We are not Imago Dei, but He is.

Imago Dei is a theological term that translates as “Image of God.”  Generally considered, it is often brought up in discussions of the human worth.  It is used as a theological basis for ethics, for democracy, for human rights.  Whether explicit or implicit, it is the grounds by which we state that every human being has value.  Every human has the mark of the divine.

So, here is a wrench to throw into all that machinery.  A little while ago a professor of mine made a side comment in class that led me to want to delve deeper.  My findings surprised me…

WE ARE NOT IMAGO DEI.

Adam was created in the Image of God.  But he rebelled and lost that original status.  Not only did we rebel with him, but it appears to me that we each have rebelled every day of our lives.

I think the main statement that goes unsaid is that our Imago Dei is not tarnished or fractured beyond recovery with every act of selfishness or debasement.  It is almost as though I feel after all these years people have said to me that, “Your Imago Dei is in bad shape [wink].”  That [wink] seemed to be inferring that God can still see Himself in us.  The fact that we are broken mirrors of God does not negate the possibility that some of God is reflected in what we do?  What if the situation is altogether different?

I did a quick word search for “Image of God”,  and it only came up in reference to Adam and to Jesus.  Not once did it come up in reference to any other human between the existence of those two.  Can you think of any passage in Scripture that talks of any other human being granted that title or quality?  Nope.  I can’t either.

All this goes to ask, what if we are not the “Image of God?”  What if we have lost that title or quality that even the Bible itself chooses to never use that phrase again?

I am not Imago Dei.  You are not Imago Dei.  Perhaps Adam was Imago Dei, but he didn’t quite live up to that reality now did he?

The fact of the matter is that we are not good reflections of God by any means.

 

 

 

 

BUT HE IS.

Thus, I believe there is something fantastic happening when Jesus, the first man since Adam, is called Imago Dei.  In 1 Corinthians and again in Colossians 1, Jesus referenced thematically as the Image of God.  An amazing reversal is happening.  Or a new paradigm shift is happening.  Or a new creation is being established.

Romans 5 talks about Jesus being the new Adam, and perhaps this is more true than we thought.  Thus, since we have lost being Imago Dei, we trust that Jesus was able to carry that title or quality in the way that Adam and the rest of us have not.

This is a whole new perspective of redemption for me.  A whole new means of understanding atonement.  A whole new way of understanding the deep implications for “putting on Christ”, or being “made in the image of Christ”, or “being hidden in Christ.”  We may not be able to bear the title or quality of being the image of God, but that is okay.  Where Adam and the rest of us were burdened, Christ has triumphed.

Thus, the Christian life is not a matter of esteeming our own Imago Dei, but rather of Jesus of Nazareth being the full and perfect Imago Dei.  By looking at this God-man Jesus Christ, the Carpenter from Galilee, we see the God we should be seeing in each other as well as the humanity that God should be seeing in each of us.

Faith then is free to be relaxed in its constant anxiety to perseverate over whether or not we are more reflecting God’s image than we were yesterday, and rest in the reality that One has already done that task on our behalf out of freedom, love and grace.

So rest easy…  You may not be Imago Dei, but He is.