In the Image of God

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 12, 1902

In the Image of God

In the Image of God.—Man was made in the image of God. That must primarily refer to man's moral nature, because character is more important than form. But another great truth is contained in that. In all God's creations there were perfect consistencies. We could not conceive of a level-headed mechanic making a boat to sail on the land, or a wagon with which to navigate the seas. The nature and use of the thing would determine its form. So with the creation of man. He was made morally in God's image. His character, when full-grown, would be a representation of His great Father's character. God would use man to glorify His name. He would be God's representative to all beneath his plane of being. His character, his reason of existence, determined also his material image. He was therefore outwardly in the image of his Maker, a representative of God, when first created, before both natures were marred by sin. He was the most beautiful of all God's handiwork. “Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright,” upright in moral nature, upright in form. When the sinner, marred, broken, wrecked, deformed, comes to Christ Jesus, he is “after God” anew “created in righteousness and true holiness;” and when Jesus comes, “the body of our humiliation” is “conformed to the body of His glory.” Eph. 2: 10; 4: 24; Phil. 3: 21. And again the moral image determines the material form. Let us possess the heavenly, rather than the marred earthly, image of our Creator.

It does not necessarily follow that there is no material or substantial thing beyond man's power to measure, weigh, or otherwise discern by his material senses. When we say that God is a personal Being, it is not meant that He is of earth's gross material. “There is a natural body,” as all but “Christian Scientists” know; and we are assured by Inspiration that there is also “a spiritual body.” 1 Cor. 15: 44. We also read that we have “in heaven a better and an enduring substance.” Heb. 10: 34. The spiritual is more substantial than the natural. Let the Christian hope. God is, heaven is, and a glorious eternity of substantial joys (not less pure, sweet, and spiritual because substantial) awaits every soul who loves our literal Saviour,—Him who ascended to a literal habitation. The old man's quaintly expressed desire is in literal harmony with the truth of the Bible: “I want to be somebody and go somewhere, and be somebody when I get somewhere, instead of being nobody and go nowhere and be nobody when I get nowhere.” Every soul that truly wants this shall find it in Christ Jesus and His glorious kingdom.