Then God said, “Let us make humanity in our image to resemble us…
— Genesis 1:26a
We’ll spend some time here in these verses as they set the stage for some foundational understandings that will reverberate throughout the remainder of the Biblical story.
Humanity—adam in Hebrew—is created in the image of God. Another way to say this is that people were created as images, or reflections, of God.
Let’s investigate an important aspect of what it means to be an image of God. The Psalmist says of idols made of silver and gold that they are —
…things made by human hands.
They have mouths, but they can’t speak.
They have eyes, but they can’t see.
They have ears, but they can’t listen.
No, there’s no breath in their lungs!
Let the people who made these idols
and all who trust in them
become just like them!(Psalm 135:15b-18, CEB)
The point the Psalmist is trying to make is that the carved-out, manufactured idols do not speak because the gods they represent do not speak. They do not breathe because the gods they represent are not living and breathing.
On the other hand, humanity is made in the image of God. Tselem, translated as “image,” could also be translated as “Idol.” So, it is not unreasonable to translate Genesis 1:26 as “Let us make humanity as our idol to resemble us.” If we were to rewrite the passage above for God’s creation of humanity, it might go something like this —
…made by the hands of the Creator.
They have mouths, and they speak.
They have eyes, and they see.
They have ears, and they listen.
There’s breath in their lungs!
They are idols made by their Creator
Let them trust in God
and become just like their heavenly Father
As idols, or images, of God, we speak because God speaks!
We see because God sees!
We listen because God listens!
We live and breathe because God is living and breathing!
We resemble the Creator, our Heavenly Father!
As we will see, this resemblance is not a physical likeness but a partnership in purpose. We were created to partner with God in the creation project that God initiated!