position it will henceforth be called the “confessional view.”
(V) A Defence of the Confessional View
Beside the facile objection that this view of the divine image is Lutheran,106 two charges against the confessional view are made. First, it is alleged that three Scriptures teach that fallen man is in the image of God in some sense. Berkhof may be taken as representative of this view: “Notice that man even after the fall, irrespective of his spiritual condition, is still represented as the image of God, Gen. 9:6; I Cor. 11:7; Jas. 3:9.”107
The first of these, I Corinthians 11:7 reads,
For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.
The argument for broader and narrower senses of the imago dei is this: “man” is here spoken of. This refers to all men without exception. Therefore, all men are the image of God, in some sense.108 However, the meaning of this verse is clear to all who believe that a text ought to be understood in its context. Paul is speaking about prayer (vv. 4-5) in the church institute (v. 16). Thus I Corinthians 11:7 is not dealing with the heathen but the apostle’s “brethren” (v. 2) who are imitators of him as he imitates Christ (v. 1). It is simply not true that “the head of every man is Christ” (v. 3), if this is applied to those other than those renewed in God’s image in regeneration (Eph. 4:24; cf. I Cor. 11:1). Therefore I Corinthians 11:7 provides no support for a divine image in every man head for head. Thus some more astute scholars have only included Genesis 9:6 and James 3:9 in their proof texts for the broader/narrower view of the image of God.109
Genesis 9:6 is the second text appealed to for the image of God in all men:
Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.
The exponents of the traditional view are correct in their assertion that this text speaks of all mankind and not just believers. They are wrong, however, in stating that it says that all men are now in the image of God. The text simply does not say this. It merely reiterates Genesis 1:26-27 that God made man after his likeness and thus points us back to the sixth day of the creation week.
They cannot prove that man, in the condition and state of sin, doth retain any thing of the image of God. The places mentioned, as Gen. ix. 6 … testify only that he was made in the image of God at first, but that he doth still retain the image they intimate not; nor is the inference used in the places taken from what man is, but what he was created.109a
At the fall Adam lost the imago dei and begat children in his image (Gen. 5:1-3), the image of the devil (cf. Canons III/IV:1-2). How then is the creation of man in the image of God a reason for the capital punishment of murderers? Man, unlike all other creatures, was created in God’s image as the crown of creation. Man as a rational-moral creature shows himself, unlike the beasts, to possess a constitution that is able to bear the divine image of knowledge, righteousness and holiness. Anyone who murders a human thus attacks God, for the divine image was given to the human race at creation and not to apes or ants. Thus the confessional view, contrary to the claims of John Murray, does full justice to “the gravity of the offence of murder,” “the gravity of the penalty” and “the reason for the latter’s infliction.”110
James 3:9, the third verse, provides slightly more difficulty for the confessional view. David Cairns, who holds that “humanity in general” does bear the image of God, states, “The most direct reference [to all men bearing the divine image in the New Testament], and it is oblique, is James 3:9.”111 Concerning the believer’s tongue, the inspired Scriptures read,
Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God.111a
The traditional position claims that “men” here is generic, including all men and not just believers. From the text alone, this would seem to be the case. Certainly the commentators seem to think so.112 Furthermore, the verb gegonotas, translated “are made” in the Authorized Version, is in the perfect tense and so indicates a past act with present effect. Thus the “men” in our text are those who were made and, hence, presently are, in the image of God. Clearly the explanation of James 3:9 cannot proceed along the same lines as that of Genesis 9:6, namely that the text speaks of Adam as created. Are not all men then in the image of God in some sense? Here two points need to be pointed out. First, the Greek (tous anthropous tous kath homoiosin theou gegonotas) translated “men, which are made after the similitude of God,” literally speaks of cursing “the men, the ones made after the similitude of God,” that is “the made-after-the-similitude-of-God men.” The text does not say that all men are in God’s image. In itself, the phrase could be universal, referring to all men head for head, or restrictive, referring to the regenerate alone. Second, the Scripture’s overall teaching and the context must determine which of these two are being spoken of. We have seen that the Bible supports the restricted sense and a careful reading indicates that the context does too. James 3:1 raises the issue as to who should be teachers (didaskoloi) in the churches. Christians must be “perfect” (teleios; v. 2) in their words (vv. 2-12) and “wise” (sophos; v. 13) in their deeds (vv. 13-16), and certainly teachers must be thus qualified. Chapter 4 tells us directly that there were “wars” and “fightings” in the churches (v. 1) and pride in their midst (vv. 5-10). So bad was it that these “brethren” were speaking “evil one of another” (v. 11) and so “judg[ing] another” (v. 12). Thus James 3:9 tells us that we must not curse our brethren who were created, and therefore are, in the imago dei.113 Thus we can safely conclude that those in the image of God in James 3:9 are believers in the churches “of the twelve tribes scattered abroad” (1:1).114
The second charge against the confessional view is that, unlike the traditional view, it does not see in the image of God an expression of the “mannishness of man,” to use Francis Schaeffer’s phrase. According to James Orr, the image of God is “determinative of the Biblical idea of man.”115 Reymond sees the divine image as stating the difference between men and beasts.
The Bible’s answer to the questions, “Is mankind distinct from all other animate life, and if so, in what way?” may be framed in one sentence: “Man, and man alone, is the very image of God (imago Dei).”116
Berkhof goes further, using the imago to express man’s relationship both to God and animal life:
The doctrine of the image of God in man is of the greatest importance in theology, for that image is the expression of that which is most distinctive in man and in his relation to God. The fact that man is the image of God distinguishes him from the animal and from every other creature.117
One cannot deny the attractiveness of a view of man’s being in the divine image that enables us, in one pregnant phrase, to present man’s place in the world vis-à-vis God and beasts. Certainly this language has greater power and poignancy than speaking of man as a “rational-moral creature.”
Nevertheless, since, as we have seen, the Scriptures and the Reformed confessions know nothing of the broader sense of the divine image, this apparent gain will have to be forfeited lest other, greater losses accrue. Yet we hasten to add that the confessional view of the imago dei does not at all deny man’s unique place in the universe. It merely does so in different terms. The same Belgic Confession which defines the divine image in terms of spiritual virtues (14) declares that God gave “unto every creature its being, shape, form and several offices … for the service of mankind, to the end that man may serve his God” (12). Here we have God, man and all creatures related without any reference to the wider aspect of the imago dei. After limiting the image of God to man’s original righteousness (III/IV:1), the Canons of Dordt have no difficulty in speaking of fallen man still as a man. He consists of body and soul (II:1), possessing understanding, heart, will, affections and mind (III/IV:1) and capable of reproduction (III/IV:2). Moreover, fallen man still has a conscience. He knows that God is and that certain actions are good and others evil. He can, to a certain extent, understand natural things, such as the arts and sciences. He even realizes the benefits of civil order (III/IV:4). Man remains man possessed of the constitution of man, still a rational-moral creature, natural and earthy (I Cor. 15:44-45). Neither the wider sense of the image of God nor common grace are necessary for these things. Thus the confessional view of man, without recourse to the imago dei, can, with Schaeffer, insist on the mannishness of man, and, with Calvin, on the importance of the sciences and the liberal arts.118
Fallen man is still man, but he is a man who bears the imago diaboli. Redeemed man is also man, a man who bears the imago dei. Both believing and unbelieving men are necessarily image-bearers but they differ regarding the one whose image they bear. For one it is God; for the other it is Satan. Both believing and unbelieving men play, marry, procreate, govern, use tools, work, study, think, will, speak, etc. But they do so out of two radically different internal principles, in the service of two totally opposed masters and for two completely different goals, at least in so far as the regenerated saint acts in accordance with his new nature. The wicked hate God from the heart and serve the devil, pressing all into the service of sin and selfishness. Thus they image their father the devil. The righteous, in accordance with their degree of sanctification and by God’s grace, serve the Most High God seeking His glory and not their own. In this way, they image the glory of their Father in heaven and are holy as He is holy (I Pet. 1:15-16). Thus one must agree wholeheartedly with Anthony Hoekema: “the most important thing about man is that he is inescapably related to God.”119 But with the confessional view of the divine image the unbeliever is always related to God as a rebellious sinner who abhors His Maker and is “wholly incapable of doing any good and inclined to all evil.”120 God hates him in His eternal decree of reprobation, in time and in his everlasting punishment (Rom. 9:13). Always Jehovah witnesses in the sinner’s conscience that he is guilty and condemned and that he stands exposed to the wrath of God. Fallen man’s enemy, the Almighty Triune God, is His Creator, Governor, and Judge, the One before whom he always stands naked and guilty. As Hoekema said, even fallen man is “inescapably related to God.”
(VI) The Image of God in Its Theological Relationships
Having established the confessional view and answered the objections to it, it only remains to relate the image of God to those scriptural and theological ideas with which it is most intimately connected. We shall start with sovereign, particular grace. This was the motivation for this article’s position, as it was for Luther, Bayne, Herman Hoeksema and others.121 The image of God is a completely ethical category and not in any sense ontological; it consists of spiritual graces not of human faculties.122 This fits perfectly with the spiritual/ethical view of the fall held by orthodox Protestants. Adam, the federal head of the whole human race, was created after God’s image. At the fall, he lost God’s image completely and partook of the image of the devil, totally and in all his faculties.123 All his descendants were begotten in this state (cf. Gen. 5:1-3). Only in the redemption that is in Christ Jesus are the elect recreated in the divine image; unbelievers are not in the image of God in any sense. The reprobate will forever bear the imago diaboli, even in Hell. There is no mitigating or limiting factor of the image of God in a broader sense. Just as there is no common grace for all men, so there is no image of God in all men. This means that the divine image of pre-fall Adam is equivalent to Adam’s original righteousness. The image of the devil (which replaced the image of God at the fall) is equivalent to total depravity. The image of God recreated in regeneration is equivalent to the new man (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10). Thus while the traditional view of the effects of the fall on the imago dei says that the image of God was lost in its narrow sense but retained, though weakened, in its broader sense, the confessional view highlights the greatness of the fall. All these wondrous gifts were lost and mankind was plunged into the depths of misery and woe through God’s curse.
Instead of a gift common to all, the recreation of the image of God in man is only wrought in the elect. This must be sovereign as the work is a spiritual creation (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10) and the creator is the Triune God, as in the case of the first man and woman, Adam and Eve (cf. “us” and “our” in Gen. 1:26). The gift of the divine image, merited by Christ at the cross, is according to God’s foreknowledge (or eternal love) of the believer and His decree of election (Rom. 8:29). The effectual call (v. 30) serves the child of God’s progressive imaging of the Son (v. 29), which image is perfectly realized in our glorification in the new heaven and the new earth. Then the sons of God (v. 21) will be conformed to the image of their elder brother, the firstborn, even Christ (v. 29), a far more glorious image than that given at the creation of Adam (Gen. 1:26-27).124 Here again we see the inseparable connection between sonship and the imago dei.125
The divine image is given in regeneration (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10).126 But the imago dei is not a once-for-all gift; it is also progressive and it implies a calling. Those created in God’s image (Eph. 4:24), Paul declares, must be imitators of God, as dear children (5:1). The image of God is a gift that implies a command: “You are created after God’s image. Therefore image Him.” Those who are God’s image must and do image Him. Thus “image” is both a noun and a verb. Sanctification is viewed as increasingly imaging Christ (II Cor. 3:18), the image of God (4:4). This mighty work is wrought by the Spirit of the Lord (3:17-18) through the preaching of the gospel (vv. 6, 8). The lives of God’s image-bearers are not static but dynamic involving more and more conformity to Christ.
The believer grows in knowledge, holiness and righteousness, the three elements in the divine image identified for us by Scripture. He increasingly knows the true and living Triune God with that deep, satisfying knowledge of love (knowledge). He more and more consecrates himself to the Lord and separates himself from evil (holiness), walking in conformity to the law of God from the heart (righteousness). These spiritual gifts may be summarized in the gift: love. Anthony Hoekema is right: “love is central in the image of God.”127 Traditionally the Reformed faith has also emphasized spiritual freedom in connection with the image of God.128 Those who possess knowledge, righteousness and holiness have a godly will which desires to do the good, whether perfect but fallible before the fall, opposed by the old (and dethroned) nature in the regenerate, or perfect and infallible in the intermediate state or in the new world.
In the three virtues given by the inspired apostle (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10), we can easily see the threefold office of the believer. The knowledge of God is necessary for the believer as prophet.129 “Holiness to the Lord” is the motto of a priest who has access to God and knows that all he is and has belongs to Him. Righteousness is the vital qualification of a king who rules in the fear and the name of the Lord and judges according to His Word.
All of this sheds light on the covenant of God with Adam before the fall and, hence, on the covenant of grace. Since Adam possessed these spiritual qualities and occupied the threefold office, he was undoubtedly in fellowship with God before the fall. Jehovah delighted in and communed with His image-bearers, Adam and Eve. It was His custom to walk with them in the cool of the day (cf. Gen. 3:8). This view of the covenant as fellowship, even fellowship reflecting the inter-Trinitarian relations in the Godhead, is supported by the allusion to the Trinity in Genesis 1:26. The Father created man through the Son and by the Spirit in order that man might commune with the Triune God in love.130 As Herman Hoeksema puts it,
Man was made after the image of God, in spiritual perfection, in true knowledge of God, righteousness and holiness … therefore, he stood in covenant-relation of friendship to his Creator, His friend-servant, to love Him with all his heart and mind and soul and strength.131
Furthermore, two of the creation ordinances directly support this covenantal view of Adam’s life. First, the Sabbath (Gen. 2:1-3) speaks of our joyous rest and repose in the living God. Second, monogamous marriage (vv. 21-25), the earthly symbol of the union between Christ and His church (Eph. 5:22-33), speaks of the intimacy of fellowship with Jehovah. The I-Thou relationship, between God and His children and between His covenant children mutually, results from man’s being in the image of God. This is a far more concrete and rich view of man as the imago dei than the abstract discussions of man’s “personality” and “transcendence” over lesser creatures presented by many modern authors.
This view of God’s covenant with Adam as fellowship (made possible by God’s creating Adam in the imago dei) involves a criticism of the conception of the covenant of works as held by many. Since man was created in the image of God there never was a time before the fall, no matter how brief, when he was not in a covenant relationship with God. The covenant of works scheme, on the other hand, presents the covenant as being set up a short time after the creation of Adam and Eve by means of the command to them to eat of all the trees of the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:16-17).
Covenant fellowship with God, who is spirit (John 4:24), is primarily enjoyed by man in his soul rather than in his body. Also knowledge, righteousness and holiness are qualities of the soul. After all, what is a knowledgeable body? Nevertheless the Reformed faith has rightly noted that man, and not merely man’s spirit, was created after the image of God.132 How is this to be understood? Cocceius sees the body as the vessel or implement of man’s soul.133 Similarly, according to Turretin, the “image shone in the body not so much formally as consequently and effectively.”134 Bavinck writes along the same lines:
The body is not a prison, but … our earthly dwelling (2 Cor. 5:1), our organ or instrument of service, our apparatus (1 Cor. 12:18-26; 2 Cor. 4:7; 1 Thess. 4:4), and the “members” of the body are the weapons with which we fight in the cause of righteousness or unrighteousness (Rom. 6:13).135
The Reformed faith is clearly in accord with the Bible’s teaching. The saint’s body, as well as his soul and spirit, is an object of the divine work of sanctification (I Thess. 5:23). The Christian’s body is the temple of the Holy Ghost (I Cor. 6:19). Therefore, he must glorify God in his body and in his spirit (v. 20). The apostle Paul, after his doctrinal exposition of the faith in Romans 1-11, opens his practical section (chapters 12-16) with these words,
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy [holiness], acceptable unto God [righteousness is necessary here], which is your reasonable service [knowledge is involved here] (12:1).
Whereas prior to his conversion, the believer used his body and its members in the service of sin, imaging the devil, now the believer must reflect the glory of his Father in heaven (cf. Rom. 6:12-13, 19; 7:5). Thus while the contents of the imago dei are qualities of the regenerate man’s spirit, man images God in both body and soul. Not only will we be spiritually pure at death or Jesus’ return, but on the last day our bodies will bear the perfect image of Christ’s glorious body (I Cor. 15:49; Phil. 3:21).
The element of righteousness in the imago dei, with its related idea of kingship, is at the heart of the idea of the godly man’s dominion over the created order mentioned with the very first reference to man’s creation in the divine image (Gen. 1:26f.). The Cocceian strain in Reformed theology expressed it perfectly: the image of God and dominion are related to one another in that the latter is the consequence of the former.136 The Triune God (v. 26) appointed man as His king over the created world to rule it for Him according to His righteous law thus consecrating it to the Most High.137 This Adam did in caring for the garden (work; 2:15),138 naming the animals (lordship over the brute creation; v. 19) and loving and ruling his wife (vv. 20-25) in fulfilment of his headship over her (I Cor. 11:7). He walked with God (Gen. 3:8) and kept His law, loving God and his neighbour. He also obeyed the prohibition not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (2:16-17).
Through the body, man was able to fellowship with his wife also in the way of sexual intercourse, in obedience to the dominion mandate to “be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth” (v. 28). Only in the way of bearing children would Adam and Eve fulfil their calling to “subdue” the earth and “have dominion” over the creatures of land, sea and air (vv. 26, 28) for, though they were placed in Eden, their horizons were to be cosmic, no less than the entire earth.
Does the creation mandate (also called the dominion mandate or the cultural mandate) remain in force today? Christian Reconstructionist, Ken Gentry answers in the affirmative: “the Cultural Mandate … remains in effect after the entry of sin.”139 He provides two arguments for his position. First, subsequent revelation teaches that man developed culture. Second, “the Creation Mandate is specifically repeated in Scripture.” He cites Genesis 9:1ff., Psalm 8 and Hebrews 2:5-8 and notes other biblical allusions.140 In this Gentry is undoubtedly correct—man has developed culturally and God does command man to rule the earth—but the lines must be drawn somewhat differently from his presentation. First of all, we must be antithetical. Unbelievers rule over the creation in the service of Satan and sin. This is not true biblical dominion for not only does God command man to subdue the world but man must do this for God’s sake. Like the ungodly, God’s friends, created in His own image, also rule over the creation, but their motivation, standard and goal (in so far as it is according to their new natures) is godly. They alone properly exercise dominion. Though both groups do many of the same things formally, their purposes and masters are radically opposed to each other. The believer images God in exercising dominion over the creation for God’s sake but the reprobate, who is in the image of the devil, reflects his father in all his cultural activities. The question is not, What did the man do, build, cultivate, etc.? Rather the question is, Did he do it to glorify the Lord of heaven and earth in the service of His kingdom? or, Did he do it to serve himself and sin? God’s image-bearers effect godly dominion; Satan’s image-bearers effect ungodly dominion. Thus while redeemed man is at the apex of the created order, fallen man is its nadir (ethically speaking).
Not only do we have to distinguish between the agents who exercise the dominion (for only the godly can obey the command to rule the creation for God’s sake) but we must also consider the extent to which this godly dominion will be realized in this world prior to Christ’s return. Christian Reconstructionism holds that Christians will progressively dominate the world (civil government, law, economics, industry, property, education, etc.) before Christ’s second coming, but is this biblical?141 Christ is crowned “with glory and honour,” possessing “dominion over the works of [God’s] hands” including “the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air and the fish of the sea” (Ps. 8; Heb. 2:5-9). Christ’s sons (vv. 10, 13) and brethren (v. 11), the church (v. 12), possess and rule all things in Him. Now, spiritually, God “hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6). We have this dominion principally and definitively, and we exercise it to the extent we are able in the here-and-now of this world. But we do not and will not govern all or most or much of the creation for Christ’s sake prior to the end of the age.142 Christian Reconstructionism’s progressive dominion in this world’s history is a myth. The church is always a remnant consisting mainly of the foolish, weak and base with few of the wise, noble and mighty in her membership (I Cor. 1:26-28), so that God alone might be seen to be her strength and thus receive the glory (vv. 27-31). According to the apostolic teaching in Romans 8:20-25, the creation shall only be liberated at the manifestation of the sons of God, that is, in the next world. Fernhout expresses it in earthy terms:
The whole creation groans, is frustrated, because it can’t reach fulfillment. It can’t live up to its God-ordained intentions because the ones who are supposed to be subjecting it are bungling in ungodliness, mincing around with false gods.143
Fernhout proceeds to give a concrete example in terms of Canada:
Canada, a creature, is frustrated when those subjecting it, led by governments federal and provincial and corporations multi-national, go grasping after her resources (such as oil), purely in terms of cold, fleshly cash rather than seeing them as creatures to be used to reveal and give glory to [God]. And this creation longs to see the sons of God—you and me! For the sons of God will know how to bring the creation to its fulfillment. Because they are motivated by the Spirit, they will know how to subject the creation in such a way that there is righteousness, life and restful peace.144
This remains “a vision of hope” (Rom. 8:24-25), for the full realization of our adoption, including the resurrection of the body, waits for the last day (v. 23), but even now the adoption papers “are already signed.”145 Our dominion presently is primarily definitive and spiritual (cf. I Cor. 3:21-23). Only at the last day will we enter into it fully. Yet now we must govern that which we have in such a way as to image God until Christ returns to renew the world when “the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Hab. 2:14). In the mean time, we live hopefully and energetically looking “for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness” (II Pet. 3:13) when the new Jerusalem “shall be holiness unto the Lord of hosts” (Zech. 14:21). Thus instead of the Greek goal of a perfect soul in a perfect body, God’s goal or purpose (telos) is His glory in Jesus Christ through the new humanity in His image ruling over the universe to His praise. This was David’s resurrection hope: “As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness” (Ps. 17:15), when he and all the saints will be perfectly “conformed to the image of [God’s] Son” revealing Him as “the firstborn among many brethren” (Rom. 8:29) to the glory of the Triune God!
