Made in God's Image
A lot of Christians seem to have a very narrow understanding of what it means to be made in God’s image, and some of the implications that has about both God and ourselves.
Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Isa 29:16 You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, “He did not make me”; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding”?
Exo 33:21-23 And the LORD said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.”
Let’s start with what it means to be made “in the image.” If I make something in my own image, a wax sculpture for example, it is going to physically resemble me. In fact, a really good wax artist could probably make such an accurate representation that it would be obvious to anyone who knows me.
The sculpture is clearly modeled after me, and it is intended to be a representation of me. Bringing back that original phrasing, it is made “in my image.” However, that doesn’t mean the sculpture IS me. It doesn’t become a sentient being by virtue of looking like me. It doesn’t have a voice like mine or mannerisms that I have. None of my DNA is present in the wax sculpture. I don’t become less me by having a wax sculpture made that looks like me. None of my essence was taken in the creation of the sculpture.
So this image is a copy, an emulation, it isn’t the real thing that it is modeled after. That isn’t to say that the wax sculpture isn’t real, or isn’t a thing in and of itself. You can touch the sculpture and feel that it is real. It is composed of actual, tangible material. And furthermore, there are some differences that the sculpture has which I do not. My body isn’t made of wax. Clothes on the wax sculpture might be clothes that I wore previously, they could be new clothes that look like something I would wear, but they aren’t the same clothes that I am wearing. The wax sculpture is derivative from me, but it also has some properties and facets that are entirely its own.
By comparing myself to a wax sculpture that looks like me, we can extrapolate some of those properties to the relationship between God and us. Being made in His image, we are certainly modeled similarly. However, WE aren’t GOD. We are derivative. We are lesser. We are the copy, not the original. We have some of our own properties. Our personalities, nuances in our physical appearance, our mannerisms all make us unique in our differences from God and from each other, and I think that’s one of the things that makes humanity beautiful. We are imperfect copies and those differences when combined make this fuzzy mosaic of a perfect God.
That’s God and us, though. What about us and God? What I mean by that is that we went down the proverbial food chain. What does it look like when we go UP the chain?
Do you guys know what a tesseract is? I’ll tell you. “In geometry, a tesseract is the four-dimensional analogue of the cube; the tesseract is to the cube as the cube is to the square” (Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesseract).
So basically, adding a dimension to the 2D shape of a square yields the 3D model of a cube. Adding another dimension to the cube gives us the 4D tesseract. It’s a more cube-y cube, essentially. Don’t get too bogged down in the details, I’m just trying to illustrate that you can add dimensions to existing familiar concepts and get something more complex.
Pulling the wax sculpture example back in, let’s say that the sculpture is a square, I am a cube, and God is a tesseract. I am not a square, but from certain angles I look like a square. When looking at me and the wax sculpture, the cube and the square, you can see how they’re related. Similarly, looking at God and us, the tesseract and the cube, they are also related.
The crazy part is that in this existence, we can never fully observe and perceive a tesseract. We exist in three dimensions. The world around us is a three dimensional world. There is no way for us to interact with a tesseract in reality. We can see projections of a tesseract, we have a really good scientific understanding of what it is, and we can even go beyond it to fifth dimensions and beyond in theory. As for real life, we can never see a tesseract. We can see, touch, and manufacture the shadow of a tesseract, but that’s about as close as we can get.
I say all that to illustrate that God reaches dimensions that we simply can’t comprehend or observe on this side of eternity. It reminds me of Moses seeing God from behind. I like to think that maybe the full vision of God would be so far beyond what we can understand, it just wouldn’t have even made sense.
Going from a cube to a square, it’s pretty easy to see how the 2D shape is derivative from the 3D shape. A human to a wax sculpture is similarly very logical. I’ve seen a wax sculpture of Nicholas Cage, but I haven’t actually met Nick personally. The other direction, though, is what I find more interesting. Trying to understand the original from just the imitations that we know is a fun exercise, but we couldn’t possibly come close to the magnificence of the real thing. No matter what you could possibly imagine, God is better.
Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Isa 29:16 You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, “He did not make me”; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding”?
Exo 33:21-23 And the LORD said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.”
Let’s start with what it means to be made “in the image.” If I make something in my own image, a wax sculpture for example, it is going to physically resemble me. In fact, a really good wax artist could probably make such an accurate representation that it would be obvious to anyone who knows me.
The sculpture is clearly modeled after me, and it is intended to be a representation of me. Bringing back that original phrasing, it is made “in my image.” However, that doesn’t mean the sculpture IS me. It doesn’t become a sentient being by virtue of looking like me. It doesn’t have a voice like mine or mannerisms that I have. None of my DNA is present in the wax sculpture. I don’t become less me by having a wax sculpture made that looks like me. None of my essence was taken in the creation of the sculpture.
So this image is a copy, an emulation, it isn’t the real thing that it is modeled after. That isn’t to say that the wax sculpture isn’t real, or isn’t a thing in and of itself. You can touch the sculpture and feel that it is real. It is composed of actual, tangible material. And furthermore, there are some differences that the sculpture has which I do not. My body isn’t made of wax. Clothes on the wax sculpture might be clothes that I wore previously, they could be new clothes that look like something I would wear, but they aren’t the same clothes that I am wearing. The wax sculpture is derivative from me, but it also has some properties and facets that are entirely its own.
By comparing myself to a wax sculpture that looks like me, we can extrapolate some of those properties to the relationship between God and us. Being made in His image, we are certainly modeled similarly. However, WE aren’t GOD. We are derivative. We are lesser. We are the copy, not the original. We have some of our own properties. Our personalities, nuances in our physical appearance, our mannerisms all make us unique in our differences from God and from each other, and I think that’s one of the things that makes humanity beautiful. We are imperfect copies and those differences when combined make this fuzzy mosaic of a perfect God.
That’s God and us, though. What about us and God? What I mean by that is that we went down the proverbial food chain. What does it look like when we go UP the chain?
Do you guys know what a tesseract is? I’ll tell you. “In geometry, a tesseract is the four-dimensional analogue of the cube; the tesseract is to the cube as the cube is to the square” (Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesseract).
So basically, adding a dimension to the 2D shape of a square yields the 3D model of a cube. Adding another dimension to the cube gives us the 4D tesseract. It’s a more cube-y cube, essentially. Don’t get too bogged down in the details, I’m just trying to illustrate that you can add dimensions to existing familiar concepts and get something more complex.
Pulling the wax sculpture example back in, let’s say that the sculpture is a square, I am a cube, and God is a tesseract. I am not a square, but from certain angles I look like a square. When looking at me and the wax sculpture, the cube and the square, you can see how they’re related. Similarly, looking at God and us, the tesseract and the cube, they are also related.
The crazy part is that in this existence, we can never fully observe and perceive a tesseract. We exist in three dimensions. The world around us is a three dimensional world. There is no way for us to interact with a tesseract in reality. We can see projections of a tesseract, we have a really good scientific understanding of what it is, and we can even go beyond it to fifth dimensions and beyond in theory. As for real life, we can never see a tesseract. We can see, touch, and manufacture the shadow of a tesseract, but that’s about as close as we can get.
I say all that to illustrate that God reaches dimensions that we simply can’t comprehend or observe on this side of eternity. It reminds me of Moses seeing God from behind. I like to think that maybe the full vision of God would be so far beyond what we can understand, it just wouldn’t have even made sense.
Going from a cube to a square, it’s pretty easy to see how the 2D shape is derivative from the 3D shape. A human to a wax sculpture is similarly very logical. I’ve seen a wax sculpture of Nicholas Cage, but I haven’t actually met Nick personally. The other direction, though, is what I find more interesting. Trying to understand the original from just the imitations that we know is a fun exercise, but we couldn’t possibly come close to the magnificence of the real thing. No matter what you could possibly imagine, God is better.
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