p. 189 | The Image of God

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 10, 1875

The Image of God.

From the fact that man is said in Gen. 1 : 27, to have been created in the image of God, some divines argue that he is endowed with immortality. We claim that the image cannot be taken to mean immortality any more than it can be taken to mean any other of the divine attributes, such as omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence, but must refer simply to the physical outline. The rendering of this verse in the Islandic Bible, as found in Webster's Dictionary under the word, man, gives the true idea. “Literally,” says Webster, “and God shaped man after his image; after God's image shaped he them; and he shaped them male and female.”

There is certainly no immortality here, unless it consists in shape.