The Mystery
Human beings speak, create, judge, repent, sing, and pray. We reason in symbols. We dream of eternity. We weigh good and evil even when no eye is on us. We give names to the stars and then ask why our names matter. This cluster of gifts rises far above survival. It looks like design. It sounds like a voice.
Scripture begins at this very point. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis 1:26 KJV). Man was made in the counsel of God. Man bears a likeness that lifts him into stewardship. “So God created man in his own image” (Genesis 1:27). This is the first crown on the human head. Dominion follows from it. Dignity flows from it. Purpose stands within it.
The psalmist looks at the heavens and feels the weight. “What is man, that thou art mindful of him. And the son of man, that thou visitest him. For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour” (Psalm 8:4–5). The stars declare the wisdom of God. The human soul declares His imprint.
The Mirror of Personhood
Self-awareness is a marvel, yet there is a higher step. The soul looks at another and says, You are. That moment opens a sacred field. The other is not a tool. The other is a person. The heart knows the word dignity before it learns to define it. We grieve when the image is harmed. We rejoice when the image is lifted. Law rises from that awareness. Conscience speaks with it. “Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness” (Romans 2:15).
This recognition does more than steady communities. It calls forth love. Love is more than affection and more than empathy. Love gives. Love pours itself out for the good of the other. Love counts the other’s life as precious. “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:39). Human history records countless acts that make no sense as mere advantage. Parents lay down their lives. Strangers run toward danger to rescue the vulnerable. Saints carry mercy into places of death and fear. The world calls it heroism. Scripture calls it the work of the Divine image.
Ecclesiastes says, “He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). The word world in the KJV carries the sense of ages and vastness. Eternity presses upon the human spirit. We search for meaning because our Maker placed a horizon within us that reaches beyond time. The image in us looks for the Face that formed it.
The Image
To speak of image is to speak of reflection. The mind in man reflects order. The moral sense reflects holiness. Creativity reflects the delight of the Maker who said, “And God saw that it was good.” Compassion reflects the heart of the Shepherd who gathers the weak. These reflections are not illusions. They are rays from a greater light.
Scripture gives the full name of that light. “In him was life; and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4). The life that shines into humanity comes from the Word who was with God and who was God. Image is not a human achievement. Image is a gift that flows from the Son who is the perfect Image. “Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: For by him were all things created” (Colossians 1:15–16). To see the pattern of human greatness is to see the outline of Christ.
Hebrews speaks with royal clarity: the Son is “the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person” (Hebrews 1:3). Where the human heart finds a fragment of wisdom, Christ holds the fullness. Where human mercy heals a wound, Christ bears the fountain of mercies. Our best moments are reflections from His face.
The Cross
The revelation stands brightest at Calvary. The Teacher who healed the blind and raised the dead set the final seal upon the Image when He yielded Himself. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). The cross is love given without measure. The cross is justice and mercy meeting in the body of the Son. The cross is the axis of history because it is the heart of God unveiled.
Philippians opens the inner chamber of this mystery. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:5–8). The King did not seize glory as a tyrant. The King revealed glory through self-giving. The image of God in flesh took the lowest place and lifted the world.
At the tomb the pattern reached completion. The Son who poured Himself out received all authority. Love rose and reigns. Love speaks peace to the guilty and freedom to the bound. Love builds a people and sends them to the ends of the earth. “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins… God is love” (1 John 4:10, 16). Calvary and Resurrection reveal what divine image truly means when shown without shadow. It means holy love that gives itself away and lives forever.
The Call
If Christ is the express Image, then the destiny of humanity is clear. We were made to be conformed to Him. “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29). The Spirit carries out this work in us with unveiled face. “We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Worship forms the soul. The gaze of faith reshapes the heart into the likeness of the One we behold.
This call reaches into every sphere. In thought, we love truth because the Word is true. In art, we pursue beauty because the Maker delights in beauty. In labor, we build with honesty because the Builder is faithful. In community, we guard dignity because every person bears the royal seal. In conflict, we seek reconciliation because the Prince of Peace has broken the hostility by His blood. In suffering, we endure with hope because the firstborn from the dead holds the keys of death and of hell.
The cosmic war still rages. Darkness fights to erase the image and silence the Name. The church stands as a living witness that the image remains and that redemption is real. Every baptism declares new birth. Every table of the Lord declares a covenant that holds. Every act of mercy declares a kingdom that cannot be shaken. The powers rage and fall. The Lamb stands.
The Practice of Love
The command is simple and inexhaustible. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:37–39). The image flourishes under these words. Prayer opens the heart to God. Service opens the heart to man. The Spirit writes the law within and strengthens the will to walk in it.
Begin at the interior altar. Invite the Lord to search and purify secret motives. Welcome the Spirit’s witness that you are a child of God. Let Scripture govern desire and speech. Then move outward with deliberate mercy. See the person in front of you and speak to them as a bearer of glory. Protect the weak. Honor the aged. Teach the young. Give bread with thanksgiving and speak life with gentleness. The world will call it kindness. Heaven calls it likeness.
The Meeting of Reason and Revelation
Thought has a holy place in this journey. Reason can trace the outlines of the image. It can see the strangeness of beauty and the force of conscience. It can admit the wonder of sacrificial love. Revelation completes the picture. The Word explains the world because the Word made the world and then entered it. Science can map the brain. Scripture unveils the soul. Philosophy can describe longing. The Gospel names its object. Christ stands at the center with wounds that heal and a voice that commands.
When a man or woman confesses Jesus as Lord, the world becomes intelligible in a deeper way. Creation looks like a place where love meant to dwell. History looks like a story under sovereign authorship. Suffering meets a Redeemer who has already stepped into it and will end it. Mission becomes joyful because every face carries the King’s image and every nation belongs to His inheritance.
Lift up your eyes. You carry the royal stamp of the Creator. The light that formed the worlds shines in your face when you look to Christ. The world says you are a number. The Throne calls you a son or a daughter. The world says you must secure your life through strength. The Cross says your life becomes whole through love.
“Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another” (1 John 4:11). Walk in that love. Speak from that love. Build from that love. Endure through that love. The image will brighten. The kingdom will advance. Christ will be seen.