The Essence of Mankind, the Image

The simple, undivided image and the law of love

In last week’s Substack, I wrote what I see that God is telling us about mankind as male and female in Genesis 1:26-27. Based on the uniqueness of God revealing himself as Elohim, a title with a plural-form, yet taking singular and plural verbs and referents in these verses, he is stressing his own unity and diversity. He replicates his own equally basic oneness and manyness when he makes one mankind, two persons, male and female. We are like God, his analogs, because we are one adam, and yet we are also his analogs as more than one, zakar and nekivah. I wrote that we are the best analogy for the trinity. This week I want to write about our unity as established by the simple essence of mankind as the undivided image of God. I prefer mankind to humankind because I believe it tells us something very specific about the unique mission of the man and our unity established in him, whom God will call Adam in Genesis 2. 

Unlike the third word of Genesis, Elohim, the word adam is not a plural-singular, but a singular-singular, yet explicitly a plurality, male and female. “Let us make man (adam) in our image, after our likeness, and let them have dominion . . . So God (Elohim) created man (adam) in his own image, and in the image of God (Elohim) he created him; male and female he created them.” Like God, mankind, adam, is a “him” and “them.” We could write it like this: “Let (﹥1) make (1) in (﹥1)’s image, after (﹥1)’s own likeness, and let (﹥1) have dominion . . . So (1) created (1) in (1)’s own image, in the image of (1), (1) created (1); (1) and (1), (1) created (﹥1).”  I suggest that the image is bound up with this mystery, mankind’s essence as an equally ultimate unity and plurality, male and female. Their oneness and manyness is equally foundational, and their unity is established by the simple image, which like the divine essence, is not composed of parts. 

Many want to tie the image to some specific gift or attribute among us. Theologians and scholars tend to associate it with reason, perhaps with good reason. Artists and writers may relate it to creativity. Those among us who want to take over the nation or the world may tether it to political and physical strength. Some may tie it to the body and its beauty. Some connect it with the marriage relation based on the Genesis 1:28 command to multiply. Others divide up the simple essence of God and correlate some of God’s attributes with men and others with women.  And some may relate it exclusively with masculinity, citing the masculine pronouns of God. I could go on. If we go in these directions, we end up with degrees of image-bearing among us according to gifts and strengths, things about us that could be otherwise, perhaps not shared with the person beside us.  If we tie it to maleness, we demote or deny the image of God to half of our neighbors. 

I suggest that there are no degrees of image-bearing. God exists as the one undivided, simple divine essence. Father, Son, and Spirit exist as the entire divine essence in the same way and to the same degree. As a favorite theologian of mine puts it, “All three are fully God without remainder.” The Father is 100% God with nothing left over. The Son is wholly God with no surplus. The Spirit is fully God without carry over. I suggest we are similar to God in this respect. The human essence as image-bearer has no parts or degrees. I am fully, wholly, 100% image-bearing adam, equal in glory with my neighbor. You are fully, wholly, 100% image-bearing adam, equal glory with me. The unborn child with severe anomalies who will never breathe outside the womb is fully, wholly, 100% God’s image-bearer, equal in glory with you and me.

Do we ever think that loving our neighbor as ourselves is an act of mercy to our neighbor? I suggest that loving my neighbor always reflects reality. I love my neighbor like myself because my neighbor is like me. She bears the image in the same way and to the same degree as I do. She is like God in the same way that I am through bearing the undivided essence of mankind. I understand that what time might not tell me about her, eternity will.

Where do I get this? I bring together several verses which I believe explicitly or implicitly build on Genesis 1:26-27. First, Genesis 9:6 — “Whoever sheds the blood of adam, by adam shall his blood be shed, for God made adam in his own image.” The prohibition of murder in Genesis 9 is based on adam, every adam, being made in God’s image. That prohibition is restated in the sixth commandment, “Thou shall not murder” (Ex 20:13). Indeed the entire second tablet of the law summons us from despising and denigrating our neighbor to loving him. Then there is this intriguing statement in Matthew 22:39, that the second commandment is like the great and first commandment to love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind. How is the command to love God like the command to love our neighbor? Perhaps the first tablet is related to the second tablet by image. The image brings me to love God and my neighbor. I love God because I bear his image. I am the impression of his stamp, fitted to him. And I love my neighbor because he too bears the same impression. He is fitted to God in the same sense and degree. My love for my neighbor is not measured according to things about him that could be otherwise, but a constant, esteeming love because he bears the impression of God’s image, the undivided human essence. 

I suggest that misogyny, secular feminism, as well as racism, and the many other ways we exalt ourselves over our neighbor on the basis of things about us and them that could be otherwise, miss this call to love based on man’s essence as the image of God. I believe that only with the image of Genesis 1:26-27 in place can we begin to speak about the differences between ourselves as male and female beginning in Genesis 2. The image is where God starts, and I believe that it is where we must start too.  

In my next Substack, I plan to write about another aspect of unity. I will suggest that our unity is established not only by the simple, undivided essence of mankind as image-bearer, but also by our numerical unity as one adam, mankind, before the fall, and by our numerical unity as Christ’s one body and bridal people after the fall. In the metaphors of body and bride, we find a numerical unity, a single entity, destined for never-ending fellowship with God in the highest heavens. I will suggest that this oneness mirrors what Herman Bavinck calls, the “absolute personality” of the triune God. It is our corporate singular identity as his eternal people brought into relation with him. In this we see ourselves as one and many, an equally ultimate unity and diversity. His people are one body and bride, and yet they are composed of many parts or members, male and female, from every tribe and tongue and nation, uniquely gifted and prepared in time to mirror his glory throughout eternity. This is no minor detail, but a prevailing theme throughout God’s written revelation to us.