If “image” speaks of humanity’s relationship to creation as kings or vicegerents, “likeness” highlights humanity’s relationship to God as sons. Just as Seth is later described as the “likeness” of Adam (Gen. 5:3), so ’ādām is here called the “likeness” of God, pointing to the close, covenantal relationship shared between God and human beings. Adam, in other words, is God’s son.

Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, so that they will have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ (Genesis 1:26 LSB)
The concept of human identity is one that has undergone various changes throughout the centuries. In ancient Mesopotamia, for instance, it wasn’t uncommon to view human beings as mere slaves of the gods, helpful earth-dwelling creatures that could manage the menial work on behalf of the cosmic bigwigs. Aristotle later gave to the world the definition of the human being as a “rational animal.” But this, though slightly more dignifying, was equally insufficient in its own right as a full definition of the human person.
Contemporary reflections on the nature of human beings haven’t improved much. Today they fluctuate somewhere between pond scum and silly putty. Human beings are thought to be both the distant cousins of the green stuff living on the inside of your son’s fish tank, and also the kind of creatures that can alter the fundamental structure of their being with some lip gloss and high heels.
Whatever we are, we are apparently quite malleable. But malleability seems to be the only constant.
A Royal Calling: Image and Likeness

The words “image” and “likeness” in this text convey two related but distinct ideas. “Image,” as the term was widely understood in the ancient Near East, refers to humanity’s status as a living symbol of God’s rule and authority on the earth.
Like a statue representing a king’s claim to a certain territory, ’ādām (mankind) images God’s rule to the rest of creation. Hence the attention given in the following verses to the theme of dominion.
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We ought to walk through suffering so that a watching world recognizes that there is no good reason why we should have the hope we have. The peace we have. The continued joy we have. Not in a fire like that. And though they might not yet be able to identify with clarity the reason why, though the One who is with us might seem to be hazy and different, they will nevertheless recognize the presence of the “fourth” – someone that is making all the difference in the fire.

Trouble? Anxiety? Pain? Disappointment? Suffering?
These are all part of the human experience, and Christians are not immune to them. Though we are sometimes surprised when our lives take turns into the difficult, we really shouldn’t be – after all, Jesus told us it would be like this:
“In this world you will have trouble….” he said (John 16:33), and he was telling the truth. In some ways, this is really what life is about – it’s moving from difficulty to difficulty; in fact, these events are things that mark our lives into segments. They are the dividing points – there was life before the cancer, and after it; life before the job loss, and after it; life before the argument, and after it. And all of these things are painful to varying degrees.
Painful, yes – but also redemptive. Though it’s hard to see and accept in the moment, there is indeed redemptive purpose in the pain. Sometimes the redemptive purpose is in us, as God uses these things to sharpen our hope and refocus our gaze on the things that matter and are eternal. Sometimes the redemptive purpose is through us because these difficulties, when we are faithful in and through them, become powerful evidence of our faith to the world around us.
So what is it that we want the world to see when it sees a Christian suffer?
Many things, but perhaps an illustration might help. Think back to one of the most familiar stories from the Old Testament. It’s a story about faith. About standing against idolatry. It’s about courage. It’s about God’s faithfulness. And it’s also about what we want the world to see when we suffer as Christians.
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego stood before the gigantic golden statue the king of the foreign land had erected in his own honor.
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I’ve had it easy: my father was distant, not devilish. Either way, we need to realize that we all fall short — in different ways and to different degrees, yes, but all without exception. Fathers often aspire to do better for their children than their fathers did for them, often by giving them what they wanted to get and did not — but the children may want something different from what the fathers provide. The road to reconnection starts with the realization that we’re all sinners, and that we should condemn not, lest we be condemned (Luke 6:37).

If you have strained or broken relationships with parents (even deceased ones), how can you forgive them for their sinful failings and defects? How can you learn to view them through gracious lenses?
I’m not a trained counselor, but I had a strained relationship with my dad (who died in 1984), and over the last few years I have walked a slow journey toward understanding, mercy, and forgiveness. So let me try to answer these two questions by sharing some parts of my story. My story is unique, as is everyone’s. But perhaps, as you consider the path God has led me down, your own next steps will become clearer.
How Can I Forgive?
Let’s start with the question of forgiveness. It’s easier to forgive when we can see some of the benefits a bad experience brought. Since my father did not abuse me or harm me in the ways we sometimes read about in newspapers — others have it tougher — I eventually realized that my father’s defects actually made my life easier in three ways: easier to feel successful, easier to do what I wanted, and easier, through God’s grace, to profess Christ.
Good From the Bad
It was easier to feel successful because, as I grew up, my mother constantly disparaged my father, essentially labeling him a lazy loser. That wasn’t fair: he worked consistently for forty years, didn’t get drunk, and didn’t beat her — but he was also an underachieving Harvard graduate. She didn’t respect him because he didn’t get the respect she thought he deserved.
The other day, half a century after seeing it in a theater, I streamed Love Story, set at Harvard. A successful student-athlete there has an ultra-strained relationship with his father, an old-money, elite lawyer who competed in the 1928 Olympics. The son, who calls his dad “Sir,” has a high bar to leap and feels he can never meet Sir’s expectations. I, on the other hand, could feel successful by leaping over a low bar. That’s not bad.
My dad was not absent, but he was distant. I suffered in some ways as a result, but I also gained independence by not caring much what my father thought. I left Judaism at age fourteen without worrying about his disapproval. Later I could tell him about my coming to faith in Christ and my upcoming marriage to a shicksa, a non-Jew, without concern about his disapproval.
I believe I’d have had the guts and good sense to marry Susan regardless, but a few Jews with good paternal relationships become petrified at that point. More are lassoed by Jesus but keep tugging on the rope — or they at least keep their changed thinking secret to avoid upsetting parents. That’s not sensible, since Yeshua proclaimed his Jewishness as he said he’s the Christ. Either way, I never had that problem.
Unseen Sacrifices
Forgiveness in Christianity, of course, means more than relenting in resenting: it involves sacrifice. God forgives us because of Christ’s supreme expression of love. The famous line in Love Story is “love means never having to say you’re sorry,” but I truly love my father only by sacrificing my pride and being sorry for never thanking him for all he did for me.
His gift started with giving me life, of course, and continued to his material provision for me. I was able to graduate from an expensive college with almost no debt. My father had no car until he was thirty, but I grew up with driving privileges and did not have to pay for them.
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