Imago Dei

Am I the image of a perfect God?

He created me in love

And I do love

 

Am I the image of a perfect God?

He has all authority

And I do rule representatively

 

I also desire to rule over myself and over others

 

Am I the image of a perfect God?

He created everything

And I can create something

 

I desire to create

I have the ability to create life

 

Am I the image of a perfect God?

He has all knowledge

And I can have knowledge

 

It is through the fall that I was able to gain some knowledge

It is through the fall that I am able to understand God’s goodness

It is through the fall that I can know God’s love

 

Am I the image of a perfect God?

He is holy

I can be holy

 

If holiness is the act of being set apart, then before the fall there was nothing from which to be set apart

It is through the fall that I gained knowledge of something other than God

It is through Christ that I can be set apart from what I now know

I can be holy because God is holy and because He allowed all of this in order that I might be the image of God

 

I fear that within the world we have settled with thinking wrongly about mankind’s fall. We ask why God would allow it when the truth is, without the fall, mankind could never be the image of God (which was God’s intended purpose from the beginning). Yes, we would have been perfect in action, but we could not have been holy as God is holy. Jeremiah states that God created in order that He might establish His creation.[1] It is not necessary that God experience evil in order to know evil because He was not created in perfection. He was not created at all. The side effect of our being created in perfection, because God is perfect and God made us, is that we must experience something other than perfection in order to have knowledge of it. Thus, in His goodness, God allowed the fall in order that He might restore us to perfection and impart holiness to us. God created us to be His image, and He is currently bringing about just that! We can be the image of God, and only God can accomplish that within us!