God’s Word for You

Genesis 1:26b The image of God

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Sunday, August 9, 2026

...in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky, over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that crawl on the ground.”

Here the Bible introduces the concept of the image of God. We also see that man was given rule or dominion over the world “all the earth” and over all of the creatures of the world. While Moses specifically lists four of his five categories (fish, birds, livestock, crawling things) there is no reason to think that man is denied dominion over the wild animals as well.

The image of God is a spiritual likeness, not a physical one. It was reflected in the lives of the first people rather than in the appearance of their faces and stature. The image of God also consists of these things:

1, A blissful knowledge of God. “The new self which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator” (Colossians 3:10).

2, Perfect righteousness and holiness. “Put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24), and again, “I have found that God made man upright” (Ecclesiastes 7:29).

These can be summarized for the struggling student with the phrase, “King, Royal Highness” which is an acronym (KRH) corresponding to “Knowledge (of God), Righteousness, Holiness.” These points summarize the image of God, and this is as far as we go when teaching this truth in Catechism class. Anything beyond this is not proven from Scripture, and so it should be avoided. But there are other observations about man’s status before the fall that are tied to having the image of God: There was no evil in man before the fall; he was innocent and therefore not ashamed of being naked (Genesis 2:25). Before the fall, man knew the will of God and had the ability to conform to that will perfectly in his deeds, in his words, and in his thoughts.

Also, the image of God has its seat in the human soul, but it is not the essence of the soul. When the image was lost at the time of the fall into sin, the soul itself was not lost. It fell into sin, not oblivion.

I cannot for myself imagine the state of sinlessness in which Adam and Eve were first created, having the undamaged image of God and the ability not to sin. Today, we have sin as both an inclination and an inherited state. We are, theologically speaking, “not able not to sin,” which is both a double negative and a perfect truth. It means that even things that are done out of faith are stained with sin, tainted by errors and selfishness in many more ways than we can imagine.

Relating to the image of God, our current sinful state makes us unable to fully grasp the will of God. Without the Gospel we would be utterly lost. We would be condemned whether we understood the law or not; the only difference would be that some who suffered eternally for their sins would know why, and others would be ignorant, but all would suffer forever. But God’s will is that we would be restored to him by faith in Christ, since we are saved by the grace of God through that faith (Ephesians 2:8). In Christ we learn not to defend ourselves. We don’t have any excuse for our sins, and so we shouldn’t try to make any up. This wouldn’t be tolerated in any home. What God wants is that we fall to our knees when we have sinned and admit the sin. Trying to justify ourselves only shoves Christ aside, and God won’t have that. We must turn to Christ to be forgiven and know that his blood is what covers over our sins, not any of our excuses. John says with a pastor’s concern: “If anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the righteous one” (1 John 2:1). And so we should not judge one another about sins that occur in the life of a person who repents. Martin Luther said to his family: “One should have no doubt about a penitent sinner, even if he repeats his sin again and again, but one should also consider that if he dies in his sin he has had it” (LW 54:61). He meant that slipping into a sin of habit and confessing it with a sincere heart will not turn away the grace of God, but that living in a sin without looking to Christ for his forgiveness denies that that sin is a sin—and that is wicked.

The image of God is restored when we come to faith. It is imperfect, not on account of God, but on account of our sinfulness. But there is comfort from Jesus our Lord. “While we are receiving encouragement and comfort in the midst of our terrors, other spiritual impulses increase, such as knowledge and fear of God, love of God, and hope. We are renewed, as Paul says (Colossians 3:10; 2 Corinthians 3:18), ‘in knowledge,’ and ‘beholding the glory of the Lord, we are changed into his likeness’; that is, we acquire the true knowledge of God, enabling us truly to fear him and to trust that he cares for us and hears us.” (Apology of the Augsburg Confession). So as Paul says in Romans 8 (8:10), “But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.”

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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