We’ve all heard people of the world say of mankind in general, “We are all the children of God.” Of course, that’s not true since a child of God must be one who has been “born of God.” Even the Christian world commonly says “We are created in God’s image.” You’ve probably heard this, so it must be true, right? That’s Not true, even it probably 99% of Christendom today is under the false idea that every human is made in God’s image and we are all brothers and sisters. As we will see from the Bible, this is not true.

The fact is that Adam was not ‘born of God,’ Adam was created by God such as to be God’s representative on earth, to “replenish the earth” (Gen. 1:28) and “have dominion… over all the earth” (Gen. 1:26). Though God’s interest is in the two spheres of “the heaven and the earth” (Gen. 1:1), His initial focus was with the man whom He had created and placed on earth as His representative.

So, what exactly does the Bible say concerning man created “in the image of God”? As we will see, it says something else entirely. Let’s now permit the Bible to speak for itself. The Bible says: “And 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 fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth (the Serpents). ²⁷So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” (Genesis 1:26-27)

The Bible does indeed say that Adam and Eve were created in God’s image. But the Bible never says that we who are alive today as the descendants of Adam were created in God’s image, it’s an important distinction.

Gen. 5:1-3 “… In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; ²Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. ³And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image; and called his name Seth:”

Notice above how the language that describes Adam’s creation is starkly different from the language that describes the birth of his son Seth. Adam was “created… in the likeness of God” (verse 1). That’s what the Bible says. However, after the fall of Adam, Adam and Eve had a son, and that son was born after Adam’s “own (sinful) likeness, and after his image” (verse 3). Adam fathered Seth and there is no mention of God’s image.

Why is this significant?

The entrance of sin into the world via Adam’s disobedience changed human makeup. Man, who was once the reflection of God’s glory, then became the reflection of fallen man’s wretchedness. Adam’s son, Seth, was not sinless as Adam originally was. As Adam’s progeny, we today have inherited Adam’s sin-nature of the Serpent, what the Bible calls “our old man” (Rom. 6:6). The Serpent’s life brought the evil Serpent nature into Adam and the flesh of all mankind, as we see daily by the headlines of the news. But God;

“… God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:” (Romans 8:3b)

Rather than being after God’s image, we who are born since Adam are born in Adam’s fallen image. Because of our first birth we are naturally sinful, born “dead in our trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1-3). To actually be made in God’s image means that a man reflects God light and His righteousness. So, sinful man is not a proper representation of God and His righteousness. However, One Man, Jesus of Nazareth, was a perfect representation of God. Notice these few Scriptures:

• John 14:9: “Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?”
• Heb. 1:3 says Jesus Christ is “the brightness of [His Father’s] glory, and the express image of his person.”
• The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 4:4 that Jesus is “the image of God.”
• Colossians 1:15 says Christ is “the image of the invisible God.”
• Colossians 2:9 says that “in [Christ] dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.”

Before the fall of Adam, in Genesis 3, Adam was in fact a perfect representation of God’s colorful light and His righteousness. But once Adam had sinned, however, “death has passed upon all men” (Rom. 5:12). In order for us to regain God’s righteousness, we have to be “in Christ,” and the only way that will happen is if we rely on Calvary’s finished Cross-work, which was the ultimate exhibition of Christ’s righteousness. “For he [God the Father] hath made him [Jesus] to be sin for us, who knew no sin; (so) that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)

The danger in believing that we are made in God’s image can be summed up in the following erroneous statement. Some ignorantly say, “Human nature is not evil in itself. We are still made in God’s image. We are not completely corrupted by sin. Sin has merely impaired or weakened us.” Even some religious people claim this nonsense. This is humanism, that says humans are able to represent God in his fallen condition.

You can see that this statement is very appealing and flattering to the flesh; as if to say; “I am not that bad! Although I am not perfect, I still have something to offer God. I want to do the best I can with what I have so God will be happy with me! After all, God helps those who help themselves!” – ALL LIES!

The fact is that the so-called Human Nature is the fallen Adamic Serpentine nature! Fallen mankind gained the fallen nature of the Serpent when Adam rebelled against God’s one injunction. Only the putting away of that Sinful nature by the cross and the replacing of that fallen nature with Christ’s resurrection life that flows from the cross makes man Christ-like with Christ’s “nature” (2Peter 1:4)

To suppose that we are made in God’s image means we completely miss the fact that we can have no fellowship with God in our natural state. As David said, we are conceived in sin. We were shapen in iniquity. David wrote in Psalm 51:5 “… I was shapen in inquity (sin), and in sin did my mother conceive me.” From the moment of conception, not one human reflects God’s righteousness and holiness. This is why God wants to give us a new life and nature “in Christ,” one that is not offensive to Him, one that will generate self-giving good works … instead of self-loving sinful actions.

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17 (KJV)

In the Bible, we read that a rainbow of colors that surround God’s throne.

“And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire. (Ez. 1:4)

And I saw as the colour of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it, from the appearance of his (God’s) loins even upward, and from the appearance of his loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about. (Ezekiel 1:27)

The Prophet Ezekiel saw a amber rainbow that was contrasted with God’s throne’s the color of sapphire (deep blue); centuries later, John the Apostle saw the rainbow as emerald green (Rev. 4:3). You can envision a kaleidoscope of colors, perhaps flashing lights, around God’s throne. This is the manifestation of God’s light, Glory, and righteousness.

Adam was created being clothed with the image of God, bearing light of many colors. Adam was created wearing no other clothing. Being in “the image of God,” Adam was clothed with the light of God at creation… but with the very first sin… that light went out. God then made “coats of skin,” to cover their nakedness, whereby an innocent animal’s blood was shed to cover the sin of Adam and Eve. However, oblique it is, this was the very first mentioning of the Cross and blood of Christ … that pays for sins.

You see, after the fall of Adam and Eve “were both naked…and were not ashamed” (Gen. 1:25). How could they be otherwise? After all, in 1 Tim. 6:16 we read of Jesus Christ “dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto….” God’s righteousness and holiness emanate from ‘His Spirit-body’ in the form of a bright colorful light. David wrote: “O LORD my God… who coverest thyself with Light as with a Garment” (Psa. 104:2). Before the Fall, Adam and Eve did not wear physical clothes, but he was clothed with something… they were clothed with the righteousness of God Himself because sin had not yet entered into creation.

Adam was originally created sinless, as perfect as God. He and Eve were originally clothed with the light of God. When Adam and Eve disobeyed by eating the forbidden fruit of the “Tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil,” God’s righteousness and light departed from their bodies. With their rebellion against God’s one injunction for them, they were now sinners, so God’s light no longer covered them, spiritually or physically. Adam and Eve found themselves physically and spiritually naked, so they frantically gathered fig leaves and covered themselves (Gen. 3:7). Then the LORD God, in His great love and grace, sought these now lost souls. Adam and Eve hid, too afraid to approach our holy and righteous God.  But, God in His brilliance had already devised a just plan to restore them to Himself. “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins (from an innocent slaughtered animal), and clothed them” (Gen. 3:21).

For this to work justly, God had to have killed an innocent warm-blooded animal and shed its blood. Only innocent shed blood removes the stain of sin (Heb. 9:22). God used the shed blood to provide Adam and Eve’s spiritual clothes as a covering, and the skins served as their physical clothes. This was the first preaching of the gospel of “the Lamb of God” to come as man’s Savior. We know they were forgiven since we know they did not die for hundreds of years even though He had said “in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Gen. 2:17) They had been delivered by shed blood. Yes, the sin-infection that got into their physical flesh still ultimately works death to their flesh bodies, but they were spiritually alive and died in faith in what God had done. Adam was saved as he is listed in the lineage of Jesus (cf. Luke 3:38).

You may recall Joseph’s father, Jacob (Israel) gave him a “coat of many colors.” God was here using Joseph as a preview Jesus Christ. “Now Israel [Jacob] loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of a many colours” (Genesis 37:3). God was going to use Israel, Joseph’s family, to reflect His glory in the Earth. This is what Adam and Eve had failed to do.

Isaiah 61:10 is prophecy of Israel’s coming salvation; “I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels.” God did that for Adam, Eve, Israel, and “in Christ” He does the same for us!  “Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. (John 8:12)

Since Christ is light and we believers are in union with Him then we also bear the very same light of Christ in our spirit, which will be revealed when we shed the veil of these flesh bodies we live in on earth. If we have trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have been clothed with “the righteousness of God in Christ” (2 Cor. 5:21). In Christ, we are just as Adam and Eve were before the fall with regard to a perfect standing before God, but with something more… we also possess the resurrected life and nature of Christ in our spirit to be our new and eternal life that will bring us home to dwell in heaven, “eternally” (2Cor 5:1b).

Our physical body is still connected to Adam and will die. But, the day is coming when we in Christ Jesus will receive our glorified spirit-bodies “fashioned like unto His glorious body” (Philip. 3:20-21). This will occur at what we call “the Rapture” (1Thes. 4:13-18) and the Bible calls this “the redemption of our body” (Rom. 8:23).

Note the context of 1 Cor. 15:49 concerns our new incorruptible “spiritual body” (v44): “And as (like as) we have borne the image of the earthy [Adam], we shall also (eternally) bear the image of the heavenly [Christ].”

1 Corinthians 15:42-56 “⁴² So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: ⁴³ It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: ⁴⁴ It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. ⁴⁵ And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam (Christ v47) was made (became) a quickening (life-giving) spirit. ⁴⁶ Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. ⁴⁷ The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven. ⁴⁸ As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. ⁴⁹ And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also (with the Rapture) Bear The Image Of The Heavenly. ⁵⁰ Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. ⁵¹ Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, ⁵² In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. ⁵³ For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. ⁵⁴ So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. ⁵⁵ O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”