THE REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST: DESIGNED BY GOD (3)

LORD JESUS CHRIST, WHO WAS AND IS "THE IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD"

RECAP: GOD created man, male and female, with reasonable and immortal souls, endued with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, after His own image, having the law of God written in their hearts, and power to fulfill it: and yet under a possibility of transgressing, being left to the liberty of their own will, which was subject unto change. Beside this law written in their hearts, they received a command, not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; which while they kept, they were happy in their communion with God, and had dominion over the creatures.

RESUME: Man was made not only negatively innocent (that is, without sin), but positively holy, otherwise Adam could not have had communion with God, who cannot look upon iniquity (Habakkuk 1:13). This is further confirmed by Genesis 1:31, when God affirms that everything He had made (including man) was 'very good', which would not have been true if man had been morally imperfect.

d.) It was a social likeness

God's social nature and intrinsic love is seen in the doctrine of the Trinity. God—who is love—created man with a social nature and a need for love. The statement in Genesis 3:8 that 'they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day' suggests that Adam and Eve enjoyed fellowship and communion with God, perhaps on a daily basis.

God also provided for human fellowship and love in a very special and intimate way. Before He created Eve He said, 'It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him' (Genesis 2:18). He then made Eve out of a bone taken from Adam (Genesis 2:21-24), a fact which Jesus used in His debate with the Pharisees to uphold the sanctity of marriage and the intimacy of love within the marriage relationship (Matthew 19:4-6; Mark 10:6-8).

Conclusion

When God created the vegetation and the animals, He made them all 'after his/their kind' (the phrase occurs nine times in Genesis 1:11-25). When He created Adam, He made him after the God-kind — in the image and likeness of God (cf. Acts 17:28). After the Fall, man is still said to be in God's image (Genesis 9:6; 1 Corinthians 11:7) and likeness (James 3:9). However, this image was defiled by man's rebellion at the Fall, and all aspects of God's image were tarnished. Nevertheless, these aspects were perfect in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was and is 'the image of the invisible God' (Colossians 1:15), and 'the express image' of God (Hebrews 1:3), both in His life on earth and in Heaven.

The Apostle Paul says that we are transformed (designed) or renewed into the image of God by the Gospel, and that this image is then 'in righteousness and true holiness' (Colossians 3:10; Ephesians 4:24). This is not something that the natural man can bring about by his own efforts, but is the result of our 'receiving Christ' in faith and repentance (John 1:12; Galatians 2:20). It is accomplished by the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5; Romans 8:28-29), who takes up His abode within God's children (1 Corinthians 3:1; 6:19). 'God is long-suffering towards us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance' (2 Peter 3:9).