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Thread: In the image of God

  1. #1
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    Default In the image of God

    A friend wrote a commentary about Easter today. Part of it had to do with us being created in the image of God. That got me thinking. Don't most of us think of that "image" as being the way we look in our corporeal bodies? In other words, when we think about God the Father historically He is portrayed in a human form. As a result it has been sort of common thought that God looks like us rather than the other way around. Is that not the way Christianity tends to think about God the Father?

    But God the Father, according to scripture, is not corporeal at all. We all know that fundamentally, but still we sort of suppose that He looks like us because we are in "His image". So what if that "image of God" has nothing to do with how we look, but rather what we really are, timeless eternal creatures of some kind that really don't look like we are at all? And the new "bodies" we get in paradise aren't anything like our present bodies as far as looks go. I have always not really thought about that in other than a corporeal body that resembles ourselves now, but in a glorified way.

    Not a big thing, really. But I was just thinking about what he wrote and wanted to see if I could put the notion that was in my head in writing and see if it made any sense, and did other folks always think like I had, even though I knew the Scripture described Father as not corporeal, but I still had that image of him in my mind....if that makes any sense??!!..

  2. #2
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    I agree. Jesus said we will be like the angels. We are a new creation. We know our spirit, healed, as that new creation but not the physical aspect of what that means.

    I often think that we are made in God's image that mirrors the heart of a child.
    Jesus said that those who are in heaven are like those who are like the children.
    When we think of children, we think of unconditional love, blind to what others judge us as.
    We see the same kind of love from man's best friend.

    He gave us a heart like His. It is the essence of who we are. We are born with that image.

    Once we reach the age where we can choose between self and Him, all human beings (except Jesus) choose self. That is when our hearts begin to harden. The more we reject the chiding of the Holy Spirit to turn back, the harder our hearts get.

    Jesus used the disease of leprosy as a mirror of what happens to our soul in sin (clean/unclean). Leprosy deadens the body to feeling things. When healed, the person can feel again and live. Through His stripes we are healed. Through Him taking the consequences of our sin on an eternal level, we are sensitive to sin again and He helps us to walk in a way to always be sensitive to what hurts us and what hurts our walk with Him.
    'A person with an experience is never at the mercy of a person with an argument,'" writes von Campe

  3. #3
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    The spiritual aspects of the "image of God" aside for the moment, let's not engender confusion. Our LORD Jesus Christ IS The Word Made Flesh - the physical manifestation of our eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent GOD. He is Our Creator God, manifested in bodily form like unto mankind His creation from the Garden through the Old Covenant theophanies unto His Birth, Atonement, Resurrection, Ascension and His soon Return to rule and reign forever, world without end, depicted in clear language for us. There is The One and Only God-Man in His resurrected flesh and bone human form with the scars to prove it, seated in Heaven upon His Throne. When we are raised incorruptible, or translated alive, we shall be like Him - including recognizable.

    True, "God The Father" is Spirit. He is a consuming fire. No flesh man can see Him and live. He dwells outside our time-space continuum. Those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.
    But the dead shall be raised, when that Trumpet sounds. This is our blessed Hope. "..But He spake of the temple of His body."

    Tras
    "They who have put out the people's eyes reproach them of their blindness."
    John Milton, 1642

  4. #4
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    I think the verse in Genesis where the Father said "Let us make man in our image" refers to our physical image. As to who the "our" is in that verse, I believe it was His children who were all with Him at that time and that included us before we were born into the flesh. I believe our spiritual body closely resembles our flesh body ( minus the aging, wear and tear, etc.). That is why, when they asked Christ what God looks like, He replied "If you have seen the Son, you have seen the Father". The Father made Him in His image.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by grampster View Post
    A friend wrote a commentary about Easter today. Part of it had to do with us being created in the image of God. That got me thinking.
    And if the passage had been translated as "likeness" or "similitude", rather than "image", would it serve better?

    Are we not more than just animated dust? Then how could the template by which we were fashioned be completely described by looks alone?
    Many's the time I've been mistaken, And many times confused;
    Yes, and I've often felt forsaken, And certainly misused .... ~ Paul Simon, "American Tune"

    One can only play with your mind if you allow them to. ~ dilligaf


    YOUR DUTY IS TO FIND THE TRUTH IN EACH TOPIC.
    Stand and discuss the matter to the fullest extent
    ~ HouseWolf

  6. #6
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    "Let Us make man in Our image"


    Tripartite?
    Waiting for His Return.

    1John 4:8,16 He that loves not knows not God; for God is love. And we have known and believed the love that God has toward us. God is love; and he that dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by LadyInWaiting View Post
    "Let Us make man in Our image"


    Tripartite?
    I always thought that the "Us" was the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
    We have barred the gates but cannot hold them for long. The ground shakes, drums... drums in the deep. We cannot get out. A shadow lurks in the dark. We can not get out... they are coming.

    "...Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil." - Ephesians 5:14-17

  8. #8
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    I sure do believe that as well, Lo Echsar.
    The Three in One would be tripartite.
    And I think to myself sometimes - that we were created tripartite as well. Body, soul and spirit.
    Just my thoughts.

    Marantha
    Waiting for His Return.

    1John 4:8,16 He that loves not knows not God; for God is love. And we have known and believed the love that God has toward us. God is love; and he that dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him.

  9. #9
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    A lot of GOOD points, and Tras' hit some homers in there.

    It is really a common thing, for people to project themselves, or a wishful version of what they desire, onto God.

    Some want a God of vengeance, some a God that looks around that one sin they can't seem to let go of, etc.

    I take the whole concept to mean man was given many common attributes of God, that EVEN the Angels weren't given, AND, were given these bodies of flesh, so that we unlike those Angels, live in the Spirit, AND the material world at the same time.

    Lucifer couldn't stand it, and thus fell, and desires our destruction.

    I just know, that at some point we will know much more than we do now, about a great many things.

    The exact answer here is one of many.
    "You Can't MAKE this stuff up."


    They cast their silver into the streets, and their gold is like an unclean thing. Their silver and gold are not able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord. They cannot satisfy their hunger or fill their stomachs with it. For it was the stumbling block of their iniquity.
    Ezekiel 7:19




  10. #10
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    When John was in heaven he saw and interacted w/ bodies,an angel,the Ancient of days,the Lamb of God, and the Spirit as a Dove. Scripture tells us we will be bodily resurrected.

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