In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, God said, “Let us make humankind in our image and according to our likeness.” And so God did.
St. John the Evangelist puts it this way: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was (and is) God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made, and without him nothing was made that has been made. The True Light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world: “Now the Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We saw his glory – the glory of the one and only, full of grace and truth, who came from the Father.” Here we see the creation of human being and the divine glory, and the union of the two in one Person.
Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Word, by whom, through whom, for whom, and in whom all in heaven and on earth have been created. He is the Image of the Invisible God, in whom all the fullness of divinity dwells in bodily form. And so have God chosen us in Christ from before the foundation of the world. This is the Incarnation, by which Christ the Word who became flesh has united divinity with humanity, God with humankind. In him we are made complete, and in him we become “partakers of the divine nature,” and so, conformed to the Image of the Son.
St. John, in pondering the depths of the Gospel, draws us back to the Creation account in Genesis. Christ is the Creator, who by the Incarnation has also become the Created. At the trial of Jesus near the end of the book, Pontius Pilate forever directs our attention to him: “Behold the Man!” This is human being created in the image of God. And from the Cross, just before he bowed his head and handed over the Spirit, our Lord Jesus declared, “It is finished.” And so we see what it means to be human being in the image of God.
Scriptures referred to above include: Genesis 1:26; John 1:1-3,9,14; 19:5,30; Romans 5:29; Colossians 1:15-18; 2:9-10; Ephesians 1:4; 2 Peter 1:4. I am indebted to Fr. John Behr for these insights into John’s gospelling.
