Scripture Reading: Gen. 1:26; 1 John 3:2b; Rev. 4:3; 21:11b
In this message I would like to give a very brief word on the resemblance of God and man in their images and likenesses. We may think that we are very clear regarding this matter. Actually we may not be at all clear. Therefore, I would encourage you to study all the following points very carefully. As we consider these we may wonder whether man resembles God or God resembles man.
There was no “mankind” created by God in His creation. Genesis 1 tells us that God created all the fish, the birds, the beasts, and the cattle after their kind (vv. 24-25). Although God created everything after its kind, God did not create “mankind.” In God’s creation there was not such a thing as “mankind.”
If God did not create “mankind,” then after what kind was man created? Genesis 1:26 indicates that man is after God’s kind. This verse says, “Let us [the Divine Trinity] make adam [Heb. adam, denoting red clay] in our image, after our likeness.” Hence, what God made here was after His own kind, that is, God-kind. The word man is not used in the Hebrew text of Genesis 1:26. Here we are told that God created adam, which means “red clay.” God created something of red clay in His own image and after His own likeness. Having the image of God, this work of red clay looked like God. At least we can say that this clay was a figure of God, made after God’s kind. Therefore, it was God-kind.
In Genesis 1:26 God created something according to Himself. What He made was a reproduction of Himself. If God had made ten thousand pieces of clay in His image and after His likeness, those ten thousand pieces of clay would all have been figures of God, the mass reproduction of God.
In Genesis 18:2-13 three men appeared to Abraham. One of these men was Christ — Jehovah — and the other two were angels (19:1). The appearing of these three men to Abraham took place before Christ’s incarnation. This means that two thousand years before His incarnation, God appeared as a man when He visited His friend Abraham. Abraham prepared water for Him to wash His feet, and Abraham’s wife, Sarah, prepared a meal that this man ate. This is a mystery. When did Christ become a man — at the time of His incarnation or before the incarnation?
The angel of God (God, Jehovah, a man of God — Christ) appeared to Manoah and his wife before Christ’s incarnation (Judg. 13:3-6, 22-23).
According to Daniel 7:13-14 Daniel saw a vision of a Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven, and He came even to the Ancient of Days — the God of eternity — and they brought Him near before Him. There was given Him dominion, glory, and a kingdom that all the peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. Daniel saw such a vision of Christ as the Son of Man before Christ’s incarnation.
Adam was a type, a prefigure, of Christ (Rom. 5:14).
The piece of red clay in Genesis 1:26 was a type of Christ, and Christ is the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15).
The Word (God) became flesh (John 1:14), becoming the flesh of sin only in its likeness (Rom. 8:3). God as the Word who became flesh had only the outward appearance of the flesh of sin, not the sinful nature of the flesh of sin.
Christ, who exists in the form of God, took the form of a slave, becoming in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man, in His incarnation (Phil. 2:6-8).
Stephen saw the heavens opened up and the Son of Man — Christ — at the right hand of God (Acts 7:56). Stephen saw this after Christ’s ascension to the heavens. This indicates that Christ is in the heavens still as the Son of Man. Concerning this, Hymns, #132 says:
In Matthew 26:64 the Lord Jesus said, “You will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power [God] and coming on the clouds of heaven.” This refers to Christ’s second coming. When the Lord Jesus comes back, He will still be the Son of Man.
In Romans 8:29 Paul tells us that those whom God foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the Firstborn among many brothers. This verse assures us that we, the believers in Christ, will all be conformed to the image of the Son of God.
Second Corinthians 3:18 says, “We all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit.” Romans 12:2a speaks of our being transformed by the renewing of the mind. He as God has done a lot to make Himself in the form and likeness of man. Now He intends to transform us into the same image and conform us to the image of the Son of God.
Philippians 2:15 speaks of our being blameless and guileless, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverted generation, among whom we shine as luminaries in the world.
The Lord Jesus Christ will transfigure the body of our humiliation to be conformed to the body of His glory, according to His operation by which He is able even to subject all things to Himself (Phil. 3:21). He has the power to transfigure our body in such a way that it will be conformed to the body of His glory.
We know that if Christ is manifested, we will be like Him wholly, perfectly, and absolutely because we will see Him even as He is (1 John 3:2b).
All this will consummate in the New Jerusalem. Revelation 4:3 says, “He [God] who was sitting was like a jasper stone.” This tells us that the appearance of God, the One sitting on the throne, is like jasper.
According to Revelation 21 the New Jerusalem’s light is like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone (v. 11b). The building work of its wall is jasper, and the first foundation of the wall is also jasper (vv. 18a, 19). The wall is jasper, the first foundation of the wall is jasper, the light of the city is jasper, and God on the throne is like jasper. Eventually God and man, man and God, all have the appearance of jasper. This is the conclusion of the Bible.
The consummation of the Bible is the New Jerusalem — divinity mingled with humanity. Divinity becomes the dwelling place of humanity, and humanity becomes the home of divinity. In this city the glory of God is manifested in man, brightly and splendidly. We will be there, and we are on the way. We are in the process of being made “a piece of God,” to look the same as God — jasper.
