Concept
Anthropologyalso Imago DeiThe Image of God
Humanity made in God's likeness: the ground of every human life's worth, damaged at the fall and never revoked.
#creation#humanity
- 5passages
- 28original words
- 1approved connection
- 114cross-references
The words behind it
Hebrew and Greek standing in the 5 passages listed below, not a lexicon of "the image of god" itself. The number on each word is how often it occurs in those passages; the connecting words the languages use everywhere are set aside so the words that carry meaning can be seen.
Hebrew16
The passages
Every passage this site attaches to the concept, in canon order. Each row says where it came from.
Old Testament3
- Genesis 1:26listed key text
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, and over all the earth itself and every creature that crawls upon it.”(opening verse of the passage)
Commentary on Genesis 1:262 voices
In "academese" the wording of Genesis 1:26 is called the "plural of exhortation"-a fancy way of saying one person is announcing something to a group.
Michael S. Heiser· "Exposing the Work of Zecharia Sitchin, Part 2: Does the Bible Have the Gods Creating Humankind?" (drmsh.com), 2008
This same language was not used for (the creation) of other things. The command was simple when light was created; God said, "let there be light." Heaven was also made without deliberation.… These, though, were before (the creation of) humans. For humans, there was deliberation. He did not say, as he did when creating other things, "Let there be a human." See how worthy you are! Your origins are not in an imperative. Instead, God deliberated about the best way to bring to life a creation worthy of honor.
Gregory of Nyssa· ON THE ORIGIN OF MAN, 395Patristic
- Genesis 1:27listed key text
So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.(opening verse of the passage)
Commentary on Genesis 1:271 voice
We must, then, examine the words carefully: for we find, if we do so, that that which was made "in the image" is one thing, and that which is now manifested in wretchedness is another.
Gregory of Nyssa· ON THE MAKING OF MAN 16, 395Patristic
- Genesis 9:6listed key text
Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man his blood will be shed; for in His own image God has made mankind.(opening verse of the passage)
Commentary on Genesis 9:62 voices
Whoso sheddeth man's blood . . . for in the image of God made he man--It is true that image has been injured by the fall, but it is not lost. In this view, a high value is attached to the life of every man, even the poorest and humblest, and an awful criminality is involved in the destruction of it.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Reformed
Indeed, I will require your blood, and the blood of your souls from all beasts, and from the hand of man (Gen. IX, 5). He compared it to bestial malice, or rather even accumulated the wickedness of man beyond the ferocity of beasts, by saying: From the hand of the brother of man. Indeed, beasts have nothing in common with us in nature, and they are not bound by any brotherly right. If they harm humans, they harm them as strangers.
Ambrose of Milan· On Noah and the Ark, 26.94, 397Patristic
New Testament2
- Colossians 1:15listed key text
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.(opening verse of the passage)
Commentary on Colossians 1:151 voice
Not then because He was from the Father was He called `First-born,' but because in Him the creation came to be; and as before the creation He was the Son, through whom was the creation, so also before He was called the First-born of the whole creation, not the less was the Word Himself with God and the Word was God. But this also not understanding, these irreligious men go about saying, `If He is First-born of all creation, it is plain that He too is one of the creation.'
Athanasius of Alexandria· Discourses Against the Arians 2.63, 373Patristic
- James 3:9listed key text
With the tongue we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness.(opening verse of the passage)
Commentary on James 3:92 voices
Therewith bless we God - We men do this; that is, all this is done by the tongue. The apostle does not mean that the same man does this, but that all this is done by the same organ - the tongue. Even the Father - Who sustains to us the relation of a father. The point in the remark of the apostle is, the absurdity of employing the tongue in such contradictory uses as to bless one who has to us the relation of a father, and to curse any being, especially those who are made in his image.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)Evangelical
It is said of the seraphim that praise God, they dare not bring a railing accusation. And for men to reproach those who have not only the image of God in their natural faculties, but are renewed after the image of God by the grace of the gospel: this is a most shameful contradiction to all their pretensions of honouring the great Original.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710Puritan
Approved connections
1 link an editor approved, each with the reason it was kept.
- first mentionGenesis 1:26
This is the first time Scripture calls a human being made "in God's image" (the imago Dei, theologians call it): 'Let us make man in our image', the foundation for human dignity that the rest of the Bible builds on.
John Calvin, Commentary on Genesis (public domain)Reformed
Voices on these passages
Commentary matched to the verses above, each named with its source: the full pool sits on each verse page.
In "academese" the wording of Genesis 1:26 is called the "plural of exhortation"-a fancy way of saying one person is announcing something to a group.
Michael S. Heiser· "Exposing the Work of Zecharia Sitchin, Part 2: Does the Bible Have the Gods Creating Humankind?" (drmsh.com)
Genesis 1:26
We must, then, examine the words carefully: for we find, if we do so, that that which was made "in the image" is one thing, and that which is now manifested in wretchedness is another.
Gregory of Nyssa· ON THE MAKING OF MAN 16Patristic
Genesis 1:27
Whoso sheddeth man's blood . . . for in the image of God made he man--It is true that image has been injured by the fall, but it is not lost. In this view, a high value is attached to the life of every man, even the poorest and humblest, and an awful criminality is involved in the destruction of it.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole BibleReformed
Genesis 9:6
Study it deeper
5 moves a student can make from here. Every one opens a tool on this site.
Trace one word to every place it stands
A word page lists every verse that word occurs in, with its definition and its range of meaning. Start with the roots that occur most under the passages above.
Walk out from the passages
The passages above carry 114 cross-references between them, links from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, the great 1830s reference work, together with the reader-voted index at OpenBible.info. The most-linked destinations:
Read it in both testaments
Set the earliest passage beside the New Testament one and ask what changed and what did not, the shape of the image of god before Christ and after him.
Read the whole chapter around it
A verse quoted alone can mean almost anything. Open Genesis 1 in the reader, where the Hebrew or Greek sits under every line.
See everywhere else it appears
The search page is a doorway: it returns verses, word studies, people, places and studies for one term at once.
Where this comes from
Genesis 1:27 says it three times in one verse. The image is what makes murder an assault on God himself (Genesis 9:6) and what makes cursing a neighbour incoherent (James 3:9), and it survives the fall: Genesis 9 is spoken to the world after Eden.
The New Testament names the image's original: Christ "is the image of the invisible God" (Colossians 1:15), and the redeemed are being conformed to him.