Before he lists the names in Adam’s genealogy from Seth, he reminds his readers of one significant fact. He looks back at the very beginning of the creation of man and says, “When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.” In Genesis 1:27, we read, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” In this verse, it says, “When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female, he created them.” Hughes explains this well. He writes, “This retrospect reminded the descendants of Seth that the fall had not obliterated the image of God in them (cf. 9:6). And because they were image-bearers, they had the unparalleled privilege and potential. First, as image-bearers, they had the capacity to hear God’s word, which is something no other creature except angels could do. Second, as image-bearers, they were charged to rule the earth in God’s stead (cf. 1:26, 28). And third, the image of God in them suggested the possibility of an intimate spiritual relationship as children of God.”[1]
The word “image” is used in the first Chapter, whereas a different Hebrew word is used in Chapter five, translated as “likeness.” Irenaeus, around 150 A.D., distinguished between them by saying, “He argued that the image of God is our reason and volition, and the likeness of God is our holiness and spiritual relation to God. As a result, the likeness of God is lost in the fall and regained in redemption. Still, all humans are the image of God by their capacities of reason and will.”2 Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin also suggest it is the “image” of God that has been significantly marred by the fall but not destroyed and can be salvaged through redemption through faith in Jesus.
Although some want to argue that one or the other, the image or the likeness, refers to our physical bodies (see Mormon Theology), most will agree that neither refers to the human body but is like God in a non-physical sense. And still, again, some point to Jesus, God in the flesh, and argue that this is what God wants for us all and that at the end, that is the way it will be. When we “see Him, we will be like him.” Whatever way one might understand the “image” of God, the sanctity of human life cannot be missed. Allen Ross says, “The ‘image’ of God was passed on seminally to the descendants, for the text states that Adam begat Seth in his image. In other words, the spiritual and intellectual capacities that God had given to the parents are passed from generation to generation by natural reproduction.”[2] Upon conception, another human being in the image or likeness of God is created and is sacred to God and should be sacred to us as well.
[1] Hughes, R. Kent. 2004. Genesis: Beginning and Blessing. Preaching the Word. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.
2 Irenaeus, Against Heresies, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, ed. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953).
[2] Ross, Allen, and John N. Oswalt. 2008. Cornerstone Biblical Commentary: Genesis, Exodus. Vol. 1. Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers.