Image of God

From Neoredemptive

(Redirected from Imago Dei)

Human beings - men and women - were created by God in His "image and likeness".

As bearers of the image of God -- the Imago Dei -- we are individually endowed with an incomparable depth of worth and value, and this value is independent of our ability to prove or demonstrate "value" to anyone. We are not valuable because we are smart, strong, wise, cunning, rich, influential, friendly, or skillful; we are valuable because we are God's image bearers, period.

That we are image bearers, however, does not mean that we bear the image rightly. Indeed, our semblance to God has been marred by Adam's and our sin; it was given to reflect God's glory as we remained in unbroken fellowship and communion with Him, but east of Eden this has not been the case.

In the words of G. K. Chesterton,

"Let [the pessimist] say anything against himself short of blaspheming the original aim of his being; let him call himself a fool and even a damned fool [...]; but he must not say that fools are not worth saving. He must not say that a man, QUA man, can be valueless."

We canot know God by examining the warped and shattered image of Him in ourselves or each other; down that road lies anthropocentrism and many flavors of heresy. The image of God in us clues us in to what is wrong, but it is too distorted to reliably tell us what is right; for that, we must rely upon revelation.

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