Introduction
You often wonder what truly defines human nature amid conflicting secular views that reduce you to a biological machine or an idealized mind. You face the challenge of understanding your identity when materialism and evolutionism strip away your inherent dignity and spiritual purpose.
Humanity is created in the image of God as a psychosomatic unity across four historical and spiritual stages, designed to mirror God and actively represent His authority.
Anthony A. Hoekema examines this central theological truth by tracing biblical foundations and historical interpretations of the human image. You will explore how sin affected this divine reflection and how Christ restores it. The book addresses questions such as:
- What does it mean to bear the image of God?
- How did the Fall alter human nature?
- In what ways does the Holy Spirit renew you?
1. The Importance and Biblical Teaching of the Image of God
You approach theological anthropology from a Reformed and Calvinistic perspective. The divine image possesses both structural and functional aspects. It involves a threefold relationship to God, others, and nature.
The theological study of human beings centers on the biblical teaching that men and women are created in the image of God across four distinct historical and spiritual stages.
Secular anthropologies that deny humanity's inescapable relation to God fall into idolatry by absolutizing a single aspect of creation. Idealistic anthropologies treat the physical body as a hindrance while exalting the soul or reason. Conversely, materialistic anthropologies absolutize the physical or environmental side while denying human responsibility, freedom, and dignity.
B.F. Skinner argues in Beyond Freedom and Dignity that autonomous man and human freedom are myths and that behavior is totally determined by the environment.
Old Testament Teaching
The Old Testament explicitly addresses the image of God in three primary Genesis passages and echoes its themes in Psalm 8. Humanity stands distinct from all other creatures. The plural language in Genesis 1:26 indicates divine counsel and a plurality in God's existence. The terms tselem and demuth are used interchangeably to show that humanity represents God and resembles Him.
Fallen human beings retain the image of God. Genesis 9:6 establishes the death penalty for murder specifically because man is made in the image of God. Destroying a human life is an attack on God's living representation.
New Testament Teaching
New Testament evidence shows that fallen human beings still bear the image of God despite the Fall. James notes the linguistic use of the perfect participle gegonotas, indicating a past action with abiding results. Cursing human beings is an offense to God because they still reflect God's likeness.
James 3:9 warns against praising God while cursing men who have been made in God's likeness.
Jesus Christ serves as the ultimate, perfect image and exact representation of God the Father. Passages like 2 Corinthians 4:4, Colossians 1:15, and Hebrews 1:3 identify Christ as the eikōn and the charaktēr of God. The Incarnation confirms the doctrine of the image of God, and Christ provides a visual example of God's intentions for humanity.
When Philip asked Jesus to show them the Father in John 14:8-9, Jesus replied that anyone who has seen Him has seen the Father.
Redemption involves a progressive, ongoing renewal of the believer into the image of Christ by the Holy Spirit. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 3:18 that believers are continually being transformed into Christ's likeness from one degree of glory to another by the Lord who is the Spirit. Texts like Colossians 3:9-10 and Ephesians 4:22-24 indicate that this new nature undergoes a continuing transformation into knowledge, righteousness, and holiness.
The ultimate goal of sanctification is the complete, final restoration of the image of God in the life to come. At Christ's return, believers will experience total conformity and share His glory. John writes in 1 John 3:2 that when Christ appears we shall be like Him because we shall see Him as He is.
2. Historical Views and Theological Summary
Historical theologians have variously located the image of God in human reason, relational capacity, or active sanctification.
Historical Perspectives
Irenaeus taught that fallen man retains the image of God as rationality and freedom, but lost the likeness through the Fall. Writing in Against Heresies, Irenaeus argued that humans possess an animal nature after the Fall and need the Holy Spirit to restore the divine similitude. He maintained a trichotomous view where believers consist of body, soul, and spirit, while unbelievers lack the spirit.
Irenaeus referenced in Against Heresies V.6.1 that a person left carnal possesses the image in formation but lacks the similitude through the Spirit.
Thomas Aquinas located the image of God primarily in human intellect and categorized it across three distinct developmental stages. In Summa Theologica, Aquinas proposed three stages: a natural aptitude for understanding and loving God found in all men, an imperfect actual/habitual knowledge through grace found in the just, and perfect knowledge found in the glorified. He argued that human reason is the most Godlike quality.
Aquinas distinguished the image stages using the Latin terms actu vel habitu to describe how individuals relate to knowing and loving God. Aquinas argued that original man needed an added supernatural grace to control lower passions and merit eternal life. Because Aquinas believed a struggle existed between reason and lower powers at creation, humans required a supernatural gift of grace to keep passions submissive. When Adam sinned, this added gift was lost, reducing human nature to a state where it is deprived rather than totally depraved.
Aquinas asserted that man could not merit eternal life without a higher power of grace because natural power is insufficient for meritorious works commensurate with eternal life. John Calvin taught that the image of God resides primarily in the soul and includes original knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, but this image was severely distorted by the Fall. Calvin argued that while the primary seat of the divine image is in the mind and heart, sparks of it exist throughout the human body. Adam originally possessed right understanding, governed affections, and true holiness. Sin did not totally annihilate this image, leaving behind traces and natural gifts like reason and conscience, yet it infected every part of human nature so that fallen man is depraved.
Karl Barth rejected the idea that the image of God is found in human reason or structure, defining it instead as an analogia relationis based on male and female confrontation. Barth argued that the image of God signifies existence in confrontation, specifically the I-thou relationship between male and female as outlined in Genesis 1:27. This relational capacity mirrors the internal differentiation and fellowship within God Himself. Because this capacity is formal and unlosable, Barth denied a historical Fall that could destroy it.
Emil Brunner distinguished between a formal image of God, which is human responsibility that cannot be lost, and a material image, which is loving obedience that was completely lost through sin. Brunner posited that human freedom and responsibility constitute an unchangeable formal structure of being that remains intact despite sin. However, the material aspect—giving the right, loving response to God—was entirely lost due to sin and is restored only through reconciliation in Jesus Christ. Gerrit C. Berkouwer rejected the twofold image concept, defining the image of God dynamically as a new life of consecrated living and imitation of Christ restored by the Holy Spirit. Berkouwer argued against separating the image into a broader retained aspect and a narrower lost aspect, stating it minimizes radical corruption. Instead, he maintained that man's relatedness to God is constitutive of his being, and the image is visible in active sanctification, love, and growing conformity to Jesus Christ.
A Theological Summary
Being created in the image of God means that humankind is uniquely designed to mirror God's character and actively represent His authority on earth. The author summarizes that humanity functions as a living mirror reflecting God's love, kindness, and goodness, rendering graven images unnecessary. Furthermore, humans act as royal ambassadors charged with advancing God's program, supporting His standards, and working out His purposes in the world.
The human body is an essential component of the image of God rather than merely a temporary prison for the soul. While some theologians argue the image pertains exclusively to the soul because God is a spirit, the author affirms that the entire person, including the physical body, constitutes the image. The body is a masterpiece destined to be reunited with the soul in the resurrection.
3. The Four Stages of the Image of God
The image of God in man includes both what man is structurally and what man does functionally. Early theologians emphasized structural capacities like reason and morality, while modern theologians lean toward function. The author argues that both are essential: structure provides the capacities, and function provides the active expression, with function being primary and structure secondary.
Jesus Christ is the true and perfect image of God, revealing how humanity is called to function. Looking at Christ shows that love, obedience, and total orientation toward God and neighbor define the true image of God rather than raw intelligence. Christ's humanity displays a twofold strangeness of deity and perfect sinless humanity, which acts as a mirror for human calling.
The image of God unfolds through original integrity, perversion by sin, renewal by the Holy Spirit, and ultimate eschatological perfection.
Human beings are placed by God into a unique threefold relationship: toward God, toward the neighbor, and toward nature. These three relationships are equally indispensable and interconnected. The vertical relationship to God is primary and regulates the other two horizontal relationships of loving the neighbor and acting as vicegerents over creation.
The original human pair existed in a provisional state of integrity with the possibility of sin. Adam and Eve were created sinless but not yet at the end of the road; they possessed the ability not to sin rather than the inability to sin. God gave them a probationary command to test whether they would choose obedience freely.
The Perverted and Renewed Image
The Fall did not destroy the structural capacities of man, but perverted their direction and function. Fallen human beings retain their God-given gifts and reason but use them in rebellious and selfish ways. This perversion corrupts all three relationships, leading to idolatry, exploitation of neighbors, and destructive dominion over nature.
A small boy abandoned in the forest of Lacaune near the French town of Aveyron was found resembling an animal, illustrating that humans cannot develop normally without social contact.
Redemption through the Holy Spirit renews the image of God by re-enabling proper functioning in the threefold relationship. The restoration begins in regeneration and continues through sanctification, empowering believers to direct their lives toward God, love their neighbors, and act as responsible stewards of creation.
The renewal of the image of God is simultaneously an internal work of the Holy Spirit and a responsible task for the believer. While spiritual renewal depends entirely on divine grace and union with Christ, the New Testament constantly enjoins believers to act:
- Put off the old self with its practices
- Purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit
- Keep yourselves in God's love
- Walk in the truth and live for Christ
The renewal of the image of God reaches its final, unlosable completion in the final glorification of man. While Adam was able not to sin and die, the glorified saints in the life to come will not be able to sin and die. This perfection spans a threefold relationship brought to faultless fulfillment: our relation to God through constant worship, our relation to neighbors through unified diversity in society, and our relation to nature through perfect stewardship rather than exploitation.
4. The Origin and Spread of Sin
Sin entered the human race through a historical Fall, resulting in universal guilt, pervasive depravity, and spiritual inability.
The arrangement between God and Adam before the Fall should not be termed a covenant of works because it lacked grace elements, explicit biblical covenant terminology, oath ratification ceremonies, and redemptive context. Sin originated in the angelic world before the human fall through the pride and self-generated rebellion of Satan and fallen angels. Details of the Genesis Fall narrative, including the serpent, its speech, and the two trees, should be interpreted literally rather than purely symbolically. The Majority Report of the study committee for the Synod of Assen in the Netherlands in the 1926 year recommended repealing the binding literal character of the serpent and trees, which was discussed further during the 1967-68 years of the General Synod in Amsterdam and Lunteren.
The origin of sin remains an inexplicable riddle and a deficient rather than efficient cause, as it cannot be traced back to God or His creation. The immediate consequences of the first sin included a deep sense of shame, fear of God, and evasion of personal responsibility by blaming others. God's initial judgment on the serpent contained the first gospel promise that the seed of the woman would ultimately crush Satan. The Fall brought specific judgments involving painful childbearing and male domination for the woman, and painful toil, thorns, and physical death for the man.
Original Sin and Transmission
Sin is universal across all humanity, a fact acknowledged by diverse religions, philosophies, literature, and explicitly affirmed throughout Scripture. M. Scott Peck in The People of the Lie argues that evil is widespread among people who maintain a mere pretense of goodness. Original sin must be distinguished from actual sin as the foundational sinful state versus individual sinful acts. Original sin consists of two distinct components: original guilt and original pollution.
- original guilt
- original pollution
Pervasive depravity means that corruption extends to every aspect of human nature and lacks love for God as a baseline motive. Unregenerate human beings suffer from spiritual inability, rendering them helpless to change their basic life direction toward God without special grace. Direct imputation teaches that God legally charges Adam's guilt directly to his descendants because Adam acted as their federal representative. Paul's parallel between Adam and Christ in Romans 5 establishes that condemnation came to all because all sinned in Adam.
5. The Whole Person and Christian Freedom
The Bible does not present a scientific anthropology or psychological system. Scripture portrays human beings as whole, unitary persons in relation to God. Terms like soul, spirit, and heart emphasize different aspects of the whole person rather than separate parts.
Human beings exist as an indivisible psychosomatic unity whose capacity for choice remains intact while true freedom requires divine restoration.
Psychosomatic Unity
You should reject trichotomy, the view that human beings consist of body, soul, and spirit. This unbiblical idea stems from Greek philosophy and Platonic antithesis. In 1855, Franz Delitzsch originally published his System of Biblical Psychology. Hebrew and Greek terms for soul and spirit are frequently used interchangeably.
Mental events and brain events are complementary aspects of the same reality. Between physical death and the final resurrection, believers experience a provisional, conscious state of happiness with Christ. This intermediate state rejects soul-sleep and the cessation of existence.
The Question of Freedom
You must distinguish between the ineradicable capacity for choice and true freedom. Willing is an activity of the whole person rather than a separate agent. Fallen humans retain their capacity for choice and moral responsibility.
B.F. Skinner in Beyond Freedom and Dignity and About Behaviorism defends environmental determinism, claiming human conduct is completely controlled by genetic and environmental factors. You can reject this view because the Bible always addresses humans as responsible decision-makers.
Although fallen humans retain choices, they have lost true freedom and become enslaved to sin. In 1525, Martin Luther wrote The Bondage of the Will to argue that fallen humans can neither turn to God nor aid their salvation.
True freedom to do God's will is restored through redemption and the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit. Doctor Paul Brand compares God's laws to the hard bones of the human body, which restrict yet ultimately free us for action and movement.
Conclusion
The doctrine of the image of God reveals your inherent dignity as a psychosomatic unity created to mirror God and represent His authority across all areas of life.
You integrate creation, fall, redemption, and eschatological perfection into a cohesive understanding of human nature. This biblical framework protects you from reducing humanity to mere biology or elevating human achievement beyond creaturely limits. You see every person bearing divine value regardless of race, status, or ability.
- Treat every human being with profound respect because all people bear the image of God.
- Pursue cultural renewal by using your gifts to develop science, art, and society for God's glory.
- Depend on the Holy Spirit to continually renew your character and restore your functional likeness to Christ.
- Express your status as a royal priest by exercising loving stewardship over the earth.
- Anticipate final bodily resurrection and complete transformation into the likeness of the Savior.
10 Key Ideas
- Humanity is created in the image of God as a psychosomatic unity across four historical and spiritual stages, designed to mirror God and actively represent His authority.
- The theological study of human beings centers on the biblical teaching that men and women are created in the image of God across four distinct historical and spiritual stages.
- Historical theologians have variously located the image of God in human reason, relational capacity, or active sanctification.
- The image of God unfolds through original integrity, perversion by sin, renewal by the Holy Spirit, and ultimate eschatological perfection.
- Sin entered the human race through a historical Fall, resulting in universal guilt, pervasive depravity, and spiritual inability.
- Human beings exist as an indivisible psychosomatic unity whose capacity for choice remains intact while true freedom requires divine restoration.
- The doctrine of the image of God reveals your inherent dignity as a psychosomatic unity created to mirror God and represent His authority across all areas of life.
- Jesus Christ serves as the ultimate, perfect image and exact representation of God the Father.
- Fallen human beings retain the image of God.
- The human body is an essential component of the image of God rather than merely a temporary prison for the soul.