📖 the image of God and human dignity

A spark of the divine exists in us all and that means everything

July 02, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

Our goal at Theophilus is to make Jesus’ teaching accessible and relevant for all in the 21st century. Do you want to join that mission? Share the Theophilus Newsletter on social media or with friends and family and help others dive deeper into what it means to follow Jesus.

Ps. To share on Whatsapp, copy and paste this link: https://theophilus.beehiiv.com/

The Image of God and Human Dignity

Genesis 1v27 shows God’s creation of mankind, saying:

So God created mankind in his own image,

in the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them.

Today, I want to focus on that phrase “his own image” because, in that, we learn an incredible lesson about both human dignity and what it means to be good.

The Image of God

For starters, what is the Image of God?

The Image of God is a status that God confers upon humanity.

It’s a proclamation of the value that He places on us as a species, His way of saying we have dignity and worth.

The Image of God brings Him unfathomably close to us.

This Image is also God’s way of compelling us to steward the world on His behalf - to take care of it by emulating His creative love.

The Image of God shows the longing our Creator has to be involved with our lives and to make them meaningful.

The Image means that God sees us, loves us, and wants the best for us.

The Divine Within Us

We aren’t divine, but God is.

Still, however, we can view the Image of God as His way of reaching out to us, bidding us to come closer to Him.

It’s precisely for this reason that I don’t view humanity as totally depraved.

Perhaps the Calvinists and I overlap here since the Image of God is not there because of anything we did… nonetheless, I believe its existence, the purpose behind it, shows that there’s something good woven into human design.

Of course, much of that goodness was corrupted by the Fall, but the Image of God remained.

The Image of God, and all the potential that comes with that, is retained in every person

And it’s this Image of God that I equate to the sense of conscience we all have.

Yes, we’re indeed born with an instinct to do wrong, but there is also something to be said about the feeling we have when we see someone in need, the pull in our chests saying we ought to go over there and help them…

Or the feeling we get when we turn on the news and see yet another bombing in one of these wars. The sadness, the indignation… we know it’s wrong, we know things could be better.

I believe these moments are the Image of God beating within us, reminding us that we're made for a better world and that we, as His creation, have a responsibility to create that better world.

Of course, all this leads us back to the template that is Jesus.

Enjoyed Today’s Newsletter?

Consider sharing on social media, or with friends and family! Just copy and paste this link: https://theophilus.beehiiv.com/