In Genesis 1:27, we learn that God created human beings in His image:
God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul urged them (and us),
to put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.
Ephesians 4:24
Thousands of years have passed between those two statements. God has been working out His purposes in the heavens and the earth from before the beginning. Creating man in His image and establishing man in His likeness has been central to that purpose.
Reading the words of Paul in Ephesians, which clearly echo the description of God’s creation of human beings, got me thinking about the difference between the image of God that was built into human beings from the start and the “new self” that Paul urges us to put on that is created in the likeness of God.
What is the image of God in which we were created?
What is the likeness of God that we must put on? (A new self created in righteousness and holiness)
Why must we put on a new self created in the “likeness of God” when human beings have already been created in the “image of God”? What is the difference between the two?
I try not to lean on the assumptions that come first to mind when approaching Scripture. I often go back and work through a text looking for things I haven’t seen before. As I write this, I don’t know exactly what I will find. I was intrigued by the echoes of Genesis in Paul’s words to the Ephesians and prompted to dig into them freshly.
Continue reading “From the Image of God to the Likeness of God: from the Old Self to the New Self”
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