In His Image: Seven Likenesses of Man to God

• Sovereignty (Exercising dominion and power)

• Self-Sufficiency (No need unmet)
• Creative (Productive)
• Omnipotent (All powerful)
• Omnipresent (Everywhere)
• Omniscient (All knowing, exceedingly int3elligent)
• Triune (Three in One)

This list identifies seven characteristics of God. Clearly, these are not all the characteristics of God—they do not fully define or describe who God is. So why, you may ask, are they the only ones listed here? The reason is that these are the seven characteristics (attributes) of God that are described directly or indirectly in Genesis chapters 1 through 3. More importantly for this commentary, they are the seven characteristics of which likenesses can be seen to have been placed in Man at the creation.

The Likeness of God’s Sovereignty

…and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Gen 1:28)

God is the ruler of all creation. No king, Caesar, emperor, or other earthly ruler has ever ruled a city, nation, or empire as surely or as well as God rules. His sovereignty is complete, and His rule absolute. His dominion extends to all that was, is, and ever will be.

As God is sovereign over all, Man was given sovereignty over all the earth. Man’s sovereignty, however, differs from the sovereignty exercised by God in both extent and in type. Whereas God rules over everything, Man was given rule over only the earth. Whereas God’s sovereignty is inherent, Man’s is assigned. God’s position of rulership derives from the fact that He is God, and that He is the creator of that which He rules. Man’s rule derives, however, from the simple fact that God gave it to him. In the same way that a business owner may hire someone to manage his business for him while still retaining ownership and ultimate control over the business, God made Man the manager of the earth, but God, Himself, is still the owner. But despite this limitation, Gen 1:28 shows that after God, Himself, Man was made the ultimate source of authority in the earth. Returning to the previous analogy, as a manager is given great leeway in how he or she manages a business so long as that management does not come into conflict with any general or specific guidelines established by the owner, so is man give great liberty to manage the earth as he wishes so long as that management is consistent with the instructions, attributes, and nature of God. Essentially, while God established the laws that circumscribe the limits of what Man can do and how he should do it, within the boundaries of those laws Man is free to do on the earth whatever he desires, however he desires to do it. In fact, God will not even prevent Man from acting outside of the boundaries that He has established, but He metes out just punishments for every violation. The bottom line, then, is that God created Man to rule and established Man’s sovereignty over the whole earth.

The Likeness of God’s Self-Sufficiency

"Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you” (Gen 1:29)

God requires nothing outside of Himself to exist or to survive. He is dependent on nothing, but all things are dependent on Him for their substance and sustenance. God is complete in Himself. He has no needs. And if, for whatever improbable reason, God ever did have a need for anything, He is fully capable of meeting that need Himself. It’s a part of who God is and what makes Him God, for if He had to depend on anything or anyone else, He would not be God.

As God is self-sufficient, and has no needs that He cannot meet for Himself, Man was created without any needs that were not already met by what God had already created and given to him. Man needed a place to live, but God had already created the earth and placed Man on it. Man needed air to breathe, but God had already created an atmosphere around the earth with just the right elements for Man’s lungs to breathe. Man needed water to drink, but God had already made three rivers to flow through the Garden of Eden. Man needed food to eat, but God had already made the plants, and had given them to Man for food (Gen 1:29). Man needed instruction, so God taught him what he needed to know. Man needed companionship, so God walked and talked with him in the Garden in the cool of the day. There was no need that Man had for which God had not already made provision. While this may not be the same level of self-sufficiency as is displayed by God, it is, nonetheless, a human definition of self-sufficiency, i.e., not having to depend on any other person or institution for your life or livelihood.

The Likeness of God’s Creativity

"Be fruitful and multiply…” (Gen 1:28)

God’s creative nature is illustrated better nowhere than it is in the first three chapters of Genesis. In these chapters we see how God created everything that exists in a period of six days. After those six days were completed, all “true” creation ceased. There literally has been no new creation in the entire history of the universe. All subsequent creation has amounted to nothing more than the manipulation of the raw materials that God originally created.

Though Man cannot create something from nothing as God did, he was given the ability to shape, mold, combine, restructure, and reformulate the materials of God’s creation into things that never existed before. Man was even commanded to use the raw material of his own physical body to create copies of himself when God told him to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28). Each of these copies of the first man would also be copies made in the image and likeness of God, and each would also have the ability to create copies of itself.

The Likeness of God’s Omnipresence

“…fill the earth…” (Gen 1:28)

The essence of God permeates the entire universe. God is all and in all. When He determined to create the world, He had no raw materials from which to create it—no wood, no stone, no brick, no metal. So He created all that is out of Himself. Hebrews 11:3 says, “…the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” And Colossians 1:17 says, “…He is before all things, and by Him all things consist.” The Psalmist sums it up this way:

⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, ^[a] you are there.

⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,

¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

¹¹ If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"

¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

Psalms 139:7-12 (NIV)

Obviously, Man is not present everywhere in the universe. In fact, at this present moment we are confined to the vicinity of this tiny blue ball that we call Earth. Yet in obedience to God’s command to “…fill the earth…”, we have done just that! Men are spread out over every region of the earth in a way that almost no other creature (except for those that we carry with us) is spread. We live in the mountains and the valleys, the forests and the deserts, the jungles and the plains, and the cities that we have made for ourselves. People live in all climates and conditions from the freezing cold of the Arctic circle to the blistering heat of the Sahara desert. There are even men who live permanently in boats upon the rivers and seas. Man is everywhere in the earth! [NOTE: Though mankind currently is confined to the earth, we have already set foot on and sent our machines to other worlds. Many believe that if God delays Christ’s return long enough, Man will move out into the universe and colonize other worlds beyond the earth.]

The Likeness of God’s Omniscience

“…God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.” (Gen 2:19)

Omniscience refers to God’s all-knowing nature. There are two distinct components to this characteristic. The first component is knowledge—God knows all things. Just as the writer of a book knows his or her book and the baker of a cake knows what he or she did and used to make the cake, God, as the creator of the entire universe, knows everything there is to know about everything in all of creation. The second component is awareness—God is aware of everything. This follows from the preceding discussion on God’s omnipresence. Because God is in all places and all things, He is aware of the existence and actions of all things. Nothing exists without His awareness that it is. And nothing occurs without God’s awareness that it is happening. In a way, God’s awareness of everything is Self-awareness.

Both of these components—knowledge and awareness—are present in Man, and both are clearly illustrated in the creation story from Genesis. It has been said that Adam, the first man, was the most intelligent man ever to live (and I tend to agree). This assertion is borne out by the fact that when God brought all of the animals that He had created to the Man, Adam intuitively knew what to name them. This implies that he also knew what distinguished one from another. Otherwise he might have erroneously given the same name to two different but similar creatures such as the horse and the zebra. This shows that Man was given incredible knowledge and wisdom. The other component (awareness, and especially self-awareness) can be seen in the Man’s reaction to God’s creation of the woman. Gen 2:23 says, “…this is now bone of my bones…”. The use of the personal pronoun “my” illustrates an awareness of self that exists in Man, but in no other creature on earth.

The Likeness of God’s Omnipotence

“… fill the earth, and subdue it…” (Gen 1:28)

Psalms 147:5 says, “Great is our Lord and mighty in power…” His power is demonstrated many times and in many ways throughout scripture. He sent a flood that covered the face of the earth, but saved Noah and his family in the Ark. He rained down fire and brimstone and destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. A blast from his nostrils parted the Red Sea and allowed the children of Israel to walk through on dry land. When Elijah stood against the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of the grove, His power fell as a fire that consumed all His enemies. When Lucifer, in his pride, attempted to usurp power, he was cast down from his previous estate. God’s power extends across all of creation. It is what keeps the stars in the sky, the planets in their orbits, and the earth spinning on its axis once every twenty-four hours. In fact, without God’s power to uphold it, everything would cease to be.

Man’s power extends from God’s power. When we exercise power, we literally act as a conduit that taps into the power of God. The authority (a form of power) by which Man exercise power derives from the command given in Gen 1:28 to “subdue” the earth. The word subdue means

1.	to conquer and bring into subjection: Rome subdued Gaul.

2.	to overpower by superior force; overcome.

3.	to bring under mental or emotional control, as by persuasion or intimidation; render submissive.

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

But the authority to do this is nothing without the power necessary to carry it out. It would be unjust of God to command Man to bring the earth under submission to his control and not give him the requisite power to obey that command. So God created Man with the power to dominate and subdue the earth just as He dominates creation.

The Likeness of God’s Triune Nature

“…male and female He created them.” (Gen 1:27)

God is one, but He is manifested in three unique personages—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Each has a different role to play in the Godhead. The Father is the sovereign Ruler of all. The Son (Jesus, the Word) is the creator and sustainer of all. Through His birth as a man, death on the cross, and resurrection, He reconciled all Mankind back to the Father. The Holy Spirit is the dynamic, power bestowing part of the Godhead. To those who have been born again through acceptance of the Son, the Holy Spirit imparts the Fruit of the Spirit to empower them to live their individual lives in a way that is pleasing to the Father and fulfilling to each of them as individuals. The Spirit also imparts the Gifts of the Spirit to members of the Body of Christ (i.e., the Church) for the mutual benefit of the Body. These three parts of the Godhead are, and always have been, integral parts of who God is. Neither of them is an accident, an afterthought, or an unintended response to circumstances. The Son, Jesus, wasn’t created as a contingent solution after the Fall of Man—He always was. This is clearly shown in John 1:1. In the same way, the Holy Spirit was not created on the Day of Pentecost to give power to the Apostles after the ascension of Jesus. We already see Him on the scene in Gen 1:2 (“…and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” (NIV)).

We often say that the human equivalent to the Triune nature of God is our triple nature of the mind, body, and soul (or spirit). For the sake of this commentary, that assertion will be taken as a truth requiring no further proof. But the creation story in Genesis gives us another likeness to God’s Triune nature. When God created Man, He created him with two distinct natures—male and female—in one body. This was not an afterthought, nor was it a response to God realizing that he had made a mistake in not giving Man a suitable helper (Gen 2:20). The male-female duality of the original Man was a part of God’s original plan (Gen 1:27). God knew that just as it took the fullness of the Godhead to consummate the act of creation, it would take both the male and female aspects of Man to fulfill the creative command to be fruitful and multiply. [NOTE: It is also interesting to me to note that just as God had to take out of Himself the raw materials to create the universe, but in doing so He was not diminished, in the same way He took out of the Man the raw materials to create the Woman, but the original Man was not diminished by it—only separated into two complementary halves that, when taken together, still equaled the original creation.]