There’s a belief that humans are essentially just like other animals. In the evolutionary struggle, so the thinking goes, we acquired bigger brains and became the dominant species. But basically we’re just animals.
The Bible says different. In its first chapter, it tells how God created the world and all life upon it—and the final, crowning act of creation was humankind.
‘Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them’ (Genesis 1:26–27).
In the Image of God
According to the Bible, we’re not just animals—unlike all the others, we are made in the image of God.
What does that mean? It could be physical appearance. The angels were God’s workers when He created the world (Job 38:7), and we know that we look like the angels (Hebrews 13:2). But it’s more than that. We, alone among all animals, have minds that are in a way like God’s—we are able to appreciate and respond to Him: ‘You have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honour’ (Psalm 8:5).
What does this mean for you and me? Or to put the question another way, why did God make us like this? Firstly, He gave us ‘dominion’ over the rest of creation—we have a responsibility to look after it. Secondly, He wants us to respond to Him.
Genesis 3 tells how our first parents Adam and Eve rebelled against God and opened the gulf of sin between humanity and God. The whole of the rest of the Bible story is about God repairing the damage.
Being Holy
When God brought the nation of Israel out of slavery in Egypt He made a covenant that they would be His people and He would be their God (Exodus 6:7). He gave them a Law to teach them His ways, and He gave them the instruction: “Be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44).
That is our purpose in life. We are made in the image of God—because He wants us to be like Him, to be reflections of Him.
The fact is however that the gulf is too wide. We are not capable of being holy. ‘For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’ (Romans 3:23). We need help. This, of course, is why He gave us His Son, Jesus Christ. ‘God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us’ (5:8).
When we’re baptised and become followers of Christ, we enter into a relationship with God. The Bible speaks of us as His ‘children’. As children, we are learning from Him and learning to be like Him. Because of the way we are, we’re not going to be very successful, but God knows this. He has made a promise to those who faithfully try to live lives that reflect His holiness (1 Peter 1:15). When Christ returns, God will remove our sinful nature and at last make us perfect (1 Corinthians 15:51–52).
Then, at last, we will fulfil our purpose. We’ll reflect the excellence of God Himself. The Apostle John urges us to consider what this means. ‘Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is’ (1 John 3:2).
