Description or Prescription? (Part Five) – How do humans represent the image and likeness of God Themself?

In Genesis 1:26, God Themself describes Their pattern and purpose in creating humankind. “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness.” We are created as a tangible representation of deity’s interrelationship: one God, eternally existing in three Persons.

Even this early in scripture, the Trinity seeks to explain Themself – not just to humankind, but through humankind. It is not just our existence, but our relationships and behaviors in which the nature of God is shown. To understand how we best demonstrate the nature of God Themself, consider the word that theologians use for God’s relationship to Themself. “Perichoresis” (from Greek) or “circumincession” (from Latin) is often simplified as “interpenetrating,” and should be understood physically as much as mentally or emotionally. For example, in John 17:21 Jesus prays for God’s pattern to be replicated in disciples. “As thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.” (The third Person, the Holy Spirit, also indwells Jesus Christ, of course.)

Consider, then, how we demonstrate the image and likeness of this interpenetrating God. Being of one mind and one heart is a core Christian objective. But being of one body? The clearest application is ignored. Instead, allegory, analogy, metaphor, and spiritualized fables replace a clear call to actual, physical manifestation of God’s image and likeness in our existence and behaviors.

So, then, what if we lived as God Themself originally prescribed, instead of as though we are enslaved to the damage described as a result of The Fall?

One last note on my unusual terminology: One of the most common Hebrew words for God is “elohim,” constructed as a singular root with a plural ending. In English, referring to God “Themself,” then, is intended to carry this same connotation.

About the images: Elly here is artistically paled in comparison to the flushed-cheeked, pouty-lipped reality resulting from her earlier activities on the day of this shoot. The same is often true in the way Christians pretend they can represent one God eternally existing in three Persons, without engaging in interpenetrative behaviors.