The Basics -- Divine Image-Bearers
With the language of the eighth Psalm clearly in mind (“you have made [man] a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor” v. 5), Reformed theologian Cornelius Van Til declared that as an image-bearer, Adam was created to be like God in every way in which a creature can be like God. These words sound rather shocking when we first hear them. But as Van Til goes on to point out, because Adam is a creature, he can never be more than a creature. He will never be divine. Christians cannot talk about the creation of humanity without first being clear about the fact that God is distinct from his creation, and he cannot be identified either with the world around us or its creatures.
The biblical account tells us that Adam was created in God’s image (Genesis 1:26), which indicates that Adam is neither divine, nor the product of some unspecified primordial process. Adam was created by a direct act of God in which Adam’s body was created by God from the dust of the earth, while his soul was created when God breathed life into the first human (Genesis 2:7). The divine image extends to Eve as well (Genesis 2:4-24). To be human then, is to be male or female and to bear God’s image in both body and soul, which exist as a unity of both spiritual (the soul) and material (the body) elements. To be a divine image bearer is to be an ectype (copy) of which God is archetype (original).
Because all men and women are divine image-bearers, we are truly like God, and we possess all of the so-called communicable attributes of God–albeit in creaturely form and measure. This is what constitutes us as “human” beings, distinct from and superior in intellectual, moral, and rational capabilities to the creatures who make up the animal kingdom. The creation of Adam and Eve marks the high point of the creation account (Genesis 1:28-31), as God pronounced the first man Adam to be “very good.”
The ramifications of the fact that we are divine image bearers are multifaceted and profound. First, the creation reveals that Adam is both the biological and federal head of the human race. Adam was the first human being, and all humans are his biological descendants. This speaks directly to the question of the unity of the race despite our differing physical appearances and unique personal identities, and to the equality of persons before God. Second, as the biological head of our race, Adam represented the entire human race before God during the period of probation in Eden when Adam was commanded not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Adam was assigned the role of acting for and on behalf of all those who are his descendants–all of humanity. What Adam did in Eden, he did on our behalf, as our representative. This fact alone brings about a number of additional considerations, including the fact that Adam was created in righteousness, holiness, and possessed true knowledge of God (cf. Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:10), all of which indicates that Adam was righteous before God as created. Adam was not merely innocent, but holy and upright, possessing the natural ability to obey all of God’s commands and to fulfill the cultural mandate (Genesis 1:28 — “And God said to them, `Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth’”).
The spiritual nature of Adam (seen, for example, in the fact that the soul lives on after the death of the body) further reflects this element of human nature. Our souls are invisible, indivisible, and immortal. In addition, we are created as rational beings with great intellectual abilities, as well as the moral ability to determine right from wrong (Romans 2:12-16). This also indicates that all men and women are capable of receiving the revelation that God gives through the created order (general revelation) and through his word (special revelation). Reformed theologians have long argued that our bodies are fit “organs” of the soul. And it is especially through the body-soul unity that the communicable attributes associated with the divine image are manifest.
As the divine image-bearer possessing such original righteousness, holiness, and knowledge, Adam was given dominion over all of creation as God’s vice-regent. Not only did God make all things good, he assigned to his unique image-bearer the role of ruling over the world and all of its creatures. Adam was given all the plants and animals for food, and was assigned the task of naming the animals over which he was given dominion (Genesis 2:19).
This is what the Psalmist means when he says that man is but a little lower than the angels (Psalm 8:5). The creation of Adam and Eve was the high point of all of God’s creative activities, not an after-thought, nor the product of an evolutionary process. As divine-image bearers, Adam and Eve were to rule and subdue the earth in the name of their creator. The first humans possessed true righteousness, holiness, and knowledge, and their task was to build the temple garden of God on earth in Eden. And because Adam and his wife Eve bear the divine image, in every way they were fit for this task.