And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over the whole earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth on the earth.
God does not simply speak man into being as He did the light, the seas and the animals. He stops and takes counsel with Himself. Then He makes a creature who both resembles Him and rules for Him. That raises three questions: who is the "us", what do "image" and "likeness" mean, and what happened to that rule?
A pause before man is made
Every earlier day ends with a verdict of approval. Then the pattern breaks. One writer points out that God finishes the setting before its ruler appears.
God has finished creation as creation. Now He begins to take counsel, in the most solemn way, saying that He will make man in His image and give him rule. So the creation is complete as the setting and the scene. Then God makes man in His own image and sets him over it all. Man stands entirely alone. Everything is finished, and then he is given rule over it.
Nothing before this came after God deliberating. He never said "let the earth bring forth" a man.
One thing set man apart from every other creature. God took counsel about him before He made him. What was coming was not a new animal. It was a moral being with wonderful gifts and possibilities.
Who is "us"?
The plural "us" sits beside the singular "His image" in the next verse. Commentators read this as fitting with God being three Persons in one.
That God should say, "Let US," is worthy of note. Elohim is, as we have said, a plural Name. The Old Testament does not reveal the three Persons in the Godhead. But now that God has revealed Them, we can see that the language of our chapter, given by God, fits that truth. In verse 26 it is "Our image". In verse 27 it is "His image". There is no clash here, because the eternal "Three in One" is the One speaking.
Writers differ on how much weight the wording can carry. One is more careful:
Think of the plural form of the word and how it goes with singular verbs. Would it not be close to the truth to say this? We cannot treat it as a revelation of the Trinity. Yet it is a way of speaking that shows the Spirit had that truth in mind. He is the third Person there, and He used words whose full force we could only grasp once that teaching had been revealed.
Image and likeness are not the same word
The verse uses two terms. Most writers keep them apart. One writer treats "in our image as our likeness" as saying the two are the same.
"Image" represents. "Likeness" resembles. An image does not have to look like the thing or person it stands for. The coin they showed the Lord Jesus in Matthew 22:20 may not have carried a "likeness" of Caesar, but it did carry an "image" of him. Man is made in the "image" of God. So God places him in this world to represent Him to the lower creatures, in rule and in blessing. That word is about man's position. "Likeness" points to his moral being. He can enter into relationships and carry responsibilities.
The distinction explains why one of the two words is never applied to the Son.
Scripture never says the Son is in the likeness of the invisible God. He is God. To call Him like God might suggest He is not truly God. Still, the Son is "the image of the invisible God". In His own Person He represents God in His character and moral attributes, before the whole universe.
Dominion given, then lost
Being God's image and holding rule belong together.
This is man as the head of creation… He was to represent God here below. Besides that, he was to be like God. He was to have a mind, a spirit able to know God, with no evil in him at all.
That rule did not survive the entry of another power.
God creates the man and the woman. Then He gives them rule "over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth". Move on to Genesis 3, and there Satan has come in. He has gained this headship for himself through the man who had fallen.
What the fall did not erase
Human life is still protected on this ground, long after Eden.
Man is in the image of God, now as always, fallen or not. But sin cost him the likeness of God. When the question is the guilt of taking a man's life, the reason given is that God made him in His own image. This, it is plain, was never lost; it abides, whatever man's state.
The Man the first man pointed to
Adam is read as a picture of Christ, with the dominion passing to Him on a far larger scale.
God created Adam in His own image and set him to rule over the works of His hands. Adam stood at the centre of a vast system placed under him. He was, the apostle says, a picture of the One who was to come. The rule of the Second Adam reaches much further than the rule of the first. He created all things Himself, so He is to inherit all He has created.
For the believer, the likeness lost in Eden is remade by a fresh act of creation.
To be true to the image, there must be moral likeness. For us that means a new creation. So Colossians 3:10 says we "have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator".
Summary
- Counsel — God deliberated before making man alone, rather than commanding the earth to produce him. He finished the stage first, then brought in its ruler.
- Image — To be God's image is to represent Him. To be His likeness is to resemble Him. Writers differ on whether the two words carry different force.
- Dominion — The image carries a job: to rule the lower creation on God's behalf.
- Ruin — The fall cost man the likeness, and the rule passed to Satan. The image remains, which is why murder counts as an offence against God.
- Recovery — The rule Adam lost belongs to Christ on a wider scale. The likeness returns in those made new after the image of their Creator.