We must be clear that as a defining aspect of our creation, the image of God in us is not erased by the fall. The image of God is not a property that can be abstracted from us; to ask what aspect of humanity contains the image of God is to make a mistake. Understood in its plainest terms, the language of Genesis 1 states that man in his entirety is the image of God.
Chad Van Dixhoorn, Confessing the Faith, 64.
Nonetheless it is also the case that at least three dimensions of this image are mentioned in one place or another in the Scriptures as the assembly’s proofs illustrate. Genesis 1 mentions that humanity was made in God’s likeness, immediately after which we are told that men and women are to exercise dominion over the creatures of this world (Gen. 1:26). Colossians 3 mentions that Christians are being remade in the image of God, and special mention is made that we are being renewed in knowledge (Col. 3:10). Ephesians 4 tells us that the new man in Christ is ‘created after the likeness of God’, and that means, at the very least, a creation ‘in true righteousness and holiness’ (Eph. 4:24).
In picking up these themes the assembly is probably not setting up ‘dominion’, ‘knowledge’, ‘righteousness’, and ‘holiness’ as a complete catalogue of ways in which man images God’s glory, although the confession and both catechisms give them unique prominence. These things are simply brought into view because they are aspects of the image of God that are severely tarnished in the fall, and restored in the sanctifying work of the Spirit. This is a doctrine which has implications for the way in which we live, as James notes in his Epistle (James 3:9). It speaks today for those who would end the lives of unborn children, avoid the company of people from another race, argue for the superiority of one gender over another, or care about chimps more than children. The image of God is important for ethics: it is as much an equalizer among humans as it is an ‘elevator’ over all other creatures.
Chad Van Dixhoorn, Confessing the Faith, 64-65.
Identifying the nature of the divine image has preoccupied students and pastors for a long time. . . .
Genesis teaches us many things about the image of God — what I call “divine image bearing.” . . .
So how do we understand divine image bearing in away that does not stumble over these issues [i.e., ascribing image of God to human abilities or properties or the soul] and yet aligns with the description in Genesis? Hebrew grammar is the key. The turning point is the meaning of the preposition in with respect to phrase “in the image of God.” In English we use the preposition in to denote many different ideas. That is, in doesn’t always mean the same thing when we use the word. For example, if I say, “put the dishes in the sink,” I am using the preposition to denote location. If I say, “I broke the mirror in pieces,” I am using in to denote the result of some action. If I say, “I work in education,” I am using the preposition to denote that I work as a teacher or principal, or in some educational capacity.
This last example directs us to what the Hebrew preposition translated in means in Genesis 1:26. Humankind was created as God’s image. If we think of imaging as a verb or function, that translation makes sense. We are created to image God, to be his imagers. It is what we are by definition. The image is not an ability we have, but a status. We are God’s representatives on earth. To be human is to image God.
This is why Genesis 1:26-27 is followed by what theologians call the “dominion mandate” in verse 28. The verse informs us that God intends us to be him on this planet. We are to create more imagers (“be fruitful and multiply . . . fill”) in order to oversee the earth by stewarding its resources and harnessing them for the benefit of all human imagers (“subdue . . . rule over”).
Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm, 40-43.
From the beginning, however, Reformed theologians have incorporate also the essence of man in the image of God. Heppe is wrong when he asserts that Calvin and Zanchius did not teach this. While Calvin does make a distinction between the soul’s substance and its gifts, he expressly states that the image of God consisted in “those marks of excellence with which God had distinguished Adam over all other living creatures,” and that consequently it also consists in integrity. All the Reformed theologians agreed with this; only Coccejus, presenting an alternative view, taught that while the soul and its properties were presupposed by the image of God, they were not its content but only the canvas, so to speak, on which God painted his image. The image itself, according to Coccejus, consisted only in the gifts, as taught by 2 Corinthians 3:18, Ephesians 4:24, and Colossians 3:10. Others put it this way: the image of God consists antecedently in man’s spiritual nature, formally in sanctity, and consequently in dominion. As a rule, however, Reformed theologians continued to speak of the image of God in a broader and a narrow sense. In Holy Scripture, they read that man, on the one hand, is still called the image of God after the fall and should be respected as such (Gen. 5:1; 9:6; Acts 17:28; 1 Cor. 11:7; James 3:9); and that, on the other hand, he had nevertheless lost the primary content of the image of God (i.e., knowledge, righteousness, and holiness) and only regains those qualities in Christ (Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10). By observing this distinction in Scripture and incorporating it into their theology, Reformed theologians have maintained the bond between the physical and the ethical nature of man, and thereby also at this point (the relation between nature and grace) kept themselves from falling into various errors. Soon an additional distinction arose that was especially worked out in the doctrine of the covenant of works. This distinction answered the question what Adam had to become, not what Adam was. It is only in these three areas, the image of God in the broad sense, the image of God in the narrow sense, and the development or destination of the image of God — that is, in the doctrine of the covenant of works — that the locus of the image of God can be treated to the full extent. . . .
In our treatment of the doctrine of the image of God, then, we must highlight, in accordance with Scripture and the Reformed confession, the idea that a human being does not bear or have the image of God but that he or she is the image of God. As a human being a man is the son, the likeness, or offspring of God (Gen. 1:26; 9:6; Luke 3:38; Acts 17:28; 1 Cor. 11:7; James 3:9).
Two things are implied in this doctrine. The first is that not something in God — one virtue or perfection or another to the exclusion of still others, nor one person — say, the Son to the exclusion of the Father and the Spirit — but that God himself, the entire deity, is the archetype of man. Granted, it has frequently been taught that man has specifically been made in the image of the Son or of the incarnate Christ, but there is nothing in Scripture that supports this notion. Scripture repeatedly tells us that humankind was made in the image of God, not that we have been modeled on Christ, but that he was made (human) in our likeness (Rom. 8:3; Phil 2:7-8; Heb. 2:14), and that we, having been conformed to the image of Christ, are now again becoming like God (Rom. 8:29; 1 Cor. 15:49; 2 Cor. 3:18; Phil. 3:21; Eph. 4:24; Col. 3:10; 1 John 3:2). It is therefore much better for us to say that the triune being, God, is the archetype of man, while at the same time exercising the greatest caution in the psychological exploration of the trinitarian components of man’s being.
On the other hand, it follows from the doctrine of the human creation in the image of God that this mage extends to the whole person. Nothing in a human being is excluded from the image of God. While all creatures display vestiges of God, only a human being is the image of God. And he is such totally, in soul and body, in all his faculties and powers, in all conditions and relations. Man is the image of God because and insofar as he is truly human, and he is truly and essentially human because, and to the extent that, he is the image of God. Naturally, just as the cosmos is an organism and reveals God’s attributes more clearly in some than in other creatures, so also in man as an organism the image of God comes out more clearly in one part than another, more in the soul than in the body, more in the ethical virtues than in the physical powers. None of this, however, detracts in the least from the truth that the whole person is the image of God. Scripture could not and should not speak of God in a human manner and transfer all human attributes to God, as if God had not first made man totally in his own image. And it is the task of Christian theology to point out this image of God in man’s being in its entirety.
God is, first of all, demonstrable in the human soul. According to Genesis 2:7, man was formed from the dust of the earth by having the breath of life breathed into his nostrils and so becoming a living soul. . . .
Belonging to the image of God, in the second place, are the human faculties. While the spirit is the principle and the soul of the subject of life in man, the heart, according to Scripture, is the organ of man’s life. It is, first, the center of physical life but then also, in a metaphorical sense, the seat and fountain of man’s entire psychic life, of emotions and passions, of desire and will, even thinking and knowing. From the heart flow “the springs of life” (Prov. 4:23). . . .
In the third place, the image of God manifests itself in the virtues of knowledge, righteousness, and holiness with which humanity was created from the start. . . .
In the fourth place, also the human body belongs integrally to the image of God. A philosophy which does not know or rejects divine revelation always lapses into empiricism or rationalism, materialism or spiritualism. But Scripture reconciles the two. Man has a “spirit” (pneuma), but that “spirit” is psychically organized and must, by virtue of its nature, inhabit a body. It is of the essence of humanity to be corporeal and sentient. hence, man’s body first (if not temporally, then logically) formed from the dust of the earth and then the breath of life is breathed into him. He is called “Adam” after the ground from which he was formed. He is dust and is called dust (Gen. 2:7; Ps. 103:14; Job 10:9; 33:6; Isa. 2:22; 29:16; 45:9; 64:8; “from the earth, a man of dust,” 1 Cor. 15:47). The body is not a prison, but a marvelous piece of art from the hand of God Almighty, and just as constitutive for the essence of humanity as the soul (Job 10:8-12; Ps. 8; 139:13-17; Eccles. 12:2-7; Isa. 64:8). It is 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). It is so integrally and essentially a part of our humanity that, though violently torn from the soul by sin, it will be reunited with it in the resurrection of the dead. . . . It is always the same soul that peers through the eyes, thinks through the brain, grasps with the hands, and walks with the feet. . . . It is one and the same life that flows throughout the body but operates and manifests itself in every organ in a manner peculiar to that organ. Now, this body, which is so intimately bound up with the soul, also belongs to the image of God. . . .
Just as God, though he is a spirit (pneuma), is nevertheless the Creator of a material world that may be termed his revelation and manifestation, with this revelation coming to its climax in the incarnation, so also the spirit of man is designed for the body as its manifestation. The incarnation of God is proof that human beings and not angels are created in the image of God, and that the human body is an essential component of that image. From the beginning creation was so arranged and human nature was immediately so created that it was amenable to and fit for the highest degree of conformity to God and for the most intimate indwelling of God. God could not have been able to come man if he had not first made man in his own image. And precisely because the body, being the organ of the soul, belongs to the essence of man and to the image of God, it originally also participated in the immortality. God is not a God of the dead, but of the living (Matt. 22:32). Death is a consequence of sin (Gen. 2:7; 3:19; Rom. 5:12; 6:23; 1 cor. 15:21, 56). In the case of Adam, however, this immortality did not consist in a state of not being able to die (non posse mori), or in eternal and imperishable life, but only in the condition of being able not to die (posse non mori), the condition of not going to die in case of obedience. This state was not absolute but conditional; it depended on an ethical precondition. It is not correct, therefore, to say with Pelagians, Socinians, Remonstrants (etc.) that man was created mortal and that death is a given with the material organism, and therefore the normal and natural state of man. On the other hand, there is nevertheless an essential difference between Adam’s not-going-to-die as long as he remained obedient and the not-being-able-to-die, which he was to receive as the reward for his obedience. Just as in Adam’s case knowledge, righteousness, and holiness are still devoid of the gift of perseverance (donum perseverantiae), so immortality was not yet totally integrated into inamissible eternal life. Adam’s human nature was created so that, in case of his violation of God’s commandment, it could and had to die. Adam was still a man of dust from the earth; only Christ is the Lord from heaven; the natural is first, then the spiritual (1 Cor. 15:45f.). Now through his body man was bound to earth but could also exercise dominion over the earth. Dominion over the earth, like immortality, is a part of the image of God. True, the Socinians went much too far when they located the entire being of man and the entire content of the image of God in dominion. Nonetheless, Genesis 1:26, 28; 2:19-20; 9:2-3; and Psalm 8:7-9 clearly teach that dominion is closely tied in with the creation in God’s image and given with it. It is not an external appendix to the image; it is not based on a supplementary special dispensation; but being the image of God, man is thereby at the same time elevated above all other creatures and appointed lord and king over them all.
Finally, also belonging to this image is man’s habitation in paradise (Gen. 2:8-15). Holiness and blessedness belong together; every human conscience witnesses to the fact that there is a connection between virtue and happiness; the ethical dimension and the physical dimension, the moral and the natural order in the world, being and appearance, spirit and matter — these may not be opposites. Congruent with a fallen humanity, therefore, is an earth that lies under a curse; a place of darkness therefore awaits the wicked in the hereafter; the righteous will one day walk in the light of God’s countenance; the not-yet-fallen but still earthy man makes his home in a paradise.
So the whole human being is image and likeness of God, in soul and body, in all human faculties, powers, and gifts. Nothing in humanity is excluded from God’s image; it stretches as far as our humanity does and constitutes our humanness. The human is not a divine self but is nevertheless a finite creaturely impression of the divine. All that is in God — his spiritual essence, his virtues and perfections, his immanent self-distinctions, his self-communication and self-revelation in creation — finds its admittedly finite and limited analogy and likeness in humanity. . . . In the teaching of Scripture God and the world, spirit and matter, are not opposites. There is nothing despicable or sinful in matter. The visible world is as much a beautiful and lush revelation of God as the spiritual. He displays his virtues as much in the former as in the latter. All creatures are embodiments of divine thought., and all of them display the footsteps or vestiges of God. But all these vestiges, distributed side by sided in the spiritual as well as the material world, are recapitulated in man and so organically connected and highly enhanced that they clearly constitute the image and likeness of God. The whole world raises itself upward, culminates and completes itself, and achieves its unity, its goal, and its crown in humanity. In order to be the image of God, therefore, man had to be a recapitulation of the whole of nature. . . . There is not a single element in the human body that does not also occur in nature around him. Thus man forms a unity of the material and spiritual world, a mirror of the universe, a connecting link, compendium, the epitome of all of nature, a microcosm, and, precisely on that account, also the image and likeness of God, his and heir, a micro-divine being (mikrotheos). He is the prophet who explains God and proclaims his excellencies; he is the priest who consecrates himself with all that is created to God as a holy offering; he is the king who guides and governs all things in justice and rectitude. And in all this he points to One who in a still higher and richer sense is the revelation and image of God, to him who is the only begotten of the Father, and the firstborn of all creatures. Adam, the son of God, was a type of Christ.
Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 2, 550-562.
But what is meant by “image of God”? Some have argued that the image of God is found exclusively in man’s soul, and not his body, since God is a pure spirit. Of these, some have said that the soul itself bears the image of God, while others have said that it contains that image. However, it is a mere assumption to say that the body cannot be (in part) the image of God. Perhaps this notion is a holdover from the ancient pagan notion that the spirit is good and the (material) body evil. At any rate, it would seem to be more scriptural simply to affirm that man (in the totality of his physical-spiritual being) is (rather than merely contains) the image of God. In Scripture the soul (or mind) is shown to be a union of body and spirit, and not just a spirit contained within a body. In any case, man’s capacity to exercise lordship over the earth as God’s image-bearer was as physical as it was spiritual.
G. I. Williamson, The Westminster Confession of Faith for Study Classes, 58.