I. Common Contenders for the Imago Dei
Over the course of theological deliberation, at least four categories for what the imago dei is or means have been proffered, with variants within each distinct category.3
The Structural-Substantive (Soul) Image
The first category—the structural-substantive way of reading the image of God—occupies the lion’s share in terms of how the imago dei has been understood throughout history. On this account, what forms the image of God and hence is reflective of God is some capacity or a set of capacities constitutive of being human. The most common contender has been the human intellect or humanity’s capacity for rational thought. Stated by Marc Cortez, a contemporary theological anthropologist, “Humans image a rational and wise God in their capacity for rational and wise thought.”4 Cortez states that “this was the predominant view in the early church and (at least) through the Middle Ages.”5 Cortez’s statement can be nuanced by adding that rather than locating the imago dei in the particular structural quality of rationality in itself, the patristic up to the medieval theologians tended to locate the imago dei in the soul of the human being with all its features and properties. It is the entire substance of the soul that “images” God. In this view, “individual human souls are the ‘image’ necessarily and essentially, yet have other accidental and telic properties that are actualized in an appropriate dynamic structural context,” so states one of the view’s prime advocates Joshua Farris.6 But certainly, patristic and medieval theologians would see human rationality and intellect as the quality or property of the human soul that does the “imaging.”7 In summary, the structural-substantive reading sees the human person as created in the image of God by virtue of the person possessing a specific capacity (often rationality or intellect) in light of the person having or being a human soul.8 Critics of the structural-substantive view often highlight the following three reasons for their objection: 1) lack of exegetical support from the biblical text; 2) the structural quality or capacity that encapsulates the imago dei seems to be an arbitrary choice; and 3) most seriously, this view potentially discounts members of humanity who do not display the structural capacity chosen from being considered ones created in God’s image—for example, if rationality or intellect, then infants, intellectually disabled people, or comatose persons would be excluded.9 Naturally, there will be serious ramifications for our ethical and moral consideration.10
The Functional Image
The second view maintains at its core that the image of God is something that human persons do rather than something that human persons are, with the specific activity being that of rule or dominion. Human persons made in the image of God reflect the divine reality by serving as God’s representative rulers in the created realm.11 Proponents of this view draw their support from, first, the similar way the concept of an image of a divine being is understood in other cultures of the Ancient Near East; and, second, the exegetical move that reads in close juxtaposition the two statements of Genesis 1:26: “Let us make man in our image” and “Let them have dominion … ”12 As sinful human beings, we still retain the image and serve as God’s representatives or vice-regents over creation, but the carrying out of this function is marked by hierarchical domination and oppression rather than wise stewardship. In summary, the functional image view maintains that the image of God in human beings is seen in their rule and stewardship over creation, as part of humanity’s representation of God in the world. As a passing quip, the functional view of the imago dei seems to emphasize humanity being created as the image of God rather than in the image of God. There are two main criticisms of the functional view: 1) Like the structural-substantive view, one questions how the image features in human persons who for various reasons are unable or incapable of exercising dominion or rule; and 2) reliance on the narrow exegetical support (based on one verse) and historical-cultural background to ground the functional view seems to prematurely rule out wider considerations accumulated over the whole canon of Scripture as to what the imago dei is.
The Relational Image
A more recent proposal sees the image of God as located in our “relations” or our relationality as human beings. That is to say, human beings are created in the image of God in the sense that we are fundamentally and essentially relational beings—related to God, to other humans, and to creation. That we are, at the core, relational beings is the way that we image and reflect God, who is himself a relational being. The relationality of God is in turn inherent to and expressed most clearly in the Trinity. Some propose further that the fundamental relational nature of human persons is seen most clearly in the male-female differentiation and coexistence of humanity.13 At first glance, the relational reading of the imago dei might seem like an overflow from the ascendency of philosophical or psychological studies emphasizing the dimension of relationality in human persons, so much so that relationality appears to be the new metaphysics!14 However, as Cortez has shown, proponents of the relational view appeal to at least three exegetical bases in promoting their view: 1) the divine plural “Let us” in Genesis 1:26, 2) the juxtaposition of the fact that humanity is created in the image of God with the fact that humanity is created male and female (Genesis 1:27), and 3) the larger context of the creation narratives spanning Genesis 2–3, in which relations with God, other humans and creation feature prominently.15 As expected, the exegetical claims offered are accepted to varying degrees by biblical scholars.16 A slight variation of the relational view can be found in Michael Horton: “The image of God … is not something in us that is semidivine but something between us and God that constitutes a covenantal relationship.”17 To be created in God’s image is to be persons called into existence to be in communion; therefore, for human beings to reflect God’s image lies not in “what they are essentially but in how they reply ethically.”18 The imago dei that sets humanity apart from the rest of creation is, on Horton’s account, “ethical and covenantal—which is to say, relational.”19 Among the three proposals offered so far, there is much that the relational view of the imago dei offers.
The Multifaceted Image
As the name suggests, the fourth proposal sees the image of God as a multifaceted concept that cannot be reduced to any single category of structural capacity, dominion and rule, or relationality. Instead, the image must be robustly applied to the entire human person. The main risk of this proposal is that the image of God becomes all-encompassing—that it becomes pliant, losing its specificity and ceasing to be meaningful as a concept. More seriously, if the entire human person were to image God, we are faced with the problem of how a corporeal being can image an incorporeal divine being.20 A variant to this fourth proposal is to integrate certain categories together. Cortez himself proposes a way of thinking about the image of God that integrates the functional and relational views.21 To him, the image of God is a nexus that coordinates the three interrelated concepts of representational presence, personal presence, and covenantal presence. Cortez states: “The image of God can be understood as God manifesting his personal presence in creation through his covenantal relationships with human persons, whom he has constituted as personal beings to serve as his representatives in creation and to whom he remains faithful despite their sinful rejection of him.”22 The image of God becomes, strictly speaking, something that God does (he manifests himself) in and through human persons, rather than something that human persons do or are.23
II. The Christological Imago Dei
The above background sets the stage for a consideration of the central argument of this chapter: the “Christological doctrine” of the image of God, so named by the original proposer of the concept, Oliver Crisp.24
The fundamental idea maintained in this view is that the image of God is essentially borne by one individual, Christ. Jesus Christ, being the Son of God incarnate in his human nature and human flesh, is the first and true image of the invisible God. Other human beings are made in the image of God by being made and by conforming to the image of Christ.25 This train of thought leads us to say that human beings—including Adam and Eve (however we might understand them)—are really ectypes of the archetype (arising from the “true”) and prototype (arising from the “first”) of the divine image found in Christ.26 A further entailment is that it is not so much the case of Christ assuming and possessing a copy of some generic form of human nature in the Incarnation as it is the case of God ordaining from before the foundation of the world that the human nature Christ assumes in the Incarnation is the definition and archetype of true human nature.27 Jesus Christ’s human nature—one that is in hypostatic union with God the Son—serves as the blueprint for all other human natures, including Adam and Eve’s. Crisp specifies further: “[Christ] being the image of God has to do with the fact that God makes human nature capable of bearing union with the divine and capable of bearing the divine imprint or image in order to do so.”28 In this view, it is the whole and entire human nature, rather than some substance of the soul, some structural capacity like rationality or intellect, some functional aspect like rule and dominion, or even some dimension of relationality alone that images God. Human nature—“designed” by God and foreordained in the particular human nature that God the Son assumes in his Incarnation—images God by being made with “the capacities and powers necessary and sufficient to be in hypostatic union with a divine person,” as Crisp affirms.29 It is in turn through this union that, borrowing the terminology of Cortez, the representational, the personal and the covenantal presence of God is reflected.
It is important at this juncture to highlight what Crisp intends with the Christological imago dei from another version of it. This other version takes its starting point from the New Testament witness to Jesus Christ being the true image of God. So for example, Jesus is referred in 2 Corinthians 4:4 as “the image of God” (εἰκὼν τοῦ θεοῦ), and in Colossians 1:15 as “the image of the invisible God” (εἰκὼν τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ἀοράτου). This other version maintains the element of Christ being the archetype of the divine image by having archetypal human nature, however that human nature is defined to be. And “it is in Christ, Redeemer and Savior, that the divine image, disfigured in man by the first sin, has been restored to its original beauty and ennobled by the grace of God,” as the Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it.30 In other words, this other version of the Christological imago dei sees Jesus Christ as the true imago dei who by his work of redemption transforms and conforms fallen human beings to the image of God in Christ (cf. Romans 8:29).31 The Christological imago dei presented by Crisp covers all this and more. Specifically, the Christological imago dei that Crisp aims at not only sees Jesus Christ as the archetypal divine image in virtue of him possessing an archetypal human nature but also sees that human nature as prototypical of the human nature that Adam and Eve, as the first of humanity, would be created after.
Clearly, a promotion of the Christological imago dei (as Crisp has presented it) must encompass the advantages of adhering to this view. That will come in the final section of this essay. Before that, however, it would be beneficial to outline a possible path for this particular reading of the Christological imago dei by situating it within three periods of theological thought—the early patristic, late patristic and medieval, and Reformed periods.
III. Situating the Christological Imago Dei Within the History of Theological Thought
The Patristic Period
Crisp cites the examples of Irenaeus and Athanasius as two patristic fathers who held on to a Christological reading of the imago dei.32 A cursory glance at the major patristic fathers reveals this to be true not just for Irenaeus and Athanasius but arguably all the patristic theologians. They conceived of Jesus Christ as the incarnate Word to be not only the archetype but also the prototype of the divine image in whom humanity was created after. The following paragraphs survey the major patristic fathers on this point.
Irenaeus states in Against Heresies 5.16.2:
For in times long past, it was said that man was created after the image of God, but it was not [actually] shown; for the Word was at yet invisible, after whose image man was created, wherefore also he did easily lose the similitude. When, however, the Word of God became flesh, He confirmed both these: for He both showed forth the image truly, since He became Himself what was His image; and He re-established the similitude after a sure manner, by assimilating man to the invisible Father through means of the visible Word.33
Irenaeus shows from the above passage that to be created in the image of God is to be created in the image of the Word, and it was in the Incarnation that the Word truly showed forth what that image was meant to be all this while. He states even more explicitly in On the Apostolic Preaching that as man is made in the image of God, “the ‘image’ is the Son of God, in whose image man was made.” And the incarnate Son’s manifestation “in the last times” was precisely to “show the image like unto Himself.”34
Origen similarly has an idea of humanity being created as an “image of the Image.” He states in Homilies on Luke 8.2: “I need to consider that the Lord and Saviour is ‘the image of the invisible God,’ and realize that my soul is made ‘in the Creator’s image’, so that it is an image of the Image. My soul is not directly an image of God; it was created as the image of an Image that already existed.”35
Athanasius, the Alexandrian bishop, continues with the idea of Jesus Christ being the archetype and prototype of the divine image. He states in On the Incarnation:
What then was God to do? Or what was to be done save the renewing of that which was in God’s image, so that by it men might once more be able to know Him? But how could this have come to pass save by the presence of the very Image of God, our Lord Jesus Christ? For by men’s means it was impossible, since they are but made after an image; nor by angels either, for not even they are (God’s) images. Whence the Word of God came in His own person, that, as He was the Image of the Father, He might be able to create afresh the man after the image.36
As for the Cappadocian Fathers, Gregory of Nanzianzus resists viewing the imago dei through a single lens but sees the divine image (εἰκὼν θεία) as a dynamic existence in which human beings relate to it by being and becoming.37 Within this dynamic understanding of the human eikon, Gregory gives pride of place to beginning with Christ, whom he calls the “identical Eikon.” As one commentator states, this is Gregory of Nanzianzus speaking “of Christ as the Eikon in a way that denotes Christ’s ontological imaging of the Father.”38 His good friend Gregory of Nyssa interprets Genesis 1:26 as concerning not the particular but rather the universal or the collective—that is, Adam is not the particular human being on view in the injunction of Genesis 1:26, but it is the entire human race that bears the divine image. As Gregory states, it is “the human being manifested together with the first formation of the world, and he who shall come to be after the consummation of all” that forms the referent for the humanity spoken of in Genesis 1:26.39 This leads John Behr to posit the idea that for Gregory of Nyssa, “the image of God in accordance with whom God makes the human being in Gen. 1.27 is, according to De hom. 16.7, Christ Jesus, the ‘Prototype.’”40
This survey of the few patristic figures reveals two key aspects of the patristic understanding of the imago dei. On the one hand, there is the aspect whereby the imago dei is located in the human soul, and especially in the quality or trait of rationality or the intellect. This aspect in many ways is unavoidable, granted first the Greek philosophical understanding of λόγος as the rational principle of order or divine intelligence that governs the world, and second, the fact that Christ is described in John’s gospel as ὁ λόγος, further consolidated by the apologist Justin Martyr’s employment of this ascription. As one commentator states of Justin Martyr’s thought, “The Logos is the personal reason of God in which all men partake” and that “this divine Logos assumed human form in Jesus Christ.”41 Given this line of thinking, it is easy to see how the divine image came to be located in the human soul and in the particular trait of rationality, even as the archetypal divine image is located in the perfect divine reason that has become flesh in Jesus Christ.42 On the other hand, the patristic fathers did not hold onto the imago dei being the human soul with its intellect in isolation, but it could be argued that the concept is relegated under the more emphatic notion of Jesus Christ as the incarnate Word being the archetype and the prototype of the divine image. And if the focus on Jesus Christ as the incarnate Word is on his human nature such that Jesus Christ is not just homo futurus but homo humanus, it positions the Christological imago dei to sit very comfortably with the theology of the patristic fathers. With the patristic fathers, we could say that rather than making Adam the basis of anthropology, Jesus Christ the incarnate one forms the basis.43
The Late Patristic and Medieval Period
When it comes to the late patristic and medieval period as sampled in the church fathers Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, the aspect of the imago dei residing in the human soul, and particularly its rationality or intellect, is amplified to form an indelible feature of what the imago is within the theological tradition. The other aspect of Jesus Christ being the prototype of the divine image, however, falls out of view. In the interest of space, only Augustine’s views will be explored.
Two reasons are offered for the shift away from the patristic fathers’ understanding of the imago dei. First, as Laela Zwollo has shown, there is in Augustine’s doctrine of creation a very active dimension of Christ being the Creator by being the Word (Verbum Dei) that is eternally uttered by the Father; when God spoke, the Word spoke, and creation was brought into being. The “speaking” of the Verbum Dei in turn materialized the eternal “Ideas” and “Reasons” or “Forms” that existed in the mind of the Word, and these ideas or forms served as models or patterns for created things in the universe.44 Augustine thus designated the Verbum Dei as the creation principle or the ontological foundation of the universe and at the same time setting Christ, the Verbum Dei, to be the most perfect image of the Father and completely equal to him. It is evident that Augustine’s understanding of Christ as the perfect or archetypal divine image emphasizes the pre-incarnate Word or the Verbum Dei, whereas the patristic fathers had a major bearing to Christ as the Word incarnate in their conceptualizing of the archetypal divine image. Naturally, greater attention is given to the humanity of Jesus when Christ the incarnate Word serves as the primary referent for the archetypal divine image.
Second—and this remains purely a postulation open to correction—by the time we reach Augustine, the doctrine of divine simplicity had become more developed.45 The consolidation of the doctrine meant that Augustine’s conceptualization of God the Son would tend to begin from the viewpoint of demonstrating the divinity and co-equality of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; in other words, from the viewpoint of God the Son as the pre-existent Logos rather than as Christ the Word incarnate. This explains why, as Zwollo highlights, Augustine is keen to demonstrate in the first half of De Trinitate “how the Incarnation fits into his scheme of the Holy Trinity as immaterial and transcendent, as well as how or why the Son’s divine essence remained immutable throughout his human life.”46 Once again, starting from the viewpoint of God the Son as the pre-existent Word diverts the focus from the humanity of Christ as the incarnate Word serving as the archetype, let alone prototype, of the human nature that Adam and Eve were created after as an image of the divine.47
The Reformed Period
In approaching the Reformed period, there are two windows—one partial and the other fully opened—within Reformation and Reformed theology in which the Christological reading of the imago dei could fill the space previously vacated during the late patristic and medieval periods. The first (partial) window is the concept of Christ the eternal mediator and the second (fully opened) window is the covenant of redemption conceptualized within a supralapsarian framework.
The idea of Christ as the eternal mediator gained prominence through the writings of the Reformer John Calvin. It is a well-established fact that Calvin begins his treatment of Christology in the Institutes of the Christian Religion II.12 with the idea of Christ having to be true God and true man in order to fulfill the office of the mediator.48 But Calvin’s discussion of why there is a need for a mediator occurs earlier in chapter 6. And it is in fact within this context of Christ as the mediator that Calvin discusses the purpose of the Old Testament Law and the continuity of the Old and New Testaments from chapters 7–11. Moreover, as Stephen Edmondson has shown through Calvin’s involvement in the controversy with the Italian theologian Francesco Stancaro, Calvin’s emphasis on Christ as mediator extends to the argument that Christ is the eternal mediator.49 Stancaro had advanced the position that Christ mediated between God and humanity only in his human nature and not in his complete person as the God-man. To Stancaro, for the Son to mediate between God and man in his divinity would imply that he was subordinate to the Father in his divine nature, and that amounts to the Arian heresy. Rather, Christ mediated in his humanity alone, while his divinity served as the source and empowerment for Christ’s mediatorial work.50 Calvin’s response came in the form of two letters that he wrote.51 The core issue pertaining to our discussion is that Calvin emphasized in both responses that Christ did not just become mediator when he assumed human flesh in the Incarnation. Instead, Christ was always mediator, not only between the Israelites and God in the Old Testament prior to the Incarnation52 but also as the Son of God mediating from the beginning of creation. This has to be so, since Christ remains head over the Church, has primacy over the angels, and is the firstborn of every creature.53 Logic demands that “if … the Son of God is the mediator, then it is outside of controversy that Christ is the Son of God in respect to both natures, and hence it follows that he is mediator no less by reason of his divinity than by his human nature,” as Calvin states.54 In Calvin’s second response, he similarly affirms that “certainly, the eternal λόγος was already mediator from the beginning, before Adam’s fall and the alienation and separation of the human race from God.”55
To be sure, Calvin identified Christ the eternal mediator as the Son or Word or λόγος rather than as the Word incarnate (or the Word-to-be-incarnated). This forms the reason why Calvin’s concept of the eternal mediator at best opens the window partially for the notion of the Christological imago dei to enter.56 Yet, the very language of “mediator” opens paths of enquiry. Afterall, what is a “mediator” if not someone who represents God to humanity and humanity to God? Christ is the perfect mediator because he is the true God-man, vere deus vere homo, “of one substance with the Father,”57 and “consubstantial with us according to the Manhood.”58 The fact that Calvin allows for Christ to be this perfect mediator even before the Fall of humanity and before the Incarnation leaves him at the very least open to the idea that the human nature Christ assumes at the Incarnation serves as the archetype and even the prototype of the human nature that the first of humanity would be created with, even though that human nature is assumed only at a point chronologically later. What Calvin needed was an instrument of thought that could formalize this way of thinking.
That instrument lies in the teaching of supralapsarianism, which came into view during the period of Reformed Orthodoxy. Supralapsarianism and its counterpart infralapsarianism flowed from discussions centred around God’s divine decree. Although the doctrine of God’s simplicity, eternity, and omniscience implies the issuance of a single divine decree with no “before” or “after” in the divine decision, “we sometimes speak of his decrees (plural) and a sequential order simply to refer to a logical rather than temporal succession of decisions,” as Horton states in The Christian Faith.59 In particular, supralapsarianism specifies that God’s decree to save and redeem in Christ is logically prior to his decree to create and permit the Fall, whereas infralapsarianism specifies that the decree to save follows the decision to create and permit the Fall.60 This has a bearing on the objects of the divine predestination. As Richard Muller highlights, supralapsarianism posits that “in the divine mind, the human subject of election and reprobation is conceived as … creatable and fallible, i.e., as a possibility for creation and capable of falling,” while infralapsarianism posits that “in the divine mind the human subject of election is viewed in eternity as … created and fallen.”61 Supralapsarianism, as compared to infralapsarianism, presents greater room for Christ as mediator and redeemer to bear not only archetypal but prototypical human nature, since with supralapsarianism, the decree that Christ comes as redeemer takes logical precedence over the decree to create humanity.62
The case is further strengthened when another notion arising from the period of high Reformed orthodoxy, the Covenant of Redemption, is added to a supralapsarian framework. Stated plainly, the covenant of redemption is the pre-temporal intra-Trinitarian agreement between the persons of the Trinity to plan and execute the redemption of the elect. The 1657 Savoy Declaration (the Congregational version of the Westminster Standards) captures the gist of the covenant of redemption:
It pleased God, in his eternal purpose, to choose and ordain the Lord Jesus his only begotten Son, according to a covenant made between them both, to be the Mediator between God and man; the Prophet, Priest, and King, the Head and Saviour of his Church, the Heir of all things and Judge of the world; unto whom he did from all eternity give a people to be his seed, and to be by him in time redeemed, called, justified, sanctified, and glorified. (VIII.i)63
If, as Reformed scholar J. V. Fesko says, the covenant of redemption focuses on the “plan of redemption and the Son’s election,” any discussion on the Son’s election (to be covenant surety and mediator) will involve the doctrine of predestination.64 Furthermore, given that what defines supralapsarianism is the object of predestination—in particular, humanity as “creatable and liable to fall”65—the covenant of redemption set within a supralapsarian framework allows generous room for an interpretation that allows for Christ, in being elected “to be the Mediator between God and man” and to “give a people to be his seed,”66 to bear in his own being as mediator the archetype and prototype of the very human nature that he has come to redeem and renew, even “before” the creation of humanity patterned after that nature. By ordering the (logical) relationship between the decree to elect (and save) and the decree to create, supralapsarianism provides a capacious space for the Christological imago dei to reside comfortably in.
IV. Advantages of the Christological Imago Dei
A summary of the argument covered so far is in order. After surveying the options for how the imago dei is understood today, the Christological imago dei as envisaged by Oliver Crisp was presented. This is a view that locates the divine image in the human nature that Jesus Christ assumes in the Incarnation, and the first of humanity is created patterned after this prototypical human nature of Jesus. Following this, the Christological imago dei was investigated further in relation to its fit within the historical tradition of understanding the image of God. The conclusion is that although this view was acknowledged and even advanced by the patristic fathers, it was overshadowed by the intellectualistic and rationalistic understanding of the image in the late patristic and medieval period. This view, however, could possibly find a comeback via the two Reformed concepts of Christ as the eternal mediator and the covenant of redemption set within a supralapsarian understanding. To close the essay, it would only be fitting to highlight some advantages of holding on to the Christological imago dei over others. One key advantage comes to mind; the rest of can either be grouped under this key advantage or serve as elaborations of this advantage.
The key advantage is simply this: The Christological imago dei follows in a natural manner the overarching biblical story in its development of the image of God; and if the image of God is the defining feature for what it means to be human, then Jesus is shown to be the true human being. As Karl Barth famously remarked, “This man [referring to Jesus] is man. … He alone is primarily and properly man.”67 The Christological imago dei thus aids in a study of anthropology that is grounded in Christology. Stanley Grenz warns us of the dangers of an anthropological study conducted otherwise:
When the nature of the human person is assumed to emerge solely from creation—i.e. apart from Christ—and when Christ is cast as, above all, the divine antidote to human sin, not only is anthropology cut loose from any Christological grounding, but Christology is also made dependent on anthropology. We might say that the first Adam thereby becomes the measuring rod for the Second.68
In this sense, the assumption that a sufficient or even a full understanding of the imago dei can be derived purely from the creational account is to run aground the New Testament witness. As Grenz affirms, the early Christian writers sought to “set forth a Christocentric understanding of the image of God that drew from, but also transformed, the perspective found within the pages of the OT in accordance with their belief that Jesus was the fulfillment of what God had intended from the beginning.”69 As such, Grenz emphasizes that Christology must inform the doctrine of creation, for only in Christ as the true imago dei can we see fully what it means to be human and to discern God’s divine purpose for humanity.70 The Christological imago dei (as presented by Crisp) captures the emphases of Grenz’s argument, the key difference being that where Grenz locates the image in the vocation given to humanity to live as God’s representative within creation, Crisp locates the image in the human nature that Jesus assumes (or comes to assume) in the Incarnation, with that human nature being the prototype and archetype of the human nature that humanity is created in.71
The other advantages follow from the above-mentioned key advantage. First, there is no need to abstract from human nature one aspect—be it the human soul, some structural quality like rationality, or some functional aspect like rule and dominion or relationality—and limit the imago dei to that particular aspect. The difficulty of limiting the imago dei to reside in a substantive view of the soul with the property of intellect, for example, is that it is hard to justify the particular property chosen. So, in this case, why the intellect? Also, limiting the imago dei to reside in relationality or rule and dominion neglects the element to do with the “substance” of the image that makes the relationships or rule possible in the first place. Rather, the entirety of Jesus’ human nature serves as the divine image. And when God said in Genesis, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis 1:26), by “image,” he was referring to the human nature that Jesus would assume. Humanity would be created and patterned after that human nature. In other words, the Christological imago dei can validate and integrate the different understandings of the imago dei on offer today.
Second, thinking of the imago dei as the human nature of Jesus brings us as close as possible to the meaning that “image” is meant to convey. Whether it is the notion of “representation” (from the Hebrew word selem) or “reflection” (from the Greek term eikōn), it is in the human nature assumed by Jesus that the fullest meanings of “representation” and “reflection” are realized. As Crisp states:
God ordained that human nature have certain properties and powers that would mean that the particular human nature God the Son assumes at the first moment of his incarnation conforms to, and is capable of being in personal union with, a divine person. Human nature is created in order that it might reflect the divine image and be united to God.72
Arising from Crisp’s statement, what better “reflection” of the divine is there than to have human nature (in particular, the human nature of Jesus) possess the potential and the capability of being in personal union with God himself? And what better “representation” of the divine is there than to have human nature (in particular, the human nature of Jesus) represent God to humanity and thus to the world? In other words, there is no better “reflection” and “representation” found in any other than the perfect eternal mediator, Jesus Christ. His human nature serves as the archetype and prototype of the divine image.
V. Conclusion
In a fascinating use of the Old Testament in the New Testament, the author of Hebrews takes the famous question and answer of Psalm 8:4–5 (“What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor”) and applies it to the Lord Jesus in Hebrews 2:5–9. And if Psalm 8 can be thought of as a commentary on the imago dei that makes humanity so unique among God’s vast and bountiful creation, it is all the more striking the writer’s answer: “But we do see Jesus” (Hebrews 2:9). What we find in the author’s answer is the culmination of a trajectory of the imago dei commenced in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New Testament: To be created in the image of God is to be created in the entirety of our human natures in the image of the perfect God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ, vere deus, vere homo. To be created imago dei is to be created imago christi.
