THE IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN - Tyndale House

100 TYNDALE BULLETIN
may be some justification for speaking of the loss of the image;
it would be possible to start, as Luther apparently did, from the
premise that the image is lost, and consequently to define the
image negatively, in terms of what man is not. Such a method
indeed ensures the confirmation of the original premise, but,
does not do justice to Genesis 1:26 or the other texts which speak
of the image.
In defending our view that the image is not lost, a view which
is shared by all modern Old Testament scholars, we shall not
lay much weight on Genesis 5 as is done by many exegetes,
for there we are not dealing with the transmission of the divine
image, but with the begetting of a son in Adam's image. Genesis
9, however, which concerns not simply the post-Fall but the
post-Flood world, affords no indication of a loss, or even a
partial defacement of the image. Rather, the primeval creation
of man as the image of God is regarded as having contemporary
validity, in that it is used as a warning against murder and as
validation of capital punishment. In Psalm 8, also, it is taken
for granted that the image (which is indeed not explicitly
mentioned, but is alluded to by the description of man’s
rulerhood) is to be seen here and now in man. The permanence
of the image is a concept which persists even in the New Testa-
ment: for Paul, in 1 Corinthians 11:7, man is the image and so
the glory of God; James 3:9 speaks of the inconsequentiality
of using the same member of the body, the tongue, both to
bless God and to curse men, 'who are made in the image of
God'. This lively contrast would lack all point if James did not
believe that men are still the image of God.
The same conclusion regarding the permanent validity of
the image may be drawn from consideration of the term ‘man’
in Genesis 1:26f. Genesis 1 does not describe the creation of the
ancestors of each species of life, but rather the creation of the
various species. The whole race of man is in view therefore in
Genesis 1:26f. not the primeval pair. 196 Inevitably we read
Genesis 1 in the knowledge of Genesis 2, where the creation of a
primeval pair of humans is narrated; but if Genesis 1 is read
for its own sake, as it should be, at least initially, it becomes clear
that it is the creation of the species that is in mind. It is no
argument against this interpretation that man is told to
144f.
196 V. Maag, Asiatische Studien 9 (1955) 30; W. H. Schmidt, Schöpfungsgeschichte