IMAGE AND LIKENESS

IMAGE AND LIKENESS

We get the principle of representation at the outset in Scripture. Image comes before likeness. God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”, but after sin came into the world, likeness must be seen before representation; hence in Genesis 5 we read, “Adam ... begot a son in his likeness, after his image”. After sin comes in we must have likeness first, because likeness is a moral feature. Before that statement is made, we read that men began to call on the name of the Lord; that agrees with what we are speaking of, that in Christ we have the likeness of God absolutely; it was God Himself, but there was likeness in the moral features, and hence the representation.