Bearing God’s Image

Bearing God’s image is not just a fact, it is a vocation.

~ N. T. Wright, The Challenge of Jesus

God created man in His image and to be like Him and gave him the job of being fruitful, filling the earth, subduing it and having dominion (Genesis 1:26-28). When creation beheld the face of Adam, it beheld the image and likeness of God. Thus, Adam was well suited to fulfill his divine vocation, his calling in the world. Subduing the earth means to bring it into line with the purpose of God. Having dominion means to exercise the divine authority we have been given and the divine likeness in which we have been made, for divine purposes.

The destiny of man and the destiny of Creation are thus closely related. In Quantum Physics there is a theory called Entanglement, which says that two particles that have ever been connected are so related to one another that, even if they are separated on opposite sides of the universe, the state of one affects the state of the other (Praise, Increase and the Theory of Entanglement).

Genesis 2:7 tells us that God formed Adam from the dust of the ground. No wonder, then, that when Adam rebelled and separated from the life and glory of God, creation came under curse (Genesis 3:17-19). And now all creation is groaning, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God, to be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious freedom of the children of God (Romans 8:18-22).

This has already begun for us, and for creation, in the resurrection of King Jesus the Messiah, who taught us to pray, “Kingdom of God, come — and keep coming! Will of God, be done — and keep being done — on earth as it is in heaven!” (Matthew 6:10; my translation). The goal is heaven on earth, the two becoming one. The resurrection of King Jesus from the dead is the sign that new creation has already begun and what we do in accord with our divine calling in the world will not be in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58). In Jesus the Messiah, our divine calling is restored.