What does it mean to be a human being?
Are we little more than advanced animals? After all, we share much of our DNA with chimpanzees, who can communicate, develop social structures, and even mourn their dead. Or are we no different from machines that can process information faster than we can and perform tasks once reserved for human hands and minds?
In the biblical account of creation, we discover a statement that goes a long way toward answering these questions.
“Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness’”
(Genesis 1:26).
According to Genesis, the story of creation is not ultimately about the oceans, the skies, or even the animals. It is about humanity. The creation narrative moves steadily toward a dramatic climax on the sixth day: “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27). In all the vastness and magnificence of creation, human beings – made in the image and likeness of God – are presented as its crowning glory.
Uniquely Created
Only in the creation of humanity does Genesis record a conversation within the Godhead (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit)[^1]. The stars were spoken into existence, the oceans were commanded, and the animals were formed. But . . . amazingly, humanity alone was the subject of recorded conversation between the three persons of the Godhead.
Whilst every living creature shares the “breath of life”,[^2] only of man does the Bible say, “the Lord God . . . breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7). This is God stooping close to His creation and personally imparting life. It demonstrates a relationship that is not merely biological, but personal and spiritual.
Image and Likeness
The words “image” and “likeness” occur together in one other section of the Bible.
“This is the book of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God.
He created them male and female, and blessed them and called them Mankind in the day they were created.
And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth”
(Genesis 5:1-3).
Just as Adam was made in the likeness of God, so too Seth was in the image and likeness of his father, Adam. The analogy is that we are in the image and likeness of God in the same way that children reflect the image and likeness of their parents. God has created humankind with spiritual and rational capacities. We possess an eternal soul; the ability to know and worship God; and distinctly human capacities for reason, moral judgement, love, creativity, and self-awareness.
Dominion
Immediately after declaring that humanity is made in His image, God entrusts them with a task:
“Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth’” (Genesis 1:28).
Humanity was given a unique, representative role in creation. We have been placed in the world as living, breathing representatives of God’s sovereign rule – exercising dominion on His behalf over creation, making culture and shaping societies.
The book of Psalms references this dominion:
“For You have made him a little lower than the angels,
And You have crowned him with glory and honour.
You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under his feet,
All sheep and oxen –
Even the beasts of the field,
The birds of the air,
And the fish of the sea
That pass through the paths of the seas”
(Psalm 8:5-8).
Although the entrance of sin has damaged humankind and diminished our dominion over creation, we continue to bear the image and likeness of God. In the New Testament, James instructs Christians to be careful in how they speak to others, pointing out the inconsistency of blessing God while cursing those made in His likeness.
“With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God”
(James 3:9 ESV).
Dignity
As bearers of God’s image, we all possess inherent God-given dignity. Practices such as slavery, genocide, the subjugation of women, and the exploitation of the poor, violate the dignity of God’s design for humanity. We were not created as animals to be used, nor as machines to be controlled.
Sin has scarred us – and our world. It constantly tries to press a different image onto our lives – one we were never meant to carry. We see violence, abuse, addiction, anger, selfishness, pride, shame, greed, and guilt. But beneath all the sin lies something deeper: the image of our Creator. It may be obscured, but it has not been erased.
[^1]: Genesis 1:26
[^2]: Genesis 7:22