Image and Dominion
Image and Dominion“Let us make man in our image and likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps over the earth.” Gen.1:26
It was not a physical image, for God is Spirit (John 4:24), and a spirit hath not flesh and bones (Luke 24:39). The physical descriptions of God are figures to teach our childish hearts some of the realities of His great love. No one knows the exact area or the full meaning of this image and likeness; I believe it refers to the trinity of our nature.
A tree has a body, but no soul or spirit; an animal has a body and a soul (the Hebrew definitely uses the word for animals), and thus the foxes have their holes and the birds their nests; but man has spirit in addition to the soul and body. This is a moral likeness—“righteousness and true holiness” (Ephesians 4:24), and an intellectual likeness—“renewed in knowledge after the image” (Colossians 3:10). It was lost in the fall and is regained in the new birth (I Corinthians 15:49). And, finally, “we shall be like him” (I John 3:2).
The word “dominion” means lordship, and comes from the same word we use for Lord when we write our year as Anno Domini. When man departs from God, the order is reversed and things have dominion over the man. The Lord made man to be master of his environment, no matter what it is. Sin reversed this, but redemption restored it - in the Lord there is lordship.
Dr. Barnhouse reminds us of this created dignity we have, being made in the image and likeness of God, as well as of our created responsibility, to have dominion over creation. Sin has marred that image and perverted the responsibility but has not removed either of them. It is on the basis of that image we are to love and care for other men. It is also because of that responsibility that we are to be good stewards of the earth He created for His glory.
